ABSTRACT
Driving aid design is based on the view that what drivers need is to perform their task as safely and as comfortably as possible. Attempts are made to deal with the most frequently encountered difficulties, likely to lead to errors or malfunctions, and which could be the cause of an accident. This approach is to a large extent intuitive, and is not unrelated to what is generally thought about technological advances made possible by electronics and data transmission systems. It should, however, be backed up by the use of more objective methods such as analysis of the driving task, designed to pin-point the difficulties encountered by drivers, or accident analysis. This chapter will be devoted to a description of actual driver needs based on an analysis of report files representing accidents which occurred in France in 1989 (INRETS 1/50 accident report file, cf Fontaine et al., 1990). In this instance, therefore, attention is focused only on safety. The different PROMETHEUS functions which could satisfy the identified needs, and thus make it possible to avoid the accidents in question, will also be examined.
