Front Cameras on Vehicles

Most of us have seen the cars (often SUVs) with cameras placed on their back, looking behind them, so that drivers can easier park. These are great. What would also be helpful are small cameras on the tips of the front of cars, pointing left and right.

Think about the number of times you’re pulling out of a driveway/garage or into an intersection and there are cars on either side of you, blocking your view. The hood of your car gets into the street or intersection long before you, in some cars by almost a meter. Having cameras on either side of the car would effectively be like the old trick of using a mirror to peer around corners. You’d get a view out into the street before you pull out into it. Assuredly, hundreds if not thousands of accidents could be prevented this way.

Of course, once you get cameras there, they can be turned into sensors, to avoid collisions (via warning feedback) and possibly even be aware of weather and traffic conditions. They could be networked to send anonymous weather or traffic data to a service, or even be more hooked into the operations of the car to adjust the car’s performance based on traffic and weather.

This was written by Dan Saffer. Posted on Tuesday, December 16, 2008, at 4:27 pm. Filed under Industrial Design, Interaction Design, Product Concepts. Bookmark the permalink. Follow comments here with the RSS feed. Post a comment or leave a trackback.