To Stop Distracted Driving, Researchers Monitor Drivers

Everyone knows that distracted driving is a problem, but it tends to fall in the "other people/not me" category of personal risk assessment among drivers. But when you consider that a staggering 80 percent of traffic accidents--and 17 percent of fatalities--are caused by distracted driving, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, that's clearly flawed logic, by any measure. But while we're confident that self-driving cars are on their way to save us from ourselves--however slowly--until they do arrive we have to deal with the fact that people are texting, tweeting, and just generally smartphoning at the wheel. But a group of Canadian researchers think they can outwit those overconfident oversharers with the help of artificial intelligence. A team at the University of Waterloo's Centre for Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence has developed software that can determine when drivers are texting or otherwise distracted--a potentially crucial step toward halting the habit. "Driver distraction is a growing problem," says program director Fakhri Karray, who studies electrical and computer engineering.