
Samsung's ‘Safety Truck’ - domyplace
http://global.samsungtomorrow.com/the-safety-truck-could-revolutionize-road-safety/
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alkonaut
> Have you ever found yourself driving behind a semi-trailer truck? If you’re
> on a single-lane highway or road,

Very rarely! it strikes me just now - this pretty much never happens to me
anymore, due to 2+1 roads.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2%2B1_road](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2%2B1_road)
If I'm behind a truck and have oncoming traffic, it's because I'm on a smaller
road and very near my target (or very near a larger highway) so no point in
overtaking.

~~~
gozo
The great thing about (at least the Swedish) 2+1 roads is that not only do you
avoid accidents with oncoming traffic when overtaking, but since you can now
put a railing in the middle, you also avoid accidental head-on collisions.
Which is one of the surest ways to die in a car.

I'm not sure if it's pragmatic from an economic perspective, but it is from an
engineering one.

[http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.safestates.org/resource/resmgr/...](http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.safestates.org/resource/resmgr/imported/Vision%20Zero%20Article%20-%20Safety%20Science.pdf)

[http://www.unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/trans/roadsafe/unda/Swede...](http://www.unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/trans/roadsafe/unda/Sweden_Swe_VisionZero.pdf)

[http://www.citylab.com/commute/2014/11/the-swedish-
approach-...](http://www.citylab.com/commute/2014/11/the-swedish-approach-to-
road-safety-the-accident-is-not-the-major-problem/382995/)

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amelius
What would you see if several of these trucks were driving in head-tail
formation?

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Kenji
Sir, are you engaging in nerd sniping here?

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yoz-y
Well, it seems that Samsung is implementing an idea from 2009.
[http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/22/art-lebedevs-
transparenti...](http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/22/art-lebedevs-
transparentius-eliminates-opacity-improves-road-s/)

Nevertheless it is cool to see this coming, also a smaller screen means there
is less risk of not seeing the truck at all.

~~~
Zombieball
I almost feel like Art Lebedev is a notorious vapourware design studio though!
Not sure if they ever proposed actually implementing the truck idea?

I remember they announced their keyboard with OLED screens on each key, and
they didn't make a product until a few years after promised. Not vapourware I
guess given that it did EVENTUALLY show up. But it did win Wired 2006's
Vapourware Award according to wikipedia.

~~~
yoz-y
Indeed many of the Art Lebedev products seem to be neat ideas with poor or no
implementation (apparently the Optimus keyboard was quite bad to use day-to-
day, in addition to being absurdly expensive).

As for the trucks, it seems that once the idea is out there the implementation
would really be up to truck door makers.

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martin-adams
I do like the innovation in this area. I had the idea of having green and red
slats on the back of a truck. If you are at a distance you see the green, but
when you get too close, it goes red. Basically telling you you're too close.
My less popular idea would be the wet paint brush sticking out the back of
your car to stop cars tailgating, ha!

Some of these issues can be solved by not being right up behind a truck when
attempting to overtake. Not easy when there is a trail of cars behind though.

I do wonder where the liability of accidents now lie. For example, imagine
there was a technical fault that caused a 3 second lag on the video. Would the
truck or Samsung be at fault if it contributed to an accident?

~~~
gambiting
Well, Mercedes and BMW cars can be bought with "nightvision" cameras where the
car shows you a view from its IR camera on the dashboard, so in theory you
could spot animals or people much easier while driving on unlit country roads.
Someone could ask the same question - what if there is a 3 second lag on the
video, or if the camera malfunctions and doesn't show you a person when in
fact there is a person there?

