Auto accidents claim almost as many deaths in the U.S. on an annual basis as heart attacks and strokes. It is one of the top five killers in the country even in the 2020s. Says the professionals at The Barnes firm, which is said to be one of NYC’s best car accident lawyers, the streets of New York City are bustling 24/7 just like other major cities in the U.S. They compete for the roads with native New Yorkers, commuters, and tourists who travel throughout the city.
Millions of taxis, Ubers, Lyfts, cars, and trucks travel the mean streets every day and night from point A to Z as fast and, all too often, as recklessly as possible. Because of this volume and congestion, more than 1,000 car accidents, some of them lethal crashes, occur every month. If you are a victim of one of these accidents, you need to contact a reputable car accident attorney who can get you the compensation you deserve while you heal emotionally and physically.
If Manhattan alone is experiencing 1,000 accidents every month, you might imagine how many serious accidents occur throughout the country on a monthly basis. The answer lies in the area of tens of thousands. With that in mind, can anything be done to diminish the number of vehicular accidents or even eliminate them altogether? The answer might have already arrived in the form of AI.
According to a recent report by The New York Times, every year about 1.35 million people are killed in vehicular accidents not only in the U.S. but the world over. Another 50 million are seriously injured to the point where they cannot work again (thus the importance of contacting a reputable car accident attorney) or so says the World Health Organization (WHO).
In the U.S., the fatality rate spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic or so claims the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). Distracted driving, impaired driving, speeding, and failure to wear a seatbelt were said to be the top causes of death and serious injury.
But AI, or artificial intelligence, is already well on its way toward being utilized to beef up driving safety and security via cell phone apps that monitor driver behavior and that reward safe drivers with certain perks. AI is also being used to connect vehicles and road infrastructure allowing them to communicate with one another.
What Does the Future Hold for AI and Auto Safety?
The billion-dollar question looms large: can AI accomplish what human beings can’t? Also, will AI tech mature prior to the inevitable proliferation of self-driving or autonomous vehicles?
Says the president of the London-based nonprofit, the Global New Car Assessment Program, there’s a lot if not too hype centered around AI, self-driving vehicles, and road safety. The focus for engineers should be on the lower-hanging fruit rather than setting their sights on a long-range utopian dream.
Other, like-minded, more practical thinkers are looking at more benign, intermediate, and low-cost technologies that are readily available now. One example is said to be intelligent speed assistance (ISA). It utilizes AI to properly manage a car’s speed by working with in-vehicle mapping and camera systems.
This kind of safety technology was made mandatory in the European Union in July of 2022 but has yet to be instituted in the U.S.
Intelligent Eyes
The Australia basedAcusensusis just one of several companies presently employing AI to address overall road safety. Its cameras or “intelligent eyes,” combine high-resolution imaging with machine learning to identify hazardous driving conditions and behaviors that up till now would have been hard to detect, much less enforce.
Says the company’s North American president, intelligent eyes will save lives. The newly patented tech is said to be unaffected by high speeds or weather conditions, unlike the human eye. Cameras are engineered to be installed on existing road infrastructure such as overpasses, signage, bridges, buildings, and more. The images are optimized for AI and trained to work with specific considerations and factors such as environment, time of day, weather, and so forth.
The intelligent eye’s algorithms are presently able to detect and determine with a high degree of probability if a specific driver is engaging in something risky while behind the wheel. The system is said to be able to assess distraction, assess vehicle speed, and occupant restraint. All three behaviors are examined by the AI simultaneously. It’s important to note that 90 percent of dangerous behaviors occur out of sight, below the dash.
With intelligent eyes, law enforcement such as State Troopers will now have the ability to see clearly if a driver is holding something in his hands other than the steering wheel, such as a cell phone, a cup of hot coffee, or even cigarette or a joint. Law enforcement will be able to determine if the driver is not focused on the road but instead gazing downward to text someone. This occurs when an invisible intelligent eye“flash” enables clear access through the vehicle’s windshield.
Intelligent eye tech was said to be developed after a co-worker of the company’s president was killed while biking along the roadside by a distracted driver back in 2013.
Heads-Up
First rolled out in 2019, Heads-Up is a newAcusensusAI enhanced system that is said to capture images that can later be screened by law enforcement officials for the likelihood of a broken law. In its first two years of operation, Heads-Up resulted in a 22 percent reduction in vehicular accident fatalities, and an 80 percent reduction in cell phone use while driving. The project is currently being deployed all over Australia and will soon make an appearance in the U.S.
In fact, the U.S. version of Heads-Up is called, Heads-Up Real Time. In this version of the AI road safety tool, images and accompanying data will be sent in real-time to troopers and officers stationed in patrol cars which they can then view on their center console-mounted laptops.
Says the senior director for the Governor’s Highway Safety Association (GHSA), Heads-Up Real Time is all about the ability to leverage AI technology to help better understand what people are trying to get away with behind the wheel that potentially puts others and themselves at risk for a serious accident or even death. There is tremendous life-saving potential in the Heads UpAI projects.
When high-visibility traffic enforcement occurs, such as law enforcement stationed conspicuously in marked cruisers along the highway shoulder, drivers instinctually behave better by slowing down, buckling up, and putting down their phones. No one wants to get stopped, and no one wants a ticket for a moving violation. That’s why drivers do what they’re supposed to do when they see the presence of law enforcement.
But since you cannot put an officer on every road, engineers are focused on AI technology that will fill in the gaps. The AI tech is being developed to identify “hot spots,” which is said to assist in determining where police, sheriffs, and troopers need to improve law enforcement efforts, adopt new legislation, and make necessary changes in roadway infrastructure. Over the past year, new evaluations and demonstrations of the most recent versions of the Heads Up road safety tech were conducted for state transportation departments and local law enforcement agencies. Results were said to be impressive.
For example, during an 18-hour assessment in August of 2022 of a high-risk section of Missouri roadway that was averaging three and a half vehicular accidents per day, over 11,000 vehicles drove past. It’s said that at least 60 percent of the drivers were speeding while an average of close to 7 percent were using their cell phones. This represents more than twice the national average. Another 5.5 percent were engaged in risky or dangerous behavior that resulted in distracted driving.
2021 and 2022 were record years for road fatalities officials say. It’s their goal to change policy and implement AI to address these dire road safety issues. And the AI tech is said to be gaining lots of interest on the state level. Several U.S. states are presently in discussion with the developers of the Heads Up program. One state, Indiana, is already taking the next step by piloting AI tech for the evaluation of law enforcement deployment. In other words, they are all in on the life-saving AI technology.
AI Road Safety Tech in Europe
AI technology that’s very much like Heads Up is being introduced in Europe, or so says the secretary general of the European Metropolitan Transport Authorities (EMTA) in Paris. Data collection on a large scale will have the potential for preventing dangerous collisions across many road networks. Even though AI is said to be data-hungry, there is currently very little data that can be accessed by roadway law enforcement officials.
Barcelona, Spain was recently the sight for a trial utilizing a new computer vision technology for its city buses for the purposes of mapping areas and places along the route where conflicts would typically arise between pedestrians, vehicles, and others. The AI-enhanced technology is designed to identify the specific spots where accident risk is the highest.
Says the EMTA, after collecting this type of data for over a year with thousands of streets and thousands of buses, you begin to recognize the bigger picture of potential crashes and fatalities. But for some reason, the new AI approach to road safety is yet to be widely embraced. But developers are confident that it will be. It’s recommended that every European city at least try the new road safety tech since it has the potential to save thousands of lives on an annual basis.
Clearly, AI is the future of road safety tech and the elimination of most or all auto accidents in the U.S. and abroad.
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