While car safety features are, on the whole, a great way to reduce injuries and to prevent accidents from happening in the first place, they aren’t always what they seem. There are some who believe that car safety features can be dangerous, even though these features are designed to keep passengers and drivers safe on the roads.
As safety technology advances and is placed in vehicles, it’s been found that too many signals could be just as distracting as driving while on the phone or texting. Adding safety features is a great idea so long as it doesn’t take a person’s mind or eyes off the road.
Technology has always had a way of being both good and bad. Cellphones, for example, make it easier for someone to call for help if a vehicle is disabled or if there’s a crash. They also have the potential to be the cause of crashes due to distractions.
How could this technology be better used?
What’s been found is that ranking the dangers and alerting the driver to the most hazardous first is the best way to proceed. Signalling one hazard at a time gives a driver a chance to respond instead of having to choose between which alerts to respond to all at once. As each hazard is avoided, the next alert may pop up or sound, giving the driver better guidance to make the right driving decisions at that time.
If technology distracts and causes an accident, it could be harmful to everyone involved in the crash. Whether it’s a commercial vehicle crash or a passenger vehicle crash, holding someone responsible is a necessary step.
Source: Forbes, “Why Car Safety Features Can Be Dangerous,” Joann Muller, accessed April 20, 2018