A Digital Seat Belt for the Modern Era
Working with Automated Vehicles to achieve 100% safety on the roads
Roughly 1/3rd of pedestrian fatalities occur due to the driver behind the wheel. By solving the problem of human error, future autonomous vehicles (AVs) could prevent all of these fatalities from occurring. This is an amazing feat of safety that all of humanity should be excited about.
However, the devastating 250,000 pedestrian deaths that occur annually are the result of 4 primary causes, and driver responsibility is only one of them.
The 4 Primary Causes of Pedestrian Fatalities
- Driver Responsibility ~ 35%
- Visual Blockage ~ 28%
- Unpredictable Pedestrian Behavior ~ 26%
- Problematic Weather conditions ~ 11%
Apart from driver responsibility, every other cause of fatality is currently not preventable by AVs. The vehicle-based detection technology used in AVs (sonar, lidar, radar, & cameras) simply cannot see through visual blockage or heavy weather conditions, which together cause 39% of total fatalities. The technology also cannot predict abrupt and nonsensical pedestrian behavior, which causes 26% of fatalities. For example, a child running after a ball in the street may not be anticipated or seen by a vehicle until too late.
Thus current AV technology, while impressive, is sadly not able to address 100% of pedestrian fatalities. Just 4 days ago, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) wrote about this very topic and included in their publication a quote that sums it up simply.
“The remaining two-thirds [of accidents] might still occur unless autonomous vehicles are also specifically programmed to avoid other types of predicting, decision-making, and performance errors.” — IIHS.org
New methods invented at !important Safety Technologies aim to address the remaining two-thirds of accidents, bringing AV safety to 100%. By augmenting safety protocols with path and distance-prediction between pedestrians & vehicles, !important can prevent a collision before it occurs.
Powered by pedestrians’ smartphones, !important cryptically broadcasts devices’ GPS coordinates to certified self-driving vehicles, identifying a user's precise position, alerting the vehicle to their presence, and even controlling speed to automatically apply the brakes. This distance and path prediction technology can effectively prevent a collision regardless of visual blockage, poor weather, or unpredictable behavior. This is something of a digital seatbelt for the modern era.
“When I heard about Elaine Herzberg accident on March 18, 2018, in Tempe, Arizona, I felt terrible,” says Bastien Beauchamp, founder and CEO of !important. “I thought about the victim’s family and imagined how my family would feel if one of us was hit by a computer-controlled car. Then I realized that the problems created by technology could also be solved by technology. This inspired us to build our app. We hope that !important will be a public service, a standard for the automotive industry, meant to save lives and foster increased acceptance of autonomous vehicles.
To increase safety on the roads is to address a serious problem: the most unnecessary and frequent loss of life that occurs in the modern world. As the number of self-driving cars on our roads rapidly increases, so do the odds of an accident involving pedestrians.
Together, in collaboration with visionaries from the AV industry, auto companies, safety organizations, and non-profits, we hope to achieve a future where fear is no longer present on the roads.
To check out our recent app release, head over to www.important.com.
!important is part of Sparks Ann Arbor and UC Berkeley SkyDeck, two startup accelerators based in Michigan & California, respectively. !important was nominated in the Top 30 Startups of Silicon Valley by Alibaba Jumpstarter. !important is a regular member of PAVE advocating for the development of automated vehicles.
Potential partners & collaborators are invited to contact info@important.com. For press contact: media@important.com.
