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

[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/

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).

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?

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.

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!

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.