Digital Cameras Help Alert Sleepy Drivers

An anonymous reader writes "An interesting story on how digital cameras are being mounted in cars to watch the eye movements of drivers to make sure that they are awake. The cars include two cameras, one watching the road and one watching the driver. If there is something on the road that is a danger and the driver doesn't see, the car alerts the driver. Pretty neat technology."

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Cool intermediate technology

[Dancin_Santa]

Obviously, the final application of this kind of technology is to allow the car to take primary control of the vehicle and let the passengers relax in peace.

We already have navigation systems that are accurate to within half a meter in many cities worldwide. We also have collision detection algorithms (aka hashing functions) that can help avoid crashing into other cars. We now can mount cameras onto vehicles to provide visual sensory input.

All we really need is an IR sensory input for fog driving.

In cities, this kind of "decide the destination" driving without the hassle of actually driving the vehicle would be really useful, I think.

Re:Cool intermediate technology

[Goosey]

In cities, this kind of "decide the destination" driving without the hassle of actually driving the vehicle would be really useful, I think.

Great idea! We could call it Taxi!

Re:Cool intermediate technology

[Goth Biker Babe]

There are already vehicles that allow the passengers to relax in peace. They are called trains!

The problem with this technology in cars is that it assumes that cars are the only vehicles on the road. What about the pedal and motorcyclists for example?

Re:Cool intermediate technology

[xtrvd]

As much as I would like to believe that there are people striving to make automatic automotive technology available tomorrow, I have a sneaking suspicion that some people out there who make a living off of a class 4 license will argue that this cannot and will never replace a human.

Re:Cool intermediate technology

[Colin Smith]

"All we really need is an IR sensory input for fog driving."

Just stick on an IR camera and cars will be able to drive themselves? Nope, we're decades away from fully automated vehicles. Real roads are far far more complex than the test roads which they have been run on so far.

http://robotics.eecs.berkeley.edu/~janka/PATH/st er eo_drive.html

If you want fully automated vehicles right now, a segregated guideway is required, AKA Personal Rapid Transit.

http://faculty.washington.edu/jbs/itrans/

Re:Cool intermediate technology

[Silver Sloth]

The problem with navigation systems that are accurate to within half a meter is that the accuracy can be downgraded without warning at the whim of the US govt. I don't want cars all over the world to suddenly become rogue because Dr Strangelove has had a bad morning

Re:Cool intermediate technology

[Anonymous Coward]

I too look forward to the day when humans are taken out of the decision making process in steering vehicles.

I don't fancy anyone's chances of successfully bringing an automotive autopilot to market that is capable of knowingly breaking a speed limit. Also, making stupid overtaking manoeuvres would be out of the question.
Two major causes of death and destruction on the road - gone.

I don't think that this is going to happen any time in the near future, though.

Like the parent says, it is an intermediate step.

Re:Cool intermediate technology

[4cop2c]

motorcycle and pedal sounds really hard to fall asleep

Re:Cool intermediate technology

[Dave_M_26]

knowingly breaking a speed limit

major cause[s] of death and destruction on the road

Whilst I agree that some breaking of the speed limit is obviously dangerous (e.g. going >60mph in a 30 zone) I disagree that a strict adherence to the speed limit is necessarily good or safe.

For instance, going 40 (in a 30 limit) on a clear straight road, on a bright Sunday afternoon is probably going to be safer than doing 30 on a rainy Monday morning, down a winding road in front of a school, despite the fact that the speed limit is nominally the same.

I would be wary of any system which was incabable of taking these varying factors into account (not, in theory, difficult - weather sensors, tyre grip sensors, visibilty distance monitors, pedestrian detectors etc).

Dave

Re:Cool intermediate technology

[Colin Smith]

"Two major causes of death and destruction on the road - gone."

Speeding isn't a major cause. 7% at most, in fact 80% of accidents happen within the limit. Far more important factors: Drunk, tired, distracted (eg mobile phone) and plain stupidity.

We could have fully automated vehicles today. Just not on the roads, they are too complex. There are already systems which can do the job:

http://www.skywebexpress.com/
http://www.atsltd .co.uk/

Re:Cool intermediate technology

[Proc6]

I would think just an additional lane appended to each side of major interstates would be plenty. I dont think we really need automated pilots to drive 3 blocks of residental roads to a McDonalds. But a single, controlled-environment, automatic-pilot-only lane on I-80 would rock and feasible far sooner. Something with no bikes, no motorcycles, just cars equipped with special equipment. Maybe a verification booth at each end of long stretches to make sure people entering have said equipment.

Re:Cool intermediate technology

[Goth Biker Babe]

What I mean is that if you introduce a 'road train' system using automatic navigation how do you make it take account of pedal and motorcycles?

As for falling a sleep, I find it easy to doze off when I'm a pillion on a motorcycle.

Re:Cool intermediate technology

[Kiryat Malachi]

NHTSA would tell you speeding is not a major cause of accidents.

And they'd know, being as IT'S THEIR JOB TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO KEEP THE ROADS SAFE.

Re:Cool intermediate technology

[BasilBrush]

Well, cycles and bikes (and pedestrians for that matter) would presumably be hazards spotted by the camera in the article, just like everything else. And considering that they are all too often "invisible" to the human eye of car drivers, this could be an improvement to their safety.

On top of that, a road train would very likely be more predictable - no speeding, no breaking the rules of the road. So bikes, cycles and pedestrians are less likely to be caught out by a car doing something stupid.

Re:Cool intermediate technology

[Colin Smith]

The 3 city blocks to McDonalds are the most dangerous roads, interstates are relatively safe. They've had automatic driving kit for interstates for quite a while.

e.g.
http://www.cvhas.org/

They use magnets embedded in the lane to determine position. The issues, what happens at the exit if the driver falls asleep? How do you handle unexpected situations like wildlife on the motorway? Who's at fault when an accident does happen, the manufacturer?

The other thing is that it's a relatively expensive and inefficient way to apply IT to transport, a kludge even. All the vehicles (millions of them eventually) would have to be retrofitted with kit, all the motorways would have to be retrofitted for it to be effective, it's an expensive and rather slow proposition.

Re:Cool intermediate technology

[BasilBrush]

Decades away? That all depends on whether the will is there to develop it. JFKs vision of putting a man on the moon within a decade worked out, and we are already closer to fully automated vehicles than they were to sending a man to the moon. Or think what a $10m Xprize did for commercial space travel. Very rapid progress.

We already have the car navigation systems, and the various hazard warning technologies, and road train systems. Automated driving on motorways (interstates, autobahns) is very nearly possible already. Given the political will to allow it, and X-prize type incentives to develop it, it could be done in 5-10 years easily.

Re:Cool intermediate technology

[Anonymous Coward]

Not entirely true. For example, No hands across america and others. The technology is not 100% but autonomous driving on normal roads is happening today.

Re:Cool intermediate technology

[BasilBrush]

Whilst speed limits are of their nature granular, and unable to take account of local weather conditions, what you say does not follow. Given a set speed limit for a particular road (realistic or not) a system where all cars drive at or under the speed limit will always be safer than a system where some drive over it.

Re:Cool intermediate technology

[Colin Smith]

How many trillions are you willing to spend?

JFK's vision cost America 5% of it's GDP.

Re:Cool intermediate technology

[Anonymous Coward]

How many trillions are you willing to spend?
JFK's vision cost America 5% of it's GDP.

Wonder how much the current US foreign policy is costing though.

Re:Cool intermediate technology

[turnage]

Would something like this suffice? http://www.itsmarta.com/

Re:Cool intermediate technology

[HuguesT]

Fallacy. The real problem is real-time, complex, intelligent decision on incomplete data. Humans are remarkably able to do this, but machine intelligence still hasn't progressed far enough.

Imagine an autonomous vehicle that has to do about 10 decisions a second (this is not enough, but this helps clear matters). If your system is 99.99% accurate this means an error every 1000s, i.e. every 15 minutes or so. You wouldn't be able to drive very far.

There are no real-world intelligent decision systems that are 99.99% accurate in the world today. Far far far from it. Complex real-world decision systems are more like 60% accurate, just like the face recognition system that got a trial at Logan Airport a couple of years ago.

Like Neal Stephenson remarked on Slashdot yesterday, everyone is afraid of self-replicating nano-technology until one realizes that while the hardware is progressing very fast, the software is still crap.

Just like the X-prize hasn't put anybody in orbit yet or the Turing prize so far has only resulted in conversations that are funny for 5 minutes, the real thing is still not within grasp. It looks like it but it's not.

FYI I'm a researcher in AI.

Re:Cool intermediate technology

[BasilBrush]

r/spend/invest/

The moon program was a government sponsored dick waving contest against the Russians. There was never going to be any financial payback within the lifetimes of those who started it. But the commercial explotation of earth orbit satellites and now the X-Prize shows that government subsidy isn't always necessary for big projects.

Also this wouldn't be all-American money like the moon project. Germany and Japan are also at the forefront of these technologies. It is an international thing.

I am willing to spend far more money on a vehicle which will:
Deliver me from home door to work door.
Travels in a fairly fluid movement of traffic, rather than the stop/start congestion of today.
Let's me read the paper, whilst having coffee and a bagel.
Is safer than human driven cars.

Public transport is great, apart from the public, the dirt and smell, and the fact that it doesn't take you door to door.

Re:Cool intermediate technology

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, here in New Jersey, USA, you cannot even pump your own gasoline (or diesel) ((or petrol)) because "it is to dangerous".

Re:Cool intermediate technology

[Lumpy]

I would think just an additional lane appended to each side of major interstates would be plenty.

problem is that if you do not physically block the nimrods driving their cars from that lane problems will occour.

This morning in heavy traffic all lanes full an asshole in a Subaru WRX decided that he is more important, floored it down the right hand paved shoulder then dodged in front of a semi, lost control and then rolled his vehicle into the peopel standing on the other sode of the road looking at a simple fender bender.

if you do not make it physically impossible for the insanely stupid from entering that lane when they are not supposed to, they will.

Until you remove ALL human control and have all vehicles self guided, the self guided systems will simply not happen. People are too stupid to drive safely and a computer system can not be designed to handle the erratic driving situations that will arise.

Re:Cool intermediate technology

[NardofDoom]

Another lane??? Do you realize how long it takes them to add a lane? Do you know the problems they have with traffic during construction? All so cars can have similar functionality (but with less efficiency) than an actual train? No thank you.

A major interchange in my home town of Harrisburg (Where I-81, I-83, and PA-322 come together) has just been redone to accomodate both commuters and traffic for the largest indoor farm exposition in the country, the PA Farm Show. (I'm ashamed to say I live here...) It took 5 years and cost the lives of several motorists in traffic caused by the construction. I use the new interchange every day and can say that it's not any better. Getting off at my exit reuires crossing three lanes of traffic while dodging semis moving at 75 mph. We're stuck on building more roads instead of finding a better solution.

What we need isn't more roads. More roads mean more space for more cars, more cars mean more congestion, which means more roads; a vicious cycle that just brings us back to the main problem: We rely too much on cars as primary transportation systems.

The biggest problem people have with travelling by train or plane is the fact that they don't have their car waiting for them when they get there. So why not bring the car along? Have a special rail car that you can park your automobile in for the journey.

Re:Cool intermediate technology

[BasilBrush]

I'm sure people put just as convincing arguments against the idea that idea that man could step foot on the moon within a decade. Some of them probably signed themselves off as rocket scientists too.

Comparison with the Turing test is specious. Research into machine vision, sensors, and robots navigating and collision avoiding etc. has progressed much farther and faster than research into the kind of understanding of concepts represented by language that is necessary for the Turing test. Research into natural language understanding has hit insurmountable problems at every turn, none of the AI required for automated cars has. Progress vs non-progress.

The X-prize hasn't put anyone in orbit yet, but there is little doubt that it can do in a few years. If governments can do it, then so can private enterprize.

Re:Cool intermediate technology

[tmortn]

No not realistic or not. If the system has no ability to make inteligent judgements about road conditions then unrealisticly high speed limits for foul conditions could make a very unsafe system where the speed limit was never broken. More unsafe than human drivers because humans inherrently have more capacity to adjust to the unknown than does a machine. Where the machine is capable of making judgements it can do it faster. However differences that are trivial to a person can be a serious problem for the computer. For example what if you have a good speed limit set for a road in good repair only now the road no longer is in good repair and there is a mud track onto the road from a construction zone. How soon can the car pick up the traction difference ? I have a decent chance of seeing it and adjusting before I reach the potentially slick zone. The car is not necesarrily so capable. Especially with systems as they exist now. Aside from changing road conditions there is also the issue of differing car capabilities. A Viper is more capable of safely maintaining more speed in most road situations than an SUV. If the system has no capacity of judging road suitability for the vehicle again speed limits set for 'average' could have adverse results for less capable vehicles.

Realistic speed limits are very important for an automated system.

This is not to say a safe auto drive system cannot be safe. Simply to say that thinking something like a system that rigidly adhered to a speed limit would posses any greater inherent safety. It is possible that such a system would be safer, but there are many other factors at play than just the speed limit.

Re:Cool intermediate technology

[Anonymous Coward]

The issues, what happens at the exit if the driver falls asleep?

They get woken up. DUH.

I they refuse to wake (ie: they are dead, having a siezure, heart attack, etc), then the car pulls just past the exit into an 'emergency pull-over lane' and starts screaming for help. Automated calls to the police, etc.

How do you handle unexpected situations like wildlife on the motorway?

Initially, fences will keep the auto-navigation lane clear. Eventually, cars will have micro-radar built into them, and/or the highways will have sensors and will forward information to the cars.

Who's at fault when an accident does happen, the manufacturer?

That depends on the circumstance, of course.

Re:Cool intermediate technology

[Major_Small]

if you do not make it physically impossible for the insanely stupid from entering that lane when they are not supposed to, they will.

that's why the cars don't communicate with eachother, they just do their own thing. the car in front of them doesn't have to be driven by the same system, because all your car cares about is how fast it's going, it's acceleration/deceleration, and how far away it is... as long as it can track those three (from a good distance), it won't matter.

also, that takes care of the point somebody brought up earlier about wildlife... if the system can detect something early enough, it can set a decelration that will stop in time and not create too much of a G-force in the car.

I think the bigger problem is road conditions... what happens when your car hits ice? what happens when something small runs in the way? sure, you could just go through an animal that small with no problem, but people like me will try their hardest to try to create something to prevent that...

Re:Cool intermediate technology

[Anonymous Coward]

problem is that if you do not physically block the nimrods driving their cars from that lane problems will occour.


