Research by Saab has indicated that 20% of car accidents are caused by sleepiness, while death tolls from this type of accident are three times higher than normal because it’s difficult to brake or swerve when you’re in the land of nod.
To counter this, Saab has developed a more advanced version of the sleep detecting systems currently available – Citroen’s vibrating lane departure warning system et al – which it is to spend the next eight months trialling.
The Saab Driver Attention Warning System does use a seat vibration system in addition to text and voice messages as soon as the risk of drowsiness or inattention is detected.
Using two infra-red cameras, the car monitors your eyes to detect your current state of alertness. If it decides that you look tired it’ll flash up a text warning asking you if this is the case. If your eye-lid movements don’t revert to normal the car will follow this up with a voice message saying “You are tired”.
If there is still no response a stronger warning tone and the message, “You are dangerously tired – stop as soon as it is safe to do so!” will come over the audio. This can only be cancelled when the driver presses a reset button in the fascia. The system is then immediately reactivated. The system will also vibrate your posterior should it decided that you aren’t paying attention.
We can see the obvious and important benefits of the system but are really concerned that drivers would start to let the car take responsibility for how fit they are to drive - which does seem to be something of an increasing trend.
We’d really like to see more of less is best: make a car’s primary controls simple, full of feel and accuracy, and make the person behind the wheel have no excuse but to be 100% involved in driving. Seems like we may by a dying breed.