The sitting posture of Malaysian compact car drivers

Abstract

Accidents involving transport is one of the leading causes of acquired disabilities and fatalities nationwide that has effected all sectors of population regardless of age, gender, income and geographic regions. Comparing various mode of transport, land transportation could be the most dangerous and costliest in term of losses of materials and human lives. Although efforts have been done to reduce the risks and the statistics of accidents, the results are still far from encouraging and of concern to many. Research on this causes and contributors to accidents are critically essential. Drivers are recognized as one of the contributors to accidents need to be probed. Hence a study on the driver's performances (drivability) is inevitable in an effort to eliminate or to reduce the staggering accident rates. Driving a vehicle should be considered a task that is not commonly free from muscular discomforts on body limbs. Because comfortable driving postures also become a major contributor on fatigue while driving, an experiment is conducted using picture recognition software. When driving posture is considered a significant factor in discomfort, thus an experiment for obtaining data concerning comfortable driving posture and seat angle was conducted. Actual observed driving postures were compared with recommendations in the literature.