SO, have a 'toll booth' at the beginning (and all other entrances) of the lane that won't allow cars without automation into the lane.

Re:Cool intermediate technology

[Anonymous Coward]

The biggest problem people have with travelling by... plane ...is that you get felt up by those minimum-wage earning TSA employees.

Re:Cool intermediate technology

[Dave_M_26]

Given a set speed limit for a particular road (realistic or not) a system where all cars drive at or under the speed limit will always be safer than a system where some drive over it.

Ummm... not necessarily. A road (e.g. outside a school) where everyone always drives at 30mph may have more accidents than if people sometimes drive at 40 and sometimes drive at 20. Granted there may be fewer accidents still if people never drove above 30 and still sometimes drove at 20, but there is a degree of compromise in any speed limit between the safety of road users and the time spent driving (otherwise we'd all be going at 5mph :-) but there tends to be an incination for drivers to reach the limit as quickly as possible and maintain it beacuse it's allowed regardless of whether it's safe or not.

Dave

Re:Cool intermediate technology

[PMuse]

Obviously, the final application of this kind of technology is to allow the car to take primary control of the vehicle and let the passengers relax in peace.

If the vehicle is going to drive itself (which I'm all for), then why have it be a car at all? ::pulls out trainpass and heads for station::

Re:Cool intermediate technology

[ambrosen]

well, is it 14% of household spending that goes on motor transport? So it's not a great leap to up the R&D spend and make it happen

Re:Cool intermediate technology

[Politburo]

Say what you want about the gas pumping law, but I like it. Every time I go to another state and need to fill up, it's a hassle. Sure, it may take an extra minute or two if the station is busy, but you don't have to get outside in the rain/cold/snow, and you don't have to worry about static buildup. Pay at the pump is almost universal now, so at least you usually don't have to go inside anymore with self serve, but if you want to pay by cash (for whatever reason), it's additional work for you, and usually requires 2 trips, one to authorize the pump, and one to pay.

To head off the price argument, NJ has some of the cheapest gas in the country, due to many refineries and ports here, and our low gas taxes. You can still get regular for under $2 easily.

Also, the gas pumping law is, afaik, unenforced.

Re:Cool intermediate technology

[BasilBrush]

Who ever said anything about a system with no ability to make judgements about weather conditions? Speed limits are a maximum, not a target.

We already have automated train systems, like for example the Central line and the Docklands Light Railway in London. And guess what? They adhere to speed limits set for individual sets of track. It's simply the safe thing to do to have upper limits on speed, regardless of whether it's a human or a machine taking decisions.

Re:Cool intermediate technology

[BasilBrush]

I said "Given a set speed limit for a particular road (realistic or not) a system where all cars drive at or under the speed limit will always be safer than a system where some drive over it." Speed limits are of course maximums, not targets.

There's absolutely no evidence for suggesting that not having speed limits would make people more likely to drive slower when there are hazards around. Indeed the opposite is the case, people get desensitised to speed, the more speed they get used to. This can be seen within a mile of the off-ramps of motorways, and autobahns, where people don't realise that they are breaking the local speed limits due to desensitisation effect of the higher previous speeds.

Re:Cool intermediate technology

[cayenne8]

"Obviously, the final application of this kind of technology is to allow the car to take primary control of the vehicle and let the passengers relax in peace."

Geez...that would sure take the fun out of driving!!! Why would anyone want to get a Vette/Viper/Porsche and just let the machine take control....??

Re:Cool intermediate technology

[jacoby]

IR sensor + heads-up display = better, safer through-fog driving. Maybe.

Re:Cool intermediate technology

[HvK]

Of course you realize that exactly that was tried with the DARPA Grand Challenge [DARPA], right?

Re:Cool intermediate technology

[Deraj DeZine]

We also have collision detection algorithms (aka hashing functions) that can help avoid crashing into other cars.

Hashing has nothing to do with avoiding car crashes. I do not think that word means what you think it means.

Re:Cool intermediate technology

[Anonymous Coward]

What about the pedal and motorcyclists for example?

Adapt or die!

Re:Cool intermediate technology

[tmortn]

The docklands are neat.. have actually traveled a good bit on that line recently. However Rail travel and road travel are very differnt when it comes to automation. Technology is quite capable of automating a closed systems as the Docklands amply shows.

Re:Cool intermediate technology

[aclarke]

Better than a whole new lane for cars and keeping out motorcycles would be a new lane for motorcycles and keeping out CARS (and of course trucks and SUVs).

In warm climates like Southern California, they could easily convert the left shoulder and part of a lane of every major freeway into a motorcycle-only lane. They could provide tax incentives for people to purchase and ride motorcycles, and require EVERY driver to take and pass a stringent motorcycle-awareness class.

Motorcycles are cheaper to produce and purchase (overall), use fewer raw materials, less fuel, take up less space on the free way, and, let's face it, are more fun to ride. If we even took 10% of drivers out of SUVs and other vehicles and put them on motorcycles, we'd help reduce congestion, fuel consumption and pollution, as well as putting smile on peoples' faces :-) With a dedicated lane and heightened driver training and awareness, it might even be safer to ride a bike, too.

Of course it will never happen here in litigation-happy USA. Little Billy will crash his stupid ass into an embankment and his mother will sue the "government" for killing him by giving him a tax break to ride a motorcycle. And thus ends another great idea.

Privacy concerns

[Goosey]

I can see the obvious saftey benefit from this, but perhaps the possible privacy conerns should be considered.

Suppose this follows a logical step and they add a link to a centralized server that monitored traffic volume to help the results be more accurate.

Suppose insurance companies were able to gain access to data this could produce, and started factoring your on-road alertness into their rate

Yano on second thought, that doesn't sound that bad at all.

Re:Privacy concerns

[tedu]

good. :) my rates will go down because i won't have to subsidize all you bumblenuts who can't pay attention.

Re:Privacy concerns

[polecat_redux]

Suppose insurance companies were able to gain access to data this could produce, and started factoring your on-road alertness into their rate

And why shouldn't they? If you drive half-asleep/drunk/retarded, your rates *should* go up, and insurance companies should be able to access any relevant info about your driving habits in order to determine your rates.

It's getting to the point where simply being inconspicuous with deviant/dangerous behavior is no longer sufficient to avoid the consequences, and I say good. I think that if you drive drunk, or speed, or drive erratically, you should get a ticket regardless of whether or not a cop happens to be present at the time. And yes, I'm talking about equipping cars with devices that can detect such crimes. Too many people confuse this with an issue of privacy or civil rights, but I don't believe it to be. Such a thing would merely serve to lift the veil of obscurity that many people tend to hide behind as they threaten the lives of those around them.

Re:Privacy concerns

[Artega VH]

The problem with automatically issuing fines for speeding is this:

Say you're on a two lane road (that is one lane in each direction) which allows overtaking. You're stuck behind someone going lower than the speed limit. You go to over take them (assume its a truck going up a hill) and the cars are backed up behind you.. What happens is car behind you moves into your space and you're stuck ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD. In this situation the safest thing to do is to 'feed it the fat' (jump on the gas for american readers) to lower the time spent in the danger zone..

You shouldn't get fined for this because you were driving safely..

Re:Privacy concerns

[polecat_redux]

Say you're on a two lane road (that is one lane in each direction) which allows overtaking.

All that would be needed to overcome that particular scenario would be an allowance for short bursts above the speed limit. Also, lanes that allow passing are generally only placed in areas where you have a clear view of the road ahead.

Re:Privacy concerns

[ambrosen]

Well, driving safely except for the fact that you were overtaking where there wasn't enough room.

Re:Privacy concerns

[R1ch4rd]

And so, a nice, friendly and safe human ANT COLONY is born.
PERSONAL RESPONSABILITY is required for any free society to work. Forcing everyone to follow 'the rules' only leads to dictatorship and that, in my opinion, never justifies the benefits.
A balance between individual freedom and society oversight must be kept.

Richard

Re:Privacy concerns

[Lord_Dweomer]

Insurance companies should most certainly NOT be able to access that kind of info. It starts with this, but it is an EXTREMELY slippery slope once they smell money to be made.

I mean, why stop with just how tired you might be (do you have any idea how many drivers are half asleep in the morning on the way to work?) why not also check to see if you've had alchohol or smoked weed within the past 24 hours, because you know, that might be an indicator of irresponsible behavior which in turn makes you a more dangerous driver!

Re:Privacy concerns

[Colin Smith]

"And yes, I'm talking about equipping cars with devices that can detect such crimes."

Go on then, what devices are these?

Re:Privacy concerns

[polecat_redux]

Forcing everyone to follow 'the rules' only leads to dictatorship

Traffic laws are in place with nothing more than safety in mind - you can hardly say they lead to oppressive rule.

Oh, and there is one flaw in your statement: for personal responsibility to work to the advantage of society, people would actually need to take personal responsibility for their actions. I don't know what roads you drive on, but here in SoCal, there is a tremendous lack of responsibility and regard for others. You only need to check the traffic report at ocnow.com to see that there are generally a handful of hit-and-runs every day on our freeways. Unfortunately, the average person is more likely to consider personal benefit rather than responsibility.

Re:Privacy concerns

[polecat_redux]

why not also check to see if you've had alchohol or smoked weed within the past 24 hours

Absolutely. It would certainly stand to reason that someone who does drugs (perhaps regularly) is more likely to slip and get into a car while intoxicated than someone who never touches the stuff. Why shouldn't any particular factor that could be an indicator of your ability to operate a vehicle safely be considered?

Re:Privacy concerns

[Anonymous Coward]

A common occurance is for you to see a nice long straight bit of road, pull out to overtake, and the thing you are overtaking speeds up (because the 70 year old that's been nerveously pottering round the bends now feels safe on a nice straight bit of road) - the guy who was behind you fills the gap you were in (getting ready to overtake himself) and suddenly you have no-where to go. The only option is to "hoof-it" regardless of the speed limit. It's usually at this point that the previously empty corner far away has traffic pouring round and is rapidly getting closer.

You don't want to be worrying about loosing your licence at this point when a head-on collision at a combined 120+ is on the cards!

To be safe on the roads what you need is a fast car with excellent brakes, oh and a reasonable amount of common sense. People are allways going to get killed on our roads - sure you could reduce the speed limit to 1mph, and enforce it with automatic limiters, but then people would do some other stupid crap (like clean their car while it's moving and get caught under a wheel). Really want to reduce road casualties? Enforce lights being on at all times. Doesn't cost anything, dramatically improves safety. Make high speed driving a part of the test (including predicting dangers and defensive driving). If necessary have a separate licence for motorways and other fast roads. Introduce a minimum stopping distance for all cars (irrispective of age). The current UK government stopping distances (for optimum conditions) are based on a post WWII vehicle and it shows! 14 meters (45ft) physical breaking distance from 30mph is horrendeous!!! Pace that out and think of yourself stopping for a junction at 30mph. Personally I wouldn't drive a car that was that dangerous at ANY speed.
As someone once said - "speed never killed anyone, it's the sudden stop that gets you.". So lets work on avoiding the fatal stop.

Re:Privacy concerns

[polecat_redux]

Go on then, what devices are these?

That's a very interesting and infromative point you raise. Please, allow me to elaborate.

Let's see:
-electronics can be added to the computers already build into vehicles that could detect and log rate of speed over a timeline, not to mention:
--position of the steering wheel
--application of brakes

-Sensors could be added to the underside of the vehicle to determine the number and frequency of lane-changes (perhaps by using the reflective road markers as a reference point).
-And also throw in a few other gadgets to determine acceleration, incline, proximity to other vehicles, and other things I can't think of at the moment.

Finally correlate all data streams according to time, and presto, you have a very good representation of every move your car makes.

Re:Privacy concerns

[ambrosen]

Good point. So at what speed does a modern car have a braking distance of 14m (3 car lengths), then? Why separate licence for motorways when they're by far the safest roads. How does lights on at all times improve safety outside of a heavily forested country where light is in short supply in winter and not as bright as expected in summer evenings where dark cars are preferred (I assume Sweden was your reference point for this)? Predicting dangers is part of the driving test. UK government stopping distances are based on a Mk 1 Ford Cortina or similar.

And if you're actually worried about losing your licence when a head on collision's on the cards, your priorities are very wrong. Why so important to overtake anyway. Seeing as you're talking about the UK, it's not as if you've far to go on your single carriageway road. And they are by far the most dangerous roads by quite some margin.

Re:Privacy concerns

[Colin Smith]

Half asleep? Drunk?

How does this kit relate to breaking the law? Swerving to avoid a pedestrian/dog/deer becomes an offence punishable by automatic ticket?

You have to be able to prove that an offence has been committed, innocent until proved guilty.

Re:Privacy concerns

[ambrosen]

Well, in the UK, Driving Without Due Care and Attentions (DWDCA) is an offence. I assume a similar law exists in most other countries.

Re:Privacy concerns

[Colin Smith]

Probably does, but in the UK a police officer makes the judgement of what constitutes due care and attention, then prosecutes you in a court where you can provide a defense. I don't believe artificial intelligence has advanced far enough that an automatic system is capable of making that determination.

Re:Privacy concerns

[dajak]

Really want to reduce road casualties? Enforce lights being on at all times. Doesn't cost anything, dramatically improves safety.

Costs about 4-5% extra fuel. A traffic safety organization recommended this some years ago in the Netherlands. Government (social-democrats in those days) pointed out that we may not be able to comply with the Kyoto protocol CO2 emission quotum if people start doing that.

Knowing how much extra fuel you consume with light on, windows open, airco running etc. is now a requirement for a driving license in the Netherlands. Theoretical exams always include one or more of questions about fuel consumption.

Re:Privacy concerns

[WetCat]

Guess what? If you are driving near me, you are violating my right to walk free and safe, without any intervention from my side.
Driving has no relation to freedom, it's all about safety.

Re:Privacy concerns

[ambrosen]

4-5% extra fuel? Last I knew, headlamps were 55W (input) each. If you've got a car which runs at 2kW, please tell me. Or if your alternator runs at less than about 60% efficiency, then get it fixed.

Re:Privacy concerns

[ezzewezza]

How, exactly, does speeding down an empty road while driving alone endanger the lives of others?

Re:Privacy concerns

[dajak]

I think that if you drive drunk, or speed, or drive erratically, you should get a ticket regardless of whether or not a cop happens to be present at the time.

I don't know where you are from, but I am legally allowed to speed if, for instance:

- it is required for reasons of safety,
- I am obstructing an emergency vehicle,
- I am bringing someone who urgently needs medical attention to a hospital.

