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NEWS IN BRIEF, IN-CAR CAMERAS TO COMBAT
Continued from page 14 DRUNK AND DISTRACTED
DRIVING
ease traffic and air quality. London, Volvo announced it is installing
Singapore, Milan are other large met- cameras inside its vehicles to monitor
ropolitan areas that charge for passing driver behavior and intervene if the
into heavily travelled areas. driver appears to be drunk or distracted.
The cameras will monitor eye
FEMALE DRIVERS ARE SAFER, movements to gauge distraction. If a
STUDY SAYS driver isn’t watching the road or fails to
keep their hands on the steering wheel,
they will get a call from a representative
from Volvo’s on-call assistance centers
to check in. And if a driver doesn’t
respond, the car can slow down and
stop.
The system will roll-out to all Volvo
cars by early 2020 as part of the compa-
ny’s Vision 2020 goal, in which no one
is killed or seriously injured in a Volvo
vehicle in 2020.
“When it comes to safety, our aim
is to avoid accidents altogether rather
than limit the impact when an accident
is imminent and unavoidable,” Henrik
According to a recent study by Green, senior vice president for research
the American Transportation Research and development at Volvo Car Group,
Institute, female drivers pose lower said in a statement. “In this case, cam-
crash risks. eras will monitor for behavior that may
In its most recent Crash Predictor lead to serious injury or death.”
Model, which statistically quantifies the Privacy advocates may be wary of
likelihood of future crash involvement the new camera features, but the com-
based on specific truck driving behav- pany likens this safety technology to
iors, ATRI found that female truck driv- the seatbelt and the early objection to
ers were determined to be safer than seatbelt laws. ATR
male counterparts in every statisti-
cally significant safety behavior,
with men 20% more likely to be
involved in a crash.
Involvement in a prior crash
increases the likelihood of a future
crash by 74%, researchers found.
The top two driving behaviors that
most predict future crashes are
violations for reckless driving or
failing to yield the right of way.
The analysis draws on data
from more than 435,000 U.S.
truck drivers over a two-year time-
frame, and identifies almost a
dozen behaviors that raise the risk of a
future crash by more than 50%.

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