Abstract
Since use of seatbelt is critical for passenger safety in crash, installation of seat belt reminder (SBR) for passengers is going to be one of items in the Japanese New Car Assessment Protocol. This paper describes establishment of the assessment procedure of the effectiveness of SBR on the passenger belt use. We proposed the model of how SBR works in which there were two pathways, one directory affected on the passenger to induce a voluntary belt use and the other facilitated the driver to request the passenger to use. Based on this model, we designed a series of experiment where the participants assessed the probability of requesting the belt use as a driver, the probability of the voluntary use as a passenger and the probability of belt use by the request from the driver. We examined various designs of SBRs. The results showed that the effectiveness of SBR could be classified as the followings. The SBRs given to either only the driver or to only passenger visually, the SBRs that are the same visual condition but adding the auditory signal, the SBRs given both the driver and passenger visually, the SBRs given both the driver and the passenger both visual and auditory signals. The assessment score can be decided based on the above characteristics of SBR.
