How active are you when you’re driving? Are you really focused on the road ahead or do you get easily distracted? Wouldn’t it be nice if you could be given a head up if you were drifting off while driving? That is exactly what General motors has in mind when they took the initiative of installing an eye-tracking technology in its vehicles.
The technology will allow the car to track its driver’s eye movements and ascertain whether the attention of the driver is on the road or not. GM will be installing about half a million cars with this device over the next 3-5 years. The technology being employed has been created by Seeing Machines, which is a Canberra-based company whose specialty is driver-fatigue related technology.
The cameras that will be installed in the car shall be provided support via algorithms in order to first identify the features of drivers’ face and then using this information, a 3D map of the interior will be created and hence, help in determining what the driver is focusing on. The gadget will also be able to ascertain the movement of the head and shall alert the drivers when they are not paying attention to rear-view mirror for example.
As per National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, one out of every 10 fatal crashes in the US happens because of distraction. According to the stats submitted by the RAC state that about 20% of Australian drivers who are involved in crashes later on admitted that they were in fact, staring at the very same object that they crashed into, all because of distraction.
Although the device could raise privacy issues over what will be done with the collected data, however, Seeing Machines stated that no information will be stored. No comment from GM regarding this matter has been made so far.