When you consider that we drive an estimated three trillion miles every year in the United Stares, the fact that an estimated 37,000 people die in traffic accidents annually - according to the Association for Safe International Road Travel - isn't as shocking as when that sad statistic stands by itself.
Perhaps what is a bit shocking is the fact that a large percentage of in-car technology has been introduced the fisrt half of this decade centered on entertainment rather than safety. We are delighted to report that vehicle safety is now beginning to take center stage in the in-car tech space.
The U.S. government is setting the wheels in motion on an action that will require automakers to equip new vehicles with technology that lets cars warn each other if they're plunging toward a potential accident. The action, still some years off, has "game-changing potential" to cut collisions, deaths and injuries, federal transportation officials said at a news conference earlier this month.
With this particular technology, a radio signal would continually transmit a vehicle's position, heading, speed and other information. Cars and light trucks would receive the same information back from other cars, and a vehicle's computer would alert its driver to an impending collision. Alerts could be a flashing message, an audible warning or a driver's seat that rumbles. Some systems might even automatically brake to avoid an accident if manufacturers choose to include that option.
The technology would essentially allow the vehicle to "see" when another car or truck equipped with the same technology was about to run a red light, even if that vehicle was hidden around a corner. The developers of this tech also claim that your car would know when a car several vehicles ahead in a line of traffic had made a sudden stop and alert you even before you saw brake lights. They add that the technology works up to about 300 yards.
While auto safety tech in the past has always been about helping cars and passengers survive accidents, the difference with today's technology is that it's all about avoiding accidents in the first place.
"What we've been used to seeing in car safety over the years has been innovation like crumple zones, safety cages, airbags and the like, that looked to lessen the effect of a crash," began Rob Greene, an auto tech blogger and former automotive R&D expert based in North Carolina. "Today the tech is all about attacking auto safety at the root and cutting down on accidents as we're seeing various warning systems for common accident causers like blind spot detection and lane change warning systems."
Greene added that the tech in the past was more "passive" and centered on minimizing damage and the big difference today is a much more "active" approach that is all about saving lives, not cars.
Some of the more exciting safety tech we're seeing, along with the aforementioned blind spot and lane changing warning systems Greene touched on, are driver fatigue warning systems whereby tiny dash-mounted, camera systems with infrared sensors track eye movements and pupil dilation while you drive. Should the driver begin to nod off, the device will issue a sharp alarm.
Great strides have also been made of late in the area of electronic stability control. With top-heavy SUVs becoming such a dominant force on the roadways over the last decade-plus, rollovers have become a major cause of auto crash fatalities. The newer electronic stability control technologies combine earlier Automatic Braking System (ABS) tech with the newer sensors, software and hydraulic systems that have been developed today to automatically brake.
