How will a driver react when a pedestrian suddenly crosses her way, what is her anxiety or tolerance level, her judgement of speed and distance, her visual power and other psychomotor skills when driving in Indian traffic conditions and potholed/bad roadsIJ A Customised Car Driving Simulator will now let you know the behaviour of an experienced driver or an amateur driver.
The Customised Car Driving Simulator helps in familiarising the driver or learner driver with vehicle controls, its operations, such as steering control, gear change for manual transmission, progression in various driving conditions.
The Central Road Research Institute (CRRI), a prestigious lab under the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has developed the simulator to cut down road mishaps- presently 1,214 crashes occur daily on Indian roads.
In a simulator room, the learner driver will also learn lane discipline and how to meet and pass other vehicles before they get into a real car and manoeuvre through traffic.
“This is the first of its kind simulator developed in the country which will serve as a safe medicine for the drivers as well as the commuters on the road. The simulators play an important as it contains various modules for the assessment of the driving skills across varying terrains and weather conditions,” said Dr Neelima Chakraborty , senior principal scientist, who introduced the psychomotor testing module in the software.
“The test will be helpful to highlight which type of training is required for a particular driver,” she said adding that RTOs and vehicle driving schools can implement the gadget.
On Wednesday, the CRRI signed MoU with Gurgaon-based Faros Simulators Pvt ltd which has fabricated the simulators, for its commercial implementation in the country.
The simulator has necessary accessories including steering, accelerator, clutch, and gear box and brakes, besides a 135 degree screen display which gives the real feel of actual road environment with realistic Indian road infrastructure.
Chakraborty said that the Supreme Court appointed Road Safety Committee has already given go ahead to the simulators. “We are in the process of talks with the RTOs to launch a pilot project.”
The simulator can be mounted in any vehicle body, said Bharat Kapoor, Executive Director of the Faros Simulators.
Kapoor explained that the three panels, which display the road conditions with background, cover 135 degrees of vision, much like a car’s windscreen. The vehicle meanwhile, has all the usual fixtures like an accelerator brake pedal and clutch as well as gear shift, rear-view, side-vi ew mirrors and other display like a regular car.