Well, the answer is the same as with everything else in cars - don't treat any
of those systems as absolutes. Just because new cars have automatic breaking
doesn't mean I can just approach parked cars at full speed hoping that my car
will break for me. It's meant to help, not replace human judgement.

~~~
martin-adams
I agree with what you say. Ultimately, the system (with all it's faults) only
has to save more lives than without it before it has a net positive.

I think what I found interesting is that the liability could shift onto the
truck when they were not the one who took a dangerous action to overtake with
oncoming traffic.

I guess it's similar to me signalling to the car behind it's safe to overtake,
when in fact it might not be. I could cause the accident.

Aids to improve safety are good because it's the last line of defense, and if
everything went as planned, they wouldn't be activated. Aids that help people
participate in new risks opens up new questions. Cars behind have the choice
not to overtake and that could in most cases would be the safest option
(albeit tedious and boring).

I'm all for this technology making roads safer, but I think it should be very
clearly set out who is liable for it's failure. I don't want to be held
responsible for my automatic breaking system failing, causing me to come to an
unexpected complete stop on a motorway resulting in a multi-car pileup.

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mirimir
In Mexico, truck and bus drivers often flash the left turn signal when it's
safe to pass. But it gets hairy when there are other vehicles behind you,
especially if one of them can accelerate much faster than you can.

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cdubzzz
The left turn signal? Interesting... In a few countries that I spent time in
in West Aftica, I believe the practice was left turn signal = do not pass,
right turn signal = safe to pass.

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mirimir
That actually makes more sense, as in "I'm pulling over to the right to give
you room (or at least, I would if there were room)."

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donkeyd
Seems like another solution to the problem of people driving like assholes...
I can't wait for autonomous cars to become the standard.

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gambiting
Because you think that every person overtaking is an asshole? That's
very....close minded? Especially since in some places you have a 60mph limit
on single-lane roads,but trucks are limited to 40mph on the same roads,
causing a huge queue behind them. And it's not like the screens are replacing
your judgement - they merely help. Would you argue that rearview mirrors help
assholes because you have to make less effort to look behind you and therefore
will be likely more careless when reversing than someone who doesn't have
them?

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mrpopo
OP's statement, as I understood it, was that the people who will get their
lives saved by this new system, are the people who overtake trucks recklessly
without proper visibility, a.k.a assholes.

~~~
gambiting
So is our goal saving lives, or saving lives of non-assholes? Should our
airbags have "asshole detectors" and not deploy for people who were "asking
for it" and driving dangerously? Of course I am being sarcastic, but I can't
sympathize with OPs statement, because it does look like they dislike safety
measures because they could potentially help someone who drives like an
asshole. I am pretty sure they will continue driving like assholes even
without it.

~~~
donkeyd
If you keep distance, you can view past the truck. You can then see if the
road will clear up, accelerate and pass the truck safely at a good speed. If
you're not an asshole, stuck on the rear fender of a truck, you don't need
this invention.

This invention might promote the idea that it's normal to drive insanely close
to truck and then passing them without having space to accelerate. Or,
something the truck driver sees, but the camera doesn't, could cause the
driver to brake hard. But since you're looking at the pretty screen you rear
end it, since you're only 10 feet away from it.

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jackgavigan
I predict that if this ever starts getting deployed, some truck owners will
repurpose them to display advertisements.

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mrmondo
I could actually see this being quite distracting while driving, call me crazy
but I feel it may actually potentially distract drivers enough to cause
crashes, what if something goes wrong - who's to blame? It's not like Samsung
has a great track record with innovative products especially in recent years.
Their products also seem to exhibit a high failure rate, with the recent
washing machine debacle I wouldn't be surprised if this was the first Samsung-
enabled truck we see:
[http://www.ausmotive.com/images/topgear/TG-12x01.jpg](http://www.ausmotive.com/images/topgear/TG-12x01.jpg)

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2muchcoffeeman
> The Safety Truck consists of a wireless camera attached to the front of the
> truck,

Why is this wireless?

~~~
kevinbowman
I'd guess because it's aimed as a generic attach-to-any-truck setup, where
people other than Samsung may not want to run cables through their truck.
Also, the cab and the trailer will often be detached and changed; an extra set
of cables will probably be a bit annoying.

Plus "wireless" makes a press release sound cool...

