By Dylan Bushe
Imagine, driving down the road, early in the morning, little traffic so far, and so you are not concerned with the road that much. You look down and check your messages on your phone and then BAM! Pedestrian jumps right in front of your vehicle. Normally you would be too late to apply the brakes, smash into the pedestrian, and get sued…. but not this time. You have bought a car with the technology to make a complete stop for you. That is right, the car has stopped for you, the pedestrian doesn’t even know you were close and you have saved another life. All because you bought some brand new technology for only $1,000 extra on one of your cars.

Sound like a dream world? Well in less than two years it won’t be.

Yonatan Samet, Mobileye  R&D Project manager, has led his company to a new breakthrough. The ability for cars to stop all by themselves. He said in a statement, “This system actually sees what’s going on on the road. It can see where the lane marks are, it can see where the vehicles are, it can see where the pedestrians are, what the pedestrians are about to do. Are they about to cross the road? Are they going to remain on the sidewalk and be safe and protected? This is a system that saves lives.”  The technology will be marketed in the United States in less than two years, for only $1000 extra.

Yes, this new Israeli technology has been built and programmed to allow a car to stop on its own. The system works with cameras in the front and in the back of the car. The software for the cameras picks up the presence of cars, pedestrians, and animals. The car will then react to the movements of the world outside. If the driver is approaching a pedestrian or another car too closely the program will make the car give a very loud, annoying beep to warn the driver. If the driver, however, does not react in time, the car will start slowing down or stopping by itself. The system will also warn a weary, sleepy driver when they are crossing outside of the line. The way that works is that the cameras to the side are pointed down at the lines, and are also programmed to fix on the lines and when a driver drifts too much left or right a beep will sound.

The pros to this product are simple: safety, safety, safety. When the technology is perfect, and works with zero malfunctions, it will saves hundreds of thousands of lives every day and ever year. However, although this new technology may allow for a safer world, it could have its drawbacks! A con about this, could be what happens if someone jumps out with a hairsbreath of space between the car and you? Will it stop? What if a pedestrian changes couse? Will it react in time? How many times will this technology have to fail before it is taken off of the market or is made perfect? How long until that beeping gets so annoying people ask for a way to take it out of the product’s programs?

These questions and others will be answered in time, but for now, all we can do it sit and wait while the company hammers out the details. Until then, people will just have to continue to rely on the simple “eyes-on-the-road” method of safe driving.