Smart Car Technology May Reduce Personal Injuries

Toyota Motor Corp. is testing smart-car technology in Japan that may greatly reduce the likelihood of personal injury on the roads. Similar testing is planned for the U.S. as well, but details have not yet been decided. This technology utilizes sensors in the road, as well as in other cars, to transmit information like malfunctioning traffic lights, cars in your blind spots, and pedestrians crossing the street. This sort of information being transmitted to your vehicle can trigger anything from a vocal or visual warning on your dashboard, to actually applying your brakes to prevent a collision. This technology has the potential to save lives and prevent accidents if implemented here in the U.S. The distractions that are taking up our attention as we drive only keep increasing as our reliance on technology continues to increase. Google has taken this a step further by testing self-driving cars. California is the latest state to allow Google to test their self-driving cars, although they require that there be a human passenger along for safety measures. Google’s tests have already recorded over 300,000 driving miles, with 50,000 miles having no intervention from human drivers. There have been no accidents when the cars were being driven by the computer. The only accident that has been documented occurred when a human was in control of the vehicle! There were just fewer than 33,000 deaths from motor-vehicle accidents in the U.S. in 2010, which makes this new technology so intriguing in that it may effectively reduce motor vehicle accidents in a significant way. Outside of the safety improvements these new technologies offer, there are also quality-of-life improvements. Self-driving cars would be able to transport individuals that cannot drive, such as the visually impaired and physically disabled individuals. They would also have the ability to prevent drunk-driving accidents. This may seem like technology out of a 1950’s Popular Mechanics magazine, but it is very real. Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, expects this technology to be available to the public within 5 years.