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Mercedes-Benz Fights Driver Fatigue
Oct 26 2009 by Lori Hindman
Driving tired is as dangerous as driving drunk, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. While I certainly know better than to get behind the wheel after indulging in adult beverages, what mom doesn’t drive tired? I mean, when are we not tired? Never! To help drivers out, some automakers have systems that determine when a driver is nodding off. Mercedes-Benz’s Attention Assist system now comes standard in the 2010 E-Class.
Every year, driving while tired leads to more than 50,000 accidents, according to NHTSA. More than 1,500 of those accidents resulted in a fatality. Driving tired is no joke.
Mercedes’ Attention Assist system creates a driver profile within the first 20 minutes of driving. It measures acceleration patterns, minute steering corrections and audio system inputs. It keeps track of how often you change the radio station, adjust the climate control and all kinds of teeny things you do while driving. If you start doing them less frequently, the Attention Assist system beeps three times and flashes an image of a coffee cup on the dashboard. It’s just the car’s way of saying, “How about a coffee break or driver change?” The system will continue to beep and flash at you until you turn the car off.
Attention Assist is just one of the many new safety innovations in the 2010 E-Class. It has Adaptive Highbeam Assist, which uses a camera to monitor oncoming traffic and give you the maximum available lighting for the situation. That same camera uses infrared light to show obstacles and identify hidden pedestrians with the NightVision Assist Plus system. It uses the navigation screen to show an enhanced picture of the road ahead. The car also has a lane departure warning and a blind spot monitoring systems as well as nine airbags.
I recently drove a 2010 Mercedes-Benz E350 that had this system. I tried to fool the Attention Assist system to set it off, but it didn’t work. I don’t know a better way to try and trigger the system other than by driving tired, which I’d rather not do.
It’s been quite an, ahem, wake-up call to learn that being awake for 18 hours is just as dangerous as being legally drunk. Mercedes says that the Attention Assist system accurately identifies driver fatigue. If only it could provide moms with some rest, too. That would really get my attention.
