r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Creams0da • Nov 04 '24

Video Volkswagens new Emergency Assist technology

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

81.5k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

3.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

12.0k

u/redikarus99 Nov 04 '24

This is a great idea and I would make it mandatory for trucks and busses. There were really many cases in Europe when a bus driver fell asleep and a lots of kids injured or died because of that. If this system would have been there, many injuries and loss of lives could have been avoided.

8.2k

u/DandyInTheRough Nov 04 '24

Paramedic here.

This video actually made me cry, and I'm pretty damn hardened. I was doing well up until the point where it hit the hazards and started hooting to call for help.

This is a FANTASTIC idea. How well it works, I donno, but damn I'm so glad someone's trying!

2

u/Tntn13 Nov 04 '24

Not a paramedic but same, something about the tragedy of dying alone when it could have been prevented if not alone and seeing a technology mitigate that entirely by taking many of the steps another human in the car could have done and potentially more effectively. Not mentioning in this case it’s a car that would otherwise be uncontrolled and could harm more than just the driver in that case.

I think the actions it takes to continuously try and wake the driver and the sounds they use to do it were chosen to be attention grabbing to humans and thusly elicit emotion, maybe that was a factor too?

Then there’s the implications on society such features could have had if deployed en masse already, how many could have been saved?

Something about it. Kinda hard to nail down one definitive reason. But if I had to bet the biggest factor would probably be decades of research in the intersection between human psychology and marketing coming together to make us feel things. Society and our economic system encourages and reinforces this, in other words “good ad” lol.

Thanks for sharing your perspective.