Building safer cars

In the future, cars will help make the world\´s roads nearly accident free. Humans are fallible: we get sleepy while driving at night, do dumb things like put on makeup or shave while creeping along in bumper-to-bumper traffic, or look away from the road to adjust our car radios. But cars will soon make road travel safer by looking over drivers\´ shoulders, so to speak, keeping their attention from being pulled away from the road, and finding ways to reduce the hazard should a driver\´s focus stray. To this end, researchers envision smart systems that give the driver "the right information, in the right way, at the right time". R&D programs are advancing toward a smart car capable of reducing the number of stimuli, some of them simultaneous, to which a driver must react, or taking over elements of the driving task such as braking or steering. Adaptive cruise control (ACC) systems are being developed which combine radar- or laser-based sensors that scan the road ahead with throttle and brake actuators, to maintain a safe, preset minimum distance between cars in the same lane