Accident prone location notification system and method

• US 10,490,080 B1
• Filed: 03/20/2018
• Issued: 11/26/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 07/08/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company
• Original Assignee: Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company
• Inventors: Kerr, Ronald Stewart
• Primary Examiner(s): Fan, Hongmin
• Application Number:
  US15/926,995
• Time in Patent Office: 616 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/0962 having an indicator mounted inside the vehicle, e.g. giving voice messages
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/09626 where the origin of the information is within the own vehicle, e.g. a local storage device, digital map
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/0967 Systems involving transmission of highway information, e.g. weather, speed limits transmission of navigation instructions to the vehicle G08G1/0968
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/096716 where the received information does not generate an automatic action on the vehicle control
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/0969 having a display in the form of a map
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/166 for active traffic, e.g. moving vehicles, pedestrians, bikes
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/207 with respect to certain areas, e.g. forbidden or allowed areas with possible alerting when inside or outside boundaries

Abstract

A method includes maintaining vehicle accident occurrence information, wherein the vehicle accident occurrence information includes accident location information, accident occurrence date information, and accident occurrence time information and identifying, based at least in part on the accident location information, one or more accident-prone locations. When a vehicle enters an area comprising one of the accident-prone locations, a notification is made that the vehicle has entered the area comprising one of the accident-prone locations. In addition, in response to a query, a visual representation of one of the accident-prone locations is displayed, along with accident occurrence date information and accident occurrence time information associated with the accident-prone location.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

maintaining vehicle accident occurrence information, wherein the vehicle accident occurrence information comprises information describing accidents including accident location information;

identifying, based at least in part on the accident location information, one or more accident-prone locations; and

in response to a user-initiated query, the query comprising a request to identify accident prone locations, displaying on a display component a visual representation of one or more of the accident-prone locations, wherein the visual representation is displayed by way of an indicator superimposed on a map and is configured to indicate visually both a frequency and a severity of accidents previously occurring at the accident-prone locations, and wherein at least some of the vehicle accident occurrence information associated with the one or more accident-prone locations is displayed upon selecting the indicator.

2. A system comprising:

a database that maintains vehicle accident occurrence information, wherein the vehicle accident occurrence information comprises information describing accidents including accident location information;

a processor that identifies one or more accident-prone locations based, at least in part, on the accident location information; and

a display component that displays, in response to a user-initiated query, the query comprising a request to identify accident-prone locations, a visual representation of one or more of the accident-prone locations, wherein the visual representation is displayed by way of an indicator superimposed on a map and is configured to indicate visually both a frequency and a severity of accidents previously occurring at the accident-prone locations, and wherein at least some of the vehicle accident occurrence information associated with the one or more accident-prone locations is displayed upon selecting the indicator.

3. The method claim 2, further comprising:

in response to a user-initiated navigation query, providing directions based on avoiding accident-prone locations that have the frequency above a frequency threshold and the severity above a severity threshold.