So what we're saying is that instead of you ending up dead...you get to cause a 3 - 5 car pile up into your boot (trunk) and watch your insurance premium go through the roof.

At which point you'll want to be dead anyway?

So they created a system that lets you know cross traffic isn't slowing down when the light changes? I have that system in my car. Its called common sense. You check that an intersection is safe before you enter it after a light change. That common sense has kept me from being t-boned by idiot drivers in Chicago for years.

I call it Tsunami... it writes the tickets and mails them out.
And all it does it calculate time, speed and distance from the red light?
We call it breaking the law, potentially. Now, ain't that the marbles.

Wire cutters are your friend.

I want them to make the system so when the light-running car passes through the intersection, it unbuckles the driver's seatbelt and disables the driver's airbag, then slams on the brakes.

Assuming they collide, the the light-runner is either killed (Darwinized) or at least badly injured and off the road for days or weeks.

Assuming the light-running car auto-stops in time, the light-running driver gets brown underwear and a sore torso/knocks head against the steering wheel.

The problem is that only half of the people killed by a light-runner are, in fact, the light-runner. I think we can do much better!

FTFA: "Richard Cockburn"



"says How, who is one of the paper's authors."

I've got a system for this, too.

Seriously, kids. Look both ways before crossing the street. Especially when driving.

Two seconds is an eternity in driving time, plenty of time to react and respond to a known situation.

That said, I'd like to see some measure of the energy put into improving car safety also put into driver training. As I see it, the main cause of most accidents is, as my grandfather used to say, "the nut behind the wheel." (Which probably sounds unambiguous now, but in his time meant something more like PEBCAK.)

I don't hold out much hope for that, though, either being put into practice or having much effect, because people just aren't that good behind the wheel, period. (Especially the ones who think otherwise.) As I've argued before, and will continue to, the ultimate solution probably lies in robot cars, and we're probably never going to see a significant reduction in accidents for as long as humans are allowed to remain in control of the vehicles.