Safer driving

Sat, 19 Jan 2008 10:15:09 +0000

As I was driving along Thursday, in the filthy driving rain, and trying to check my blind spot it struck me that it should be very easy for my car to tell me if it's safe to turn.

Rear-parking sensors are becoming quite common, at least on luxury vehicles. I assume the same technology could be pressed into service for the two rear wings of the vehicle. Then activate one of them when the appropriate turn is indicated. If there's something in your blind spot you get some kind of warning signal.

I can think of two objections outright:

The sensors might not be effective over the sort of distance you would need. I've never used a car with rear-parking sensors so I can't be certain that the technology would be effective. On the other hand, I can't believe we can't have such technology.
The risk of failure. If we all get used to our car telling us when people are in our blind spot then a failure of that sensor could be very dangerous. So make sure they are reliable like the steering and brakes.

Curiouser and Curiouser! on driving

Safer driving