The Kentucky Office of Highway Safety is located within the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet which is part of the Kentucky State Government System. The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet is responsible for all aspects of transportation within the State of Kentucky. The Kentucky Office of Highway Safety’s mission is to establish public and private partnerships within the State of Kentucky to achieve the most improved and sustainable downward trend in reducing Kentucky’s highway fatalities and injuries. The Distracted Driving Educational Program within the Kentucky Office of Highway Safety is used to educate and engage new drivers, as well as seasoned drivers, on the dangers of distracted driving while operating a motor vehicle on the roadways. One educational tool that is used for the program is a full motion driving simulator that was created by the Forum8 partner SimCraft, who are based in Atlanta, Georgia.

This full motion driving simulator enables drivers to experience real world driving situations created in the FORUM8 software VR-Design Studio DS. By using FORUM8’s software the engineers at Kentucky Office of Highway Safety are able to create multiple real world driving scenarios enabling their test drivers to experience all the diverse climatic and emergency situations that occur in real-life, but within the safe environment of the FORUM8 Driving Simulator. The FORUM8 software also allows the engineers to collect data on the driver’s behavior during the test drives and hence evaluate how they cope with the various scenarios. The ability to monitor, record and report on the driver is crucial to their road safety research program.

Having the capability to collect driver behavior data is a beneficial tool for their driver safety programs and this data will help them to reach the goal of their office, which is to reduce the number of fatalities in the State due to motor vehicle accidents. The data that will be collected is to be used to create reports for the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), to show behaviors that drivers are exhibiting when operating a motor vehicle. The FORUM8 software VR-Design Studio is a valuable tool for the Distracted Driving Educational Program and will allow them to bring awareness and real world examples on the dangers of operating a motor vehicle while engaging in distracted driving scenarios.