Washington, July 29 - We've all been through the familiar experience of feeling sleepy while driving. But what if your car could nudge you when you started yawning and warn you to pull over and take a break?

That's the aim of a new in-car yawn-detection system being developed by an Indian-American and two other budding Indian scientists.

Aurobinda Mishra of Vanderbilt University, in Nashville and colleagues Mihir Mohanty of the Institute of Technical Education and Research (ITER), Orissa and Aurobinda Routray of IIT Kharagpur have developed a computer programme that can tell when you are yawning and could prevent road traffic accidents.

The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that at least 100,000 road crashes are caused by driver fatigue each year.