A vehicle is a means of transportation that moves a user occupying the vehicle in a desired direction. A typical example of the vehicle is an automobile. While the vehicle provides movement convenience to the user, it requires the user to pay attention not only to the front environment but also to the rear environment during driving. Herein, the front and rear environments represent objects which are positioned around or approach the vehicle, namely hindrances to driving such as humans, vehicles and obstacles.
The user driving the vehicle, namely the driver shifts his/her gaze from a cluster 3 to a side mirror 4 to a rearview mirror 5 while watching the windshield 8 at the front of the vehicle 1, as shown in FIG. 1. Recently, a navigation system 6 having functions of audio output, video output, route guidance and display of images from a rear camera has been additionally installed in the center fascia, which is installed at the center of the dashboard 2, in order to further enhance driver convenience. Thereby, the driver shifts his/her gaze to see not only the cluster 3, the side mirror 4 and the rearview mirror 5 but also the navigation system 6.
Frequent shift of the driver's gaze may be inconvenient and fatiguing, and even cause a traffic accident resulting from distraction from the front view. Such issues need to be addressed.
Meanwhile, as shown in FIGS. 2 and 3, a vehicle 1 provided with a head-up display (HUD) 9 configured to project images related to the driving conditions of the vehicle and route guidance onto the windshield 8 in front of the driver's seat and the cluster 3 installed in the dashboard 20 in front of the driver's seat has been developed and released to reduce the gaze shift distance and gaze shift time of the driver. The cluster 3 and the HUD 9 are electrically connected to an ECU, which receives information from various sensors installed in the vehicle, to display graphic images related to the driving conditions of the vehicle and route guidance.
However, the HUD 9 merely displays images related to the driving conditions of the vehicle and route guidance, and thus the driver needs to shift his/her gaze from the windshield to the side mirrors and to the rearview mirror to watch the environment behind the vehicle.