What if there were a quick and simple system that alerted all drivers when someone was driving the wrong way down the road? German automotive supplier Bosch aims to better warn wrong-way drivers, both those actually driving the wrong way and those near the car driving the wrong way, using a cloud-based software application.
The premise is that Bosch provides a software application that constantly checks a vehicle's movements against what it understands as the permitted direction on any given road. Imagine it like any other GPS software, but with a specific focus on which way the car is moving. If the information gathered from the vehicles doesn't line up with the way they should be driving, that's when an alert goes out to both that driver and any oncoming drivers utilizing the system.
According to Bosch, radio alerts in Germany about wrong-way drivers can take several minutes to go out, by which time the danger's already come and gone for most folks. A statistic they quote says that one third of critical incidents caused by wrong-way drivers occurs within the first 1,650 feet or so, meaning that an accident's already happened in these cases before there's ever a radio-based warning. Thus the cloud-based system they're working on, which would alert folks much faster.
One potential flaw in the system: It's only as good as the number of vehicles using it. Part of the way it detects and alerts folks of wrong-way drivers appears to be tied up in information gathered anonymously from nearby vehicles. This also would be completely ineffective for anyone driving around without the software application, or without "an unbroken connection to the internet," which is something it requires to function.
The service is scheduled to launch in 2016, and will be made available for as many "infotainment" devices as possible, in hopes of casting a wide safety net. In the meantime, don't drive down streets the wrong way. That could help too.
Read more at: http://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/car-technology/a26678/cloud-based-warning-system-could-curb-wrong-way-driving-deaths/?utm_campaign=trueAnthem%3A+Trending+Content&utm_content=55fbf09304d3013205000001&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter
