Heads-up display pioneered by General Motors in 1988
Did you know that General Motors pioneered heads-up display decades ago? “We know that keeping eyes on the road is critical to safe driving – and recent studies back this up,” said Jeff Boyer, vice president of GM Global Vehicle Safety. “Head-up displays can play an important role in maximizing ‘eyes-on-the-road’ time, and that’s what we’re striving for.”
Here’s a good fact: GM’s research shows that shifting one’s gaze from the road to the instrument cluster can take 134 milliseconds. Doesn’t sound like much but at 110km/h, a car can travel five metres in that time. Chances of an accident can double if your eyes are distracted from the road for longer than two seconds.
We have to make smart decisions about what content goes into the HUD,” said John Weiss, an interaction designer for HUD systems, “and how we can then present it to the driver in a manner that’s easy to read and intuitive to use.”
How does GM achieve this? Simplified screens is one way while GM say fonts need to be at least 4 pixels wide and in a distinctive font. They have also tested different colours; white is commonly used when outside conditions are good but less efficient against a snowy background. Another key to heads-up display is making sure controls on the dashboard work in conjunction with HID – you don’t want to duplicate features.
In North America GM offers heads-up display on more than 30 per cent of their vehicles. General Motors introduced the first system in a 1988 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme. Considering that, we have to ask why we’ve never driven a General Motors product with Heads-up display in South Africa