A chip in my car would never be able to proof I was not speeding for reasons of safety. Speeding cameras outside the car are better.

Re:Privacy concerns

[Matt_UK]

And they are by far the most dangerous roads by quite some margin.
Idrive on a single carriageway road for about 30 miles a day. The problem is that people travel to close and don't anticipate. I find my self saying "Only a fool breaks the two second rule" under my breath as this helps me keep a 2 second gap between me and the car in front.
By driving like this I can avoid constant changes in throttle and so save diesel (also I reduces the stress in driving).
Do people think that driving automatic cars induces a more "relaxed" or "divorced" driving experience? I know that driving my 2000cc (95bhp) Diesel Citroen (1999) is. a lot easier than my 602cc (36bhp) petrol Citroen (1979) car. I don't need to thing about conserving as much momentum as possible round corners. And as to having the comfort level to fall asleep! Ha!

Re:Privacy concerns

[dajak]

What if the car suddenly coming towards you is speeding?

A daily scenario for me (four times a day): The highway I am on is merging with another highway to its right. The drivers on the left lane of that highway are all speeding and it is very busy. I MUST adjust my speed to merge.

Re:Privacy concerns

[Alef]

One reason why they shouldn't get access to the data is that they probably would draw too far-reaching conclusions from it. Even if a certain behaviour is correlated to an increased risk for accidents, it does not mean that persons showing this behaviour necessarily have a higher risk of causing an accident. Perhaps there are other reasons why your eyes move in such a way that the system regards you half-asleep. For example, did you know that there is a strong correlation between the size of your feet and you intelligence? Smaller feet means lower IQ. However, at a closer inspection, one will find a simple explaination for this: children have small feet.

Re:Privacy concerns

[TyrranzzX]

First, the government forces you into an agreement with a for profit corporation which is a scam that you will never get your money out of; if the average driver calculated the amount of money they put into the system, and the amount they got out, they'd be better off putting it in a safe. When people complain, the company tells people their insurance rates are high becuase of the "bumblenuts" on the road, and they begin fighting amongst themselves to find such non existant "bumblenuts". Nobody had the statistics accept for the company.

And then, you begin letting them have personal information on you? How do you know that your driving is so great you're going to get any kind of a discount?

Mabye you should think that one through. Do you really want a profiteering insurance company that's mandataed by the state, of which has no moral or ethical code and is bound only by a few loose laws, to collect personal information on you? Mabye I'm being a FUD monger here, but I seriously don't think that's something anyone would want.

Re:Privacy concerns

[ambrosen]

Au contraire, the system can tell reliably whether you noticed the object in the way, unlike a police officer who can just guess what you were looking at.

Re:Privacy concerns

[Cyn]

IQ is comparitive to your peers - by definition, on average, childrens IQs are no lower than adults IQs. It's a sliding scale.

Get out on a roadway, and you won't believe me. It's not the adults fault they become bumbling morons who have to drink smoke eat and talk on the phone all while driving.

Wait - yes it is.

Re:Privacy concerns

[dajak]

4-5% extra fuel? Last I knew, headlamps were 55W (input) each. If you've got a car which runs at 2kW, please tell me.

I just checked it. Tests and calculations are done based on 60W headlamps. For modern fuel efficient cars it is 4-5%, for buses and trucks only 0.1%, and for cars in general, excluding heavy traffic, 2-3%. The SWOV (Research Institute for Traffic Safety) calculated 0.9% as the total average reduction in fuel use (=1.33 billion liters of fuel for the EU). The 4-5% number is the one that made the news.

This is based on Dutch cars, typically some 850-1050 kg and 45-75kW. Taxes for cars roughly double per 100 kg, so the average weight is a bit lower than elsewhere. And obviously average fuel efficiency is also related to fuel prices (1.20 euro/l vs. 0.37 euro/l average in the US).

Or if your alternator runs at less than about 60% efficiency, then get it fixed.

60% is the peak efficiency for a 12V alternator in a car as far as I know, when the engine is running idle and is cool. When driving the car, it is substantially lower.

I don't know how these numbers are calculated, but clearly the relation to fuel consumption is more complex than the linear one you are suggesting.

Re:Privacy concerns

[ambrosen]

Because you don't know if the road's empty. And if you crash, lives have to be risked to get the ambulance there.

Re:Privacy concerns

[dajak]

I just realized I do know some things missing in the equation. A '75 kW' car, for instance, will on average be maybe 20 to 40kW (depending on traffic), and you are using a set of four lights + some extra loss + on average 50% efficient alternator = let's say 400-600 W. This is much closer.

Re:Privacy concerns

[ambrosen]

I find it hard to believe that it's often safer to speed up than to brake and abort the overtaking manoveur in such circumstances, whichever way you look at it.

Re:Privacy concerns

[Artifakt]

To: Joe College
Your current auto insurance rate has been adjusted to reflect your driving related habits. Your next six months premium is now 1,649$.

Reasons:
1. You are now dating a blonde. Our studies have shown that teenage males who date blondes have a higher tendency than average to attempt to impress them while driving.
2. You have changed majors. Our studies show that people who are uncommitted in their freshman year have a tendency to fail to use turn signals.
3. You were recently heard publicly muttering about how big corporations collect too much data on people. Our studies show that this sort of paranoid verbalization may correlate to an increased risk of road rage.

That "could be an indicator" is an awfully broad area. I'm sure you are not thinking of trivial correlations such as hair color, but if insurors do enough data mining, they will find occasional odd, non-causal correlations like girlfriend's hair color to number of speeding tickets. Many if not all of those will be random effects, often unlikely to persist for more than a few years at most. In a sufficiently large pool of data, some totally non-causal correlations have to occur.
Insurors don't have to give you a discount if there is a positive effect from some of these, and won't unless it looks good for attracting business. They don't have to give you a rate reduction for having voted during early voting, just to balance that rate increase for preferring seedless grapes over cantelope.
Now for your more serious example. Please assume I completely agree with you that alchohol or cannabis can impair a person's driving skill, and that people who use them before driving (regularly or irregularly) pose an increased risk to themselves and others. It doesn't follow that the best response from the data gatherer's view is to observe a particular limit such as 24 hours.
An insuror could, for example, find out who is a member of Alchoholics Anonomous. Since some recovering alchoholics fall off the wagon, they would be a higher than average risk group. Finding this out could be very cheap compared to finding out who is an alchoholic non-member without prior DUIs. That second group is a much higher risk group to insure, but it's also much more expensive to find out who is in that group.
So an insuror might choose to selectively target one group with moderately higher risk factors rather than another group with larger ones, just because identifying who is a member of one group is sufficiently easier or cheaper - that is it gives the company more bang for its buck. The law tends to oppose such actions, because the courts don't want to have to arbitrate cases where such capriciousness enters in. It has been know to allow some examples, such as car color, because the statistical correlation is very strong and the data is necessary for the insurance company and the state to gather anyway.

Re:Privacy concerns

[gcaseye6677]

A common occurance is for you to see a nice long straight bit of road, pull out to overtake, and the thing you are overtaking speeds up

Any normal driver who has ever driven on the Wisconsin highways knows about this. What is it about the Cheeseheads that causes them to go about 60 MPH in the left lane and then speed up to 70 when they see someone passing them?

Re:Privacy concerns

[gcaseye6677]

I don't know about you, but I don't want to live my entire life according to what some insurance company thinks I should do, knowing that my rates will double if I don't. Do you think there should be any limit at all to the amount of data an insurance company can access? Oppression by government and oppression by insurance companies (especially when they all adopt the same policies) is not all that much different.

Re:Privacy concerns

[Anonymous Coward]

Because you don't know if the road's empty

They are called EYES. Use them.

Re:Privacy concerns

[Feanturi]

Too many people confuse this with an issue of privacy or civil rights, but I don't believe it to be.

I totally agree. When you are behind the wheel of a motor vehicle you have an obligation to the public around you. Driving is a priviledge, not a right, and you certainly do not have the right to not pay attention. No rights are removed here. And if the camera is only watching your eyes, what's the privacy issue? Oh the insurance company might catch me picking my nose, boo hoo.

Re:Privacy concerns

[bugnuts]

And why shouldn't [insurance companies factor in on-road alertness]?

Insurance companies don't work that way. They set their rates and are profitable only because of statistics. Believing the rates are fair for everyone is like believing 2.37 kids is the appropriate number of children to have for your income bracket, race, and location.

Insurance companies probably would have a field day with me, for one reason or another, and raise my rates through the roof if they had access to records of my driving style versus statistically safe driving styles. Yet I haven't had an accident for 20 years (only when I was a stupid teen in bad weather). In fact, I've avoided multiple serious collisions, including two potential head-on high speed collisions with oncoming drunks driving in my lane, many, many fenderbenders with potential injuries (30+ mph), and even thrice when pedestrians were sleepwalking in the street. They would've died (or some other accident occurred) had it been 50%+ of the other drivers out there, and my driving skills saved lives multiple times when someone else was being incredibly stupid. I'll note that none of these instances involved me doing anything unusually unsafe at the time.

Yet insurance companies would undoubtedly want to charge me more, because I drive faster than the average road speed. This, despite the fact that I've saved them money and have the maximum discount for accident-free.

Similarly, there are people that exhibit all sorts of safe driving tendencies which are dangerous as hell.

Re:Privacy concerns

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem was stated as the road was empty. Whether he knows it's empty or not is immaterial; you aren't going to have "lives risked getting an ambulance there" because there were no lives to be risked. It was frikkin' empty, and answering a hypothetical question by setting up a straw man (changing the question) and knocking that one down like a pinata means nothing.

If you're worried about the driver having a single-vehicle accident, that's only slightly relevant. But I'm willing to bet you have no clue of the probability of having a single-car accident on an empty road while speeding versus while not speeding. Neither do I, but that's the issue.

Ambulance workers chose the line of work, and realize it has a risk involved (albeit a small one) and they get paid for this, just like the hazard bonus for construction workers. Saying their lives are risked in this accident is like saying my life was risked driving to work today... maybe I should get some sort of bonus for risking my life for work?

Re:Privacy concerns

[RedBear]

Yeah, their rates might go up, but would the rates for the rest of us go DOWN? Recently there was a law put into place where I live that makes not having proof of insurance in your vehicle an arrestable offence. With more people forced to buy insurance, the rates should have gone down slightly. After that law was passed the insurance companies apparently realized they had a captive audience. The rates soon went up by about 45%.

Insurance companies are thieves. I don't see why anyone should be supporting them getting more invasive access into any information about a person. It never results in rates that are more "fair", just added penalties for certain people, often depending on something totally nonsensical like hair color.

As for your "crime detection systems", apparently you don't realize that everyone and every vehicle doesn't fit in a little square box. What if you have a vehicle that you want to take on a racing track? Obviously you'd want to make it illegal to disable the crime detection equipment in your car, so you'd have to get a specially licensed vehicle for doing any racing even on a private track. Some people happen to own a lot of land, and they use it to take a vehicle out now and then and do crazy stuff. This would result in them getting an automated ticket from Big Brother.

No, sir. You do not have all the answers, and you better stay the hell away from my car. I'm sure I'm not alone in this sentiment. Does this sentiment make me a crazy-speeding-cracksmoking-drunkdriving lunatic driver? No. Most of us do obey the laws, and we don't need an electronic nanny sitting on our dashboard making sure we walk your line every day of our lives. Get over yourself.

Re:hi

[Ramsey-07]

Damn my phone, Smarter than eye...

No Phoning Home

[BrianMarshall]

It's like the Google disk search business... as long as the thing isn't phoning home...

Re:heat waves?

[LiENUS]

I would imiagine it would be a false positive. Which is much better than a false negative, false postive makes you a little annoyed for a short while. False negative sends you out of controll into a ditch, your decision.

Digital camera kept me awake!

[eingram]

I used to drive a lot for long hours during the night. I would catch myself dozing off quite a bit..

I'd then break out my digital camera and take pictures of the road, myself, buildings, etc. I'd also set it on my dashboard and do a long exposure image to catch the headlights of cars and city lights (for a cool streaking effect). I had a lot of fun and it kept me awake.

Was it dangerous? Nah. I can operate my camera without looking at it really, so I was able to keep my eyes on the road (and keep them open).

Re:Digital camera kept me awake!

[Anonymous Coward]

Was it dangerous? Nah.

Yes, if you're tired, and tired to the point that you're "dozing off quite a bit", then the legal (at least here in Sweden) and only right thing to do is to STOP DRIVING.

Fiddling with something other than driving (be it taking snapshots, talking on the mobile phone, tuning the radio...) is not the proper response action to tiredness while driving. Taking a break and get some fresh air, or some sleep, is.

In Swedish legislation, driving too tired is equal to driving under other negative influences such as alcohol or drugs (not that I know of any cases where the law has been enforced, unless there's been an accident where the driver was proven to actually have dozed off). "But I was taking snapshots" is no excuse. I imagine this to be the same in many other places.

Re:Digital camera kept me awake!

[Matt_UK]

Unfortunatly not everywhere is a sensible as Sweeden!

Re:Digital camera kept me awake!

[Sgt_Jake]

I've seen those pictures... /*shudder*/ put some clothes on man.

Alerts you to dangerous things on the road?

[Seumas]

If there is something on the road that is a danger and the driver doesn't see, the car alerts the driver.

Now, if only they can devise a way to keep 85 year olds who think that it's their god given right to drive until the day they die, from slamming on the gas and destroying buildings and killing pedestrians because they thought it was the break pedal - or driving into THROUGH AN AIRPORT because they thought you return your car at the Hertz inside the airport.

Re:Alerts you to dangerous things on the road?

[Anonymous Coward]

Been there, been hit. Dude so old he just flew through a red light "didnt see the intersection!" he said.... smashed my VW rabbit into the next life. Then he left! Had a meeting to go to, left a card. I called it hit and run until the cops caught up with him.

Re:Alerts you to dangerous things on the road?

[Seumas]

In 1997, I was walking across a three lane street. Midle of the crosswalk and there is only one car on the road. It's across the intersection, on the other side, far enough away to stop. So I continue walking. Not thinking anything unusual.

But the guy doesn't stop! He drives through the crosswalk, through the intersection and smashes right through me! I fly up unto the hood of his car and he keeps driving. I roll up onto his windshield and the impact is so hard that the force of me landing crushes his windshield and roof. It takes almost two full blocks before he stops. He doesn't even consider putting on the break for the first block. He hit me with full driving force. Fortunatelly, I somehow made it without any serious injuries although I still suffer sore joints and muscle problems almost a decade later (at times). But at least I didn't break any bones or lose conciousness.

