Dr. William VanTassel
Author Archive

Dr. William VanTassel

Vehicle Technology

With its “Digital Light” system, Mercedes will offer the first-of-a-kind headlight assembly that projects driving safety-related information directly onto the road ahead.  Designed to help drivers, the projection system is very bright and focused, using a resolution level exceeding one million pixels. The safety information can display a snowflake to

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Vehicle Technology

Nissan is working to prevent driver dehydration by alerting drivers when they don’t have enough water in their bodies to drive safely.

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Ford Max Motor Dreams
News & Research

If you have children, you may be very familiar with the process of getting them to sleep when they were young by taking them for a drive. That’s why Ford has created “Max Motor Dreams”.

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EEG Headrests
Vehicle Technology

For years, drivers have take head restraints for granted, often erroneously believing they are there to rest one’s head against, instead of to prevent whiplash in a rear-end collision.  But a company called Freer Logic wants to move head restraints forward into the 21st century, by using them to monitor

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Digital Light
Vehicle Technology

Mercedes is working on special headlights that are so accurate that they can project a movie onto a screen. Called “Digital Light”, the system can not only help drivers see ahead better but also provide them with valuable information.

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Evasive Steering Assist
Vehicle Technology

With the release of its Evasive Steering Assist, Ford is aiming to reduce collisions by automatically steering around obstacles in the roadway ahead. When faced with an obstacle just ahead, most drivers will go ahead and start to turn the steering wheel, to steer around the object. But many times

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Drowsy Driving
News & Research

Drivers who miss between one to two hours of the recommended sleep in a 24-hour period double their risk for a crash, according to new research from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention says that 35 percent of U.S. drivers sleep less than

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© Toyota
News & Research

Distracted driving remains an enormous traffic safety issue, being involved in thousands of crashes every year- no surprise there.  What is new is a novel way of preventing distracted driving, using an app that monitors one’s driving. Using cell phones’ on-board gyro-sensors, the system measures the amount of time the

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Self-Honking Horn
Vehicle Technology

The most vulnerable road users of all, pedestrians are at great risk of injury and death, should a vehicle-pedestrian collision occur.  That’s why Volvo, always a prolific purveyor of safety technologies, has created a system that detects nearby pedestrians.  What’s new about this is that once a pedestrian is detected,

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Automatic Crash Notification
News & Research

Automatic crash notification systems can recognize the occurrence of a crash, but drivers may have a new option: their own cell phones.

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