It's Time to End Pileups
SOURCE: CBS 11, Dallas Fort Worth report of I-35 pileup

It's Time to End Pileups

Two pileups in one day - one in Forth Worth, Texas, and one in Cobb County, Georgia. Enough is enough.

We're all familiar with multi-car pileup stories regardless of whether the cause is fog, whiteout conditions, or black ice. There's the number of the highway, the location, the number of vehicles, and the number of injuries and fatalities. It's a little like the tornado-hits-a-trailer-park stories - routine. That's the problem.

As pileups go, yesterday's 133-car pileup in Forth Worth, Texas, which occurred in black ice conditions and took the lives of six motorists, was one of the more epic. It was followed by news of a 16-car pileup in Georgia - small potatoes. There must be a way to prevent or at least mitigate these scenarios and there are some solutions in the pipeline.

We've all seen variable message signs displaying warnings from gantries hanging above highways. We've heard the local traffic and weather reports on the radio warning of slippery or black ice conditions. I even get a warning message in the instrument cluster of my car when temperatores dip near or below freezing. But these measures seem insufficient.

One critical step would be to deliver more accurate and timely information to drivers in their vehicles in real time and at specific locations. I tend to ignore the temperature alert in my car because it isn't useful or actionable. By the time I have gotten in my car I already know its brrrrr cold outside. I might respond differently if my car is telling me that the sharp turn I am approaching might be hazardous at this specific time.

Some automotive engineers have long endorsed and promoted instant car-to-car communications including vehicle sensor data such as stability control or other systems reporting slippery road surfaces. The only problem with these systems is they are dependent on the vehicle on the road ahead of you warning you about slippery conditions after they've already encountered them. The goal ought to be to anticipate and avoid the danger altogether.

Global Weather Corporation, offers a comprehensive predictive road weather data set for anticipating road surface conditions. Global Weather's solution provides the dynamic data necessary, in real time, to anticipate those locations where and when road surface conditions are likely to be dangerous - i.e. slippery.

Global Weather's data is compiled from road weather information network (ARWIS) sensors and other sources and is available in WeatherBug - but what is required for it to be useful to drivers is an integration with in-vehicle systems including embedded navigation and safety systems. Truckers and drivers of passenger vehicles alike should have access to Global Weather road weather data in order to anticipate and avoid multi-vehicle pileups - wherever and whenever they might occur.

The good news is that Global Weather's solution is available in mapping company HERE's Open Location Marketplace and, perhaps even more importantly, Global Weather is collaborating with Sweden-based Nira Dynamics to combine road weather predictive models with real-time vehicle sensor data for an even more comprehensive view of road friction and - a Nira added value - roughness.

With a little luck, Global Weather's predictive road weather data will find its way into your and my next new car. In this way, you and I can avoid seeing our faces and our cars in the next pileup featured on the evening news.

Matt Van Every

Passion. Respect. Focus.

4 年

The only way it would work is for the vehicle to take over.... with no ability to override. Humans will override any warnings because we are running late to the next thing. We also think it will never happen to me. Look at tornadoes for example. A warning is issued, we look out the window to see. If we don't see the tornado, we ignore the warning. If we see the tornado, it's too late. Then we complain that we had no warning. This is a human condition. It's in us at the DNA level. Any black-ice warning will face the same human condition.

Karan Thakur

Thakurs Group of Companies

4 年

Weather in DFW

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Karan Thakur

Thakurs Group of Companies

4 年

It's unusual situation for DFW residents.

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gary woodward

Owner, hurleys auto audio

4 年

got the shift the bell curve of human potential, then

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Dave Hofert

VP Account Management at in.Live

4 年

Good note - 2 parts here I think: 1) your proposal with Global Weather might be soonest implemented in road crews vs. mass market. A prediction of ice on the road could be mitigated with salt or brine treatment or sand beforehand which would handle the forecasted issue. 2) I do want car2car comms sooner rather than later - with that the first few people will slide and perhaps crash but those behind should get the word to slow down automatically. This would help minimize the pileups at least. And is useful for sudden stops due to animals or debris or carelessness that are unexpected. Thanks for the article!

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