This episode of Dnews was proudly made possible by the all-new 2015 Subaru Legacy - it’s
not just a sedan, it’s a Subaru.
Driver fatigue causes thousands of deaths every single year - so what if there was a
device that could alert you whenever you start to fall asleep?
Hey guys, Tara here for Dnews - and chances are, most of the people out there watching
this own a car.
And if you drive relatively often, then there’s also a chance you’ve driven in unsafe conditions.
And by unsafe, I don’t mean drunk or bad weather conditions - I’m talking about driving
while tired.
About 20% of all car accidents involve a drowsy driver, which leads to almost 7,000 fatalities
every year.
Truck drivers, young male drivers, and shift workers are especially vulnerable to drowsy
driving.
It lowers your reaction time, and impairs your concentration and alertness.
But even scarier, is the fact that there aren’t any laws - at least here in America - against
driving while drowsy.
Which is why many auto makers and companies are now trying to develop technology to prevent
those kinds of accidents before they happen.
Researchers at the Biomechanics Institute in Spain, recently created a device that can
monitor cardiac and respiratory rhythms in a driver, through sensors that are embedded
in the seat-belt and seat cover.
Heart rate and breathing rate are the two single most important indicators of fatigue,
so by monitoring those vitals, this system can effectively alert you if you’re starting
to fall asleep at the wheel.
When a driver’s respiratory rate falls below a certain level, a warning mechanism goes
off that alerts the driver, avoiding a potential collision.
The system is also covered in a smart material to cancel out the effects of road vibration,
or any driver movements.
According to its creators, they now have a fully-functional prototype that can be implemented
into any car.
Currently, it’s being tested on closed tracks only, but those tests have yielded positive
results, and its creators are hopeful that they’ll soon be able to test the system
in real-world traffic scenarios.
Just imagine how many lives we could save with technology like this.
As someone who once lost a good friend myself to drowsy driving, I have to say - I do wish
something like this had come along sooner, but on the whole, I could not be more excited
about this.
While we’re on the topic of driving, we wanna extend a quick thank you to Subaru,
for making this episode possible.
And especially the all-new 2015 Subaru Legacy.
Every sedan has its benefits, but only one combines them all.
It’s not just a sedan.
It’s a Subaru.
And hey - be sure to let us know in the comments below, if you ever get sleepy while driving
- and what your best remedy is to combat driver fatigue.
That’s all for me, but as always - thank you guys for watching!