Patent ID: 8170725

Claim:
A method for determining a driver's driving skill of a vehicle, said method comprising: determining a vehicle speed signal and a vehicle yaw rate signal from vehicle sensors; determining whether the vehicle is turning by determining whether the vehicle yaw rate signal is greater than a first yaw rate threshold and, if so, determining that the vehicle has entered a curve that may be a curve portion of a highway on/off ramp; determining whether the vehicle has exited the curve by determining whether the vehicle yaw rate signal is less than a second yaw rate threshold; determining whether the difference between the vehicle speed at the beginning of the curve and at the end of the curve is less than a first vehicle speed threshold and, if so, determining that the curve-handling maneuver is an off-ramp maneuver; determining whether the increase in vehicle speed during a predetermined time window is less than a second speed threshold; determining whether the vehicle speed during a predetermined time window of the maneuver is greater than a third speed threshold; determining whether a difference of the vehicle speed during the time window minus the speed at the start time is greater than a fourth speed threshold; determining that the maneuver is an on-ramp maneuver if the increase in the vehicle speed becomes less than the second speed threshold and the speed of the vehicle during the predetermined time window is greater than the third speed threshold and the difference in the vehicle speed during the time window minus the speed of the vehicle at the start time is greater than the fourth speed threshold; and classifying the driver's driving skill using information obtained from the on-ramp or off-ramp maneuver.