Shuck:
Probably, but drowsiness doesn’t inevitably lead to being asleep - there are things that can be done to make it less likely, and things that make it more likely. My point here is that by being behind the wheel of a car with “autopilot” engaged, they radically increased their chances that they would end up asleep, even if it wasn’t a deliberate choice to take a nap. (Though they did make a series of deliberate choices that made it more likely.)
Agreed. And in fact there are several companies doing just that. Tesla definitely needs to get on board:
Driver drowsiness detection is a car safety technology which helps prevent accidents caused by the driver getting drowsy. Various studies have suggested that around 20% of all road accidents are fatigue-related, up to 50% on certain roads.
Some of the current systems learn driver patterns and can detect when a driver is becoming drowsy.
Various technologies can be used to try to detect driver drowsiness.
Primarily uses steering input from electric power steering system. Monitoring a driver thi...
Shuck:
As a culture, we’re weirdly relaxed about driving while tired (because driving is so necessary and ubiquitous, and being tired so unavoidable), that we ignore how incredibly dangerous it is, and just accept that people are driving around so impaired they might as well be shit-faced drunk. As a result, people also tend to ignore best practices to prevent tiredness turning into drowsiness as they’re inconvenient or uncomfortable.
Also completely agree, as I am guilty of this very way of thinking myself (I wanted to limit how long my pets were in carriers in our 26 hour roadtrip, for example). Autonomy should make it more difficult to let things reach the point of dangerous behaviour, without question, and I don’t think that’s been enough of the focus to date.
2 Likes
