Horizon (1964–…): Season 47, Episode 12 - Surviving a Car Crash - full transcript

OVER RADIO: 'He was involved
in a motor vehicle accident.
He was unrestrained...'

It's amazing to me how much we all
tolerate the carnage that
occurs on the world's highways.

'..hit the windshield,
major intrusion, head injury.'

We would never tolerate that death
rate with a war or natural disaster.

There's no question
we're addicted to the automobile.

We are in love with the car.

600 million of them
keep us all on the move.

So we're going to drive,
we need to drive, we want to drive.

But this object of desire
is also a killer.

It's not only a problem,
it's actually an epidemic.

Around the world each year, over
a million people die on the roads.



But scientists hope to change this.

There will be a time when people
do not die in car crashes,

and that's because there will
be a time when cars don't crash.

We are now entering a bold new era
of research and design...

..Two, one...

...one where experiments
are not just with cars,
but the human body itself.

Now, I'll ask you to relax
your neck muscles. Are you ready?

It's a strange world...

..where everyday drivers are placed
in challenging situations...

Three.

..where innovations from medicine,
engineering and even sport...

..might forever make
fatal car crashes
a thing of the past.

The first step towards
saving lives on the roads

is to understand what
really happens when everything
goes terribly wrong...



..during a crash.

Here in Sweden, at car manufacturer
Volvo's test facility,

researchers are preparing
for a car crash.

Horizon has gained access
to this secretive world.

For bio-mechanist, Lotta Jakobsson,
today's test is the culmination
of weeks of work.

We are preparing for a crash test,
two cars crashing into each other.

We're walking a line of what
the target car actually
will run at the crash test.

And it illustrates a car
that is driving along the road

and meeting another car
drifting over in the wrong lane,
and you will have an impact.

This is a high severity crash.

The two cars in today's test
have distinct roles.

The white car is the "bullet" car.

It will shoot down the tunnel
towards the oncoming orange car,
the target car.

They will collide right here.

The researchers want to find out
what happens to the car...

and the passengers.

The passengers in today's collision
come from Volvo's family
of 100 crash-test dummies.

They contain advanced sensors,
which can record
forces during a collision.

In the build up to the violence
of a crash, precision is vital.

The whole structure is rotated
to get an exact approach angle
for the cars.

Inside, the collision will be
filmed using high-speed cameras,
even from below.

It will be illuminated by lights
twice as bright as the sun.

The cars are moved
into their starting positions,
183 metres apart.

In the target car, the dummies
are now made up for
their big moment in spotlight.

I'm painting the dummy's face
with the lipstick,

bright red, cheap lipstick,

which will make
an imprint in the airbag.

This way,
we can see how the head

has impacted the airbag,
to make sure everything is OK.

Lights will be turned on.
Pre-heating time - 90 seconds.

Final preparations over, the team
start the countdown
from the safety of the control room.

All systems clear.

Counting down initiated.

It's a nervous wait.

If everything goes to plan,
weeks of detailed preparation

will soon culminate in
a few milliseconds
of controlled destruction.

10...

5...

Test completed.

HE SPEAKS IN SWEDISH

A forensic analysis of the
crash site starts immediately.

But although the crash and its
aftermath might look like something
from a high-speed racetrack,

in reality, this represents
an everyday kind of accident.

The equivalent of a couple of cars
popping out to the shops.

Each car was travelling
at just 34.7 miles per hour,

only a little bit over the
speed limit for a built-up area.

The extreme and sudden violence
of even a relatively low-speed
collision like this

is what makes a car crash
so dangerous.

The crash is over within a
couple of hundred milliseconds.
That's less than you can blink.

And all this energy which is
transported in this heavy vehicle,

all that energy adds up into this
small distance, where it dissipates.

But for the passengers,
this impact marks only
the beginning of the crash,

as recorded
on the high-speed cameras.

During a crash, you have no chance
to react or to influence the outcome.

It is such a quick event.

It lasts less than a second, usually,

and it's so rapid, not even
the muscles have time to react.

Unless it is a very, very
low-severity crash, less than, let's
say, 5km - 7km an hour impact,

you will have no possibilities
to brace yourself.

Scientists now break down
car crashes into three stages.

After this initial impact, there are
still two more impacts to come.

For the occupants, things are
about to get a whole lot worse.

The second stage follows
split seconds after the first.

