The Cochran Firm Legal Blog

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has found that about 3.6 million auto accidents reported to police each year are caused by lane changes, roadway departures, or rear-ending. There is technology available to protect you from your own errors such as drifting out of your lane or getting too close to the vehicle in front.

Two Systems Offered by Iteris, Inc.

1. The Lane Departure Warning (LDW) system collects information about your driving habits and alerts you when you drift out of your lane;
2. The SafetyDirect™ system analyzes the driving data collected by the LDW system and if a trucker is the driver with this system in his big rig, it can send the data to a trucking company via the truck’s fleet communications system. This informs the trucker’s employer as to his driving habits and would probably help the trucker drive more cautiously and help to prevent truck accidents.

Two Systems Offered by Delphi

1. The AutoVue® Blind Spot Warning system alerts you to vehicles making possibly unsafe movements in adjacent lanes;
2. The AutoVue® Forward Collision Warning system alerts you if you get close to rear-ending the vehicle in front of you.

Preventing Auto/Pedestrian Accidents

In late 2008, General Motors began offering a transponder called the V2P (Vehicle to Pedestrian). It is about the size of a cell phone and can be worn by a pedestrian or cyclist. It sends messages to any vehicle that has a receiver. The V2P uses two types of technology:

1. Wireless technology – for sending messages to other V2P or similar devices;
2. GPS technology – to receive location data from the GPS system, which it can then send to other users. It can also receive such data from other users.

If a driver with a V2P does not see a pedestrian or cyclist who also has one, and gets dangerously close to them, his transponder will warn him. A biker could probably benefit from this device also to help prevent motorcycle accidents. Any vehicle can be retrofitted with a V2P transponder. GM plans to make the technology available inexpensively to all cell phones in the near future.

If you have been severely injured in a vehicle accident and would like to know more about your legal rights and options, please contact us for a free case review. We have offices nationwide for your convenience.

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