Ignoring the alarmist headline, Matthew Phenix’s overview of some of the latest safety features to be found in cars. Not just in high-end models, either.
Several cars now have lane-departure warning systems, and a Honda I drove in Japan went as far as to physically steer the car back into the the lane if it strayed (a device tested by driving the car around a high-speed oval with no hands on the wheel). Infiniti now has a system that uses a quartet of little cameras to synthesize a 360-degree overhead image of your car on the in-dash LCD, so presumably you no longer have to look out those tiresome windows during parking maneuvers.
The self-driving car of the future inches (safely) forward. First we’ll see self-driven buses on major arteries, I suspect; once we get used to those for a few years, we’ll start trusting our cars auto-pilot of highway stretches. Then somebody’s car will turn him to jelly when it accidentally tries to park itself in his belly and we’ll be set back another decade or two.
I disagree, I think buses on major arteries will be the LAST to adopt this technology. Look at subways now: it’s easy to have an self driven train (like at JFK airport), but unions will never allow the whole MTA (or any other transit authority) to be automated. As soon as we try to automate it, they’ll flood the media with safety concerns.
One of the coolest new car features I’ve seen recently is the infrared displays in the Mercedes. It has a monitor set into the dash linked to an infrared camera — so at night, you’re given a much further field of view than that provided by just the headlights.