NEW YORK — A Ford driver education program uses virtual reality to help young drivers more safely share the road with cyclists.
The virtual reality program teaches empathy by allowing participants to virtually sample different points of view, between a cyclist pedaling down the street and a vehicle in similar circumstances.
“Most driver education is designed to teach you to pass a test. We’re modeling proper behavior,” said Mike Speck, facilitator for the driving skills program for the Ford Motor Co. Fund Driving Skills for Life program, at a recent meeting here of the International Motor Press Association.
Driving Skills for Life, a driver-ed program sponsored by the Ford Motor Co. Fund, the automaker’s philanthropic arm, calls on drivers and cyclists to share the road.
Photo: Ford
In one scenario, the virtual cyclist, seated on a stationary bike, gets a fairly realistic look at how scary it is to crest a hill, turn a corner, and find themselves gathering speed behind a van that might stop short or turn suddenly. Conversely, Speck said, the view from inside a vehicle shows how disconcerting it is for objects like cyclists to seemingly appear out of nowhere, or disappear in the vehicle’s blind spot.
Ford Driving Skills for Life also provides hands-on driving-skills instruction in actual vehicles. It was established in 2003 by the Ford Motor Co. Fund, the automaker’s philanthropic arm. The driving program added the virtual reality experience, which Ford calls WheelSwap, in the U.S. market in 2018, following a pilot program in Europe.
The overall program is offered, for free, at high schools, youth groups, religious groups, or wherever Ford can find an interested audience and enough acreage to accommodate a closed course for the actual driving instruction.
According to the Ford Fund, there were 47.5 million cyclists on American roads in 2017, with more bike lanes being built in more cities all the time. Meanwhile, deaths among cyclists 20 years old and older have tripled since 1975, the company said.
More than 1,200 people participated in the initial research in Europe that went into the WheelSwap pilot program. About 70 percent of those who participated displayed “greater empathy” for their counterparts who were driving or cycling, and 91 percent said they planned to change their on-road habits.
Since 2003, more than 1 million newly licensed drivers have participated in Ford Driving Skills for Life, the company said.
