Slap in the face or look ahead?: A camera system in the rear-view mirror is designed to recognize and warn distracted or tired drivers.
Image: Magna
In the future, a camera in the interior will detect when drivers are being distracted by their smartphone. The benefit is disputed.
Ein year and nine months imprisonment. The Higher Regional Court of Hamm confirmed this verdict on a motorist in March. The man, who was 28 at the time of the crime, had answered a short message on his smartphone while driving on an arterial road. At 82 km/h he caught a cyclist who was traveling with two girls, one of them in a child seat. The mother died and the children survived with serious injuries. Horrifying reports like these demonstrate impressively how dangerous it can be to take your eyes off the road. Nevertheless, it is difficult to make reliable quantitative statements about it.
A few years ago, a study by the Allianz Center for Technology correlated the self-declarations of drivers about their use of smartphones at the wheel with their accident frequency and annual mileage. It was statistically proven what common sense suggests: if you look at a small screen instead of the road while driving, you are significantly more likely to cause an accident. The goal pursued by the European Union that no more people should die on the roads by 2050 seems difficult to achieve in view of the temptations of the digital world.