Straight Talk Law Blog: A Psychic Safety Feature? By Seattle Personal Injury Lawyer Jason Epstein

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At www.SaferCar.gov, the Department of Transportation is now taking into account for their vehicle safety ratings new safety technologies such as electronic stability control, lane departure warning, and forward collision warning, as I discuss in my new article, “How to Buy a Safer Car.”

Perhaps the ultimate car safety technology would be one that read your mind – and stopped you before you had a car accident that resulted in personal injury or wrongful death. But of course, that’s ridiculous, right?

Well, not so fast. The good folks at Ferrari have apparently applied for a new patent for just such an incredible system.

Although the car company isn’t commenting on it, the patent application describes the installation of a series of sensors, located inside the car’s cabin, which would monitor a driver’s physical and mental state. The car would then adjust its stability and traction control systems in order to prevent potential car accidents should a driver be in the process of losing control.

These sensors would analyze the driver’s respiration rate, blood pressure, heart rate, eye movement and blink rates, as well as brainwave activity, body temperature and –no kidding – how much you’re sweating.

To quote the application itself: “Drivers tend to miscalculate–in particular, overestimate–their driving skill and, more importantly, their psychophysical condition, with the result that driver-selected dynamic vehicle performance simply reflects the driver’s wish, as opposed to the driver’s actual psychophysical condition and proficiency.”

Between this and the Google car that can drive itself (which I wrote about a month or two ago), technology is progressing to the point where we really can just take a long nap while our car gets us to where we need to go.

As soon as they develop a decent dashboard alarm clock!

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