There seems to be a growing industry dedicated to finding ways to use technology to combat serious injuries and deaths from traffic accidents, and we’ve already seen how gadgets and gizmos are being placed in trucks to monitor the behavior of truck drivers, and into cars to prevent drunk drivers from operating their vehicles.
However, due on our roads in the near future are even more advanced forms of technology. These are focused upon stopping distracted driving on our roads, a serious and growing problem these days with all the popularity of smartphones, on-board mapping devices, etc.
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1. General Motors Building Cars That Can Monitor Driver Distractions
First, the largest car maker in the United States has announced its newest campaign: GM is about to start selling cars that have internal devices to check the driver’s eyes and the driver’s head movements. From monitoring where the driver is looking and how the driver’s head is positioned, the new GM cars reportedly be able to determine if the driver is distracted and warn him or her of the danger.
GM isn’t making this gizmo. General Motors is buying around 500,000 of the distracted driving tracking devices from Takata, the tracking device manufacturer.
2. Police Gun Will Be Able to Zap Cars, Locate Distracted Drivers
A Virginia gizmo maker has announced a new device that it will be selling to law enforcement around the country: the “Sniffer Sleuth” which is a “texting gun.” This gizmo allows a police officer to point it at a car driving down the road, and tell if the driver is using a phone to make a call, or to text, or to transfer data (say get directions from a map).
For states like Indiana and Illinois, where there are different laws for texting versus talking on the phone, this gizmo will be very helpful for local police to determine if someone is violating traffic laws or not, since the Sniffer Sleuth can report who is texting vs who is talking on their smartphone.
Don’t expect the country’s men (and women) in blue to be using these routinely any time soon, however: there are still privacy hurdles for the gizmo to jump before the Sniffer Sleuth becomes part of the US police officer’s tools of the trade. They are for sale, online, however — you can purchase one for around $1500.00.
