Google was on hand with a short film of a legally blind driver taking an unmanned car for a spin.
Mark Riccobono, the first blind driver who drove our vehicle on the Daytona International Speedway, is a better driver than I am -- at least with this vehicle.
The sensors we use for the blind driver challenge vehicle are almost identical to the ones we use for autonomous vehicles, and we have used for this project many of the technologies we have developed for our autonomous cars for the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge.
The focus of autonomous vehicle research is on developing intelligent vehicles, or artificial intelligence for cars in some sense, while the focus of the blind driver challenge vehicle is developing methods to convey a vast amount of information to the driver through nonvisual means, fast enough and accurately enough for safe driving.
Distance-sensing lasers will check for vehicles in the driver's blind spot and the passing lane.
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In 2007, an internal report for Transport for London concluded women cyclists are far more likely to be killed by lorries because, unlike men, they tend to obey red lights and wait at junctions in the driver's blind spot.
Regarding the capability of the blind, I believe that with the right nonvisual user interfaces, once we can deliver all the information needed to safely operate the vehicle to the driver, the blind can perform as well as, or possibly even better than the sighted.
With help from signals from roadside markers and traffic lights, in-car computers will be able to determine if a car should slam on the brakes, alert the driver to a passing vehicle in the blind spot or slow for a red light up ahead that another driver isn't heeding.
The side-view mirrors on most cars are flat, and while they give drivers an accurate sense of the distance of cars behind them, they have a narrow field of view, leaving a space behind the vehicle -- the blind spot -- that a driver can't see.
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Blind-spot warning systems alert a driver to the otherwise unseen presence of other cars to the side and rear of the vehicle on the highway, and some do the same for cross traffic when backing out of a garage or parking space.
Toyota's 2014 Tundra pickup will come with a standard backup camera, and an optional blind-spot system that can warn a Tundra driver when a car is about to pass.
An Ipswich taxi driver has been fined for refusing to accept a blind couple and their guide dogs in his vehicle.
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Ford's outfitted the Fusion Energi with a dizzying array of driver-assist tech, including a lane-keeping system, adaptive cruise control, driver alert system, active park assist, rear camera, blind-spot indicator system with cross-traffic alert and pull-drift compensation (phew).
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If a truck looms out of the blind spot during a high-speed freeway merge, for example, a driver would be better off if his phone's ringer was disabled at that moment, he says.
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The driver who killed her had been drinking, taking painkillers, and was blind in one eye.
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Importantly, the data is then translated into a driver warning when a hazardous traffic scenario occurs such as an impending collison at a blind intersection or a car changing lanes in your blind spot.
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