The most urgent need for self driving technology

 

Is to keep semi truck drivers from falling asleep and killing themselves and others on the road.

This week at 4:30 am a local woman died when the oncoming semi truck drifted into her lane. I have little doubt the truck driver fell asleep. Self driving technology has the ability to prevent these accidents by;

- Detecting a driver that is asleep

- Mitigating the risk by braking and steering

Do a search on truck drivers fall asleep and you will find 10.6 million citations. If the NHTSA’s job is to prevent accidents, this is something they could implement now.

Here’s a video of one such accident. What are we waiting for?