Finally, the fear is over. After years of Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki taunting us with the idea that we could be destined to die while driving, without even knowing it, Toyota has developed a pre-crash safety system that will warn you if your eyes aren’t completely open.
The pre-crash safety system consists of a camera staring at you incessantly while you drive. It’s connected to an image-processing computer, which analyses your eyelids to see if you’ve inadvertently decided to take a nap, or if you happen to be looking at the miniskirt walking past you anything other than the road in front of you. If the pre-crash system senses that a crash is imminent and your eyes are closed / not on the road, it will let you know by giving you an electric shock sounding an alarm or — in extreme cases — applying the brake.
The technology is destined to make its way into Japanese Toyotas in the “near future”, but there’s no word on how long it will take to come across to our microsleep-fearing shores.
Hit the link for the full press release, complete with illustrations of how it works.