The car stops,
but the passengers keep going.

They hit the airbags, hard.

During a crash,
humans are like crash-test dummies.

We will be like sleeping people.

This is the second stage
of a crash -

the occupants' collision
with the car interior.

Lotta is keen to see
how the dummies got on.

We have, as you can see,
the imprints of the lipsticks

very nicely painted on the dummy,
you can see it on the airbag.

It tells me that the head
has impacted the airbag...
quite centrally, actually.

But even this second stage impact
isn't the end of the crash.

There's far more to a car crash
than meets the eye.

For the passengers, the traumatic
final third stage is still to come.

The third stage,
which is the most important stage
with respect to the occupant,

is what happens inside the body.

During this third impact,
the movement of fragile organs
inside our bodies can be lethal.

This third stage is
the hidden killer in a car crash.

We're actually, as humans,
designed to run
and make sudden stop when running,

or falling down from trees.

We're not made for sudden stops
in 30km or 70km an hour.

So that's the problem here.

We humans are not made for crashing.

And that's why we really need
the technology to help us to sustain
such violent things as crashes.

Tests like today's have
greatly improved car safety.

Your chance of dying in
the first two stages of a car crash
is now low.

But the third stage remains
a deadly problem.

Solving it requires a better
understanding of how traumatic
internal injuries occur.

It's a challenge that now takes the
world's finest medics and engineers
in new and unexpected directions,

as they start to explore
the extreme limits
of human biology and mechanics.

The goal? Nothing less than a future
with no lethal car crashes.

Some of the most exciting research
about what this future may hold

comes from one place - Miami.

An American city
in love with the car,

it is also home to some of
the world's most innovative
safety research projects.

Whether you will survive the
third-stage injuries in a future car
crash may well be determined here.

But not all research
happens in the laboratory.

Critical care specialist
Dr Steve Olvey

is studying how the third stage of
a car crash affects the least
understood of all organs, the brain.

He draws on years of experience
from the world of motor racing.

When I first started in motor
sports, which was back in the '60s,

at that time, one out of
seven drivers, approximately,

died every season in the major forms
of automobile racing.

The cause of death was usually
severe head injury.

These experiences convinced him
a new understanding
of brain injury was vital.

The problem with brain injury,
which is still very prevalent in
crashes today, of course,

is that the brain is such a complex
organ that, once injured,
it's very difficult to treat.

And some of the reason for that is,
there's a mystery as to
what forces are involved

and what goes on during a crash
to injure the brain.

For years, Dr Olvey searched for
a new way to study these forces.

That search has brought him here.

The football field has become
my laboratory.

OVER TANNOY: 'A pass and a whole
lot of run, and the Miami Hurricanes
put six on the Hokies!'

Dr Olvey is studying the Miami
Hurricanes American football team.

We're using the real life situation
of playing football
to study traumatic brain injury.

There's some big hits out there,
aren't there?!

His project monitors
the head impacts
players experience on the field.

We got the ball...

The trial will run for
two full football seasons.

The major goal of this project
is to get a better understanding

of the real forces involved
in a real head injury.

By the end of it, he hopes to have
measured the exact forces

the human brain can withstand...

..before severe injury occurs.

What we plan to do with the football
players, and what we're testing,
er, on the practice field,

is we're using this ear piece with a
sensor in it, it measures the forces

in all three directions
that can affect a player's head,

It's an ingenious bit of design.

Inside this ear piece is a sensor or
accelerometer that measures forces.

The ear piece can talk to the helmet
in this antennae,

which goes then to the crown of the
helmet where it can be broadcast
to the sidelines,

picked up by a laptop computer in
real time and allow medical staff

to know just how bad
a hit to the head a player's had.

The ear-pieces sit
deep inside the ear canal,
close to the player's brain.

They reveal the extreme G-forces
experienced by players on the field.

As expected we're finding G-forces
around 30 to 50 G's
just in routine hits,

a big hit, helmet to helmet,
will see as high as 150 to 200 G's.

We don't know the threshold
for concussion.

That's why we're doing this study,
to find out.

The project's at an early stage,

but it's already changing
what scientists think happens
to the brain in a car crash.

A lot of people feel you have to hit
your head to have a bad head injury,

that's really not true.

If you get hit in the torso and
that's restrained, and the head's
allowed to move from side to side,

forward and backward, too violently,
that in itself
can cause a significant injury.

