WHERE WE LOOK WHEN WE STEER

STEERING a car requires visual information from the changing pattern o f the road ahead. There are many theories about what features a driver might use(1-3), and recent attempts to engineer self-steering vehicle s have sharpened interest in the mechanisms involved(4,5). However, th ere is little direct information linking steering performance to the d river's direction of gaze(3). We have made simultaneous recordings of steering-wheel angle and drivers' gaze direction during a series of dr ives along a tortuous road. We found that drivers rely particularly on the 'tangent point' an the inside of each curve, seeking this point 1 -2 s before each bend and returning to it throughout the bend. The dir ection of this point relative to the car's heading predicts the curvat ure of the road ahead, and we examine the way this information is used .