Road trips in Old Europe aren't the most stimulating of affairs. Roads curve gently for miles and miles, then sweep dangerously one way or another; endless hilly landscapes roll and tumble on; the north's long nights begin in the afternoon and stretch into mid-morning. So Mercedes-Benz is researching systems that keep drivers awake, sounding alarms at critical moments to ensure operators don't drift off at the wheel. Next: electric shocks and terrible Franconian volk music.
Methods for detecting sleepiness include cameras that detect when eyes stop blinking, live electroencephalograms and analysis of steering data. Engineers working near Stuttgart, however, say that none of these individual criteria are of much use in determining when best to sound the alarms.
According to the National Sleep Foundation, almost a third of drivers have fallen asleep at the wheel at least once in their lifetime. They say 100,000 accidents and 1,500 fatalities annually are reported as the result of fatigue, and claim the real figure could be as high as 5,000 deaths a year.
Mercedes-Benz developing Warning System for Motorists [AutomotiveTV]
