Samsung are hoping to implement a new innovation that could potential save the lives of drivers who get impatient when travelling behind a HGV on single-carriage roads.
The prototypes known as ‘Safety Trucks’ have been inspired to reduce the high number of traffic accidents caused in Argentina during overtaking on single-lane roads.
Samsung’s new ‘Safety Trucks’ are designed to be ‘transparent’ and allow drivers behind the truck to see what is coming up ahead and know whether it is safe to pass or not.
At the rear of the truck are four huge outdoor display screens which stream live video which is captured by a wireless camera at the front. These display screens will ‘give drivers behind the truck a view of what is going on ahead, even in the dark of night’ according to Samsung.
Samsung said it confirmed the technology works and that it can save lives. ‘’The next step is to perform the corresponding tests in order to comply with existing national protocols and obtain the necessary permits and approvals,’’ according to the company. ‘’For this, Samsung is working together with safe driving NGOs and the Argentine Government.’’
In Argentina statistics show almost one person dies in a car crash every hour.
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Would this technology work in Europe?
Although a great idea in reality this new technology doesn’t seem to be economically practical. The camera itself may be inexpensive and easy enough to install but to have four huge display screens on every truck would be a massive investment for any haulage operator to make, first and foremost as there would be no direct financial benefits.
The added weight to the trucks will also have an adverse effect and reduce the fuel efficiency of the vehicle.
In an industry where margins are so tight any additional investments which do not have a financial benefit will quickly be dismissed.
A more realistic solution to increasing the amount of information available to the driver is by Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) systems. This new technology is expected to arrive next year and it is a form of networking where your vehicle transmits data about its position, direction and speed and receives the same type of information about vehicles around it. It could therefore issue warnings about unsafe driving by others and keep you up to date with any accidents ahead. In that way V2V and V2I systems do much more than give you a visual stream of what is in front of a truck and would weigh less, that being said making a truck see-through is a pretty awesome application of technology.