After he finally realized that he had hit something, slammed on the breaks and stopped - I went flying through the air and landed hard on the aslphalt about 50 feet down the road from his car. He had hit me so hard that his car had to be towed and totaled.

He didn't really have any excuse other than he just didn't see me. In the road. In the crosswalk. On an empty street.

Re:Alerts you to dangerous things on the road?

[fatphil]

Ditto. Young female driver ~20; I was on a pedal bike. Middle of a bright day.

Got any refs for your Hertz rental return anecdote above? No obvious google queries pick it up. Sounds like a fun tale.

FP.

Re:Alerts you to dangerous things on the road?

[Anonymous Coward]

In Dec 24 2003, I was walking across a two lane street. Middle of the crosswalk and there is a long file of cars coming from the right. Noone from the left (here we drive on the right of the road). The first one (a small car) is more than far enough away to stop, considering its speed. So I continue walking. Not thinking anything unusual.

But the driver (girl barely above 18) doesn't stop! She doesn't speed down let alone break and smashes right through me. I lose conciousness. According to the state of her car, I roll up into her windshield and the impact is so hard that the force of me landing crushes her windshield. Many people in the closer building heard the crash but didn't hear any braking. I regain conciousness on the aslphalt about 60 feet down the road from the point of impact. Unfortunately I haven't recovered yet from 2 broken legs, they still hurt (especially one of them) when I walk and I cannot run yet.

I haven't seen her since the accident, but according to my lawyer, she didn't really have any excuse other that she had a "blind spot" (??) and therefore didn't see me. On a straight road paved with crosswalks (there is one about every 50m in this area).

Have you sued for damages ? Has the driver got his license suspended or cancelled ? If so, for how long ?

Re:Alerts you to dangerous things on the road?

[GORby_]

Only one answer to this...

While that driver was obviously in error, you could have easily prevented that accident by looking at the car, and making sure it was slowing down or that the driver at least saw you.

I mean... there's only one car on the road, and even then do you manage to not look at it, while it is probably the only serious possible threath to your safety within a hundred meters? You were reasonably lucky, because you survived the accident without serious injuries, but a lot of people aren't that lucky.

Something similar happened to me, but the pedestrian was the other guy... He was standing at a pedestrian crossing (red light for him). I see him looking left and right for approaching vehicles, but he somehow fails to see me and decides to cross the road regardless of the red light. It's really hard to avoid a pedestrian who decides to step in front of your vehicle about 10m further down the road. Luckily for him, I was riding my bicycle (at about 35kph), and nobody was injured... This just shows how easy it can be to completely miss some obvious things. I also tend to wear a bicycle helmet nowadays, since I realize that we were both very lucky.

Re:Alerts you to dangerous things on the road?

[241comp]

Try this one:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,134007,00.html

Re:Alerts you to dangerous things on the road?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, I hope you live to be 100. So exactly what age are you going to cough up your independence, I mean, drivers license?

BTW, my grandfather stopped driving when he was 74. He didn't have to anymore, so he didn't. When he died at 95, he still had far better eyesight than I had at that time. He could still spot a fawn against a backdrop of woods 300 yards away. If you have never lived in an open rural area, you'll have no idea how keen your eyesight needs to be to do that.

Admittedly, sharp as his vision and his mind was, his reaction time by then was pretty slow, so I am glad that he was no longer driving.

Re:Alerts you to dangerous things on the road?

[EulerX07]

Now, if only they can devise a way to keep 85 year olds who think that it's their god given right to drive until the day they die, from slamming on the gas and destroying buildings and killing pedestrians because they thought it was the break pedal

Heh, lots of people got stories like this, so I'll throw in mine. I know a girl that used to work in a big supermarket with an in-door garage. If you ever worked as a wrapper you know you sometimes go and help people get stuff in their car. A car was backing out of the spot behind the car where she was putting things in. The old lady saw her and proceeded to press down on the wrong pedal.

That girl will now spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair, both legs destroyed beyond repair.

Re:Alerts you to dangerous things on the road?

[g0at]

slamming on the gas and destroying buildings and killing pedestrians because they thought it was the break pedal

Apparently in this case it was the break pedal.

-b

Re:Alerts you to dangerous things on the road?

[Anonymous Coward]

The first one (a small car) is more than far enough away to stop, considering its speed. So I continue walking. Not thinking anything unusual.

No, you were thinking something unusual. You thought to bet your life on the other guy doing the right stuff. THAT is or at least should be highly unusual.

The only sensible approach for walking or cycling along the traffic is that you assume that every single driver will try to kill you if you give them a slightest change.

I can't count how many times I would have been killed if I had exercised my right of way.

Re:Alerts you to dangerous things on the road?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, when the car is on the OTHER SIDE of the intersection and the light is red, you would expect that they can and will stop. You don't expect them to maintain speed and bowl through you. And once you're in the middle of the road and realize the car isn't going to stop, what are you going to do? A car going 45mph can speed through 20 feet of road much faster than a human can walk, run or jump 15 feet of road.

Re:Alerts you to dangerous things on the road?

[Seumas]

When I'm comfortable or not to cough up my driver's license is not at all relevant. What I'm comfortable with is unimportant when people's lives and property are at stake.

My grandfather built multi-million dollar houses for the rich thrugh his 70s and continued carpentry and yard work through his 80s, until he died. He finally stopped driving a few years after he began to have a habit of driving the wrong way down a street, failing to pull over when a fire truck was racing down the street with sirens blaring and so forth.

My grandmother's eyesight was slowly failing and while she isn't blind, she finally decided that she was too dangerous to be on the road. This, after a life of flawless driving with an absolutely clean and perfect record - beginning when she was only fourteen years old in the 1930s.

The fact is, people need to be held accountable and meet higher levels of competancy to be able to drive at any age. Especially if you're part of an age group that is six or seven times more likely to cause fatal accidents than every other age group.

And yes, being elderly and losing the independance your car gives you may be inconvenient, but it's also inconvenient for a child to lose the independance being alive gives or the independance a young girl may have in being able to use her legs and have a functioning spine.

As for myself, I don't even drive. I don't know if I ever will. I don't really have a need for it and it bores me. Not to mention, I don't have the greatest eyesight in the world and would hate to smash into someone.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Wonder how it determines what is a danger

[LiENUS]

I wonder how this determines what is a danger and whats not, does it detect any sudden change in the road such that a pothole or cones on the side would set it off or is it more specific in that only if you go off the road it works?

but the terrorists!

[sometwo]

They'll use the video feed to figure out when you're in the car, and then *bang*.

Good idea, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Digital cameras to combat sleepy drivers. Nothing like a flash in the middle of the night to blind you to oncoming traffic.

Glasses?

[craigtay]

Will sun glasses make the whole thing break? Maybe even the glare from my regular glasses during a sunset, or sunrise could throw the whole thing off!

Better or Worse?

[N Monkey]

I can't remember the exact figures but I heard that in the UK either "1 in 6" fatal accidents may be caused by falling asleep at the wheel. Certainly they've been advertising the dangers of driving while tired as much now as anti-drink-driving.

Now I can see it could save a life if a so called "micro sleep" occured at the wheel but could it have the opposite effect? Would some people then try to drive longer thinking they have a safety net/alarm clock to wake them up if they drift off?

Re:Better or Worse?

[tristan-jt2]

I remember seeing a documentary on TV a few years ago, can't remember if it was in the UK or in France.

They had taken a dozen of drivers fitting a particular set of criteria. They had to be used to driving at night, and drive a certain mileage every week.

They rigged them up with monitoring equipment, set a couple of night vision cameras in the car and sent them on their way.

They had to drive a distance that was estimated to take about 4h.

Once at the destination a team of boffins would ask them to fill in a questionaire about how they felt about the drive, whether they felt tired, etc.

The results were simply scary:
None of them had bothered to take a break.
None of them declared having felt tired enough to feel they had to take a break.
Yet their brain activity was showing numerous periods that looked like deep sleep for less than 5 seconds.
On average these periods amounted to a whooping 6 minutes over the 4h of driving.
On the videos you could just see the drivers blinking for a unusually long time.

Having a system that detects that I'm blinking in a suspicious way, gets the driver seat to vibrate, and then sound an alarm if I don't open my eyes immediately would certainly not annoy me. I'd take the hint that I need to take the next exit and try to grab 1/2h of sleep.

My sister fell asleep at the wheel once while on the motorway and told us that she had only blinked, only to open her eyes after feeling what she described as a bump.
She took the next exit because she was feeling seriously tired and slightly puzzled about the "bump". Turned out she had hit the safety rail after drifting all the way over the fast lane.

Re:Better or Worse?

[Hobadee]

Sorry, this is the U.S. Here we are dumbasses and think it's OK to drink and drive. Thus being tired isn't as huge of a cause as being dead drunk. (No pun intended) We first need to solve the basic problems. Sadly, MAD magazine had this idea 50~ years ago. Attach a breath detector to the ignition system. I think they are just starting to do this for some people with too many DUI's.

Re:Better or Worse?

[NanoGator]

"Would some people then try to drive longer thinking they have a safety net/alarm clock to wake them up if they drift off?"

Next year's Darwin Awards should be exciting!

Re:Better or Worse?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been alongside 2 cars where the tailing one 'bumped' the front one due to the driver fading.

However, I think that the approach taken by these innovations is wrong, they should do what NASA do.

What happens when they detect a space shuttle has lost control? They blow the fucker up, and all on board, so that it can't crash into the ground and cause untold more damage. That's what they should do with dozing drivers. Guaranteed no repeat offenders!

Re:Better or Worse?

[tristan-jt2]

Great concept: Technology Assisted Darwinism :-)

Re:Better or Worse?

[343 Guilty Spark]

As far as the opposite effect, this is a know phenoma in driver safety;

It is called risk compensation or behavioural adaptation, if you look at things like accident rates before and after seat belts have been made complusory you find that while fatalities for those in cars decrease it is not at the level predicted by statistics, and fatalities for pedestrians and cyclists acutally increase..

Basically people feel safer so they drive faster/aren't as careful.

The interesting thing is that the effect is strongest for safety changes that make the chance of an accident lower (e.g. ABS breaking) and weakest for things that just reduce the cost of an accident (e.g. Airbags).

I my own research I have found that even in simulator studies that risk compensation appears to happen as far as road width goes (i.e. if roads are widened people drive faster, if they are narrowed they drive slower).

Re:Better or Worse?

[Dave_M_26]

Basically people feel safer so they drive faster/aren't as careful.

I always thought that an interesting experiment would be to remove the driver's seatbelt and fix a large spike to the steering wheel. I suspect the number of accidents would go down ;-)

Dave

Re:Better or Worse?

[mrchaotica]

Maybe after the first alert it should start a 15 minute timer after which the car turns off, to force the person to rest.

Re:Better or Worse?

[mrchaotica]

But in the case of ABS and wider roads wouldn't they actually be safer? I mean, I feel safer going fast around corners in my hatchback than I did in the minivan I used to drive, but that's because my hatchback actually corners better than the van. So could it be that people think the risk is less because it actually is less, at least in the "make the chance of an accident lower" category?

Re:Better or Worse?

[ACNSlave]

Someone please mod this twit to troll ASAP!

Re:Better or Worse?

[mpe]

Basically people feel safer so they drive faster/aren't as careful.

What's needed is a car which feels more unsafe to the driver than it actually is.

The interesting thing is that the effect is strongest for safety changes that make the chance of an accident lower (e.g. ABS breaking) and weakest for things that just reduce the cost of an accident (e.g. Airbags).

The problem with ABS is that it can become used as a performance, rather than safety, enhancement.

Re:Better or Worse?

[mpe]

Sorry, this is the U.S. Here we are dumbasses and think it's OK to drink and drive. Thus being tired isn't as huge of a cause as being dead drunk. (No pun intended) We first need to solve the basic problems.

One simple step would be to not allow a drivers/ing licence to be used as an identity documenet for purchasing of alcohol.

Sadly, MAD magazine had this idea 50~ years ago. Attach a breath detector to the ignition system. I think they are just starting to do this for some people with too many DUI's.

How many is "too many"? Wouldn't a lifetime driving ban be a more sensible idea for persistent offenders.

Re:Better or Worse?

[Matt_UK]

In the UK there are few places to stop 15 min is not enough.
I was coming up from Brighton up the M23 towards the M25 (motorway round London) I saw a sign saying

"Next services M25 (westbound) 78miles" !

Given the lightly traffic on that road that is a min of 1hr and more like 2 hours away
On holiday in France there are rest places ever 20km or so.

Re:Better or Worse?

[EulerX07]

I've been guilty of similar lapses of stupidity, but many orders of magnitudes worse. My worst offense was after working five 14 hours shift on the road, taking off after my last shift in a freaking snowstorm, with a company pick-up truck that was only 2WD (RWD), and driving 12 hours until 9 the next morning to get back to my place because I had a new girlfriend I wanted to see. That was truly dumb. I actually had to take a break between 5AM and 6AM because I was out of gas and the station wasn't opened.

The kind of thing that make you wonder if you're really that smart. Sad part is I had to hit the road for another two weeks a few days later, and came back to find out I was dumped (however, that's not unusual).

Re:Better or Worse?

[Politburo]

It's for this reason that NJ has taken the step of creating legislation that additionally punishes anyone who causes an accident due to drowsiness. Of course, I don't think the law has been used yet, and there are still legal questions as to how one proves that a driver was drowsy, etc. I imagine it will only apply to those drivers who, unaware of the law, admit to being tired.

Re:Better or Worse?

[mrchaotica]

Gee, and I thought Europe was small and crowded!

So, getting to a rest stop would be ideal, but if you're already nodding off it seems that waiting an hour or more to stop isn't an option. Are you allowed to pull over onto the shoulder, which is what I actually had in mind?

Re:Better or Worse?

[Feanturi]

The interesting thing is that the effect is strongest for safety changes that make the chance of an accident lower (e.g. ABS breaking)

That reminds me of an amusing story (because nobody was badly hurt, just my stupid idiot father's pride), when my dad got a new pickup years ago. I had gone to catch a bus, but he stopped by and picked me up with his new truck, pleased as punch he was. It was winter, but he had on nice new winter tires, so he was driving like he always does. Which is to say, he drives like a complete asshole regardless of the road conditions. Anyhow, he was going on about what his new truck had, and I asked him if it had that new ABS thing. We were approaching a T intersection. Just as he answered, "Yeah, it's got all of that," he pulled a left turn way too fast, tried to brake, and went sideways into a big snowdrift. I rapped the side of my head on the door frame, but it was worth it man... The look on his face was priceless. And for his hurrying, he was rewarded by having to change a tire, for he had hit the curb with one of the passenger-side tires, with enough force to knock it right off the rim. Ah, the memories...

