Self-Driving Tech Won’t Change Cars From Being Death Machines
You've probably heard people say that cars are death machines.
Pedestrian fatalities in the United States have increased 41 percent since 2008; more than 6,000 pedestrians were killed in 2018 alone. More than 4,000 American kids are killed in car crashes every year.
Statistics clearly don’t seem to persuade anyone of the magnitude of this problem. There are many tools to eliminate traffic-related injuries and fatalities running the gamut from the quick and easy fixes.
The internet-equipped “connected car” has increasingly large and complicated dashboard screens that take cognitive resources away from the task at hand, which is driving, and have the potential to be as dangerous as texting while driving.
Read the article at The New York Times.
Friends Shouldn’t Let Friends Drive Distracted
A recent study conducted at the University of Michigan indicates that many young people have friends who are easily distracted behind the wheel.
Approximately 60 percent of reporting parents were told by their children that they had a friend who lost focus while driving.
“Parents should try to empower their teen to be proactive in avoiding common situations that cause distractions to the driver and also speak up to stop any unsafe activities,” said Dr. Gary Freed. “Safe driving should be a shared responsibility for both teen drivers and passengers as the risks are high for each.”
Read the article at Consumer Affairs.
Drivers Are Less Accepting of Lane-Centering Safety Technology
Automated technologies may take the stress and boredom out of the daily commute, but current systems designed to keep vehicles from drifting over the center line or onto the shoulder still don't all work well enough to inspire trust.
Drivers have to accept assistive technologies and use them correctly in order to make driving safer. Some drivers in the IIHS study felt insulted when the car made corrective choices for them.
"Across all the vehicles we tested, the drivers had more faith in the automated systems' ability to maintain a steady speed and a safe distance from the vehicle ahead of them than their ability to keep them safely in the center of their lane," says IIHS Senior Research Scientist Ian Reagan.
Read the article at IIHS.
Is Your Driver Safety Program Too Formal?
By Ed Dubens, CEO / Founder of eDriving
Of course, the effective management of driver risk requires a “formal” structured approach, but there is also plenty of room for informality!
Policies, standards, management systems, best practice guides, training, eLearning, license checking, telematics, benchmarking and analytics are all critical components to any successful driver risk management strategy, but how much more effective can you be if your plan is supported by regular, informal messaging to your drivers from across the organization?
Will 2020 Be The Year Of Level 3 ‘Eyes-Off’ Driving?
We are now seeing SAE Level 2 systems defined as the vehicle that is able to control both the steering and acceleration/ deceleration ADAS capabilities.
Although this allows the vehicle to automate certain parts of the driving experience, the driver remains in complete control of the vehicle at all times.
Level 3 is a system that allows “hands off, feet off, eyes off” with “brain on” so that hands, feet, and eyes are readily available. Intense development of Level 3 human-machine interfaces has been underway for years.
Read the article at Forbes.
