TECHNOLOGY FOCUSThe Safety Race: Everybody Wins IRVINE, CA - No matter if it's summer or winter, rainy season or snowy season, it's always a good time to look at how we drive and what that means for our friends and loved ones. Driver fatigue is a major traffic safety problem. According to the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), approximately 100,000 collisions are caused every year on U.S. highways by drivers who fall asleep. Of that number, 1,500 result in fatalities and a further 71,000 lead to physical injuries. Without question, vehicle safety and a cause for action should be paramount year-round. Not very long ago in the United States, safety was virtually unheard of in automotive commercials or marketing materials. Now, it's the basis for entire campaigns. Safety has emerged as a crucial selling point. Today technology, research and insight from real-world experience has led to innovation after innovation in protecting drivers and passengers, as well as pedestrians. The signals are clear: The industry is driving to make the nation's "can't-do-without" means of conveyance as safe as possible. Volvo, long-known for it's continued emphasis on vehicle safety, features Clive Bengtsson, the company's oldest crash test dummy, to get the message out to consumers. The program touts that leadership in safety does not mean looking in your rearview mirror - "It's characterized by innovation." The automaker's newest safety system, Driver Alert, focuses on drivers who lose concentration or who become fatigued while driving. The technology illustrates the trend from passive safety systems - intended to protect occupants in a crash - to those based on active safety systems - intended to avoiding an accident. Unlike other automaker systems, Driver Alert is unique in that the system doesn't record human behavior, which varies from one person to another. "Instead we have chosen to monitor the car's progress, which is the effect of that behavior," says Dr. Wolfgang Birk, Driver Alert project manager at Volvo . The Driver Alert issues an audible signal plus visual warning first, before control over the car is lost. From a technical viewpoint, the technology consists of a camera, sensors and a processor. The camera, which is installed between the windshield and the interior rearview mirror, continuously measures the distance between the car and the markings on the road surface. The sensors register the cars' movements. The processor stores the information and calculates whether the driver risks losing control over the car. If the risks are assessed as high, the driver is alerted. "Driver Alert should not be confused with a system that alerts the driver if a lane marker is breached without activating a turn
signal," says Birk. "It will respond even if the lane marker has not been crossed." What's more, the driver can retrieve a safety rating about his or her driving style, based on consistency of performance. Included in the vehicle's trip computer, a display will provide the driver a rating, based on five stars. The less consistent the driving, the fewer stars illuminate. While the system is a few years away from being in production vehicles, Volvo adds, "Safety has become a battleground, and ultimately all consumers will benefit through better safety systems to protect those family, friends and total strangers." (Source:
Volvo Cars of North
America)
