Keep your eyes on the road!
Discussion
A recent press releae brings new meaning to the admonition to keep your eyes on the road.
Toyota is testing technology meant to keep a driver's eyes on the road, according to Associated Press (AP).
The technology employs a camera attached near the car's steering wheel and image-processing software that recognizes when the driver isn't facing forward. The system flashes a light on the dashboard and beeps when the driver looks away, according to AP. If the driver doesn't respond, [b]the brakes are applied automatically.[/b] The feature will be in Lexus luxury models to be sold in Japan next spring.
Well, that sounds reliable ... I feel safer already.
Streaky
Toyota is testing technology meant to keep a driver's eyes on the road, according to Associated Press (AP).
The technology employs a camera attached near the car's steering wheel and image-processing software that recognizes when the driver isn't facing forward. The system flashes a light on the dashboard and beeps when the driver looks away, according to AP. If the driver doesn't respond, [b]the brakes are applied automatically.[/b] The feature will be in Lexus luxury models to be sold in Japan next spring.
Well, that sounds reliable ... I feel safer already.
Streaky
If they are looking at statistics, they should be putting this in cars driven by women. My evidence is anecdotal, but I have no reason to believe any different.
Before I get flamed, I will qualify this:
In my ten years of driving I have been involved in two road accidents. On both occasions my car has been stationary (!). Also on both occasions I have been driven into the back of my car by a woman not looking where they were going. I know this because on both occasions when I looked in my mirror as the car hit me they *still* wernt looking up! On the first occasion, the driver was talking to her kids in the back of the car, on the second, on the motorway, the driver was still texting on her phone as her car ploughed into mine.
On both occasions, I am sure if the driver was looking at the road they would have had more than enough chance to avoid driving into me.
The only other experience I have had of a road accident was when I was on the phone to a passenger of a car, I heard two loud bangs, and the line went dead. I imagined the worst, the two bangs was a huge pile up! When I actually got through to them again I found out the cause of the two bangs: The driver of the car was not looking where they were going, and did not realise that the car in front was slowing down to join a queue of traffic. The two bangs were caused not by a huge pile-up but by the fact that when the driver had driven into the car in front once, because she was looking the other way, and her reactions were so slow, she still had the accelerator pressed as the car in front was bounced forward, so she hit the car in front again!
I make no apologies, as my story is not sexist in any way. I also knwo that there are plenty of crap male drivers, however I have not had the opportunity to be hit by one yet (touch wood). I also know there are plenty of very good female drivers, and I am sure if *they* were driving they would not have driven into me.
This is my point, such measures as the idea of Lexus is not the way forward. If people do not have the level of concentration to be able to keep their eyes on the road, they should not be driving in the first place.
Before I get flamed, I will qualify this:
In my ten years of driving I have been involved in two road accidents. On both occasions my car has been stationary (!). Also on both occasions I have been driven into the back of my car by a woman not looking where they were going. I know this because on both occasions when I looked in my mirror as the car hit me they *still* wernt looking up! On the first occasion, the driver was talking to her kids in the back of the car, on the second, on the motorway, the driver was still texting on her phone as her car ploughed into mine.
On both occasions, I am sure if the driver was looking at the road they would have had more than enough chance to avoid driving into me.
The only other experience I have had of a road accident was when I was on the phone to a passenger of a car, I heard two loud bangs, and the line went dead. I imagined the worst, the two bangs was a huge pile up! When I actually got through to them again I found out the cause of the two bangs: The driver of the car was not looking where they were going, and did not realise that the car in front was slowing down to join a queue of traffic. The two bangs were caused not by a huge pile-up but by the fact that when the driver had driven into the car in front once, because she was looking the other way, and her reactions were so slow, she still had the accelerator pressed as the car in front was bounced forward, so she hit the car in front again!
I make no apologies, as my story is not sexist in any way. I also knwo that there are plenty of crap male drivers, however I have not had the opportunity to be hit by one yet (touch wood). I also know there are plenty of very good female drivers, and I am sure if *they* were driving they would not have driven into me.
This is my point, such measures as the idea of Lexus is not the way forward. If people do not have the level of concentration to be able to keep their eyes on the road, they should not be driving in the first place.
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