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zhanwei
Could be practical if there is a protocol for dash cams to communicate with
each other. i.e. car behind can auto grab the video feed from the car in front
of it if they are near and display it on its own screen.

~~~
aidos
Why is it better to have the video inside your own car?

Isn't the point of this is to try to remove a real life visual obstacle from
the real life view seen with your real life eyes?

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Shivetya
The cameras seem a long time coming considering my parents motor home has
similar; hard wired though. The rear camera works for both backing up as well
as getting a better view of what is behind you at all times. Camera's on the
sides and front lend a hand as well when the side mirrors don't pick up that
motorcycle or car that wants to hug you.

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BinaryIdiot
I feel like I would get distracted by looking at this. Maybe not a big deal
but I'm curious of its utility.

Any measures we can take to increase road safety the better because the death
toll is just far too high and while I love to drive I can't wait for computer
controlled cars.

~~~
guan
If the camera positions and angles are done right, getting distracted by this
may not be such a big deal because you are being “distracted” by what is on
the road in front of you, which is good!

~~~
BinaryIdiot
Hmm fair enough. I not 100% convinced until I try though. I wonder where or
when I'll see one on the road.

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swalsh
My only concern would be that it might encourage people to cut in front of
semi's more often. They don't stop very fast :\

But if people are keeping that in mind, it's a really great idea.

~~~
ousta
it will encourage people and won't increase much safety. on a straight road
yes. on a road with lot of turns even a truck won't be abble to see a car
coming before the back driver engage

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gambiting
"and obtain the necessary permits and approvals"

What sort of permit could you possibly need to put a couple monitors on a
truck?? "video truck permit"?

~~~
jacquesm
That truck will be emitting white light at the back in some situations which
is not permitted by law in many places.

~~~
yoz-y
This could be easily solved by tinting the image into red or blue though. I
think.

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pkaye
What about inventing passing lanes? Of you are on a single lane road and many
vehicles behind you for a while, you move out onto the passing lane.

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jacquesm
Possible issues:

\- Joker plasters flatscreen of sufficient size on the back of his truck and
displays 'empty road' when in fact there is oncoming traffic.

\- System malfunctions and shows old image rather than present image.

I'd never ever want to rely on what a medium under someone else's control
displays when I want to overtake a vehicle. That's a lot of lives at stake and
if you need this display to decide if you should overtake or not you probably
simply shouldn't.

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Htsthbjig
"Joker plasters flatscreen of sufficient size on the back of his truck."

Oh, yeah, because someone will buy a truck and spend hundreds of thousands of
dollars on it and then 4 or 5 thousands more on screens in order to make
"jokes".

Jokes that could kill someone and put her in jail, destroy all her wealth, and
possible harm her-kill her as a result of an accident.

"System malfunctions and shows old image rather than present image."

Oh, man, some people are really just too frontal lobe- "inventing scenarios
that will never happen" and then worry too much.

My company does military, aerospacial life critical stuff. You make it sound
like making a screen shut down when something is wrong is magic or the hardest
thing in the universe(because nobody else before faced the problem of
detecting wrong things automatically...).

The probability that technology fails in uncontrollable ways could be done way
less(1/100 or less) than the human failing rate(e.g heart attack on the
driver, or he being slept on the wheel because he could not sleep for any
reason), or the probability of the driver behind the truck making a
mistake(enormously high, 0.1 or so, most of those are harmless "warnings")
because he could not see what is in front.

"I'd never ever want to rely on what a medium under someone else's control
displays when I want to overtake a vehicle"

Have you never used traffic lights? After all , a "joker" public servant could
program two green lights on a cross on those(external control) displays as a
"joke". Or they could malfunction and make people die...

Traffic lights are nothing more that green LED lights controlled by PLCs.
Someone could open the PLC box, program them badly and create car or rail
accidents. Better not use traffic lights at all, or go outside, after all, a
meteorite could strike us and kill us.

I have been in craters created by them(meteorites), it is serious.

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hamoid
Why not mount the camera higher so you see further? Maybe it feels confusing
when the angle is not right?

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domyplace
source [http://www.askvarsha.com/safety-truck-samsungs-shows-the-
roa...](http://www.askvarsha.com/safety-truck-samsungs-shows-the-road-ahead-
on-screen-so-drivers-can-pass-it.html)

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dang
Url changed from [http://www.askvarsha.com/safety-truck-samsungs-shows-the-
roa...](http://www.askvarsha.com/safety-truck-samsungs-shows-the-road-ahead-
on-screen-so-drivers-can-pass-it.html), which points to this.

