Can car crashes become thing of past?

Automakers are imagining a world where nobody dies in car accidents and they say it is closer than most people think.

While they maintain that the real solution to a crash-free world lies in self-driving cars, a host of high-tech safety features are making drivers safer—and better—in the meantime.

"The long term vision is that cars shouldn't crash," Volvo spokesman Jim Trainor said Tuesday on the sidelines on the Detroit auto show.

Volvo—which has built its reputation on safety leadership—has set a goal that by 2020 nobody will be killed or seriously injured in its new cars.

The past decade has seen dramatic development by various automakers in the field of collision-avoidance technology.

Blind-spot detectors now watch for oncoming vehicles, adaptive cruise controls reduce speed based on cars ahead, and camera systems warn drivers when they drift out of their lanes.

Detectors can even pick up on a drowsy driver's subtle changes in behavior to indicate it's time for a break.

Frustration-free is 'key'

The key to making new safety features desirable to drivers is ensuring that they assist rather than irritate, Trainor said.

"If it false brakes too often, people get frustrated and they turn the system off," he told AFP. "We need to calibrate the system so it gives the driver every last possible moment to take action."


Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-01-car.html#jCp

Didge wrote:Automakers are imagining a world where nobody dies in car accidents and they say it is closer than most people think.

While they maintain that the real solution to a crash-free world lies in self-driving cars, a host of high-tech safety features are making drivers safer—and better—in the meantime.

"The long term vision is that cars shouldn't crash," Volvo spokesman Jim Trainor said Tuesday on the sidelines on the Detroit auto show.

Volvo—which has built its reputation on safety leadership—has set a goal that by 2020 nobody will be killed or seriously injured in its new cars.

The past decade has seen dramatic development by various automakers in the field of collision-avoidance technology.

Blind-spot detectors now watch for oncoming vehicles, adaptive cruise controls reduce speed based on cars ahead, and camera systems warn drivers when they drift out of their lanes.

Detectors can even pick up on a drowsy driver's subtle changes in behavior to indicate it's time for a break.

Frustration-free is 'key'

The key to making new safety features desirable to drivers is ensuring that they assist rather than irritate, Trainor said.

"If it false brakes too often, people get frustrated and they turn the system off," he told AFP. "We need to calibrate the system so it gives the driver every last possible moment to take action."


Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-01-car.html#jCp

Hmmm try telling my boss that when I have to confess to scraping the wheel arch of my car against a post in the car park

FTL, I had something like that happen a couple of weeks ago, driving past a Bollard when it jumped out and ripped the side of my door off.

I basically go into fight or flight every time I drive -- I'd love to think cars might someday make up for their inattentive drivers.

Can't tell you how many times I've been passed by a car going 85 mph, checked out the driver and his/her nose was stuck to a smart phone

pfffft...its just a grown up version of dodgems....

I just assume that everyone else out there driving is a mad psycho out to try to flatten me....

so far it seems to have worked ............

Lord Foul wrote:pfffft...its just a grown up version of dodgems....

I just assume that everyone else out there driving is a mad psycho out to try to flatten me....

so far it seems to have worked ............  

I take basically the same approach -- I assume the cars just ahead of me in the next lanes are going to weave, that the car ahead of me in the same lane is going to slam its brakes, and that someone's coming up behind me at 130 mph, simultaneously. It's not pleasant but it keeps me safe ...