The European market for systems that sense obstacles in the road to prevent accidents is expected to grow by 26.7 percent over the next decade, according to analyst firm Frost and Sullivan.
Features such as adaptive cruise control, obstacle recognition that identifies vehicles or pedestrians entering the roadway, and blindspot cameras are becoming available in top-o-the-line vehicles, and will likely filter down to mid-priced vehicles during the next few years.
The challenge that these systems face is how active to make the prevention systems. Do you initiate braking or override the steering automatically, or are warning systems enough? Audio alerts such as "blindspot left" when you are about to change lanes or "pedestrian at intersection" or "red light 100 feet ahead" would greatly reduce the number of accidents without taking control away for the driver.
Speaking of red lights, I wonder how many accidents would be averted and gallons of gas could be saved if the traffic lights and vehicles talked to each other. Imagine if every light that you encountered on an otherwise empty highway was green, or if every approach to an intersection told your car how much time it would be before the red turned to green.
Stopping and waiting at lights unnecessarily wastes gas (unless of course you drive a hybrid), while not stopping when you are supposed to wastes lives.
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