The same kind of thing happens
in car crashes.

If you have your seatbelt
shoulder harness on,
that doesn't hold your head still.

Your head can still move
when the car stops.

This research is radically
advancing our knowledge of
how brain injury occurs.

It will lead to cars better
designed to protect the brain.

But preventing brain damage
isn't just about protection.

It's also about surprising
new advances in treatment.

Just across Miami in the
Neurological Intensive Care Unit in
Jackson Memorial Hospital,

surgeons are investigating
major new ways

of treating the brain injuries
Dr Olvey
is studying on the football field.

How good was the history?
Was there coma from the onset...
No history, you said?

The history is inconsistent
at best, no cephalahaemotoma...

On duty, Professor Ross Bullock,
a world-renowned neurosurgeon whose
work sheds intriguing new light

on the treatment of brain injury.

What I was thinking was PMLE,
I mean, you know, some kind
of gluco-encephalopathy picture...

Car crashes provide the
majority of his patients.

Worldwide in developed countries,

at least 70, 75% of traumatic brain
injury is due to vehicular crashes.

Just one millisecond of force
can lead to permanent brain damage.

Our brains are very poorly supported
inside the skull. Our brains
weigh 1.2 kilos, they're heavy,

they're floating in a bowl of liquid,
they're restrained
by a few flimsy veins and nerves

that hold them in there and they can
swing around inside that skull
like Jell-o inside of a bowl.

Sadly, many car crash victims
with traumatic brain injury
may never recover.

Traumatic brain injury
has been described as being

the most complex possible injury
to the most complex organ.

It may transform a person
to someone who may end up
in a permanent vegetative state

which is the worst entity in human
life, much worse than death.

For Dr Bullock and his team,
a better understanding
of this terrible condition

is the culmination
of years of research.

New discoveries could bring huge
benefit for anyone unlucky enough

to be involved in a car crash
in the future.

It had previously been believed
that all of the damage was done

within milliseconds of the time of
impact, it was a done deal -

you were either going to die
or be left severely disabled.

We now know that's absolutely not
true and that about 40 or 50% or more

of the final product of the
traumatic brain injury evolves...

is magnified over time following
the ictus, that initial event.

In the immediate aftermath
of impact in a car crash,

there is a critical period
before the brain starts swelling

and a destructive cascade
of damage begins.

It is called the golden hour.

All of trauma care is predicated
around getting these patients
resuscitated,

to hospital and taken care of
within that golden hour.

And the purpose of the golden
hour is to protect the brain
and to salvage neurons, really.

For trauma medics dealing with car
crash victims with suspected brain
injury, speed is now everything.

In Miami, two helicopter units are
on constant readiness for action.

They can be scrambled in an instant
and recover a patient
within minutes.

Their destination -
Jackson Memorial Hospital,

where trauma medicine is undergoing
some radical changes.

What's the story? He was
involved in a motor vehicle accident.

He was unrestrained,
hit the windshield,
major intrusion, head injury.

Sir, what's your name?

The patient is hurried
into the trauma centre.

Fast diagnosis
and treatment are essential.

Sir, can you tell me your name?
Xavier.

Do you know where you are right now?
No, no, no, no, no.

You were in a car accident. You're
at Jackson Memorial Hospital, OK.

Oh, God.

This is trauma medicine as you
might never have seen it before.

To speed up diagnosis and treatment,
this new technology is being
trialled here for the first time.

What's your name, sir?

Xavier.

Xavier. What happened to you, Xavier?

I don't know. You don't know? No.

For medics dealing with
time-critical injuries, this robot
brings rapid advice from afar.

Dr Marttos, we have a 26-year-old
male, unrestrained MVC,

positive head trauma, positive LOZ,
he was on a GCS of 15,
vital signs stable at the scene.

This is Advanced Telemedicine.

Gonna be a lot of people doing a lot
of things right now. Stay relaxed.

'What are his vital signs
right now, please?'

His blood pressure is dropping,
85 over 50, he's going into shock.

'OK guys, his intubator are ready,
his airway is cleared. Two IVs.'

So right now
I'm seeing free fluid...

Now I'm a little bit concerned
about his abdomen.

How is the first ultrasound
of the abdomen, please?

From a remote location,
Dr Antonio Marttos controls
the robot bearing his image.

How are the vital signs right now?

He is able to communicate directly
with the team in the trauma unit.

