QOTD: Should Your Car Takeover When You Have a Bad Day?
Today, Autoblog has a post about a patent from GM for a system that can use onboard sensors to detect how the driver is feeling -- and takeover the driving if it thinks the person is unable to focus on the task.
The system creates a baseline of your driving habits and then uses that to detect stress. I don't have the space to go into all of the details here -- go read the AB piece and comeback -- but if the system detects stress, it can not just takeover the wheel for you. It can suggest you call a friend, family member, or a therapist. Or it can have you do a "mental health exercise".
Just because GM filed a patent it doesn't mean the tech will ever make it to the market. So this is just a thought exercise right now -- would you want a system like this in your car?
Part of me understands the logic here -- we've all had a time where sometime bad or stressful in our lives has affected our focus during a commute. A bad day at work, a loss of a loved one or pet, a breakup, an argument with friends -- lots of stuff can weigh so heavily on our minds that we're not focused on the task at hand.
On the other side of the coin, we've covered so many ways that your car can invade your privacy and while I am no Luddite some of the stuff creeps me out.
What about you, dear reader?
Sound off below.
[Image: GM]
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Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.
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Get a Horse
gm; I have an idea. Why not put effort into making a market leading pig up truck. Your current one is ugly and poorly performing when compared with RAM, Ford, Toyota. (you re 4th.) You know you make garbage.
When is Barra retiring?
I was looking at an extended warranty for my truck. The F&I guy was trying to sell me on the idea by telling me how his wife's Cadillac had 2 infotainment failures costing $4,600 dollars each and how it was very common in all of their products.
These idiots can't build a reliable vehicle and they want me to trust them with the vehicle "taking over" for me.