2019-151 – Eyes on the Road: Detecting Phone Usage by Drivers Using On-Device Cameras to Reduce Distracted Driving

Using a phone while driving is dangerous and it increases the chances of getting into an accident by 400%. One of the primary cause of this increase in crashes is the distraction caused by the phone. Several techniques have been proposed in the past to detect driver distraction automatically. However, such techniques usually require instrumenting the user or the car with custom hardware. While detecting phone usage in the car can be done by just using the phone’s GPS, identifying whether the driver is using the phone or one of the passengers of the vehicle is harder. The system is a lightweight, real-time, software-only solution that determines if the smart device is used by the vehicle driver or the passenger. Cindy Lou Chepanoske cchepano@andrew.cmu.edu 412-268-2979