Question

PYCHARM ONLY PLEASE !!

You are working for a marketing company that is trying to demonstrate the importance of paying attention while driving. The campaign is geared towards showing the devastating power that distraction, for example texting while driving, as well as alcohol and drugs has on the reaction time of a driver.

Question: Operating a motor vehicle at high speeds is dangerous, however do you know how your reaction time can prevent or encourage you from having an accident?

• Braking Distance Factors
• Braking Distance

Question: How about when drugs or alcohol are involved, how does this inhibit your reaction time?

• How Alcohol Impairs You

The Request:

• You have been tasked with creating a reaction time simulator for demonstration purposes.

Requirements and Information:

• Once the demonstration starts it shall welcome the user and explain how the simulation works.
• It shall wait for the user to press enter to continue
• The application should randomly light up an LED between 5 and 10 seconds after the start of the simulation.
• Record how long it takes after the light turns on for the user to press the button
• If the user reacted in an acceptable time limit display a “green” light, otherwise a "red" light

Answer 1

Question: Operating a motor vehicle at high speeds is dangerous, however do you know how your reaction time can prevent or encourage you from having an accident?

• Braking Distance Factors
• Braking Distance

Anwer:  What is reaction time Intelligent driving involves giving yourself the time, and distance, required to respond appropriately to a road hazard without being involved in, or causing, an accident. It also involves ensuring that your ability to respond as quickly as possible to a road hazard is not compromised in any way.

Driving behaviour that increases the amount of time taken to react, or reduces the amount of time available in which to react, places you at higher risk of a serious car accident.

The total stopping distance of a vehicle is made up of 4 components.

• Human Perception Time
• Human Reaction Time
• Vehicle Reaction Time
• Vehicle Braking Capability

Human perception time, is how long the driver takes to see the hazard, and the brain realize it is a hazard requiring an immediate reaction. This perception time can/should be as long as ¼ to ½ a second.

Once the brain realizes danger, the human reaction time is how long the body takes to move the foot from accelerator to brake pedal. Again this reaction time can/should vary from ¼ - ¾ of a second.

Once the brake pedal is applied there is the vehicles reaction time which depends on the brake pedal free-play, hydraulic properties of the brake fluid and working order of the braking system.

This is why the tailgating car usually cannot stop, when the brake light came on in the car in front, this driver had already completed the perception, human and vehicle reaction periods. The following driver was perhaps 1 or mote second to late in applying the brakes. At 100km/hr the car required 28 metres further to stop.

The Braking Distance Factors than determines the total stopping distance is the cars braking capability which depends on factors such as;

• the type of braking system,
• brake pad material,
• brake alignment,
• tyre pressures,
• tyre tread and grip,
• vehicle weight,
• suspension system,
• the co-efficient of friction of the road surface,
• wind speed,
• slope of road,
• surface smoothness
• the braking technique applied by the driver.

Question: How about when drugs or alcohol are involved, how does this inhibit your reaction time?

• How Alcohol Impairs You

Answer:   The stopping distance are human factors and as such can be effected by alcohol, fatigue and concentration levels. A perception and reaction time of 3 or 4 seconds is possible. 4 seconds at 100 km/hr means the car travels 110 metres before the brakes are applied.

Alcohol acts on the brain and other parts of the nervous system to slow activity down. It affects everyone this way. This is why alcohol is such a problem for driving - it slows down reflexes and decision making and drivers don't always notice the effects.

Impairment level:   The research showed that dividing attention between tasks was very sensitive to alcohol consumption. In fact, some studies showed that subjects were impaired at a BAC as low as 0.005 suggesting that dividing attention between seemingly simple tasks as described can start to be affected at very low levels. If something was to unexpectedly occur in the driving environment which also required our attention, such as a pedestrian stepping onto the road, it will be more difficult to adequately shift our attention even at low BACs.