Re:Better or Worse?

[343 Guilty Spark]

I can see the look on the ethics boards faces now.. "you want to put a spike, where?"

Perhaps a reality TV show could do it though, "Welcome to driver safety EXTREME!"

Re:Better or Worse?

[343 Guilty Spark]

Well there are a couople of schools of thought, there is Wilde who has the Risk Homostatis model that says that it is balanced out by risky behaviour and non-motivational changes in road safety end up having no net benefit....

But many others (including myself) disagree with that. Yes wider roads and ABS breaking are safer.. but not to the extend they should be, because people do risk compensate.

Re:Better or Worse?

[343 Guilty Spark]

Actually for my PhD I am considering looking at ways to make roads feel unsafe to a driver, without them actually being unsafe.

Hopefully at a implicit level, and without freaking the driver out.

Roads are easier than cars to change since in most castes the govt. still controls roading so it can be regulated.

Re:Better or Worse?

[tristan-jt2]

Nothing keeps you from stopping on the hard shoulder, switching your hazard lights on, getting out of the car through the passenger side, going over the safety barrier and spending 30 minutes sitting in the grass trying to collect yourself.

If the police was to pass by, they'd most definitely stop and check what's going on. Unless the cop is braindead, he'll see you've taken all the steps to make the situation as safe as you possibly could and should not give you too much hassle. No idea how he'll handle the situation once you tell him you're not in a condition that makes it safes to drive. I guess he'd probably insist on escorting you to the next exit.

Staying in the car for a quick nap is definitely not an option. Not only it's dangerous, but you're likely to get the bollocking of your life if the cops catch you sleeping in your car.

Complacency

[tod_miller]

I do not mind having some driver alert system, but if it goes off too many times, too many false positives, then drivers may ignore it, yet at the same time, the very fact that it is there might make them more willing to distract thier attention from the road.

So it gives you a false sense of security, but like all computer equiptment, you ignore it the seconed it gets too annoying.

How many times has a car alarm gone off, and you rush outside to apprehend the thieves?

This sounds too much like a tax funded project gone awry. Perhaps the car might have a failsafe mode if the triggers go too far? if the person doesn't hit an ok button in enough time, the car should slow calmly and require some special intervention to make sure the user is aware.

Now any action on the part of a computer that would remove the human from the loop is not desirable, as this would mean a car might slow in the middle of a 5 lane intersection, or something stupid.

But if humans take themselves out of the loop through complacency, then that is worse.

The camel sticks his nose under the tent...

[xmark]

How long before those cams are connected to some flash ram in the black box that's already installed in new cars, "strictly to assist safety research"? How long before someone (or some insurance company) sues to recover those images, to be used against the driver in a civil suit? How long before some lame-o legislature grants law enforcement a "right" to those images, probably citing a desire to "protect the children"? How long, in short, before the government has a digital videocam watching your every move while you drive your car? Think they'll only be interested in accident-related activities? I don't.

Be afraid. The future is now, and it does not like you or your silly privacy rights.

Re:The camel sticks his nose under the tent...

[wk633]

This will only work until some idiot falls asleep anyway, and doesn't wake up, kills somone, and sues because the system promised him it would keep him awake.

It's dangerous to sell Americans things to protect themselves, that require even a modicom of common sense.

Re:Hmmmmmmmmmm

[pronobozo]

a robotic arm comes out and takes them off you... and then lightly slaps you.

This is great and all..

[kagaku]

..but shouldn't it be the drivers responsibility to stay awake while driving? If you're tired enough that you need a camera to watch your eye movement to make sure you aren't falling asleep, should you really be driving?

Re:This is great and all..

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever drived a car? What a childish comment...

Re:This is great and all..

[Cro Magnon]

You might not realize just how tired you are. One time, during a long bout of insomnia, I nearly zoned out at least twice on the way to work. I knew I was tired, but I thought I could make it safely. I made it, but I was just lucky.

Re:This is great and all..

[maskedbishounen]

Kind of like all those users who practice "safe browsing" while connected to the Internet, and stop what they're doing when they realize they're in over their heads?

..yeah, it should. Alas, common sense and the common man oft conflict in the strangest ways.

Re:This is great and all..

[Equinox]

No, you shouldn't be driving. But that doesn't stop some asshats from trying. I say great...this may not help a whole lot, or solve the initial problem, but I don't see how it could hurt.

Re:This is great and all..

[kagaku]

Yes I have infact, for the last ten or so years. I've driven out of state overnight plenty of times, and I have the common sense to pull over when I get tired enough that I feel it impairs my ability to drive.

Hmm

[Escherial]

Huh, I wonder if it has a snooze button. There's nothing more irritating than being awakened in the middle of a restful nap behind the wheel.

Repeat with me

[Anonymous Coward]

Social problems require social solutions, not technological band-aids. The reason we have so many sleepy drivers in the first place is a combination of bad urban planning that results in millions of people taking extra-long commutes, one person to a car, and erosion of labor rights that makes it possible for employers to overwork their employees and tire them.

This and the road sign reader

[fembots]

this and the road sign reader seem to use similar technology, or are they actually the same thing, just different application?

Pedal error

[Anonymous Coward]

Sir,

You need to read and inform yourself better.

Re:Pedal error

[Seumas]

*snicker*. I need to read K5 to become better informed? That's like reading Slashdot to improve your social life.

Perhaps YOU need to read and inform yourself a little better.

Drivers, 75 years old and more, are more dangerous than every other group except teenagers (who also shouldn't be allowed to drive so young). They are 400% to 600% more deadly than every other age group.

I guess you'd rather let a group of innocent toddlers and young children playing on a soccer field be killed by an elderly driver who went up a curb, through a field and plowed into them be killed than dare take a license away from from those holiest of holy "The Greatest Generation".

Re:Pedal error

[arose]

I don't know what to think about the fact that the page has a SUV ad...

Re:Pedal error

[ACNSlave]

more dangerous than every other group except teenagers (who also shouldn't be allowed to drive so young)

Thats why I started drive before I was a teen. By the time I was legal, I was a seasoned pro. :-) Of course, these weren't city streets, mud bogging and farm driving probably don't count, except for the fact that they were real trucks, cars, tractors, etc. Not sure I would let my kids do the same...

On the other hand, I hope I have the grace and intelligence to hang up my keys when the time comes.

B

Re:Pedal error

[Motherfucking Shit]

Drivers, 75 years old and more, are more dangerous than every other group except teenagers (who also shouldn't be allowed to drive so young).

Damn straight! Teenagers should have to be, uhm, apprentices to 20-somethings who have established driving records, in exchange for chauffering them here and there. I propose some legislation, teens can't drive until they've had 100 hours of experience as an observant passenger. We can call this probationary period "road-head hours" for short.

As for people 75 and older, well, they can just get a freakin' Hoveround. If it can go to the Grand Canyon, it can go to the Wal-Mart.

Re:Pedal error

[Anonymous Coward]

Youth are not more dangerous because of youth, they are more dangerous from lack of experience.

I rode motorcycles and operated heavy machinery from the age of 14. By the time I got my license at age 16, I had two years of experience driving a range of vehicles. Driving a car was different, but no harder. My less experienced friends were absolutely clueless about driving, not because of their youth, but through lack of experience.

Age has similar issues. I know some older people that are still alert and skilled drivers. I know others that should not be allowed behind the wheel of a car.

Blanket age rules are bunk. Testing, on the other hand, makes complete sense. Computerized testing for reaction time and traffic situation response would be quite simple.

Re:Pedal error

[Anonymous Coward]

I propose some legislation, teens can't drive until they've had 100 hours of experience as an observant passenger. We can call this probationary period "road-head hours" for short.

Excellent idea. I propose something extremely similar for teens who need to learn to have sex. Teens shouldn't be allowed to have sex with each other until they've had 100 hours of instruction by someone over 30. We can call this instruction period "give-head hours" for short.

Re:Pedal error

[Anonymous Coward]

Youth are not more dangerous because of youth, they are more dangerous from lack of experience.

I would like to agree with that, but the counterexample is people who learned to drive later in life. I haven't examined the studies myself, but I've heard that they overwhelmingly show that these people are safer than teenagers.

Re:Pedal error

[digitalsushi]

i'm 25, so i've been driving for what, 9 years? well, at 25, i can safely say i'm still a horrible driver, for one reason -- only 9 years of experience. every half a year i still find myself doing something stupid. last one was, i was backing out of a parking spot. looked left. looked right. i never realized i wasnt also looking back. another car was pulling out, and i almost hit them. little stuff like that that makes me realize that none of my same aged friends are anywhere as near the good drivers we think we are in our heads.

It wont work!

[Goth Biker Babe]

There's this psychological effect called risk compensation. It's been shown that the safe people believe they are the less careful they will be. So if you have mechanisms in your car to stop you from being stupid you'll actually be even more stupid that you would normally be and so the whole thing balances out.

Here in the UK Volvo drivers have a bad name with motorcyclists. Why? Because they are very safe cars and so many Volvo drivers take less care than someone in a less safe car. But cars aren't the only thing on the road and it's all well and good you being safe in your car if you're involved in an accident but what about the other poor sod!

Actually the best thing to make everyone drive safely and wear seat belts and the like is to put a spike in the centre of the steering wheel!

Re:It wont work!

[richie2000]

I totally agree. The trick would be to make people safer while making them believe they're in mortal danger. It's a game of visualising risks. Since they can see they're going to be two minutes late for that important meeting but can't see the broken down truck over the next hill or see themselves as pieces of decaying flesh at the roadside, they put the pedal to the metal.

And this is why bikers in general (there are sadly a LOT of exceptions to this rule) are not as prone to accidents as people in general (the non-biking public, as it were) might imagine. We're too close to the road to not notice it rushing by at break-neck speeds. I believe it's best said in Zodiac where a bicyclist, all dressed up in black, is asked why he doesn't have any lights or flourescent clothing and he responds with "For that to work, I'd have to assume every motorist around me is wide awake, sober and not trying to kill me. That's stupid. I pretend there's a million dollar bounty on my head and everyone's trying to hit me. It's my responsibility to make sure they don't." and there's a certain amount of truth in it. That and the spike works for me. :-)

Re:It wont work!

[Anonymous Coward]

So... can I not shake a stick at all the pictures at once, or do I have to do each one individually? Also, I don't have a stick at the moment, will an empty mt dew can work?

Re:It wont work!

[goodydot]

You know, I've only been driving for about 14 years, but when I drive, I constantly assume that nobody sees me, including those at stop signs, and I have in the front of my mind the realization that I don't want to die, and I don't want my car ruined, and I don't want to kill anybody, etc. This makes for very careful, safe driving. However, I still enjoy driving, travel at the same speed as other cars, EVEN IF that speed is above the posted limit, drive slower during heavy rain or snow, etc. I think most drivers see driving like they see walking...it's just something to do while you talk, or listen to the radio. If they had this constant sense of potential death over their heads (like they would with the steering column spike) they would be safer drivers. Of course, it doesn't help that people can drive on the roads having never experienced snow, rain, sunglare, stop-sign runners, cars pulling out in front of them, somebody weaving into them, people slying by them at 90mph on a 60mph road, people not paying attention around them, etc...as a result of POOR DRIVER EXAMS! How about some serious training before you are allowed on the road, with a SERIOUS road test every two years? Whatever...we can just continue to let idiots drive, and a few of us smarter folks will just need to be careful and look out for all the idiots. We should all drink and drive...nobody likes the idea of falling asleep and spilling beer all over the nice leather!

Vacation

[BrianGa]

Is anyone else reminded of National Lampoon's Vacation with Chevy Chase, where the kids and wife are shown peacefully sleeping...and then the camera pans to Chevy Chase - also peacefully sleeping (and driving).

Chase then proceeds to plow through anything and everything, finally landing in a parking space for a hotel. "We're here!"

Citroën already does that (sort of)

[MartijnL]

The new Citroën C5 (http://www.citroen.co.uk/) has a lane departure warning system that detects if the car is leaving it's lane (like if when the driver has nodded off and there is a bend in the road). It only warns when the driver crosses the white line however so collision detection is still a way to go.

Re:Citroën already does that (sort of)

[Anonymous Coward]

US roadways have had such a warning system for years. They put bumpy ridges on the edges of the road, so if you start to veer off, your whole car vibrates and jolts you awake.

Re:Citroën already does that (sort of)

[Tony Hoyle]

Isn't C5 rather a dumb thing to call a car you actually want to sell?

Re:Citroën already does that (sort of)

[mrchaotica]

It's better than C4!

Re:Citroën already does that (sort of)

[mrchaotica]

Wait, that came out wrong. I meant to say that it's a better car name than C4 -- but C4 is MUCH more fun than a Citroen! : D

Re:Citroën already does that (sort of)

[Anonymous Coward]

if the car is leaving it's lane

"its".

Re:Citroën already does that (sort of)

[killbill!]

They do sell a C4 though...

The Citroen range starts with the 3,60m C2 and tops at the 4,90m C8 minivan and (upcoming) C6 sedan. Pretty original naming scheme, isn't it? ;p

Feels Too Safe

[should_be_linear]

Yet another technology that makes you feel nothing can happen to you. Just as airbags increased avarage speed, this "enhencement" will make many people think they can drive almost asleep. Hey, who cares, camera will wake me up anyway. And if doesn't? Nevermind, I have 4 airbags!

Bad move

[Underholdning]

Pretty neat technology
What? This is not neat. This is a step backwards. If drivers gets accustomed that their car will alert them if they're about to hit something, it will probably encourage them to contiue that extra hour of unsafe driving.

Re:Bad move

[ForestGrump]

Agreed. There are gimicks out there, gadgets and such.

For example, I have a whistler 1753C radar detector. It has a function of "testing alerness"...doesn't really work though because you have to engage it to "test yourself".

It does sometimes jolt me back to reality though, if my mind was off dreaming of something else while i'm behind the wheel. Thats its only saving grace.

and yes, I know its not going to save me from a ticket, so I drive reasonably. Its just that I like to know when I'm under survalence (or find a supermarket when i'm hungry)

Re:Bad move

[Anonymous Coward]

Q: Does this argument also apply to seat belts?

I need more sleep

[Anonymous Coward]

When I first read the article, I thought it was about drivers to keep a digital camera from going into sleep mode, but then I reread it and well BAM, there we go..

