Everyone has heard about self-diving cars and we all hope that one day they will make our roads safer and more secure. What shall we do until that day comes?
Each year, about 1.25 million people die as a consequence of road traffic crashes (WHO, 2017). According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, about 17% of these fatalities and 80% of all traffic accidents are caused by distracted driving (Adams, 2017). Why are we so distracted?
“Smartphoning at the wheel” is one of the major reasons why people get distracted why driving. Texting, checking Facebook or Instagram, snapchatting, etc. result in 1.6 million crashes each year (Snyder, 2017). Furthermore, cars themselves are becoming more and more distracting with manufacturers adding feature after feature that can potentially pull our attention from the road.
A group of Canadian researches, led by Dr. Fakhri Karray, may have come up with a solution to the problem of drivers’ distraction. With the help of artificial intelligence, the team has developed a prototype system that monitors driver body position and determines whether the observed distraction is dangerous. The deep learning algorithm considers not only hand and head movements but also traffic and weather conditions, car’s speed, and exact location. In this way, the system is able to determine degree of danger of the observed situation. Depending of the level of risk of an accident, the system gives different signals to the driver to inform him/her of the potential danger and encourage him/her to take corrective actions. The team is now working on enabling the car to take full control over the vehicle to prevent accidents from happening. Although the projects is still in the development phase, the researchers believe that the system will be ready for implementation within a year. However, it might take much longer time for car manufacturers to decide how exactly to integrate the new system. (Adams, 2017)
Although the technological solution proposed by Dr. Karray and his team may not look that impressive as self-driving cars, it is a step in the right direction and if implemented, it will had a tremendous effect on roads’ safety.
Reference list:
Adams, E. (2017). Wanna Stop Distracted Driving? Make Cars That Watch Their Humans. [online] WIRED. Available at: https://www.wired.com/story/distracted-driving-research/ [Accessed 19 Sep. 2017].
Snyder, A. (2017). Texting and Driving Accident Statistics – Distracted Driving. [online] edgarsnyder.com. Available at: https://www.edgarsnyder.com/car-accident/cause-of-accident/cell-phone/cell-phone-statistics.html [Accessed 19 Sep. 2017].
World Health Organization. (2017). Road traffic injuries. [online] Available at: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs358/en/
AI to make roads safer
19
September
2017
Hey, thanks for your blog post, it was really interesting!
I think that it is really a good idea to have that kind of body position measurement system which inform the driver of potential dangers. In particular, I think that it would help drivers with medical issues such as sleep apnea. Similarly, old people or people who have to drive for a long distance are likely to get tired, especially if they drive during the night, which results in many accident. A system that could encourage the driver to take a break while tired, or wake up a driver who falls asleep while driving would avoid many accidents!
However, you said that “the team is now working on enabling the car to take full control over the vehicle to prevent accidents from happening”. I don’t think that giving full control over to the car would be a good idea. Indeed, it would mean adding many connected devices to the car, which would make it possible for malevolent people to hack the car! As you can see in this video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK0SrxBC1xs – nowadays, it is still really easy to take control of connected car. In addition, if the car is equipped with a “takeover function” and still ends up in an accident, I wonder who will be held responsible. Would it be the driver? The car manufacturer? Or the system providers?
Anyways, I think that we should stick to systems which only notify drivers of dangers/distractions for now, and only implement takeover functions/self-driving cars once it is sure that no one can hack into them.