Abstract
Driving a car is necessary to maintain life and reintegrate into society despite some illness, and it is necessary to support the driving of the elderly and people with illnesses. On the other hand, however, there is concern about traffic accidents caused by sudden changes in physical condition while driving. Safety equipment to prevent such accidents is beginning to be equipped with Emergency Driving Stop System （EDSS） that stops the vehicle by switch operation, and Automatic Collision Notification System（ACN） that notifies the operator to rescue from an accident. These are the last safety devices that the driver can operate on his/her own, and must be able to operate the switches reliably. In this study, authors investigated the switch specifications of EDSSs installed in large sightseeing buses and large trucks, and of ACNs installed in regular passenger cars, and evaluated the ease of pressing the switches from an ergonomic perspective, and examined the specifications necessary for reliable pressing. For the evaluation of each switch position, a 3D model was created from photographs of the cockpit using the SfM method, and the reachable range of the driver's hand was determined in CAD based on the range of possible hand operation by a driver as standardized in ISO 3958. In this evaluation, the driver's posture was considered to be a normal posture and a rightward leaning posture that could be considered while sudden illness. As a result, the EDSS switches mounted on large sightseeing buses and large truck were located on the center left side of the console panel and were within the reach of the driver in a normal posture, but outside the reach of the driver in a right-tilted posture. The ACN switch mounted on the regular passenger car was located on the center front side of the front seat ceiling, which was within reach but required a large arm lift to operate. In all models, the switches were operated by pressing them with fingertips. It was found that the current EDSS/ACN switches are not necessarily in an easy-to-press position or specification that considers the driver's posture during a sudden change in physical condition. It is necessary to set specifications to ensure that the switches can be pressed, taking into consideration not only the switch position from the driver, but also the way the switch is pressed and the situation in which the driver's physical condition suddenly changes.
