Driving at night is dangerous. The reasons are obvious: poor vision on dark highways, obstacles that are recognized too late, wrong judgement of speed, driving into oncoming headlights -and all of this possibly exacerbated by wet, reflecting road surfaces. Fortunately, there is a technology solution coming our way that can make these driving conditions less difficult. Let’s take a look.
Cruise controls are devices that allow a car to maintain a constant speed regardless of driving conditions. What that really means is when going up and down hills on the highway, the device keeps your speed the same. Cruise controls have been around for decades and they are very popular devices.
People enjoy having cruise controls for two reasons. First, they are convenient. When you put your car on cruise, you can relax a bit behind the wheel. When driving long distances, anything that can reduce the workload is a welcome thing. Secondly, they allegedly save gas, in other words you get better gas mileage when you drive with you cruise control on. In fact, a few scattered studies performed by auto-related organizations indicate that using cruise control correctly could boost gas mileage between 7 percent and 14 percent. The questions is: can we count on saving gas if we use our cruise controls?
Today our connected world encompasses far more than just internet websites, it’s now extending to what we drive. Yes, many automotive manufacturers are now offering ways to interact with their vehicles via mobile applications such as smartphones, tablets and laptops. Services such as Jaguar’s InControl Connect and others make it possible for owners to control certain features in their vehicles. Here’s just a few things that connectivity can bring to the connected car experience:
Not all car tires have regular air in them, because some are filled with nitrogen! If you ever walk by a car and notice that the valve stems have green caps, you’ve probably seen a car with nitrogen in the tires. Nitrogen is often either used with cars that take frequent trips around racetracks, or vehicles that aren’t driven much. However, if you are like us, you’re probably wondering why this is even beneficial for tires. Well, the folks at Fiatusaoflanghorne.com have done some research and here’s the story:
While you’ve probably thought before that it’s a tremendous annoyance when you get stuck behind a slow, large vehicle unable to pass because you can see anything around it, it’s likely you’ve never really thought there would be a technical solution to this common problem outside of the “Smokey and the Bandit” technique of ducking in and out of the opposing lane to see if it’s clear.
Now that I’ve successfully fulfilled my personal “Smokey and the Bandit” reference quota for the day (*fist pump*) let me introduce you to a device from our friends in Portugal that offers perhaps the most exciting solution to this problem ever presented.
Basically its a two part camera system that sees the actual camera attached to the front of large vehicles such as buses and trucks, while a small LCD screen on the drivers’ inner windshield shows a feed of the camera. When combined, and in the proper position, this produces an effect that allows you to essentially look through the vehicle in front of you, taking all of the guess work (and extreme risk) out of passing a larger vehicle.
Obviously considering the cooperation required from both large vehicles (especially in the private sector) and the cooperation of car manufacturer’s in terms of allowing for the LCD tech when designing new models, a system like this may not be the most practical of solutions to the issue, and if it ever does see the light of day, will likely be implemented in very select doses.
Much like Kate Upton though, the fact you’ll likely never actually interact with something so beautiful, should in no way discourage you from getting excited about the remote possibility, or just appreciating how amazing it is that something so incredible exists in the world.
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