Head-Up Display Graphic Warning System Facilitates Simulated Driving Performance

This study aims to investigate the usability of a head-up display (HUD) in presenting warning messages during driving and create a new and effective vehicle early warning system for drivers. Two experiments were conducted. In Experiment 1, 36 drivers were randomly assigned to a group using HUD and a control group. The simulated driving performance of the two groups was compared to determine if the HUD graphic early warning system facilitates driving safety. Results revealed that the HUD-using group demonstrated better driving performance than the control group in terms of collision, mean deceleration, accelerator release reaction time, brake reaction time, reduced velocity, reduced energy, steering reaction time, mean reaction time, and minimum reaction time. We investigated the influence of the presentation mode of warning messages on simulated driving performance in Experiment 2. Forty-eight drivers were randomly assigned to an HUD warning group, an audio warning group, and an audiovisual group that integrated HUD and audio warning. The drivers in the HUD warning group performed better than those in the two other groups in terms of mean deceleration. The audiovisual group that integrated HUD and audio warning showed an advantage in reduced velocity. The findings indicated that HUD technology has the potential to promote safe driving by improving the early warning system.