Reducing Wrong Way Crashes

Recently many states have been testing new sensors that can detect when a car is driving the wrong way in a lane. The sensors then send this information (via radio signals) to applications that have been installed in cars, to notify the driver of the potential collision with the wrong way driver.

One of the most important points that was mentioned in the article is how this technology is providing information that could save lives. The article mentions how many people have died horrific deaths because of these collisions that occur between two cars, usually traveling very fast, in opposite directions. This technology can provide drivers with information on wrong way drivers and they can do there best to stay off that road or highway and this could save their lives. Another point I would like to emphasize is that in the article it is mentioned that this information that the sensors collect is also being sent to local and state police. This is extremely useful because the police now have the potential to go and search for these drivers and hopefully stop them before they crash into something or some other car. The police no longer have to wait for a radio call about a wrong way collision, now they can try and prevent these collisions. And the final point I would like to bring up is that although this technology can be useful, the article mentions how the technology can determine that a driver is going the wrong way in a lane, but not what lane they are in. This is important to emphasize because it shows that we have a great deal of work to do to improve the accuracy of these sensors before we can fully depend on them.

Although the article did mention both positive and negatives of these new sensors, I believe there were still some aspects that were overlooked. To start, I think the article looked over whether or not these applications can be installed in all cars, not just newer cars. If these applications can only be installed on newer cars then they're not nearly as useful because a good percentage of the country drives older cars. Another aspect I think the article overlooked was whether or not the company who provides these sensors would be liable if the sensors were faulty and did not send the alert to someone and that person ended up getting in a crash with a wrong way driver. I believe that there will be some arguments over whether or not the company could be penalized for something like this because although they weren't the reason for the crash, their technology was suppose to help prevent a crash. And the final aspect the article overlooked was price of this technology. If the technology costs too much, people will be hesitant to buy it even though it could potentially save their lives.

Source:
http://www.mydaytondailynews.com/news/news/local/new-technology-could-reduce-wrong-way-driver-crash/nqS3p/