Venus Williams accident illustrates the need for robotic assistance in cars

When I recently had the need to buy a new car due to someone else's negligence I chose to shop for this specific feature. In my mind if the feature is activated, even once, then it was worth the cost to install, which for the car model I was looking at was a $2500 option.

Specifically we can see that the accident was caused by two scenarios that can happen that will cause a human to get into an accident. The first error was a car not yielding on a left turn in front of Venus's car, which caused her to stop short in the intersection at a most likely yellow light. The rules state that all traffic should clear the intersection before proceeding through a green intersection. The second element that caused this accident is the car awaiting to make a left turn on the right of Venus's position. They are blocking the view of both Venus and the oncoming driver, who now only sees the green light, which makes this accident scenario inevitable.

The problem is that people cannot see through cars so they have no idea if cars will be coming through the intersection. However driver assisted accident avoidance technologies do exist to prevent this problem from occurring. Several technologies now exist including cars equipped with cameras, radar, and some elements of both.

Some brands like the Subaru which has the highest rating by the IIHS, the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety, which is an industry trade group that tries to get car makers to make safer cars, only have eyesight technology and therefore have a more limited feature set. This type of technology cannot see through cars but if it had been on the the car that hit Venus in the intersection would have reacted much better then the human driver at applying the brakes and lessening the force of the impact. This lessened force can sometimes be the difference between life and death.

When I was shopping for this feature I had found that even though it has been available for many years and on many different models of cars, most of the cars in the lots were not equipped with this feature. It seems that most people skip out on these sometimes life or death features to save a tiny amount on their monthly payments. This thinking is very short sided but will also wind up leading to the governments soon having to pass laws mandating this be a standard feature. Certainly these technologies often act just like vaccines, if only a handful have immunity then accidents will still occur, however if everyone has immunity then accidents become much more rare. It is a shame that the government would have to pass a law because people won't choose the proper actions to begin with.

I would be willing to wager that anyone skipping this important safety innovation thinks there isn't a need because they are great drivers and will never get into an accident. However the problem with unforeseen events is that they are always unforeseen until they unfold. Neither Venus nor the driver that collided with her, or the passenger that was killed thought that they would be getting into an accident at that very moment. Which all but illustrates the point that you cannot put a safety feature on just before you get into a life changing wreck, you must have the foresight to already be prepared for disaster. It's the same reason to have any insurance in the first place.