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New technology can save drivers from speed traps and save lives when drivers are falling asleep at the wheel Date published: 10/21/2006
By MICHAEL ZITZ Let's say, hypothetically, you're driving through a sleepy little town like Tappahannock on a Tuesday night. No one else is on the road. You're just cruising along, going the speed limit--at least you think you are. But there's been a sudden drop in that speed limit from 45 miles per hour to 35. This is all hypothetical. And, hypothetically, there's a cop sitting in the dark just on the other side of the 35-mph speed-limit sign. Waiting You're still going 45. You see blue lights. You pull over. You're drinking Diet Pepsi, à la Grandma, not Wild Turkey, à la Mel Gibson. But the next thing you know, you're surrounded by three police cars with blue lights flashing to beat the band while the first police officer writes you a speeding ticket for going 10 miles an hour too fast. Hypothetically. Siemens VDO has developed electronic technology it hopes to integrate into near-future car navigation systems to prevent that sort of thing from happening. Not a radar gun intended to help drivers break the law, but instead a tiny digital camera that reads road signs and warns drivers if they don't slow down when the speed limit does. Brad Warner, a Siemens VDO spokesman in Auburn Hills, Mich., said in a telephone interview that the sign-reading technology is part of the company's "zero accidents" goal. When a driver is not responding correctly to a sign, an alarm sounds, and a heads-up display flashes on the car's windshield at a 30-degree angle from the driver's vision, in a position that doesn't block the view of the road, but doesn't require your eyes to be shifted away from traffic. It seems to be suspended in mid-air above the front bumper, so the driver's eyes don't have to refocus. It has other safety applications, warning if you are failing to slow down when cars in front of you have, and reading lanes on the road and curbs to alert drivers if they are beginning to weave. Warner said the system can be optionally tied into cruise control to cause the car to slow down automatically in dangerous situations.
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