Data processing: measuring – calibrating – or testing – Measurement system – Remote supervisory monitoring
Reexamination Certificate
2001-09-13
2004-03-30
Hoff, Marc S. (Department: 2857)
Data processing: measuring, calibrating, or testing
Measurement system
Remote supervisory monitoring
C702S182000, C702S183000, C702S190000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06714894
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to the field of driver safety and, more particularly, to automation of driver monitoring to facilitate the process of aggregating, processing, and displaying driver safety information in an effort to promote safe driving.
BACKGROUND
Vehicle accidents and/or incidents (e.g. traffic violations, property damage, or injury) can be rather expensive as there are many costs that can be incurred as a result of an accident or incident. Direct costs include medical care, legal expenses, property damage and lost productivity. In addition, there may be costs associated with pain and suffering of injured parties. Such costs can be difficult to forecast and calculate.
Collected data supports the proposition that vehicular accidents and incidents are costly. For example, in 1994 over 325,000 workers and their dependents in the United States were injured in on-the-job automobile crashes. Comparatively, nearly 5,000,000 were injured in off-the-job crashes. Recent studies have found that the cost to an employer of an on-the-job automobile crash is $25,000, while off-the-job accidents can cost an employer $20,000. As a result, companies spend over $100 billion a year on crash-related medical care. An additional $9 billion goes to sick leave and insurance.
These costs can be broken down categorically. For example, there may be health fringe benefit costs associated with vehicle accidents and/or incidents. These are the costs paid by employers because of illness or injury. Generally, medical insurance, social security and private disability insurance, dependent coverage, sick leave, physical rehabilitation, life and survivor insurance all fall into this category of costs. There may also be non-fringe costs including motor vehicle property damage and liability insurance. Other property losses include vehicle contents and third party losses. In addition, legal expenses, car rental costs, police, fire and ambulance services all contribute to non-fringe costs. Furthermore, vehicle accidents and/or incidents can contribute to lost productivity by injured employees and co-workers. There are also costs associated with hiring replacement personnel and training costs for training replacement personnel.
In certain circumstances, employers pay workers extra for risky jobs. While this cost may seem negligible in some areas, it is real. Because many people avoid jobs with significant driving involved, the cost of hiring those who will drive rises. As such, there exists a real wage premium for the risk associated with driving. This cost is born when attending to vehicle accidents and/or incidents. There are also administrative costs that arise from vehicular accidents and/or incidents. For example, there are costs in administrating and processing paperwork, phone calls, reimbursement and repair programs, and documentation for accidents and/or incidents. In dollars, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that each fatal accident results in $55,000 in administrative costs to employers.
Further, accidents and/or incidents can result in a need for substitute labor, time wasted in rescheduling, and the need for additional supervisory efforts. Statistics show that the disruption due to the loss of an employee as a result of a deadly crash can be as much as $510,000 per death. Also, it has been shown that lost productivity from automobile crashes costs the US economy $42 billion a year.
Moreover, there are significant opportunity costs that arise from a vehicular accident and/or incident. Simply stated, opportunity costs are costs that are attributed to a decision resulting in less profit than had an alternative more-profitable decision been made. For example, driving a car such that you crash it is a choice. The negative ramifications of the crash include opportunity costs. For instance, drivers lose time due to injury. In addition, drivers also lose time to fill out forms, manage repairs, rent alternative transportation, etc.
The overall cost to society of automobile crashes can be astronomical. For example, in 1999 the total cost of crashes and injuries in the US was $175 billion. These costs are leveraged to society at large and not just to the causes of crashes. For instance, society is charged with paying for the police force required to attend to vehicle accidents and/or incidents, the costs of supporting emergency response, costs associated with keeping our courts in order to adjudicate over vehicular accidents and/or incidents, as well as costs to support state-supported health care. In addition, the lost taxes on lost wages are significant. Most important, however is the fact that the insurance costs (either direct or indirect) of crashes are borne by society at large. Insurance spreads these costs very effectively so that everyone who drives pays almost equally for everyone who crashes.
In response to the significant costs resulting from accidents and/or incidents, a number of preventive measures have been developed. Among these preventive measures are driver safety programs that educate drivers to engage in safe driving, thereby reducing the amount of accidents and/or incidents. However, the cost effectiveness of these safety programs is open to much debate.
Traditional driver safety programs can offer various degrees of complexity from parents teaching their child how to drive on a neighborhood street, to more formalized programs in which a pre-defined curriculum for driving safety is taught to drivers. A commonality amongst these programs is that they are proactive. That is, education is leveraged to those drivers that are suspected to be in need of driving safety education (e.g. traffic school). Such programs prescribe cautions that are generally wise and teach generalized techniques. As a result, however, the content tends to be irrelevant to the lecturees' particular driving rehabilitation needs. That is, a driver may have a hard time stopping at stop signs and may be required by a governing administrative authority (e.g. department of transportation) to attend a class on driving safety. However, the driving safety class is generalized so that it addresses stopping at stop signs very briefly so as to cover a wide range of driving issues. As a result, the driver attending such a class receives little benefit from the education provided.
Anecdotal data supports the poor efficacy of current driver safety programs. For example, even with driver education, there seems to be a tremendous amount of vehicular accidents and incidents. It is no secret that driving has become a preferred activity for commuters. However, even with the amount of driving that occurs, it has been determined that most accidents do not result in serious injury or in fatalities. In the same breath, there are accidents that do produce serious injury and fatalities. So much so that around 42,000 people died in 1999 as a result of vehicular accidents. Simply stated, with the amount of driving that occurs, even proportionately rare events occur on some frequent basis. The goal of current driver safety programs has been to reduce the amount of accidents by proactively educating drivers. However, current practices are ineffective as they do not predict and rehabilitate drivers' accident trends.
Current driving safety programs will typically contain a driver education portion and driver monitoring portion. The driver education is leveraged to drivers through publications, seminars, and behind the wheel training. Comparatively, driver monitoring may be realized through manual analysis of driver accident and/or incident information. As is imagined, manual analysis is a time intensive and laborious practice that demands significant care and attention. Currently, with the best driver education and best monitoring, today's driver safety programs fall short of significantly improving and promoting driver safety for a number of reasons. First, the training is not targeted to individual driver needs. Driver failures are not uniformly measured and corrected. Fur
Merritt Marc
Tobey Peter W.
Hoff Marc S.
Merritt Applications, Inc.
Suarez Felix
Woodcock & Washburn LLP
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