According to the United States Department of Transportation, 51 percent of all injury crashes and 28 percent of all fatal crashes occur at either an intersection or T-junction. The causes of these collisions are numerous. Sometimes, drivers are distracted or under the influence; others may have mistakenly misjudged the situation or were unable to see another car or pedestrian approaching. Overall, the National Safety Council found that over 40,000 motor vehicle deaths occurred in 2016, making it the deadliest year on U.S. roads since 2007.
Reducing The Numbers
Autonomous driving proponents believe vehicle perception technologies will help improve such grim statistics. In other words, if a vehicle could see its environment, communicate with other cars and the surrounding infrastructure, many – if not all – of today’s traffic accidents could be prevented, especially at intersections. One such technology is Continental’s Vehicle-to-X, a system that can detect road users within a 360° radius of an intersection. V2X communicates the position and movement of any objects within that field of vision to oncoming vehicles equipped with the technology. Continental says V2X is part of the company’s Intelligent Intersection concept, described as an “end-to-end solution.” “Our solution is based on transferring and adapting vehicle-proven hardware and software solutions to an infrastructure application,” explained Jeremy McClain, H...