The safety debate.

Call it a clash of cultures. Volvo's BLIS (Blind Spot Indicator System) places a digital camera that takes 25 pictures per second in each door mirror housing. It recognizes objects in a zone 31 ft. long by nearly 10 ft. wide near the vehicle, and illuminates a light near the appropriate door mirror when an object comes into the blind spot. However, Lars Lundin, v.p. and general manager of Volvo's U.S. Monitoring & Concept Center (Camarillo, CA) speaking at the Infineon Media Day 2004, said that the wide-angle mirrors Volvo fits to its European vehicles perform much the same function less expensively, but are illegal in the U.S. BLIS is available on selected European and North American Volvos.

"Convex mirrors eliminate most blind spots by giving the driver an enhanced view of the vehicles around him," said Lundin, "but U.S. law won't let OEMs fit them to their vehicles." As a result, automakers are forced to develop electronic solutions as a primary accident deterrent, which causes drivers to become overly reliant on them. It's a problem Lundin has seen before. He said, "Despite our best efforts," he said, "40% of the people who die in car accidents in North America weren't wearing their seatbelts, a wear rate that contributes to a ridiculously high rate of injury, and increases injury severity." He points out that drivers and passengers have come to rely on airbags--which are supplemental restraints--as their primary safety system, and suggests incentives are needed to change behavior.

Unfortunately, U.S. law and culture (remember seatbelt inter-locks?) conspire to thwart a regime that forces the driver and passengers to be more responsible. Therefore, said Richard Lind, director of Advanced Engineering, Electronics, & Safety at Delphi, "The future of safety in the U.S. is active." He predicted 360[degrees] sensor coverage will happen, and said driver inattention and workload issues will be the driving force for active safety systems. One promising technology is eye tracking, which is non-invasive but recognizes inattentiveness, drowsiness, and impairment. It's also processor hungry. "A system like this takes 4 gops (Giga Operations Per Second) of processing power," said Lind, "and will signal the need to assist the driver with his task." Like all active safety systems it will leave the ultimate responsibility in the driver's hands.--CAS