by Newton Adams

Created on: January 27, 2007   Last Updated: March 22, 2007

I have recently had a friend who was hit by a drunk driver that ran a red light. I have been pondering over his accident, mainly because it could be me next, or a loved one. The guy hit my friend at full speed. Luckily my friend came out of the incident with only minor discomforts that he is receiving physical therapy for, and a totaled truck. I guess the only reason my friend is not in a worse condition is because of his truck being higher than the car the other guy was driving. The other guy was arrested on the scene for DUI. He came out of it without a scratch.

I don't want to stray to far from my proposal. I think with current video and mechanical technology, we could manufacture a device which could sense if the light was red and lightly or more briskly apply the brakes as appropriate. This could not only protect against drunk drivers running a red light, but mothers tending children, people on cell phones, people who are distracted, tired, late, whatever reason anybody has ever accidentally ran a light. I don't think it would be that cost inhibiting for vehicle manufacturers, considering everybody has a camera phone these days that would be powerful enough to serve this purpose and the mechanical aspects couldn't be as complicated as a robot vacuum cleaner. I would even pay to have something like this installed on my vehicle. I am a nervous and paranoid driver anyway. "It's not me", I always say, "It's everybody else". I live in a back woods hippie town in Hawaii. Lets just say that people party hard out here and the local cab company doesn't make it down here very often. You just never know.
Of course there would be safety concerns about letting braking be controlled by the vehicle. This is why I think only slightly applying brakes or sounding an alarm or beep, should be tested first. I think I would feel better having the car alert me before applying brakes might be best so I can get used to the idea. Here is a scenario. You celebrated a friends wedding yesterday and didn't get enough sleep. "Oh well, it's Friday. I can make up the sleep this weekend". So you groggily get ready for work and hop in the car. On the way to work you kind of nod a couple times. "Man, I've got to stay alert". "I'll let in some cold air". You continue on to work. You get about 5 minutes away from work and start nodding again. You then hear a ding and the car starts to brake, just as you snap to alertness and see that cement truck passing in front of you. People don't intend to ram their vehicle into another person, that's why we call them accidents. This is just my view on how we can decrease the amount of things we don't mean to do. And hopefully save some precious lives at the same time.

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