By Martin Schwoerer
December 18, 2007
Driver fatigue causes an estimated 24 to 33 percent of European automotive accidents. Automobilwoche reports that Daimler's Mercedes is developing an electronic Nanny that monitors driver fatigue and then tries to wake up the pilot before he crashes. It's hardly a new concept; Citroen already offers a weird (but effective) system that shakes your buttocks when you switch lanes without indicating (no, we are not joking). In the great tradition of German over-engineering, Mercedes system monitors steering input– those "typical, hardly noticeable movements that tired drivers make on a constant basis"– then compares this data to daytime and drive distance information, considering external factors such as side wind and road undulations. If the computer thinks the driver's suffering from fatigue, it sounds an alarm. (Automatic crash avoidance is inevitable.) The anti-fatigue system is set for a 2009 debut; we suggest that the PR folk deactivate it during the press launch.
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POWERED
December 18th, 2007 at 9:31 am
Mercedes’ competitors could have a field day with this one, implying that the driving experience of the car alone isn’t enough to keep you awake.
“Our new BMW M1025xi doesn’t need electronics to keep the driver awake. Adrenaline does the job just fine!”
December 18th, 2007 at 10:44 am
Can you at least switch it off…
Nice if the alarm is comfortably monotonous, like sheep leaping over a gate in an orderly fashion…
Yawn…
December 18th, 2007 at 11:08 am
Hopefully it will come with a snooze bar. Then I could get back to sleep until the next imminent crash.
December 18th, 2007 at 11:18 am
This might be more amusing if my ambulance corps hadn’t responded to a fell-asleep accident last week, at 0430, that killed a 20-year-old woman. Not a pretty sight.
December 18th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
But can it make you pull over and grab some sleep?
December 18th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
Citroen already offers a weird (but effective) system that shakes your buttocks when you switch lanes without indicating (no, we are not joking).
If all the cars in Toronto had systems like that there’d be a lot fewer accidents or a lot less cellulite. Bring it on.