Driving Hacks: Technologies That Helps You Drive Home Safely

It’s an improvement but it could be a drop in the bucket. That’s how the small decline in roadway casualties in America looks like.National Safety Councilestimates that for three consecutive years, there has been a steady drop of cases. In 2017, there were 40,231 lives lost to road mishaps. In 2018 only 39,404 were recorded. That’s a 4% drop. Then in 2019, only 38,800 people succumb to car accidents. That’s a 2% decline from the previous year. But all that can be irrelevant.

Truth be told, thousands of Americans still perish on the road. And that’s one death too many. Certainly, you’d wish there is a way that all these untimely deaths can be prevented. To lessen the unnecessary pain. The worst part of all these deaths is more often than not human errors. Experts estimate over 94% of accidents are caused by humans.

Fortunately, technology offers ways to minimize road mishaps. Putting these techs on the road should lessen the number of accidents every year. Here are four of them:

Speed Caps

It’s a bane of humanity’s advancements. You’ll never see a horse-driven carriage kill a man. It’s possible if you put yourself under the mercy of the horses’ hoofs. But it’s not an everyday thing.

However, as cars gained the ability to run at blinding speeds, accidents have increased.NHTSA detailsabout a third of road deaths were connected to speeding. Reckless driving indeed is scary. In the year 2018 alone, over 9,000 people were killed by speeding.

How? It’s simple. The faster you go, the greater the risk you’ll lose control of the steering wheel. In essence, your car becomes a speeding bullet albeit a hundred times bigger.

Sudden death is not the only danger in car crashes. Thousands more are suffering from life-altering health conditions afforded by a road mishap. Some have spinal cord injuries and limb loss.

For back pains and neck relief due to car accidents, getting anauto accident chiropractoris wise. These medical professionals allow you to heal back to regain full motion of your body via careful diagnosis and apt treatment. In short, they’re wonder-workers.

Thank God for speed-limiting technology. All new Volvos now have a limit of 180 km per hour. Though there is a lot of back and forth about this new tech, it’s a victory of sort.

When speed caps are installed, drivers are forced to think about the dangers of over speeding.

Self-driving Car

Perhaps the biggest technology to transform our driving is autonomous cars. Why? As humans are prone to error, taking the wheel away from us would be logical.

Right off the bat, this technology has the biggest potential. Think of the possibilities. With driverless cars running the show, you can go home even if you’re drunk. You can also have your child get home from school even without you behind the wheel.

Then there’s the effect on traffic. As these driverless cars are interconnected, they will be able to know which routes would take you there faster. Plus, with their ability to monitor engine health,your repair bills and fuel costsshould go down drastically.

Real-time Health Monitoring

A study done in Australia shows that medical issues contribute to over 10% of car accidents giving way to over 20% of fatal crashes.

Real-time health monitoring can determine if a driver is suffering health issues while behind the wheel. We’re talking about heart attack and high blood pressure.

When health issues are spotted, the car will automatically pull over, amongst many other responses. This is after warning signals are sent and no appropriate response has been given.

Distracted Driving Monitoring

Another dangerous behavior on the road is drunk driving. You might even hear young people say it’s ok. But truly, it’s not.

Drunk driving kills. Over10,000 Americansperish every year due to intoxicated driving. Take note that alcohol impairs the senses and dulls the brain. In short, a drunk driver is an accident waiting to happen.

Thanks to nifty in-car cameras and sensors, drunk driving can be prevented. The same is also applied to distracted driving.

The trick is the cameras are like observant eyes. They track the visual movements of the driver. We’re talking about eye movements and pupil reactions. Reaction time for one is being analyzed.

Just like real-time health monitoring, the car is set to intervene when a driver doesn’t respond to warning signals, meaning it doesn’t wait for an accident to happen; it acts. Just like a human beside the driver would.

What does the car do? If things are looking bad, it stops and pulls over. And that simple act could mean a couple of lives are saved.