Can Technology-Aided Trucker Hats Save Lives?
Truck drivers have demanding work schedules. Their job often has them on the road for weeks at a time, and then they get some time at home. During those weeks, truckers drive all over the country to deliver goods. They need to stick to their schedule and make sure the trucks get to their destinations on time.
But this brings its own set of problems. Driving for long periods over the course of a few weeks will make anyone tired. And when you’re driving next to a trucker, you don’t know if they’re on hour two of their first day driving or hour six of a trip where they drove eight hours the previous day. As a result, the exhaustion can lead to truck accidents.
If you or a loved one has been hurt in an accident involving a truck, a Mississippi truck accident lawyer can help you with your claim. You won’t have to worry about dealing with insurance adjusters trying to make you settle early, or gathering all the information for you claim on your own. Corban Gunn, a personal injury lawyer in Biloxi, MS, has experience in truck accident cases. He’s represented citizens of Mississippi for years and is ready to fight for your rights.
Truckers Battle Exhaustion with Strict Deadlines
The United States has about 3.5 million truck drivers. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported in 2014 that 85 percent of trucks in fatal crashes were large trucks. There were 3,903 fatalities that year, and 73 percent of the people who lost their lives were in other vehicles.
With so many truck drivers on the road adhering to a schedule that could have them driving up to 14 consecutive hours, there’s no wonder that there are still thousands of truck accident fatalities per year.
Technology Can Help Keep Truckers Awake
A new invention by Ford and a Sao-Paulo based agency called GTB aims to help solve this problem. The Ford SafeCap is a trucker hat that has technology that recognizes when the driver is making motions indicating they’re about to fall asleep.
Certain head movements, like the head resting backward, and muscles relaxing, are early signs that the truck driver is going to fall asleep. They aren’t yet at that stage – and the trucker hat prevents them from getting to that stage.
After the hat picks up these motions, it responds with different sensory actions to wake the driver. There’s sound, vibration, and two bright lights shine under the cap. This effectively stop the driver from dozing off, and they also know that they’re going through the motions of falling asleep.
With this knowledge, the trucker has the hat to keep them awake, and they can look for a stop area so they can rest.
The project isn’t finished. The inventors are hoping that as people gain more awareness of the SafeCap, they will get more innovative partners to help them refine the project to make it as effective as possible.
As the world’s innovators use technology to help solve truck accident problems, there’s a good chance of reducing truck accident fatalities and making the roads safer for everyone.