Count yourself as lucky.

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in the UK Volvo drivers have a bad name with motorcyclists. Why? Because they are very safe cars and so many Volvo drivers take less care than someone in a less safe car.

In the USA, the "safe" drivers are in SUVs.

Be scared.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Nothing a little fourth grade toybox can't solve..

[heldlikesound]

I'd just wear those glasses with the bulging eyeballs on the front. Just try to stop me from sleeping while I'm driving!

What next!?!?!? No sleeping in class?!?!? How far can this narcophobia extend!

Re:heat waves?

[mirko]

This still cannot be a "certified" application and I guess the future lies between:

• automatic pilot (there are some ongoing studies concerning self-assembling car-trains in France and maybe elsewhere, for what I know)
• the train pilot system which consist of a sensor that has to be manually activated every few seconds otherwise the train artificial brain concludes the driver is not available and stops.

let's see here

[AssProphet]

digital cameras are being -blink- mounted in cars to watch the eye movements of -blink- drivers to make sure that they are -blink- awake.

Must. Stay. Awake. -blink- Slashdot so addicting -blink- I'll be fine tomorrow....

Customization?

[Bam359]

Can I get the car to say "Danger Will Robinson, Danger" when Joe Jaywalker croses the street, and I am not paying attention? Or will it just beep at me like my alarm clock, that I have gotten so used to that I don't even wake up the first 3 times I hit the snooze button?

Re:Customization?

[polecat_redux]

Can I get the car to say "Danger Will Robinson, Danger" when Joe Jaywalker croses the street

No, but I think some of the newer SUV's come equipped with an optional "cattle guard" (previously only found on the front of locomotives). Why even stop? It's not like you'll get hurt.

Hash collisions or car collisions?

[Anonymous Coward]

An automotive collision has nothing whatsoever to do with a hash collision, though they share the same name. So far as I know, vehicle navigation codes use hashing no more than any other type of codes. Why does the parent bring hashing into this?

Bad

[johansalk]

It will encourage complacency. I bet it'll cause more accident because people will just drop the need to remain fully alert and will just think they can rely on the camera to alarm them of any problems.

French car

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a French car (Citroen C5) equiped with a _real_ (not a hack) system to alert the driver when he is changing lane without indicating. Seems to be pretty efficient. As far as I remember, it's the first time a French car is actually innovating in a while! Oh well...

--
kTag

Re:French car

[Seumas]

Unfortunately, being a French car, it constantly yields to every other car on the road at every intersection, even when it doesn't need to.

Re:French car

[dajak]

Do you ever drive in France? French cars don't yield. French traffic is one of the passive defense systems that defends France from foreign invasion.

I would expect the American cars to:
- yield to every other car,
- take turns very slowly,
- brake for anything,
- have no option to set the traffic jurisdiction it is driving in (instead it will complain that the traffic signs and other traffic are stupid),
- stop at the edge of European inner cities and insist that there is no road there, and
- be unable to recognize an empty parking spot if it cannot hold at least three cars.

In other news...

[C10H14N2]

"A German company called Bosch." WTF?

In other news, an automobile manufacturer called "Chrysler."

Damn these new fangled companies popping up everywhere, why in MY day...oh never mind.

Re:In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

In your day, that German company called Bosch probably already existed. They are a very large car electronics manufacturer.

Re:In other news...

[C10H14N2]

It is safe to say that, if you are alive, "a Germany company called Bosch" is probably familiar to you (and at least 50 years older than you to boot, since it has been around for over a century), so we should be able to dispense with the preface "a German company called." That's like saying "an American company called General Electric." No shit?

False positives make this system useless

[MoobY]

If the camera sees something the driver doesn't, probably a beep or something will go off in the car. And as we all know, those cameras won't be 100% full proof, making unnecessary, false positive beeps all the time, irritating the driver who turns off the system after using it for 2 days or so. I'm not going to buy this as I think the immense flood of false positives will make this system very useless.

Seriously..

[bmantz65]

How many bells and whistles do we need in a car to tell you, "Hey, you should be doing this! Not that!"? Lane change warnings, backup cameras and noises (understandable on trailers or Betty Homemaker's H2)and now this. IMO, I think having all these noises happening would cause you to maybe overreact to the situation and create something worse. For example, you're just falling asleep or in a light sleep and *BLAR BLAR* you're alarm goes off, causing your head to jolt upright causing you to strain your neck. Next, your arm flies out uncontrollably to turn off the alarm, but you hit it and it flies off and hits your hand on the way down. All this while *BLAR BLAR* is still going on. Now imagine if you're driving.

Alternative

[ceeam]

I suppose those devices from "Clockwork Orange" should work better. Dang, how is a digicam supposed to image anything when you are sitting in the dark?

Re:Alternative

[mrchaotica]

Infrared? Night-vision, maybe? C'mon, this is Slashdot; you shouldn't even need to ask something like that! ; )

Car will be able to detected impaired drivers

[Anonymous Coward]

How easy would it be to program something like this to read your eyes for glassy, redness, dilation and not let you start the ignition based on its determination of impairment.

That's great and all...

[Jacer]

but what about those sensors they have on the stair machines? Why not place those types of sensores onto the steering wheel to measure your phsyiological state. When your heart rate drops a bit, or sudden changes in your breathing occur it could make a sound or something. It'd have to be worked out to not respond when you have a 'near miss' and your body goes into over drive, but I think it'd be much more effective.

God damn this is old news.

[jolajolajola]

This popped up a year ago. When will Slashdot actually accept news that is up and current, rather than accepting old posts?

nanobot spys

[connor_macleod]

Keep wary about these things - they'll all employ nanotechnology to broadcast your image & location to big brother ;)

Re:heat waves?

[MikeDX]

I would imiagine it would be a false positive. Which is much better than a false negative, false postive makes you a little annoyed for a short while.

Yes but too many false positives will cause you to ignore it or find a way to disable it entirely.

Re:French cars *are* innovative

[Arminator]

French cars *are* among the most innovative cars.
Especcially Citroen seems to be at it. They used Headlights that shine into curves depending on how far you turn the steering wheel already in the 60s or 70s.
They were the first to use a very soft suspension (advertised with a car bumping over a freshly plowed field with raw eggs on the backseat. The eggs remained intact).
They built a hygropneumatic suspension that automatically stiffens the suspension. For example you drive a car speedily over a long hump, and the inertia lifts the car upwards, while the road begins to go down again. Now imagine a curve right after that. With a soft suspension the car will swing around with a lot of load-cycle changes, while the hygropneumatic suspension stiffens and keeps the car steady.
This in turn is an evolution of their suspension that adjusts the height of the car's rear so that you can easily load the trunk in a lowered car, and when startinging, it lifts the back up again compensating the load in the trunk.
Furthermore a lot of automobile companies (Opel, Volkswagen among them) used Peugeots Diesel-motor technology, since it is among the best engineered Dieselmotors.
And a few years back Peugeot made the HDI Diesel engine, that produced very high exhaust heat, so the carbon particles get burned, eliminating the black smoke from Diesel engines.

So, when do you think did the French cars stop being innovative?

P.S. I'm *not* French or something like that...

I guess I'm pretty sleepy...

[bennomatic]

I thought the title said something about "sleazy drivers". Time for bed.

Another safety feature - all nice and well, but...

[EkkiEkkiShiwaddle]

Allthough I'm all in favour of stashing each and every car out there with as much devices to increase safety, each time I read an article like this I still have my doubts.

The problem with all these safety features is that people feel too safe in their cars.

Going to fast? My wonderfull ABS system will bring me to a halt no matter what. Accelerating beyond my limits? Why, ASC will keep me on track. DSC will keep me on the road in those nasty corners. The new Citroen C5 has that nifty lane departure alert system, so why would I even keep my hands on the wheel, my car'll tell me when I'm flying off the road just in time!

Ok, ok, maybe I'm exagerating things a bit here, but you wouldn't believe the number of people that actually believe this stuff (or at least appear to be driving as if they believe it).

IMHO, the driver is and should always be responsible for his/her car, not some autopilot. People should be made aware of the risks of ignoring these systems more, than they should be made aware of situations they should've seen for themselves.

Know the limits of yourself. Know the limits of your car. If you go beyond either of those, no system out there now nor in future will keep you on the road.

Stuff like this scares the crap out of bikers

[peterpi]

Sure, this may be "Pretty neat technology", but not driving when you're tired is pretty neat too.

The amount of technology designed to let the car driver fall asleep is terrifying to those who actually have something to loose from an accident.

Re:Stuff like this scares the crap out of bikers

[Anonymous Coward]

something to loose from an accident.

Are they loosening their pants?

Re:Stuff like this scares the crap out of bikers

[wed128]

It's not designed to let the driver fall asleep, it's designed to make sure the driver doesn't. RTFA.

Re:Stuff like this scares the crap out of bikers

[peterpi]

It's obviously not intentionally designed to let the driver fall asleep, but it will make the car seem safer. If the driver feels safer, they'll allow greater risk in their driving.

Good advice

[SuperKendall]

For that to work, I'd have to assume every motorist around me is wide awake, sober and not trying to kill me. That's stupid. I pretend there's a million dollar bounty on my head and everyone's trying to hit me. It's my responsibility to make sure they don't.

I think that's good advice, not just for bikers. I drive my car like that too. You have to be looking everywhere as who can say where danger will come from?

I've avoided five certain rear-end collisions alone over the span of my driving just from assuming every single person on the road behind me intends to hit me.

Hard times for men

[kickdown]

Damn, you wont ever convince a girl to do a blowjob in your car when she sees a camera.

Re:Hard times for men

[EkkiEkkiShiwaddle]

Most chicks are freaky enough nowadays not to be scared away by a camera anymore. It's the 'I love Slashdot' sticker on your car that drives 'em away!

Re:Hard times for men

[AndroidCat]

But a car is supposed to drive people away..?

Re:Hard times for men

[StikyPad]

Five thousand "girls gone wild" say you're wrong.

Re:Hard times for men

[NardofDoom]

Most chicks are freaky enough nowadays not to be scared away by a camera anymore.

And where did you get this little factoid? Porn movies?

Re:Hard times for men

[EkkiEkkiShiwaddle]

Porn movies? Hardly. Given the amount of spam I get on some of my yahoo accounts from chicks who want me to visit them on site x to see their webcam, there are a lot of them out there :)

Re:Hard times for men

[Anonymous Coward]

2 words: Taxicab Confessions

Re:Hard times for men

[kickdown]

You know, there is a *slight* difference between the girls that send you spam and girls you meet outside your computer in the real life (if you do). Most of those real life girls definitely dont like being caught on camera, partly because they are afraid of seeing themselves sometime later on "bangbus" or something. Of course, you can dream of those spam-sluts giving you a blowjob for free in your car while you film them. But that is, well, a dream (at least I hope so... if not, you are a damn lucky bastard).

Other applications.

[XpirateX]

I could see this useful if it was a portable device...maybe for my business classes? One camera focused on my instructor, one on my eyes. If he looks at me when I'm alseep, alert me to pay attention (until the next time he looks away).

check head tilt

[ufnoise]

If you are concerned about people falling asleep, it might be easier/cheaper to attach a sensor to detect when the driver's head tilts forward. If the driver is otherwise easily distracted, perhaps he/she shouldn't be allowed to drive at all.

Re:check head tilt

[Feanturi]

attach a sensor to detect when the driver's head tilts forward

That's been out for years. I don't remember the product name, but I think you can still get it. It clips onto one of your ears, looks kind of like a hearing aid. I'm guessing there's a mercury switch in it, for if your head tilts forward for more than a second or two, a blaring alarm goes off in your ear, which stops once your head is back up again.

Re:Hmmmmmmmmmm

[supergiovane]

Talking about Minority Report, it's absurd that Precrime didn't revoke his biometric key right after his escape, and didn't setup the system to issue an alert if he tried to get back into the facility.

Re:Hmmmmmmmmmm

[Sneftel]

So you think that in the future of Minority Report, HR departments are reasonable, well-organized, and responsive? It's sci-fi, man, not fantasy.

Re:Privacy concerns - my rights to speed

[Anonymous Coward]

Well. sowhat ?
I`m glad i dont live where you live, you folks get on my german-autobahn/montana-interstate first ammendment right to speed. As long as no cops around, who cares if i go 155 (mph) or 55 on the offramps anyway ?
whatchu think those hefty pricetags on sportscars are for ? thats tax subsidized prepayments for speeding. basta.

gotta go *g*

Yeah!

[StikyPad]

What? This is not neat. This is a step backwards. If drivers gets accustomed that their car will alert them if they're about to hit something, it will probably encourage them to contiue that extra hour of unsafe driving.

I've been saying that for years. If a fornicator believes that they will not get pregnant/STDs, it will probably encourage them to continue that reprehensible exchange of bodily fluids. Down with condoms!

Re:Hmmmmmmmmmm

[BottleCup]

I have a cousin who looks like he's about to fall asleep all the time (camel eyes) even if he is wide awake. If I have trouble with that I'm sure the digital camera will be worse.

Sleepy Driver Video...

[Purifier]

http://www.stupidvideos.com/?VideoID=729 ;)

Wake up Neo...

[advocate_one]

The Matrix has you...

Re:Wake up Neo...

[advocate_one]

yet again I've encountered the moderator who can't think outside the box and failed to see the funny side or relevance to the topic.

(SNL) Napster hearings:

[ImaLamer]

[ Corey Hart enters in a wheelchair ]

Corey Hart: I'm Corey Hart.

Female Senator: Good Lord! What happened to you?

Corey Hart: I wore my sunglasses at night, and I ended up in a pretty serious car accident.

Re:Another safety feature - all nice and well, but

[step]

You're not exagerating at all. When the first 4WD vehicles came out, there was a sharp increase in accidents. Those idiots didn't realize that just because 4WD climbs better on snow doesn't mean they can go downhill faster. I guess they learned the difference between four-wheel drive and four-wheel brake the hard way. Another misconception: ABS doesn't shorten the braking distance. In fact, you often need a longer time to stop (depending on the surface). The big difference is that the vehicle remains maneuverable while braking as hard as possible. IMHO, either make the car run on full autopilot, or give the driver full control and full responsibility. Giving people an excuse for not paying attention is just asking for trouble. Any automatic system that keeps drivers from doing anything stupid will fail due to new levels of stupidity.

Hmm....

[niboan]

If there is something on the road that is a danger and the driver doesn't see, the car alerts the driver.

So, in other words, its OK to sleep as long as there's nothing dangerous on the road.

