Saving drivers from themselves

Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) is the term used for vehicles that communicate not only with each but with the roads, as well, all in order to keep the vehicle’s driver and passengers as safe as possible. Well-known examples include traction and stability controls and lane departure systems. More experimental devices include General Motor’s V2V technology.

These are the tip of the iceberg, though. At the annual ITS World Congress held at San Francisco this year, new technologies for driver and passenger safety were introduced and discussed including:

• Vehicles that communicate with traffic signals and radar devices.
• Sensors that display the color of the traffic signal at the next intersection.
• Buses that steer themselves on a magnetic track embedded in the road.
• Devices that “read” traffic speeds and evaluate when it’s safe to make turns.

While we at Autoblog are as much for safety as the next person, this article ended on an interesting note:

We've tried education, belts and bags, ABS and stability control. The next step is using technology to save drivers from themselves.