Originally published at: Ford introduces an obnoxious new trucker hat to help truckers stay awake | Boing Boing
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Perhaps the hat could deliver a chemical stimulant!
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Perhaps people could stop and sleep… and be allowed to do that.
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maybe there’s a better solution to driver fatigue than just shocking people back to consciousness?
The hat can vibrate, make sounds and flash lights
Doesn’t sound so very shocking to me. How would you suggest a drowsy driver is alerted to the fact they are nodding off, then?
The better solutions to driver fatigue all involve the driver somehow not getting into the ‘drowsy at the wheel’ status to start with, but once they do, this seems like a viable approach.
BTW my Volvo will alert me to alleged drowsiness if it thinks I am ‘veering’ - not keeping to lane. I only need to switch lanes slowly a couple of time without indicating and it pings at me and puts up a message in the dash. Also a viable solution, but prone to false positives. Probably not as retrofittable to old trucks as a baseball hat on the driver is.
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Well, if it reminds you to indicate when changing lanes, job done. 
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Weeeeed… whiiiiiites and wiiiiiiine…*
*This post does not in any way promote the use of weed, whites, and/or wine during the operation of Very Large Vehicles, or any vehicle, even riding mowers.
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Indeed. Unfortunately it cannot tell when there is no other vehicle in sight, behind or in front.
Aaawww - takes all the fun out of it. 
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Get ready American peons: you’re next.
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They kind of tried that. And then, last year:
Side note, the Pres. of the teamsters union is named James Hoffa. At least one parent decided that was the best way to go with the naming…
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He’s named after his dad, who is that James “Jimmy” Hoffa. I don’t understand why that would be a bad thing? (I mean, other than his father’s tragic demise; which happened 34 years after his son was born and presumably named?)
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I’m thinking of a scene from the movie Hoffa where Jack Nicholson’s character is pointing out a burn scar between the fingers of Danny DeVito’s trucker character:
I’d take the hat if that were the alternative. But as others have already pointed out, taking steps to ensure truckers get enough sleep and aren’t motivated to drive while drowsy in the first place is certainly preferable.
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Darn you for exposing my utter lack of knowledge on a topic I decided to comment about! /s
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Easier problem to solve if you’re operating a train. I recall an article about a high speed train in Japan with sensors to detect whether the engineer is blinking regularly. If it looks like the engineer is asleep, it stops the train.
Imagine that moment when you wake up from a great nap and realize your train is motionless in a field somewhere.
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Or even easier, use a dead man’s switch. An old railroad technology, no sensors required. Not sure if you can adapt one to a motor vehicle though, since you need to have both hands on the wheel, and drowsing off doesn’t really loosen your steering grip much.
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Yet easily defeated with a rubber band if the driver wants to eat a sandwich or text or something. They wouldn’t have implemented the blink monitoring system if the existing systems were doing the job well.
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I, too, would like to know what the “unobnoxious” way is to help keep trucker stay awake.
While it isn’t unheard of US drivers falling asleep at the wheel, they at least are supposed to have laws in place that govern how long the can drive in a stretch, IIRC.
Maybe Brazil should implement that?
Or not. In 20 years robots will be doing a lot of long haul trucking jobs and the whole problem will sort itself out, creating new ones.
Fair enough!