Great, this thing makes it much safer to sleep while you're driving, this is just what I've been waiting for. ;-)

win32 drivers

[mrselfdestrukt]

This is great news. I've had lots of problems with my digital camera drivers. I would not call them sleepy though, but almost like ina semi-zombie state...

Times (London) has more inventive methods

[joelethan]

The Times Online (Weds) has a report from the Loughborough Sleep Research Centre on more inventive ways of staying awake at the wheel - including one woman who resorted to trapping her long hair in the sunroof to prevent her nodding off!

TimesOnline Article

/joelethan
-- When I heard I was fired on the car phone, I CAREERED off the road!

Black box for vechiles (not a WIndow Manager :)

[TractorBarry]

The idea behind this article is completely wrong. If you're tired at the wheel you DO NOT need a bit of technology telling you to wake up. You need to STOP DRIVING before you fucking kill someone.

And if you're not aware of what's going on on the road in the first place you should not be driving AT ALL. You should be a passenger in a vechile driven by a competent driver.

But along the same lines...

I've always thought a good idea for the use of digital cameras would be for each vechile to be fitted with four small reasonable quality cameras facing front, rear and sides of the vechile. These would all then feed into a small sealed "blackbox" unit which would store the last hour or so of video footage from each angle.

That way when some idiot driver is asleep at the wheel, changing their CD player, shaving, talking on their bloody 'phone etc. etc. and causes an accident there's absolutely no question of who is at fault. Assuming at least one of the units survives the collision you just check the "blackbox" footage from the vechiles involved.

"Yes Sir/Madam, YOU are 100% to blame and YOU will PAY for the consequences of your actions" (in both a financial and possibly legal sense).

As a cyclist (both motor and mostyl pedal) I am continually amazed at the poor road skills of some drivers and their continued "oh I didn't see you there" attitude. That's because you were'nt fucking paying attention to what's going on you fucking retard.

The only thing better would be the enfoced adoption of D. H. Lawrences idea for road safety. e.g. Put a large metal spike in the middle of the steering wheel 'cause that WILL make you look where you're going !)

Drivers today seem to think their car is some sort of extension to their fucking living room. They pay little enough attention to the road as it is. If you give them any more sensors to rely on they'll start falling asleep at the wheel ("Gee the tech'll wake me if there's danger")

Ah I fell better for a small rant in the morning :)

Re:French cars *are* innovative

[evohe80]

Yep, you're rigth. In fact, the new C5 from Citroen already offers the option of a lane-departure system that will warn the driver if the car crosses the line unintentiously. http://www.citroen.com/CWW/en-US/TECHNOLOGIES/SECU RITY/AFIL/ P.S. I'm not French neither :p

A question for UK drivers

[Motherfucking Shit]

How exactly do you pronounce "Vauxhall" and "Citroen?" From my Merkin point of view, I'd imagine that Vauxhall is something like "Vox-hall," or maybe "Voh-all" if it were a French thing. Citroen, in my mind, is pronounced "Sit-roan," but I get the feeling that isn't correct.

This is a serious question. Am I even close with the pronunciation?

Re:A question for UK drivers

[jd678]

Vauxhall is Vox-all (it's named after part of London, hence no 'h' ;) ). Citroen is pronounced Sit-tron.

Re:A question for UK drivers

[ambrosen]

Well, actually, Citroën is pronounced sit-row-en (row as in "row your boat" not "have a row"), but the UK usage is normally sit-run

Some more "unconventional" methods

[lxt]

There was an article about drivers falling asleep in a UK paper a few days back - some of the more (worrying?) ways drivers have tried to not fall asleep included a air hostess who trapped her hair in the sun roof, so when she would fall asleep the sharp pain in her head would wake her up again, and another man who attached pins around an elastic band on his wrist...

The problem is if people start feeling reassured..

[z1d0v]

...by this feature. They just might feel kinda relaxed about it. Like: 'If I do fall asleep, i will be waken up'

Reminds me of the quote:

[Unique2]

When I die, I want to die like my grandfather-- who died peacefully in
his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.
--Author Unknown

Reliance

[nwmakel]

I wonder what the risks are of becoming too reliant on these sorts of technologies, through which our own judgement and alertness is gradually dimished. Though, 100% reliance on human qualities hasn't been working too well so far, anyway.

Another way to keep the driver awake

[FraggedSquid]

Would be a big sharp spike in the middle of the steering wheel

Re:French cars *are* innovative

[10Ghz]

Furthermore a lot of automobile companies (Opel, Volkswagen among them) used Peugeots Diesel-motor technology, since it is among the best engineered Dieselmotors.

Ford uses Peugeot's diesel-engines, but VW's TDI is made by Volkswagen (more precisely, it's originally an Audi-engine and VW got it from there (VW owns Audi)).

CarTrain

[wowbagger]

And building a dedicated railbed and running an AutoTrain would be even easier, far more efficent, and MUCH faster.

This is the thing that ticks me off about all of this "Intelligent Hiway" crap - we KNOW how to build trains. We KNOW how to build railbeds capable of supporting 300MPH trains. We KNOW how to build rail cars that will hold automobiles. R&D? We need no "R" - the research is done, we just need the development.

However, since we DON'T need any research, nobody wants to look at this technology - it isn't "sexy". So everybody talks about building more intelligence into the car - but of course we will need a huge quantity of money to fund research for those pesky problems like actually dealing with the one driver who's car is NOT on full automatic drive who INSISTS upon getting into that lane.

Re:CarTrain

[Short Circuit]

I doubt people would be willing to give up the comfort of having their own driveway...unless you plan on having such switching systems go all the way to peoples' homes.

Plus, there's important versatility of a vehicle with normal tires. In Jurassic Park (the book, not so much the movie), there was emphasis that the jeeps were much more useful than the tour cars, even if they weren't as cheap and convienient.

Re:CarTrain

[Anonymous Coward]

...nobody wants to look at this technology - it isn't "sexy".

It also isn't useful for trips of less than a few hundred miles.

An automated travel lane on a highway could be used for 5 miles, 10, 50, or 500miles.

Re:CarTrain

[wowbagger]

No, look here

The idea of an autotrain is that you drive your normal, every day car to the train, and put it on the train. You then go forward, sit in a nice comfy seat with 110V available, and ride to your destination. You then get off the train, reclaim your car, and go on your merry way.

The problem is that right now, the Autotrains are only on the east coast, and are running over shared rails (thus they cannot get moving much faster than 100MPH).

The point I am making is that rather than trying to get everybody to upgrade their cars, AND building a dedicated lane for the upgraded cars, AND trying to keep morons out of the dedicated lane with their not-yet-updated cars, you build a rail bed and a smaller number of trains.

Re:CarTrain

[Short Circuit]

Neat. I'd definately take advantage of it for traveling, but I don't see it becoming popular for short distances. Who wants to go to work on someone else's schedule?

Re:CarTrain

[wowbagger]

If you are falling asleep on short distances, you have other problems that need addressing.

Re:CarTrain

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen similar with trucks in Austria (or maybe it was Switzerland). There's a sleeper car up front for all the drivers, they wake up at the border and drive off.

Re:CarTrain

[nn5ks]

"And building a dedicated railbed and running an AutoTrain would be even easier, far more efficent, and MUCH faster."

The main problem I see with this idea is that, when I travel long enough distances to justify the use of something like a train or bus, I almost always have to arrange transportation at the other end. Some of my final destinations are well off the beaten path and require either a manual-drive car or a taxi. In most of the cases, the destination is far out in rural areas where a taxi fee would be prohibitive. I know for some people there is sufficient public transportation to allow getting from point A to B without a privately owned vehicle is easy but this is not true for all.

The idea of having a POV that would allow me to use a controlled highway during the bulk of the trip but would also allow independent, manual control when public transport is not available or too expensive would be ideal.

"...pesky problems like actually dealing with the one driver who's car is NOT on full automatic drive who INSISTS upon getting into that lane."

The use of cameras and toll-tag like devices will filter the miscreants out. Maybe not instantly but soon enough. Law enforcement and patrols are already well-researched and do function fairly well (while I will be the first to admit there is room for improvement. Maybe a little research is due...

--

There is no need for you to drive me crazy. Insanity is within walking distance.

Re:CarTrain

[Far Northerner]

This is where powerful computers can and should help. Everytime I am stuck in a traffic jam or hit five consecutive red lights, I wonder whether there is no way to use the equivalent of some Earth Simulator to simulate the driving habits on a busy highway. When, how, which, where cars get on the highway, where do they go? What does is take to avoid traffic jams. In the same vein they could try and simulate other alternative ways of transportation, like the trains, automactic lanes etc.. Why not simulate a city with all its transportation system. They could also add some external variables like the cost, the lost time and impact on the environment. They could first use some kind of high in the sky observation post equipped with camerasabove the city to get the initial raw data and then integrate the data in models and simulate what changes in our modes of transportation are more efficient and acceptable. Sometimes I think that the auto industry is so powerful that they would not allow anything that would diminish the use of individual cars.

Re:CarTrain

[rebel47]

We don't need to build more intelligence into the cars. We need to build more intelligence into the drivers. Stiffer driving tests and more rigorous enforcement of existing traffic laws would also help.

Re:Hmmmmmmmmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Not a problem.

IR Cameras see through most sunglasses as if they were "clear". I've used a number of B&W cameras that had some IR sensativity and they all had no problem seeing someone's eyes behind sunglasses.

I'm holding out for a Johnny Cab.

[Anonymous Coward]

But only because when you stiff them on fares they get angry, try to kill you and burst into flames.

Friends don't let...

[Nick Fury]

This is why you take a friend with you so that when you are about to hit an objct the friend yells "What the hell are you thinking? WAKE UP!!" And you promptly swirve and such. Good friends don't let other friends run into other motorists or objects,

Re:French cars *are* innovative

[Anonymous Coward]

So we should blame the PRV motor on the Swedes, right? (puegeot, renault, volvo joint venture motor)

Personal experience.

[hummassa]

I did once -- returning from a gf's home (10km/6mi away) at 4am -- sleep for a full kilometer (a full minute) in a straight avenue. It scared the bejeezus out of me when I woke up. Since that happened, I avoided driving asleep. I stop and take a nap in the rest areas or in a gas station at the first sign of sleepyness.

Re:Personal experience.

[gearry]

Take my advice. If you are at all sleepy than rest before driving. After spending an afternoon installing Windows patches (no joke) I left work for a 30 minute commute to my new home. I had two weeks left at this job and would not have to commute after that. I remember feeling tired and bored and glad to be leaving work, but I thought that going out in the cold and driving (and being away from computers) would revive me. I was wrong. I woke up 12 days later in an ICU unit. I had driven full speed head on into a semi truck 10 minutes after leaving work. I am lucky to be typing this. If you think you will be fine, assume you are wrong. A few minutes rest is nothing. I just started walking without crutches this week, and the accident was 10 months ago. I don't want sympathy, I just don't want others to endure what I have been through. I certainly won't drive again if I feel at all tired, but that would not stop me from buying a system like this if the cost was reasonable.

Watches you

[pagal_paanda]

Alright, I can't hold in much longer. I have to come out and say it: In Soviet Russia, cars already watches you.

Re:French cars *are* innovative

[10101001 10101001]

Not to be a complete ass, but one of those innovation, the turning headlight, is a bit older than the 60s. Perhaps you've heard the story of Preston Tucker? It does seem a bit ironic that Microsoft was never charged with fraud for all their vaporware. In any case, there is little innovation in most established industry since most such companies are more interested in a steady income than anything. I don't know the French automotive industry or Citroen, though.

So if it was just a little more proactive and

[CFD339]

adjusted to be just way too hypersensitive to potential dangers, it could be called ....

my wife.

This is pretty scary.

[Puls4r]

No thanks. This scares me just like the data-recording units in some new cars. If you don't think the data is going to be stored for people to reference - 'Insurance company / police / etc', then I think you're off base.

The folks talking about automatic driving systems are also pretty unrealistic. Vision systems in use in manufacturing environments are notriously touchy and difficult to keep running, even with proper illumination and constrat control.

This will be used as a law enforcement tool. Those people who stop driving when they grow tired will continue to do so, and those that don't will disable the system and continue to drive, just like folks who refuse to wear seatbelts disable the idiot bell and light.

Again, no thanks.

Re:This is pretty scary.

[Peyna]

This will be used as a law enforcement tool.

It's more likely to be used to show that a person caused an accident because he/she was asleep/inattentive. If you're asleep and driving recklessly, the cop isn't going to need some device to tell him that you're driving recklessly. (Usually sleeping while driving isn't necessarily illegal, but reckless driving is.)

Re:This is pretty scary.

[jschottm]

Those people who stop driving when they grow tired will continue to do so, and those that don't will disable the system

I partially agree with you, but I think there's quite a few people who could and would benefit from this if it were done well (which I agree with you, is not likely at this point). In a previous job (which I still do as freelance from time to time) the nature of the business dictated lots of long distance driving while tired. I'd like to think that I did so safely, and 5 years with hundreds of thousands of miles without an incident testify to that.

I did so with use of legal stimulants, knowing virtually all of my routes by heart, and by knowing where my actual limits were and getting off the road when I crossed them. If I had a system that would help alert me to those limits, I'd have considered using them.

Also, I'm willing to guess that many of the sleep deprivation related accidents are caused by drivers who aren't used to the same warning signs that I knew so well. A system that actually worked well would prolly be of great use to the large group of people who normally only commute around town and do the long drives a few times a year. Assuming that the drivers actually listen to the system...

Despite driving one of the notorius stretches of highway in the country (I-81 in VA if you care), I rarely felt threatened by the oft-sleep deprived truck drivers - it's the family trips and arrogant yuppies in SUVs that caused most of the accidents I witnessed.

Re:French cars *are* innovative

[Matt_UK]

They were the first to use a very soft suspension (advertised with a car bumping over a freshly plowed field with raw eggs on the backseat. The eggs remained intact).

The 2CV.
I've still got one of these! 36 bhp of fun, with no danger of falling asleep at the wheel (to uncomfortable)
Designed in the 30's, first produced in the late 40's, end of production in 90's. One hell of a car!

In Soviet Russia...

[Anonymous Coward]

...your wheel keeps its eye on YOU!

Typical future insurance claim...

[carlmenezes]

If there is something on the road that is a danger and the driver doesn't see, the car alerts the driver.

"My car didn't wake me up."

REST! Don't drive dead tired!

[Anonymous Coward]

My sister fell asleep at the wheel once while on the motorway and told us that she had only blinked, only to open her eyes after feeling what she described as a bump.