OK, gonna see his head right now.

By controlling cameras on the robot,

Dr Marttos can make
a rapid diagnosis

and talk the resuscitation team
through advanced procedures
which might be needed straight away.

Probably has a really bad
head trauma.

Yeah, this is really bad. OK.

Providing fast, expert treatment
like this for car crash victims
will save time...and lives.

But today,
there's a surprise in store.

This car crash victim
is making a remarkable recovery...

and not because
of the ground-breaking
telemedicine technology.

LAUGHTER

Feels awesome, quite an experience!

This is an important training
exercise for the hospital.

With great attention to detail,
the medics have used

a typical car crash scenario
to test the effectiveness
of this new telemedicine system.

I can really support the nurse
or physician from long distance,

and help them to have
the best expertise available.

Dr Marttos hopes technology
like this will mean
expert medical knowledge

will soon be reaching car crash
victims quicker than ever before.

And, crucially,
not just inside the hospital.

Providing small device, really
portable device, to the ambulance
and to the helicopters.

With this device, they can show me
the patient, show me the car,
show me the wounds at the scene,

at the time of the accident, so I
can help them to manage the patient

and they can help me to be ready
to receive this patient,

and then when the patient
arrives here, I have my team ready,

so I know what I'm receiving.
So again, the goal is to improve
even more the quality of the care.

Doctors hope this telemedicine
project will begin
a new era in trauma medicine.

Combined with the other
Miami research projects,

it could forever improve your
chance of surviving brain injury
in a future car accident.

Fast medical attention is crucial
after a crash, but it doesn't
prevent traumatic injury.

To protect us from injury,
cars need to be safer.

But the dummies used for car design
sometimes aren't representative
enough of real humans.

At Virginia Tech's Center for
Injury Biomechanics, scientists are
conducting tests with child dummies.

So in this particular test,
a number of things have happened.

The belt has gotten in between
the thigh and the pelvis flesh.

The other thing
is that the shoulder strap

has made its way down the chest
and it has gone into the abdomen.

More child passengers die from
abdominal trauma than anything else.

But our understanding of exactly how
these injuries occur remains vague

because the dummy simply
isn't advanced enough.

This dummy has a number
of limitations. First and foremost,

in the design
and anthropometry of the pelvis...

and also the design of the abdominal
insert. It's essentially...

a foam rubber insert
to keep the space in the, er
pelvic basin and abdominal cavity.

This pelvis is not indicative of a
typical six-year-old child, and this
is a six-year-old regulatory dummy.

The solution?
A brand-new child dummy...

..unlike any other.

What we have here is a modified
hybrid-3 six-year-old dummy.

There are a couple of things that
are, er, very important modifications
to this dummy

compared to the regulatory
standard dummy. Chief among them
are the abdomen and the pelvis.

The abdomen is made of a silicon
sack containing electrodes

to precisely measure
internal impact forces in a crash.

It's a huge improvement
on the existing dummy

and will lead to safer car design.

But adult dummies
also have limitations.

To remedy this, scientists aren't
just updating component parts,
they're starting from scratch,

creating an entirely new breed
of crash test dummy.

It is a monumental task...

the biggest coordinated research
effort in car safety history.

And it starts with
the human body itself.

What makes this project so
special is the unprecedented
attention to detail.

Beginning with individual cells
in the body

and working upwards from there,
scientists in labs worldwide

are working out the maximum force
that every part of the body can take
before irreparable damage occurs.

Here, they're studying the abdomen.

I'm using a template

to position pressure sensors
that'll be placed inside the liver,

so that we can measure
internal liver pressure.

When human organs aren't available,
the team use those from animals.

This is a cow liver. And we're
using this for this study because

other studies have shown
that cow liver is actually very
representative of human liver.

This type of testing isn't
just limited to the liver -

we do this type of thing for all
the internal organs of the body,

specifically the solid organs.

So, uh, we look at liver, spleen,
kidney, any of those organs,

in order to determine its
tolerance to uh...to loading.

By gathering such detailed
information about the forces
that every single part of

the body can withstand, scientists
will be able to update existing
dummies with a brand-new model.

But it will be a dummy
with a difference.

A virtual dummy.

The Human Body Model.

There are a number of reasons to
go toward that type of model as
opposed to the physical model.

In the virtual world,
we can do a lot more for a lot less.

