AROUND 90 of car crashes are caused by driver error. Given that driver skill and intelligence is more or less fixed, an obvious approach to reducing accidents is to make cars smarter, enabling them to sense potential collisions automatically and, just possibly, take control of braking and steering. The introduction of smarter safety systems will give a massive boost to the already gigantic automotive electronics industry, but market take-off will depend crucially on the development of low-cost, robust sensing technologies. Radar is currently the lead contender, but widespread deployment will only occur if a number of significant regulatory and technical issues can be resolved.
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