Hacker News Reader

Comment by SV_BubbleTime | Hacker News Reader

[flagged]

From 7 July 2024 these rules will apply in the EU:

For all road vehicles (i.e. cars, vans, trucks and buses): intelligent speed assistance, reversing detection with camera or sensors, attention warning in case of driver drowsiness or distraction, event data recorders as well as an emergency stop signal;

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_22_...

Apparently drowsy drivers account for about 100 000 crashes, 71 000 injuries and 1 550 fatalities each year in the US alone, and around 11 600 people died due to drunk drivers in the US in 2020. So to say that nobody was asking for it isn't really true, I think a substantial part of the families to those killed and injured people would prefer if cars contained some kind of obstacle for drunk or tired drivers.

"drunk or tired" is quite a way of phrasing that if the drunk ones cause 88% of the combined fatalities and the cameras detect the tired ones...

Cameras can detect both, being drunk or drowsy or distracted share a lot of symptoms regarding eye movement etc. The important thing isn't why a driver is impaired, but detecting when they are.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2301.08978.pdf

https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/21/23363673/volvo-ex90-elect...

I think what the commenter probably meant was that nobody was asking for the solution to the problem to be spy cameras installed inside of vehicles.

Is there any concern of additional eye fatigue w/ time-of-flight sensors? It's purely anecdotal but I was on a project that involved ToF sensors and and a couple on my desk pointed at me. After some time, I noticed my eyes hurt by the time I got home. The eye pain went away after I stopped having the ToF sensors pointed at my face all day.

News to me. I thought that ToF was well outside of human spectrum, like 850-950nm or so and really light power ratings. I’ve never heard of anyone fatiguing from it.

> I thought that ToF was well outside of human spectrum

While I cannot give an exhaustive complete answer I think it is safe for me to at least mention that you don't need to be able to perceive it for it to have an impact. You don't perceive even a fraction of what impacts your body, from radiation to chemicals. The molecules still react to lots of other things that are not part of what the eye is supposed to sense. It's not like everything outside light of the human visual spectrum magically has zero impact and you, or the eye's components, are immune.

Example: UV light.

There also seems to be evidence of flickering lights, causing fatigue, even if you cannot see the flickering.

> I’ve never heard of anyone fatiguing from it.

What did you do to find out? If you didn't research it, there would only be random chance for you to find out, accidentally reading a report or being told, plus paying attention and not filtering it out like what we do with the vast majority of what reaches us.

I've definitely felt the same thing when using a Kinect v2 to log into my windows computer a few years back

I dunno if the iPhone's face sensor uses that tech, but it hasn't caused any problems that I noticed if so

The other comment was pointing out that ToF has nothing to do with drowsiness/alcohol detection.

Let me go ahead and be first to tell you that there is the stated reason, the real one, and the “well, now that we have it” downstream.

Cameras AND ToF for the driver are coming. Only idiots will want it.

> Cameras AND ToF for the driver are coming.

Why do I care about "AND ToF"? Okay, it can detect the depth of my nose 5% more accurately. What difference does that make?

You're going to need to be specific because there is probably no less than 2 dozen 3-letter agencies who would want this level of access.

Exactly my point. Pick any three letters, they probably want it.

So your point is that you don't actually have any of the inside knowledge you were alluding to, you just have innuendo.

Department Of Transportation?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com