Home > Other Fun Stuff > Advocacy & Industry News

Your cell phone could soon prevent cars from hitting you

Use your cell phone to prevent cars from hitting you on your bicycle
12 Comments
Support us! Bikerumor may earn a small commission from affiliate links in this article. Learn More

Australian cellular service provider Coda Wireless is testing Vehicle-to-Pedestrian warning systems that marries a vehicle’s radar collision system and a pedestrian’s cell phone to help prevent accidents. It’s handled by an app, so we’re thinking it must provide a distinct audible warning as opposed to requiring you to look at the screen…by which point you’d probably be run over. If so, it should work similarly for cyclists, which might give you just enough heads up to avoid being rear ended or T-boned. Pair this with a system like Ilumaware and you could see much fewer accidental collisions.

For now, it’s focused on pedestrians, but it’s an interesting marriage of technology that could easily translate to cyclists. Full press release below…

PRESS RELEASE: The technology was originally designed to allow cars and motorcycles to avoid collisions by talking to each other.

In collaboration with Telstra and the South Australian Government, Cohda Wireless has conducted the first test of V2P technology over a mobile network in South Australia’s capital, Adelaide.

The system uses mobile technology to provide an early-collision warning to a driver and also alerts a pedestrian or cyclist via a smartphone application.

This innovation could become available in the 16 million smartphones in use in Australia and could potentially be extended to the two billion smartphones worldwide.

Cohda Wireless CEO Paul Gray said the trials highlighted the impact of Vehicle-to-everything communications on community safety.

“Giving vehicles 360-degree situational awareness and sharing real-time driving information is the only way we can create safer roads for the future,” he said.

“Cohda’s ongoing partnership with Telstra also demonstrates Cohda’s ability to deliver Cellular- V2X (C-V2X) solutions, an important part of the complete V2X system.”

The technology makes use of available 4G networks to allow riders, drivers and pedestrians who are further away to reliably receive necessary information.

Before a driver turns a blind corner the system will notify them of any pedestrian or cyclist crossing the adjacent street.

It was tested using other common scenarios, such as a car and a cyclist approaching a blind corner, a car reversing out of a driveway, and a car approaching a pedestrian crossing.

The trial was funded in part by the South Australian government’s AU$10 million Future Mobility Lab Fund to boost local testing, research and development of connected and autonomous vehicle technologies.

Cohda commands about 60 per cent of the global vehicle-to-vehicle communication market.

It previously developed a “digital protective shield” system, which transmitted information such as vehicle types, speed, position and direction of travel between cars and motorcycles, at a rate of up to 10 times per second to ensure a high level of accuracy.

This service could be transmitted to any device within a several hundred-metre radius.

Telstra Chief Technology Officer Håkan Eriksson said the technology would make Australian roads safer, more efficient, and better-prepared for the future of autonomous vehicles.

“The most important outcome of V2X technology is the increased safety for road users, as the impact of human error can be minimised by helping vehicles communicate with each other and react to their surroundings,” he said.

“This is the first time V2P technology has been trialled in Australia on a 4G network, and is an important step on the journey to fully-autonomous vehicles on Australian roads.”

South Australia has a history of involvement with autonomous car research and in 2015 held the first driverless car trials in the Southern Hemisphere.

It hosts a number of leading autonomous car companies including Cohda Wireless and its innovative V2X (Vehicle to everything) technology and RDM Group, which opened its Asia-Pacific headquarters in Adelaide earlier this year.

South Australia is also a leading driverless car research hub and earlier this week the University of Adelaide managed to improve artificial vision systems by studying dragonflies and other insects.

SaveSave

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

12 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
French wheeler
French wheeler
6 years ago

Nothing against improving cyclist safety but I think car drive need to focus more when driving and cyclist should follow road rules. Just that would decrease a lot of accident….

Just saying

JBikes
JBikes
6 years ago
Reply to  French wheeler

Sure..now what do you think is more likely to occur
1) improve humans
2) improve technology

MarkM
MarkM
6 years ago

Make it apply the brakes on the car instead of beeping my smartphone and then I’m interested.

Zach
Zach
6 years ago

Instead, how about we teach drivers not to kill people? Just a thought.

Robin
Robin
6 years ago
Reply to  Zach

We can improve driver education and develop technologies that might improve rider safety at the same time.

sloth
sloth
6 years ago

Unless this App builds a wall, or creates a force field around the pedestrian or cyclist, all it’s going to do is be more of a distraction to everyone.

Driver: “OMG what’s the beeping at me?!” *looks around at dashboard, nav screen, mirrors, hits pedestrian or cyclist anyway* because they are looking everywhere except where they should be looking, which is on the road.

Greg
Greg
6 years ago

This will just increase the road rage that most the d-bag drivers in the Bay Area seem to embrace.

Tim
Tim
6 years ago

While the idea is very interesting there is one huge problem with this plan.

If well implemented it really could improve safety of pedestrians or cyclist that are carrying a 4G mobile phone.

Too bad about anyone who’s isn’t carrying a phone, their phone isn’t 4G or is simply flat, turned off or in airplane mode. The driver is now given a false sense of security and added complacency that he knows where potential hazards are located, putting those people at significantly more risk.

Like other people have mentioned, increasing driver education and reducing distractions seems like the best option. At least until we all have government mandated smart chips….

Andy
Andy
6 years ago
Reply to  Tim

10 years from now 4g will be ubiquitous and ‘slow’. I’d imagine everyone will be equipped with a signal in one way or another.

Mortimer
Mortimer
6 years ago

“Prevent”, that’s a strong word. “Reduce the possibility” or “better warn drivers” would be more appropriate.

Jeff
Jeff
6 years ago

So when someone gets mowed over they can now sue this company right? Cause now it is the technologies fault that they are dead or injured not the idiot driver. this tech looks good on a powerpoint or kickstarter page to get money but in real world situations it is a bust.

Chris
Chris
6 years ago

So now ‘they’ can add “wasn’t carrying a phone” to “wasn’t wearing a helmet” and “wasn’t wearing hi viz”.

This tech just increases the potential for victim blaming.

The only real solution is for drivers to drive with their brains engaged and their eyes looking at the road ahead!

Subscribe Now

Sign up to receive BikeRumor content direct to your inbox.

Subscribe Now

Sign up to receive BikeRumor content direct to your inbox.