# Study on the Driver/Steering Wheel Interaction in Emergency Situations
## 4 Kick Plate Disturbance while Driving with One Hand  
The same manoeuvre considered in Section 3 was repeated while grasping the steering wheel with one hand. Figure 6 shows the forces applied to the steering wheel during this manoeuvre. The same phenomena reported in the manoeuvre performed with two hands on the steering wheel was found. At the instant t = 0.28 s, the lateral disturbance from the kick plate acted on the vehicle, and at t = 0.40 s the maximum torque peak was applied unconsciously by the driver. Again, this torque peak did not correspond to a rotation of the steering wheel, which occurred at t = 0.64 s. Even in this case, the unconsciously applied torque, on average on all the datasets, had a modulus of about 20% of the torque voluntarily applied to recover the desired trajectory.  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c} \hline \hline  & \(\Delta\)**t1 (s)** & \(\Delta\)**t2 (s)** & \(\Delta\)**t3 (s)** \\ \hline  & Avg \(\pm\) St. Dev. & Avg \(\pm\) St. Dev. & Avg \(\pm\) St. Dev. \\ \hline Driver 1 & 0.138 \(\pm\) 0.033 & 0.273 \(\pm\) 0.082 & 0.412 \(\pm\) 0.082 \\ Driver 2 & 0.114 \(\pm\) 0.030 & 0.160 \(\pm\) 0.102 & 0.274 \(\pm\) 0.102 \\ Driver 3 & 0.128 \(\pm\) 0.025 & 0.257 \(\pm\) 0.099 & 0.385 \(\pm\) 0.099 \\ Driver 4 & 0.158 \(\pm\) 0.015 & 0.360 \(\pm\) 0.058 & 0.518 \(\pm\) 0.058 \\ Driver 5 & 0.120 \(\pm\) 0.032 & 0.280 \(\pm\) 0.181 & 0.400 \(\pm\) 0.181 \\ Driver 6 & 0.148 \(\pm\) 0.024 & 0.268 \(\pm\) 0.096 & 0.417 \(\pm\) 0.096 \\ Driver 7 & 0.145 \(\pm\) 0.031 & 0.368 \(\pm\) 0.082 & 0.513 \(\pm\) 0.082 \\ Driver 8 & 0.120 \(\pm\) 0.141 & 0.250 \(\pm\) 0.141 & 0.370 \(\pm\) 0.141 \\ Average & 0.137 \(\pm\) 0.030 & 0.282 \(\pm\) 0.114 & 0.416 \(\pm\) 0.128 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular} \(\Delta\)t1: delay between the lateral disturbance and the peak of torque unconsciously applied, \(\Delta\)t2: delay between the peak of torque and the effective rotation of the steering wheel, and \(\Delta\)t3: delay between the lateral disturbance and the effective rotation of the steering wheel.  
\end{table}
Table 1: Drivers with two hands on the steering wheel. Average \(\pm\) Standard Deviation Values (Avg \(\pm\) St. Dev.).  
Figure 5: Moments on the steering wheel. The kick plate manoeuvre. The driver used two hands.  
Referring to the panel of drivers, Table 2 shows the average durations of the described phenomena, following the same procedure described in the previous paragraph. In the case of the one-hand steering wheel operation, there was a slight extension of the delay \(\Delta\)t1 between the application of the lateral disturbance and the peak of the torque applied unconsciously. On the contrary, there was a slight shortening of the delay \(\Delta\)t2 between the peak torque and the effective rotation of the steering wheel. This shorter time can be explained by analysing the opposite torques as applied by the two hands in the time interval \(\Delta\)t2 shown in Figure 5. The two hands were fighting against each other in the time interval \(\Delta\)t2. During one-handed operation, this effect on the applied forces did not exist. The reduced time interval is also reflected in \(\Delta\)t3 (the delay between the lateral disturbance and effective steering rotation).