Beautiful Virgin Islands

Sunday, Oct 12, 2025

Car camera system could help keep drivers awake at the wheel

From 2022, some cars will be kitted out with a new technology that detects if a driver is distracted or drowsy.

Distraction -be it a smartphone, a cigarette, music or eating -factors in up to 30% of road crashes, while fatigue is involved in up to 20%, according to the European Commission.

This is why, as of 2022, new safety technologies will become mandatory in new European vehicles, including "a warning of driver drowsiness and distraction."

Bosch, the German engineering and technology company, is positioning itself to be one of the main providers of this technology, announcing in December that it has developed an interior monitoring system that detects drowsy and distracted drivers.

The technology, which will be built into new cars from 2022, uses cameras and artificial intelligence (AI) to detect when a driver's eyelids are getting heavy, or when they are distracted from looking at a phone or turning towards another passenger.
The algorithm -trained using recordings of real driving situations -makes a judgment on the driver's fatigue depending on their eyelid position and eye-blink rate.

"Based on all this information, it can recognize if you're getting tired because the frequency of your eyelids opening and closing gets much slower," Annett Fischer, spokesperson for the Bosch interior monitor system, tells CNN Business.

The system can then alert drivers, recommending a break if they are tired, or even reacting by reducing the speed of the vehicle.
The form of the alert -whether it's sound, light, slowing down or even a vibrating steering wheel -will depend on the automaker's wishes, as they will adapt the system according to their brand and their consumers, Fischer explains.


Saving lives

Over a million people die globally each year from road traffic accidents, according to the World Health Organization's 2018 global status report on road safety. Using a telephone while driving -whether hand-held or hands-free -increases the risk of a crash by four times, while texting increases the risk by around 23 times, it estimates.

Fatigue is a particular issue for those who drive professionally, Joshua Harris, director of campaigns at the UK road safety charity Brake, tells CNN Business.

"These drivers are often behind the wheel for long periods of time and can be in charge of heavy vehicles, which can cause huge destruction in the event of a crash.

"Technology has a huge role to play in achieving a world without death or serious injury on the road and we welcome new advances which improve safety, such as drowsiness detection systems," he says.

Bosch is not the first developer in the field. Australia-based company Seeing Machines debuted its driver monitoring technology in the 2018 Cadillac CT6, and the Swedish company Smart Eye Automotive Solutions has developed a system for Geely, one of China's biggest carmakers.

Dudley Curtis, communications manager at the European Transport Safety Council, agrees that in the long term these systems will help prevent collisions.

"But it will take a long time before all vehicles have the technology," he warns. "In the meantime we need to tackle the problem from other angles as well."

For instance, while there are restrictions on driving hours in Europe -a maximum nine hours a day -he recommends stricter enforcement and regulation of these limits.

The danger is that a driver may "over-rely" on these systems. "Drivers still need to take responsibility for being fully alert and concentrating on driving, even with these systems are installed in their vehicles," says Curtis.


Privacy problems

Another concern is privacy, as the camera-based driver monitoring systems collect large amounts of personal data on the driver and passengers.

According to Bosch, data collected by its system would only be evaluated by software in the car itself, and will neither be saved nor passed onto Bosch or third parties.

Fischer adds that if the automaker wanted to store any kind of data from the driver, they would have to receive consent from them first.

Curtis believes that transparency is essential to consumer trust. He encourages automakers to explain clearly how the technology works, how the data is used and how long it is stored for.

"If it can save your life and the lives of others, it should be welcomed," he adds.

Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
California County Reinstates Mask Mandate in Health Facilities as Respiratory Illness Risk Rises
Israel and Hamas Agree to First Phase of Trump-Brokered Gaza Truce, Hostages to Be Freed
French Political Turmoil Elevates Marine Le Pen as Rassemblement National Poised for Power
China Unveils Sweeping Rare Earth Export Controls to Shield ‘National Security’
The Davos Set in Decline: Why the World Economic Forum’s Power Must Be Challenged
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
×