Automatically identifying a mobile phone user's position within a vehicle

TL;DR

This paper presents a method using mobile phone cameras to passively determine if a user is in the driver's seat or a passenger seat within a vehicle, achieving 94.9% accuracy, to enhance driving safety.

Contribution

It introduces a novel camera-based approach to identify a mobile phone user's position in a vehicle, enabling context-aware safety features.

Findings

94.9% accuracy in seat identification

Effective passive detection using mobile phone cameras

Potential for safety applications in driving contexts

Abstract

Traffic-related injuries and fatalities are major health risks in the United States. Mobile phone use while driving quadruples the risk for a motor vehicle crash. This work demonstrates the feasibility of using the mobile phone camera to passively detect the location of the phone's user within a vehicle. In a large, varied dataset we were able correctly identify if the user was in the driver's seat or one of the passenger seats with 94.9% accuracy. This model could be used by application developers to selectively change or lock functionality while a user is driving, but not if the user is a passenger in a moving vehicle.