In a bid to combat road rage, scientists have developed new technology that can detect when drivers are on the verge of ‘road rage’ writes the Book Theory Test Today blogger.
In our latest perusing of the web for interesting driving related news, Book Theory Test Today stumbled upon an article in Wired magazine describing how scientists have developed a prototype technology that can apparently detect ‘road rage’.
According to Wired.com the technology uses in-car cameras to assess the facial expressions of drivers with the capability of detecting ‘emotion’, especially frustration.
The Book Theory Test Today blogger writes: “This technology is astounding and my understanding is that the system has the potential to make motorists safer on the roads.â€
As recently as July 2013, Government ministers have called for the testing of learner motorists to assess how likely they are to become road rage instigators. They had called for an examination to be carried out before a learner motorist was permitted to take the theory test. However, such a test was deemed ludicrous by a number of opposition commentators.
Yet, the introduction of ‘road rage’ detection cameras may hold the key to suppressing road rage among UK drivers.
Book Theory Test Today understands that road rage can be attributed to a quarter of road injuries in Britain. Furthermore, between 1990 and 1996 at least 218 deaths on the UK’s roads involved incidents of road rage.
Book Theory Test Today has learnt that the technology was developed by a team of researchers at EPFL. Jean Philippe Thiran, Hiua Goa and Anil Yuce from the Signal 5 Laboratory partnered with car maker, Peugeot Citroen, to build the emotion detector prototype.
Operating ‘at its best’ the technology was able to detect irritation in 90.5 per cent of indoor cases and 85 per cent of in-car cases. The percentage decrease when tested in a vehicle was due to the awkward angle at which the camera had to be placed so not to hinder the driver’s view.
As well as being able to detect ‘emotional’ changes the prototype has also been configured to monitor fatigue and there are plans to enable the technology to detect in-car distraction levels whilst a motorist is driving.
Commenting on the technology, research contributor and technology designer, Thiran, said: “This project is still at an ‘advanced research stage, but there is an ‘emerging consensus that driver monitoring will become highly recommended, if not mandatory, for vehicles with high levels of assistance’ – something that I refer to as ‘adaptive assistance’. I predict that the vehicles which assist in this way will be introduced just before fully autonomous ones, which will be just before 2020.
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