With the advancement of technology the traffic environment is becoming increasingly complex. Not only is there an increase in the number of in-vehicle displays and systems that are installed or brought into the car, there is also an increasing number of vehicles as well as other road users and messages on the road. All these factors have a potential of causing the driver to become distracted. Since a major contributor to traffic accidents today is driver distraction it is becoming increasingly important to understand how to mitigate the effects associated with distraction.

The overall aim of this thesis is to investigate what effects the use of a distraction alert into the car has on driver attention.

The thesis is based on three experimental studies, in which the topic of driver distraction and how it can be reduced is central. Two of the studies were performed in a simulated driving environment in which two different distraction alerts were tested and compared. The Kansei study was performed to acquire knowledge and input for the second simulator study.

The studies show that it is rather difficult to make a driver distracted on demand with an artificial distracter. They further show that the used method needs to be developed before a potential distraction alert can be recommended.