Drinking alcohol and driving do not mix. It is an age-old truth that we are also reminded of in government campaigns. Alcohol is at the root of nearly 11% of fatal car accidents across the world. These days, however, something else is ousting alcohol from its first place. You have guessed it. It is our mobile phone. In the USA alone smartphone use behind the wheel cost over 4000 human lives in 2015. Multi-tasking is not something that mankind is good at, and there is plenty of research that confirms this.
New technological developments will see to it that smartphone use behind the wheel will soon be a thing of the past. No more Whatsapp messaging or emailing soon. Newly developed software recognizes erratic behaviour, and cameras and Artificial Intelligence (AI) register when your eyes do not focus on the road. As soon as this is noticed, the car’s Big Brother software takes over the operation of the car. It not only watches you but also takes action against you. And that is not all. Science and technology can go even further. At this moment tests are being done with a project called Textalyzer, which is a service informing the police of your mobile phone use behind the wheel. Before this software can be rolled out many legal issues, in particular privacy-related ones have to be sorted first. Still, if drivers do not restrict their own phone use themselves, the government has an extra argument to make the software compulsory. This places Big Brother right behind you. Just watch this video to get an impression:
These technological developments require an excellent cooperation between the various disciplines in the technical interconnect industry. This obviously throws big challenges at the whole industry, and they will not be the last or only ones.