I once fell asleep at the wheel. I was dog-tired, 4am on a study session (no booze involved, just plain tired), and the drive home was a short one, so what the hell. There's this really long straight part in the road, and I blinked, only that between my eyes closing and opening like five blocks (and two traffic lights) had gone by!

Scared shitless and wide awake, I pulled up at the first gas station I could, filled myself with coffee and finished the drive home at a crawl on the right lane...

Good thing that $DEITY watches for little children and stupid grown college kids with cars...

The big problem with trains...

[Colin Smith]

And this is an important point. They are group vehicles.

What this means is that they have to stop at every station on the route in the offchance that someone wants to get on or off. This makes it slow, the average speed is only a fraction of their peak or rated speed. Because they are group vehicles they also have to run to a schedule which means that you have to wait for a train. Both features make journey times significantly longer than an individual vehicle would take.

Also, because the rolling stock is carrying a large group, it is heavy and relatively few of them are built which means no mass manufacture. The supporting infrastructure must also be heavy to cope with the size of the vehicle. This makes it expensive.

Ok, you've got me started now. Group vehicles also simply can't go where everyone wants to go, their ridership is only the few percentage of the population who are with in easy reach of a station. If you add more stations to increase the number of people who use it the trains have to spend more time stopped and average speed suffers further making it slower. Because they don't go exactly where you want to go you have to switch modes or lines, each time you switch you incur a journey time penalty waiting on the schedule.

Scheduled vehicles have to run whether there are people to use it or not, this kills the overall efficiency, the vehicles are heavy, accelerating them and decelerating them takes a lot of energy. During rush hour the ridership is such that it's very efficient. As soon as you get outside the rush hour period and the ridership falls so does the efficiency.

So you end up paying a lot for relatively poor performance.

Re:The big problem with trains...

[kavau]

Unfortunately many people living in the USA have never seen an efficient, fast, and convenient train system, and therefore take for granted that such a system cannot exist.

Travelling by train (both local and long-distance) is generally much more convenient than going by car. It generally does not take more time, and sometimes is significantly faster (especially if the roads are jammed).

Granted, trains are not as flexible as cars. But a good public bus infrastructure can compensate for that. Plus, you don't have the hassle of finding a parking spot (and getting parking tickets for staying 5 minutes over time), and you can drink a few beers if you feel like it, without worrying about having to drive home.

When I lived in Zurich and Toronto, I did not own a car because I felt it would be more of a liability than a convenience. I was able to get anywhere hassle-free by public transport. Now I've moved to Los Angeles and will probably get a car soon, because unfortunately the LA public transportation system is as efficient as using chopsticks to mow your lawn.

Public transportation can be a blessing, if it's implemented in the right way.

Re:The big problem with trains...

[Colin Smith]

I live in the UK, we have a comprehensive train system. It is neither fast, convenient nor inexpensive.

Inter city trains make sense. When they can travel long distances without stopping they are at their fastest and most efficient. Urban trains make no sense, the continual stop/start nature of the journeys ruins the efficiency and average speed, the multi stage journeys required to travel anywhere but along the corridor of travel makes journey times extremely long, 2-3 times as long even accounting for road congestion.

What's needed is a system which combines the benefits of trains with the benefits of cars:

1: *Individual* vehicles. They can be light, the infrastructure can be inexpensive. There is no need to stop at intermediate stations, the average speed can therefore be very high and journey times very short.

2: Run it on a track or guideway. Fully automated *today*, not in 50 years, reduces costs and increases performance. Can be electrified removing local sources of polution and using high efficiency electric motors.

3: Infrastructure is small and light because the vehicles are small and light, the vehicles can be produced in large numbers via mass production methods, reducing costs. The same can be done for the track infrastructure, this means far more land area can be covered than rail at much lower cost which means more ridership which means fewer cars.

4: The vehicles wait for you, they don't run to a schedule, and because the stations can be laid out in a network rather than a corridor there would be no or much less need to change modes of travel. The result is good overall journey times.

Such a system should have a higher performance and lower cost than rail or cars.

http://faculty.washington.edu/jbs/itrans/prtquic k. htm

Re:The big problem with trains...

[instarx]

Inter city trains make sense. When they can travel long distances without stopping they are at their fastest and most efficient. Urban trains make no sense, the continual stop/start nature of the journeys ruins the efficiency and average speed, the multi stage journeys required to travel anywhere but along the corridor of travel makes journey times extremely long, 2-3 times as long even accounting for road congestion.

Excuse me, but this makes no sense. Please check with the inhabitants of New York City, Washington, D.C., Chicago, London, Paris, Moscow and the US Northeast in general for the efficiency of their urban train systems.

Re:Kids department, 2nd floor please

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone can mount cameras in his car and connect them to motion sensors, or whatever.

If you're driving at 60mph, everything, outside the windows appears to be in motion. Things that are dangerous would include those things that are in front of me and getting closer. Things that are not particularly dangerous are the guardrails on the side of the road, signs, trees, etc. (unless your car turns, placing those objects in my car's path)

Cool, I can see it now!

[FauxReal]

With this and a on-board vehicle navigation system in a self parking car I can get an extra 40 minute nap and a shave in on my way to work!

Hmmm....

[hashwolf]

Just wait until your boss put one of those in your cubicle.

Why not just drive and let me get back to sleep?

[crovira]

Now THAT would be helpful technology.

Putting cars on trains is impractical

[Colin Smith]

"So why not bring the car along?"

A person takes up 2 square feet of space and say 100kg of mass. A car takes up around 60 square feet of space and 2000kg of mass.

A single train will often carry around 500-800 people. 500 cars would weigh around 1,000,000kg over and above the passengers. That's a lot of extra weight to lug around, a lot of energy to accelerate it and decelerate at each stop. On top of this, the train would have to be around 6000 feet long to accomodate the cars.

The result is that to be practical the trains would have to be much smaller carring a fraction of the numbers of people, this pushes the cost way up because the infrastructure cost and running costs are spread over far fewer customers. It might be practical for very long distance express lines with no or few stops.

Re:Putting cars on trains is impractical

[NardofDoom]

Better idea: Design transportation systems so you don't need a car to fucking live your life. There are probably 15 cities throughout the US where it's possible to live without a car. If people had little trouble getting around cities and suburbs without a car, then they wouldn't mind leaving their cars at homes.

A while ago I heard a report on NPR about Chinese people buying cars. They thought of buying cars as a sign of progress. I thought "No, real progress is when you don't have to own a car in order to live a normal life."

I spend $20/week on gas, $1400/year on insurance, and another $1K/year on maintenance. That's $3,440 per year just to drive back and forth to work and occasionally take a road trip.

If mass transit for the ~40 miles I commute to work cost $14.27/day, it would cost the same amount for my commuting per year. And I'd be able to have 2 hours a day to sit on a train and use my laptop to do things instead of avoiding getting killed by idiot drivers.

Re:Putting cars on trains is impractical

[Colin Smith]

"Design transportation systems so you don't need a car to fucking live your life."

Here you go:

http://kinetic.seattle.wa.us/getonboard.html

They should really be designing *cities* so that you don't need to travel every time you want something.

e.g.
http://www.carfree.com/

Re:Putting cars on trains is impractical

[NardofDoom]

Desigining cities isn't an option for a lot of places. Like Harrisburg, where I live. Not only does it have horrible urban sprawl that limits the desirability of city design, but the entire area is divided into townships. This balkanizes the area so the only governments that can effect real change are the state and federal. Local governments are caught up in internal and external rivalries.

So the state or federal government needs to provide a system that can be overlayed over a city or town's current infrastructure and mandate its construction.

Why cameras?

[Dan East]

Why use a camera to look for road hazards, and not a type of radar?

How is a camera supposed to watch my eyes when I'm wearing sunglasses? The majority of car accidents involving fatalities are from falling asleep, and most of those occur in the daytime, not at night (from my direct experience as an EMT).

What about those devices you wear on your head that sound an alarm if your head droops forward or to the side? Those have been available for quite a while, and it seems like it would be more reliable simply because of their simplicity.

Falling asleep behind the wheel is definitely a huge problem, and results in more deaths than DUI. The reason is simple - when someone falls asleep traveling at 70 MPH with the cruise control on they do not slow down at all before the impact occurs. At that speed the vehicle can easily cross the median causing the worst type of wrecks - vehicle to vehicle with a net velocity of 140 MPH or more.

Most of these wrecks do not involve commercial drivers - those drivers are highly regulated, well trained, have to maintain logs, etc. People traveling long-distance, usually while on vacation, are the prime culprits. They simply want to get to their destination and will push themselves too far, driving far longer than what commercial drivers are restricted to.

Here are some stats on accidents in VA. It clearly shows that majority of fatal accidents occur in daytime and do not involve alcohol.

http://www.dmv.state.va.us/webdoc/pdf/vacrashes_ 03 .pdf

Dan East

Re:Hmmmmmmmmmm

[sxtxixtxcxh]

i'd that that would be the IT department's job.
and we all know IT departments are run by nazis.

:P

My wife...

[Sgt_Jake]

does the same thing. Only she emits a high screeching noise at random intervals while I'm driving, usually articulating something I've done wrong. Or could do better. Or that the turn is coming up in just 3.2 miles. Sometimes I like to aim for obstructions to see if I can short it out but typically it just means the program runs longer. I swear she had a remote but I'll be damned if I can find it.

Re:heat waves?

[LiENUS]

Yes but too many false positives will cause you to ignore it or find a way to disable it entirely.

As long as the manufacturer doesnt get blaimed for accidents it will look good on them and as such won't be a problem with them if it is disabled entirely.

peripheral vision

[eegad]

I'm not sure I'd like one of these devices. Many obstacles I encounter are noticed by me in my peripheral vision. If I had to look at every potentially hazardous object to keep some alarm from going off that might get pretty annoying.

Visualize reaction time - killer app for car

[Anonymous Coward]

What's needed is a way to visualize the reaction time or danger zone. For example, if the dash overlays a line (or area) showing the point your car could stop at factoring in the reaction time, speed, braking power, etc then drivers would know when they are following too close. That would provide the feedback where people can more accurately judge the risk they want to take, and more importantly their passengers can put social pressure on them to have a larger safety zone or drive slower.

This system would need to know your eye level to project the information correctly, but instead of a fancy camera to spot your eye level this could be done with a simple adjustment control like lining up the base of the projection with the hood of the car.

Married people don't need this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, we already have this nagging technology sitting in the passenger seat.

Re:Married people don't need this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but that applies to only 0.001% of /.

Re:heat waves?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes but too many false positives will cause you to ignore it or find a way to disable it entirely.

Fortunately, the system has a "disable false positives" setting.

Sleeping With Eyes Open

[Anonymous Coward]

From personal experience, I can tell you that if you continue to push yourself too far, you can eventually fall asleep with your eyes wide open. If the techology can't detect that condition, it sounds like it could do more harm than good. Fortunately for me, I somehow kept the car on the road, but I still marvel at the several miles of road that I don't remember. Now when my eyelids get heavy, I don't try to push through it.

Mother-in-law setting

[charlieo88]

Now even the car will nag you about your driving.

Does NOT measure drowsiness

[awtbfb]

If you want a real drowsiness detector, go get one of these. It watches your eyes, not the road. As such, it actually measures drowsiness directly rather than something that is affected by drowsiness.

Disclaimer: I worked on a project related to this Carnegie Mellon spin-off before it became a product.

Tom Welling of Smallville should have been cast

[Anonymous Coward]

It makes sense to use consistency, but obviously the big whigs are idiots - Tom Welling would make the perfect movie star superman.

yeah pretty neat IF YOU HATE FREEDOM

[Anonymous Coward]

sounds like another reason for the insurance companies to monitor your every move.

Car cameras for pedestrian protection

[Feanturi]

For a long time I've wanted there to be cameras in cars, that watch the driver's head orientation under certain conditions. You know the kind, the car is at a complete stop. The driver is waiting to make a right turn. The driver's head is to the left, watching traffic, and does not move the entire time, until their hole appears, and they pull into it, head still to the left and only coming back to forward after they're already moving. Meanwhile the pedestrian on the right has been wondering if they're ever going to get any eye contact from this driver, and should maybe just hoof it.. SPLAT.

I want a camera system that will stall the car if it has just been at a stop, signal lights are indicating a direction, but the driver is not actually looking in that direction as they turn the wheel and start to move the car. That should be an instant stall. Possibly with some mild engine damage as an object lesson.

It's needed

[MrScience]

This guy might have lived.

The company that created the tech to capture that video has a few more (non-graphic). Click Rear to change to the internal camera.

Go further

[Random832]

have an entire train that's _just_ for cars - you bring your own seating/etc. maybe have it provide 12VDC for the car to plug into somehow so you don't have to run the engine to listen to the radio and so on.

What I need

[serutan]

Is one that reminds me to stop at the store on the way home from work and get milk. And drop off the video before it gets overdue. And sit up straight! You'll give yourself a hunchback. And how can you stand to listen to that music???You're gonna make yourself deaf!

Stiffer driving tests

[wowbagger]

AMEN BROTHER!

I'd like to see them require a ride-along for license renewal, with three possible outcomes:

FAIL - no renewal for you today, try again later.
PASS - OK, you get a new license. See you in a couple of years.
CONDITIONAL - IF you PASSed your last exam, renew for one year. If you had a CONDITIONAL or FAIL last time, then FAIL.

Make people have to make an appointment (to cut down on waiting) (AND STAFF THE DAMN DMV TO MEET THOSE SCHEDULES) and make them reschedule not sooner than 2 working days after a failed test (e.g. wait 2 days at least to retest).

So if you are not 100% sure of your skills, you'd better try to renew a few weeks before your license expires.

Image analysis is the wrong solution.

[triso]

Pointing a camera at the driver's face and doing image analysis is not a good way of finding out if the driver is falling asleep. It means the driver cannot wear sunglasses and cannot easily move her head to look out the side mirror or do a shoulder check.
Having a driver respond to a stimulus that could not be responded to if the driver were distracted or dozing is much better.

don't like it at all

[Squigley]

This is just going to encourage worse, less attentive driving than already.

People are going to figure "I don't have to pay full attention to the road now, if something pops out in front of me, then my car will warn me and I'll look up from (whatever I'm doing)".

Where "whatever I'm doing" is one of:

reading the paper/a book
talking on the phone
playing with a laptop/car stereo
etc etc

If you find driving boring, and you want to be entertained on the phone/using gadgets etc, then don't drive.

Drive your car to the train station, and get on the train, then play with your toys and gadgets, or get on a bus, or car pool, and take turns to be bored while driving.