The European Union is building intelligent vehicle technology to save lives and boost the economy. The Intelligent Car project coordinates research in the areas of adaptive cruise control, lane departure warning systems, and systems for alerting drowsy drivers that are also being developed in Japan and the United States.
The EU says eCall, an automatic "vehicle 911" that would broadcast an emergency message in the event of an accident, could prevent up to 30 percent of all crashes on highways.
In the EU, traffic congestion costs 50 billion Euros annually, and the volume of traffic has risen by 35 percent during the past 30 years.
Very soon our cars are going to have more powerful computing devices than the desktop PCs of just a few years ago as they anticipate and prevent bad driving. Inevitably there will be lawsuits here against car companies whose technology failed to compensate for the stupidity of the drivers, but that's just the American way.
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