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New Smartphone Tech To Alert Pedestrians: 'You Are About To Be Hit By a Car'
cartechboy writes "Usually, smartphones are a problem for humans transporting themselves — a massive distraction. But Honda is working on a way to use smartphones to protect pedestrians from bad drivers. The 'V2P' (Vehicle-to-Pedestrian) tech uses a smartphone's GPS and dedicated short range communications (DSRC) to warn drivers when a pedestrian say, steps out from behind a parked car. So the driver sees a dashboard message warning of an approaching pedestrian (which also notes whether said walker is using phone, texting or listening to music — which sort of shouldn't matter as you, uhm, brake.) The lucky pedestrian gets an alert on their phone telling them there's a DSRC-equipped car coming – that's if, say, actually looking at the road isn't telling you that already."
The lesson here is to always keep your eyes on your smartphone when you're crossing the street. If you get an alert, stop where you are and read it! Relatedly, there's another phone app in development to help you avoid gunfire.
"You will not win the lottery!"
"Whoa! Good thing you warned me, phone, I was about to buy a ticket ... um ... this is one of those Catch 22s isn't it?"
"HA HA HA!"
"Damn."
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
You were hit by a car......30 seconds ago.
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Will it display said pedestrian's point value?
"...Good!"
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A similar technique could be used to avoid muggings. A user would download the MugMe app, and a DSRC equipped mugger would detect that you were near - instead of having to physically assault you, he would simply input the percentage of cash on hand you have that is to be debited to his account, and a pre-paid mailing box would be sent to your home wherein you could deposit your belongings on return. It would avoid ruining a night out and physical contact with the lower classes.
You might wonder how well adoption would fare; obviously the state would make installation of the app mandatory for cell phone users and declare physical mugging illegal. To get a mugger DSRC you could employ a system much like taxi medallions, where a would-be mugger had to buy a medallion in order to have the right to mug citizens. This would also have the benefit of capping the amount of crime in a city to a well-regulated value.
Later iterations of the app could add an improvement like the "Aid Other" feature, if someone near was being mugged other users in the area would be alerted and could chose either to "come to aid" in which case there would be a percentage chance the mugger would be virtually "scared" and get nothing. The other option would be "look away furtively" which would confer a one-day pass of freedom from mugging.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If you switch to the reverse mode, will it act like a guidance system for the killer car?
Ezekiel 23:20
Here's a crazy idea.... How about letting the pedestrian take responsibility for stepping into a busy road without looking first? ...actually you'd think it would be a self-rectifying problem through natural selection.
How long before the first lawsuit because someone's phone didn't warn them in time?
Solving Unix problems since 1989...
Meanwhile Google's answer is to embed NFC chips in the bumpers of all cars, so that you can be told you were hit exactly at the moment of impact.
Truly a technically superior solution, and finally a use for those NFC readers they keep shipping.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You don't "protect" the pedestrian by telling the bad driver to activate his brakes. Instead, automatically activate the brakes, take the bad driver out of the loop.
This is similar to my gripe about people who think that a horn is a useful safety device -- as if the guy who you are beeping at is going to listen the horn, figure out that it applies to him, and figure out what he is doing wrong, fast enough to make a difference. Better to simply assume that he's an idiot, and work around him.
In Indian Roads you will get a million alert messages per second... and it doesnt matter if you are pedestrian or the driver!
But on a serious note. I am seeing way to many hairbrain schemes where drivers attention on the road is drawn to a screen where graphical information about potential dangers is displayed.
I am willing to put money on it that in every single case the results of the distraction causes more harm then it prevents.
How the hell can people be banned from using a mobile phone in a car but it is perfectly fine to use Satnav, radio or a gazillion new doodads. Each of them far more distracting then a conversation on the phone.
I while back I even saw an IPad application that uses the camera to interpret the car's dashboard ( http://www.gizmag.com/audi-a3-augmented-reality-manual/28693/ )
Madness.
No, they need to play irritating music with a DO YOU WANT THIS IMPORTANT MESSAGE DISPLAYED? By the time they figure out how to dismiss it their genes will be out of the pool.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
which sort of shouldn't matter as you, uhm, brake
It does matter. Because if some asshole is texting I will not be braking but accelerating.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
>"If someone steps out from between two cars and you hit them, you were going too fast."
In your example, they were jaywalking, which is illegal. If you hit them in a crosswalk, there would be far less question about liability. But you are not automatically at fault when someone just pops out in front of you elsewhere.
Passing the buck again and making no one responsible for being a dumb ass. Yes bad drivers exist and yes none observant pedestrians exist but I don't think we need to use technology to protect these people. If you're going to be walking around in a traffic populated area and not pay attention then don't complain when you get hit. In the same right if you're in a car and you are in an area where there is high pedestrian traffic then pay attention and drive slow. It shouldn't be the phones problem to warm idiots that there own stupidity is about to get them in trouble. After all with a system like this what will end up happening is that the system will start getting blamed when it doesn't work rather then the idiots being blamed for being the problem in the first place.
Use those 2 ultra high def video processors in the front of your face, idiots. I await the coming lawsuits from people who were hit by a car without being warned by their phone in earnest.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
The car is like a predator on the hunt. The inattentive smartphone user is like an oblivious gazelle. Suddenly the car pounces! One less oblivious gazelle on the savannah.
Eventually, selection pressure will weed out the oblivious gazelles, leaving only the alert ones.
Nature is both terrible and beautiful.
In the Netherlands it is always the car-driver's fault if he hits a pedestrian or a cyclist.
If he can't see a pedestrian coming from behind a parked car stepping into the street he should have anticipated that and drive slower if the visibility is preventing this.
There are some exceptions, like on a highway where pedestrians aren't allowed, but in most cases it is going to be difficult to proof that the car driver was not at fault.
Can we please stop doing things to save people not worth saving? This is in the same class as putting warning labels on Lawn Mowers that you shouldn't pick them up and try to use them as hedge trimmers, or warning labels on cans of RAID bug spray. If you aren't smart enough to avoid these issues, you're just a drain.
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In your example, they were jaywalking, which is illegal. If you hit them in a crosswalk, there would be far less question about liability.
No, right now we're not talking about legal liability, try very hard to keep up. We're talking about bad drivers. If you don't account for road conditions, you're a bad driver. If you do want to talk about legal liability though, that depends on where you are. If you hit a pedestrian anywhere within the city of Santa Cruz, you're pretty much at fault. And that's the way it should be. Otherwise cities fall to the tyranny of the car, and they just fucking suck.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"