Distracted driving can be very dangerous and contributes to thousands of accidents every year. In fact, according to the Highway Traffic Safety Administration, one out of every ten fatal crashes in the U.S. is related to distracted driving. Although many laws are in place to curb the use of cell phones and other distractions to make the roads safer, it is not always enough. General Motors (GM) has decided to take it a step further and install devices that prevent distracted driving as another safety measure in their next generation of automobiles.
What is Distracted Driving?
Distracted driving is driving while performing any action that takes the driver’s attention of the road. This could include changing the radio, talking to another person, talking on the phone, using a navigation system or looking at a map, eating or drinking, putting on makeup, or texting. One of the biggest causes of distracted driving, and most dangerous, is texting while driving, especially as it requires cognitive, visual and manual attention from the driver. Despite laws in place, around 660,000 Americans use a cell phone or manipulate some type of electronic device while driving at any given daylight moment, according to the National Occupant Protection Use Survey by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. In 2012, 3,328 people died due to distraction-affected crashes, and 421,000 were injured.
GM Adding Motion Sensors
According to sources, GM plans on adding motion sensors to its next generation of cars to detect distracted driving. The sensors will monitor the head and eye motions of a driver, alerting them anytime they have stopped paying attention to the road for a prolonged period of time. GM has not yet officially commented on the program, but the Australian company Seeing Machines has issued a press release about a deal with Takata, GM’s supplier of safety mechanisms. According to this release, the deal includes an order of 500,000 tracking devices that rely on cameras to detect signs of distracted driving. This could include how often a person blinks or how the head moves. The production deal will last for fifteen years.
What is the Seeing Machines Device
Seeing Machine’s Operator Monitoring System uses patented eye-tracking technology that does not need any type of re-calibration between the different drivers of an automobile. In addition to tracking eye movement, it also monitors the head alignment of the driver. The technology also includes devices that can calculate how long and where drivers are looking to know whether they are not paying enough attention to the road. The device can warn a driver that he or she might be at risk, and return their attention back to the road. They company feels that this is the “next step in automotive safety.”
Seeing Machine’s technology already has uses in industrial areas, including detecting driver fatigue and distraction in mining and trucking. The information from the technology tells the driver to return his or her attention to the road, pull over to rest, or otherwise avoid distraction or fatigue. This technology also has the ability in the future to be altered to also allow a driver to change the radio station by a mere gesture and other features that will improve the driving experience.
This technology is one more example of technology being added to cars to improve the driver experience and enhance the safety of automobiles, as well as move closer to a fully automated automobile. However, it will still be many years before driverless cars become the norm. Until then, devices like Seeing Machine’s can improve the safety of the car by helping to mitigate the largest risk factor in a car: the driver. GM’s release of this technology in its next generation of cars will be the first mass-production of cars with this type of technology on board.