PAY ATTENTION!!!

http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/stor...40&p=y5489xx46

According to this article, a 'face monitoring' feature will notice drivers when they're not paying attention to the road.

Somewhat similar principle to aircraft. For instance, the Boeing 777 cockpit features a 'pilot interaction' feature which signals the pilot to interact with the systems at least once every few minutes, in order to prevent complacency and ensure situational awareness.

 

cool.

I expect people will be hearing a lot of beeping.

 

That's a good safety feature, I can see some people not liking it though, the beeping would be annoying to them . . .

 

For some reason I thought this kind of feature is funny....imagine a person with a lazy eye getting beeped at by his car for no reason all day long. Rofl.

 

Finally a safety feature that focuses on the biggest cause of car accidents--the driver himself.

 

 

So ddoes that mean all you cool guys can't wear shades amd drive with this system?

 

From what it sounds, I think it may cause more accidents.
What if you're on the highway and you do a shoulder check? The brakes kick in? Letting someone plow into you?

 

09/08/2005

The Asahi Shimbun



Honda says its motorcycle airbag is effective at up to 50 kph.

Automakers are going head-to-head in developing safety systems to prevent traffic accidents and reduce the impact of a collision on passengers.

Toyota Motor Corp. said this week that it will install a newly developed safety system in the hybrid version of its Lexus GS450, which will go on sale next spring.

Honda Motor Co. said last week that it plans to commercialize an advanced vehicle-to-vehicle wireless communication system in fiscal 2008.

For Honda, motorcycle safety is also a critical concern.

The company announced on Thursday that it plans to install airbags in some of its motorcycles next year.

"For automakers, safety has become a top priority along with environmental (protection)," said Motoatsu Shiraishi, a senior managing director at Honda.

Accidents topped 900,000 for the first time in 2000, and hit a record 952,000 in 2004.

Studies indicate that 60 to 70 percent of vehicle collisions are caused by driver error, such as failure to watch the road.

Because of that, automakers' efforts are directed at detecting dangers of a collision and alerting the driver early.

Toyota's system will monitor the driver's face with an infrared camera mounted on the steering column to determine which direction the driver is facing.

When the driver looks aside for several seconds and an onboard radar detects a danger of collision, the system will alert the driver with a buzzer and a visual display on the car navigation system.

Toyota said the alerts will come three to four seconds ahead of a possible collision-or one to two seconds faster than its current system.

The company said the system would alert a driver soon enough to slow the car by about 20 kph, to lessen damage.

Honda's system will alert the driver to avoid a crash by informing the driver of the presence of a car out of his or her line of sight.

The system can exchange information with nearby vehicles via radio frequencies used by cellphones.

When an accident occurs, sensors built into the driver's seat measure the driver's heart and respiration rates. That data, together with the location of the car, will be automatically relayed to a Honda center.

If an accident occurs out of the range of cellphones, the vehicle-to-vehicle communication system can relay the signal via nearby vehicles.

Honda's motorcycle airbag, the world's first for mass-production motorcycles, is scheduled to be installed on a large Honda motorcycle that will be introduced in the United States in mid-2006.

The company plans to introduce it in Japan and Europe later.

Honda said the airbag, which inflates in front of the rider, will prevent the rider from being thrown off by a head-on collision at speeds up to 50 kph.

Nissan Motor Co., meanwhile, opened a facility for vehicle-to-vehicle crash tests in August. It plans 100 tests a year and will use the results to study how to lessen the severity of injuries.

At the facility, the angle of a head-on collision can be changed in 5-degree increments.

The facility enhances the accuracy of such experiments, and the quality of computer simulations of accidents can be improved, the company said.(IHT/Asahi: September 8,2005)