From BusinessWeek 7/27/1998:
SOMEONE DID INVENT A DROWSY-DRIVER ALARM
In ''Your car may be smarter than you'' (Science & Technology, June 29), you predict that future navigational systems may include a ''drowsy-driver'' warning system. It may interest you know that a small engineering firm in New Mexico (Energy Optics Inc., now American Millennium Corp.) developed a low-cost, effective ''sleep alarm'' to prevent the 200,000 asleep-at-the-wheel accidents each year.
For three years, it has been trying to interest both the industry and the government in this proven system, to no avail. The federal highway-safety organization rejected it, saying it had its own research program--which has spent several million dollars and come up with nothing. General Motors Corp. ''studied'' it for a full year and finally turned it down at the board level, we were told, because it might fail and lead to more lawsuits.
The Energy Optics system sounds a warning not only if the driver's eyes droop or close, but also if his blink rate slows below his norm with his eyes open, thus indicating unconsciousness. In these three years, this innovation could have saved thousands of lives--and now you predict that it's coming. How nice.
Gordon Molesworth
Green Valley, Ariz. |
