Driving comes with a lot of responsibility and safety is utmost important. Some driving maneuvers can be risky like overtaking on single road when traffic shares same road but the vehicles are moving in opposite direction to each other. While most of our roads are single way there are still many roads with two directional traffic. Safe overtaking on such roads highly depends on the judgment of the driver. It’s still a risky act as driver can’t estimate the speed of the oncoming traffic and sometime starts moving parallel to vehicle he is trying to overtake and crashes into oncoming traffic due to misjudgement. Some drivers are impatient and want to do lane cutting no matter if it’s safe or not and we see them very often. Back in 1997 my brother was seriously injured in an accident exactly due to same reason.
Now few days ago Samsung, the electronic giant, have released a prototype system mounted on big truck-trailers and the purpose and aim of the system is simple; reduce the number of crashes due to risky overtaking. Samsung tested these trucks in Argentina where number of fatal crashes are of the largest around the globe and most of these involve while overtaking. I am sure you might have experienced how difficult it is to over take a truck if you are driving on a single road with oncoming traffic. Samsung used a very simple concept. It’s opposite to what your car rear view camera do. A wireless camera is mounted at front of truck while 4 huge LCD monitors are mounted at the back of the truck. The live video feed is sent from front to back. The drivers moving behind the truck have now a view of what is going on ahead in front of the truck, even in the dark. This gives driver a better view and help them know if it is safe to overtake or not.
According to Samsung they have tested this system extensively in real life with very positive outcome and public have appreciated it. Currently Samsung is working on obtaining the necessary permits and approvals to make the system available publicly. Samsung representative said:
“So far Samsung has been able to confirm that the technology works and that this idea can save the lives of many people”
Some automotive safety experts says that such systems can also increase the distraction. Please watch an introduction video below to understand a very simple but innovative idea.
it is a norm in pakistan…. it takes certain skill to overtake several trucks in a row with oncoming traffic… but this would surely make it so much easier