IS IT THE SAME WORLD?
Our car-intensive world has changed so much. After almost forty years, we have brands we have never seen before, technologies we couldn’t have dreamed up and attitudes that are completely different. What are we looking at in cars?
We were given the very first demonstration of a new safety system at the World Car Awards Testing Sessions in Los Angeles this year. And it showed us how there is so much more that can be improved upon if you take thinking a little out of the box.
Something interesting is what is now possible because of the technologies available, and not just within the cars themselves. We know cars are safer than ever, and more efficient. We also know that all the electronics and sensor systems and such have made things more challenging to keep our cars on the road. So it is, as always, a double-edged sword. But making things safer is pretty much the way to go.
With cars being increasingly safe, companies have looked to other ways to improve things. Automotive fatalities have generally gone down, so now they can concentrate as well on minimizing other things like pedestrian harm.
A company called Emergency Safety Solutions ( ess-help.com ) has taken an interesting and intelligent approach. They are aiming to help minimize risk and danger on the road by notifying drivers of potential hazards. This is done by using systems in-car and systems available externally such as Waze and in-car navigation.
What is different in their approach is that they saw how different companies and entities have tried this but they never really worked with each other on a broad level. So a lot can fall through the cracks.
What ESS did is basically set up a cloud system where the different cars, trucks, traffic systems and even local authorities can send information automatically, and which is then sent back down to the vehicles that need it. So they avoided the whole problem of one company not talking to another.
The best example of this, and the one which was demonstrated to us, is coming upon accidents or road hazards. We are all used to Waze, when someone says there was a crash ahead or something. This system makes it automatic, keyed off by a stop on the side of the road or an internal car warning system or the information on emergency vehicles. That depends on what the car or car company or local authority wants to send up. If this can affect you, you will get a series of notices, and these notices don’t,t necessarily need for your systems to be on if you allow that. So if you are approaching an accident scene on a curving highway at night, you will get notifications ahead of time. Similarly, if you pull over because of car trouble others will be notified. This can be automatic if the system is so set up, or it can ask you if you pull over on a highway if you are having a problem.
This sounds fairly simple, but it is the integration that makes it interesting. We did our tests with different cars that were pulled out of rental companies, from Volkswagen and from Jeep. We had some other cars that were simulated emergency vehicles, so we were told that a fire truck was coming our way on a curve, or we saw that there was a vehicle stopped on side of the road.
The take up of this technology is coming a lot from the trucking companies, which tells you how valuable it can be to those most at risk. For the general public, however, it may take a while to understand how important this all can be. But the push for this actually came from data, when they saw the numbers of car stops on public roads and highways each of which present an unexpected change in flow.
Going further down the , we have tested autonomous driving systems all over the world. Most are generally independent, car-based or, in closed systems like Japan, interactive with other companies that join testing and local government. But there really is no real talking amongst them. This is an excellent step in that direction.
This isn’t exactly a sexy technology. It will come into play if you or someone else has a problem, which usually you don’t think of. What it does though is just kind of lift the sea of automotive safety. And for the person on the side of a road changing a tire and scared out of their wits, it makes things a bit safer.
