Safety Assessment of Windshield Washing Technologies

Abstract

We present a new assessment method for driver visibility based on reaction time measurement and workload in real driving situations from the most relevant accident scenario involving pedestrians. The procedure was validated in a balanced trial to compare a wet flatblade windshield washing system to a conventional Fluidic nozzles system. The test cohort comprised 204 subjects who form a representative sample of German driving license holders. The average reaction time gain of wet flatblade over Fluidic nozzles is 315 ms for pedestrian detection and 270 ms for the recognition of critical traffic situations.