Mon 10 Mar 2008
Technology may help overcome dangers of talking whilst driving
Posted by CM under Driving safety
As the debate on handsfree mobile phone useage intensifies in America, researchers are increasingly reporting that it is not the holding of the phone that is the problem, but the call itself. But although the message about banning young drivers from making all forms of calls and prohibiting text messaging behind the wheel seems to beeing accepted there is still a groundswell of objection to extending the ban to Adults. Government studies show that 1 in 20 drivers in America are talking whilst driving. <!–more–>
But developers are working to overcome the dangers. Answering a call without having to press a button on a device can help believes Charlie Klauer, a Virginia Tech researcher who worked on a recent study with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
And systems that can dedect when a driver may have lost focus on the road are also in development.
“Technology now makes it possible to monitor the driver’s condition or state and have some remedial steps so that you can have a more refined response,”
according to Mary Stearns, acting chief of advanced vehicle safety technology at the Volpe Center, a US Department of Transportation research facility in Cambridge. This would help make handsfree devices more akin to talking to a passenger in the car, who can sense when there may be a danger ahead and stop talking, something that the person on the other end of a call can not do, at least not yet.
