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Let’s say you’re zooming down the road at inadvisably high speeds, listing to some tunes, and having a grand old time. And then, Mr. Sun just happens to peek out from behind a distant building/mountain/hill and punches you straight in the gosh-darn eyes. You’re blinded by the light. Whatcha gonna do?
Well step one is to hopefully not run yourself off the road and die, and a steering wheel being designed by Eelke Folmer and Burkay Sucu at the University of Reno in Nevada could help with that. The idea of using vibration in steering wheels to help guide drivers from point A to point B has been floating around for a while, but this iteration is more about keeping you from getting lost straight into a tree.
Using vibrations tuned to 275 hertz (a frequency that’s perfect for human hands) the wheel would vibrate on the left and right sides to coax you between the lines. It wouldn’t just do this on its own, of course. The action would be triggered by some sort of light sensor that’d guess when you’re blinded, and the vibrations would be guided by some of the same tech that’s used to keep self-driving cars on the road.
So far the tech has fared well in testing; it’s just a matter of making sure the vibrators are appropriately placed and that there are enough of them. Personally I’m holding out for cars that can just drive themselves, blinding light or no, but I guess this wouldn’t be a bad mid-step to keep me alive until then. [New Scientist]
Soo… how is that different from what’s in the first of your “Related Posts” ?
It’s a different car
Might be better to slow down when you can’t see. After all there’s more dangers than just staying between the lines.
If there’s another car behind you, chances are that the other driver will also be blinded by the sun, and he won’t notice that you have slowed down suddenly.
I wasn’t suggesting you slam the brakes on, just come off the gas. There could be a car infront of you too thats doing the same thing, or a small child.
Why introduce technology to help those who drive reckless. Rather they bring technology that ignites the car’s fuel tank when they drive recklessly. Maybe also reveal a huge spike in centre of steering wheel.
Or they could just make carrying sunglasses in the car compulsory.
Isn’t this what the sun visor’s for? To be honest, this article doesn’t seem to make much sense. It seems to assume that when people get blinded by some sun whilst driving, they instinctively veer off the road. As opposed to, I dunno, slowing down and pulling the visor down.
Rumble strips embedded in the paint lines at the edges of the lanes do the same thing for very little money. Plenty of them already on motorways.
This is using tech to solve a problem that has already been solved. FFS just pull down the sun visor and don’t drive at “inadvisably high speeds” in the first place. Someone who’s first reaction when temporarily blinded by the sun is to veer off the road shouldn’t be driving in the first place. I’m assuming that this is a cross post from Giz US since only they are dumb enough to need this.
Exactly what I was thinking, it’s like US spacepen and Russian pencil all over again. It’s not like the Sun jumps right out of the cloud or mountain (8mins I think..) and even if they are that bothered, why not just make a photosensitive windscreen that gets darken even though that might not be economic.
Just so you know, the spacepen thing is an urban myth.
lol I know
The latest Ford Focus offered this 18 months ago. Think i’ve seen the same array of cameras behind the rear view mirror in Mercs and more. The cameras track the lines on the road and if you don’t straighten up after the vibrating warning it’ll steer itself straight for you!
Puzzled by this non-article tbh o.0