Happy not April Fool’s Day! Researchers from Virgina Tech and the National Federation for the Blind are working together to build a Ford Escape that will be driven by a blind person at Daytona International Speedway next June. Coincidently, the folks who make the SAFER “soft walls” will be holding a test that day as well. We’re kidding about the last part, but not the first.
The technology that is being developed to make this happen is called, “nonvisual interfaces” which will notify the driver if the car is close to an object or moving off course apparently. We visualize this as the normally calm voice of the lady “inside” our GPS unit screaming and yelling about the car being close to hitting something.
The driver of the car has not been chosen yet, but we’re going to guess that LOTS of practice will be involved when they take the wheel at a course near Daytona to simulate a normal driving experience.
All kidding aside, this is a pretty ambitious project and it’s roots are grounded in the military’s DARPA project, which pits driver-less vehicles against each other in all different types of competition. As Virginia Tech’s team has been strong in those competitions, it only seemed natural for the Federation for the Blind to tap them as the lead on the project.
We’ll be tuning in to see this test go down.
Source — The KanSan.com — Driving while blind?