It's hoped that virtual dummies
will revolutionise car safety.

They will be able to predict
the exact moment crash forces

become too much for people
to cope with...

an advance that will lead directly
to safer cars.

But there's more to research
like this, than the virtual dummy.

This new understanding of how crash
forces cause hidden internal injury

is also driving a groundbreaking
safety project in Miami.

Back in Jackson Memorial Hospital,
trauma surgeon Dr Jeff Augenstein

believes he can predict
your likely injuries in a car crash

without even seeing you or the car.

It begins with an understanding
of how crash forces
affect the human body.

A car crash at 30 miles an hour

is like falling off of
a three- or four-storey building.

Such extreme forces can cause
traumatic internal injuries -

especially to the heart.

Injuries that often go
unnoticed until it's too late.

I've been doing trauma surgery
for now over 30 years,

and probably the most
horrific experiences I've had

are people who looked good,

and died literally
as I was talking to them.

Experiences like these
mean that finding a way

to quickly identify crash victims
with life-threatening
hidden injuries

is now a top research priority.

When somebody looks
terrible initially it's not

much of a challenge...but when
they look great you have to just
make sure that they ARE great.

To achieve this, Dr Augenstein
is running a trial project.

If it succeeds, medics will
soon be arriving at crash sites
knowing what injuries to expect -

because the CAR
will have already told them.

A car can, literally,
alert emergency services today.

And the way it does it
is there's an onboard computer

that recognises that something

has happened that's not within the
normal range of driving,

and that
there's danger to the occupants.

That then sends a message...

and in almost all cases,
the message includes
the exact location of the car.

This technology is already
on the market

in thousands
of cars in North America -

and saving time and lives.

But Dr Augenstein is now
taking it to the next level.

For not only can a car now
alert emergency services,

but it can also transmit

detailed information about the crash
forces experienced by passengers.

Typically the change of velocity,
how fast the car stopped going,

what the angle of
the primary impact was...

For medics, getting rapid access to
this information changes everything.

They've developed
the Urgency Algorithm -

a computer program which
uses the crash force data
to predict injuries.

The Urgency Algorithm

takes all the data
that the car can provide

and comes up with
a uh...determination

of whether severe
injury could occur.

We never want to veer from our
standard approach to trauma care...

which is we start with airway,

go to breathing, focus on
circulation - the so-called ABC's -

but what this does is, in addition
to the things we typically look at

it tells us to hone in on some
things that may not be obvious.

But how well does the
Urgency Algorithm work?

To find out,
Jeff Augenstein is on a road trip.

Accompanying him,
Jim Stratton - a crash investigator
with over 30 years' experience.

Today we're driving up to West
Palm Beach,

to take a look at a BMW that was
involved in

an intersection accident.

Surgeon and crash investigator...

an unlikely team.

But by combining their knowledge on
trips like this, they are verifying
the accuracy of the algorithm.

Well, certainly being able to
prove that the algorithm predicts

the way it should
is our first step in all of this.

Looks like a nice shot.
Yeah. I assume it's about

a 20-mile-an-hour delta-v.
Pretty close, yeah.

There's a lot of lateral shift,

the vehicle's coming off
on the right side...

Despite the damage, the driver
escaped with only minor injuries.

What's interesting also is, it
looks like the steering wheel
is pretty much unchanged.

Right, no, it's intact...

Detailed inspection of the
car helps confirm how well
the algorithm is working.

We're finding that
the Urgency Algorithm is uh...

very close. It's working very well.

It's helping to predict
whether or not

we could expect to see
a serious injury
to the occupants of the crash.

The important thing that the
algorithm contributes is,
in addition to the car

knowing where it crashed and sending
that information, this is going to

tell something about the severity of
the crash and potential injuries.

Coupling that with
rescue acting on it,

the hospital acting on it, there's
clear data that suggests that will
change outcome and save lives.

It's a significant breakthrough.

After all, cars are replaceable.

People aren't.

The Urgency Algorithm
project marks the start of a
new era in car safety,

where an understanding of both
human biology AND mechanics will
be the key to surviving a crash.

But the challenge of preventing
fatal accidents doesn't end here.

Because there's another factor
affecting our safety on the roads...

..us.

Not all safety research
revolves around the forces
our bodies can bear -

the way our MINDS work is
also coming under greater
scrutiny than ever before.

At MEA Forensic in Vancouver,
Canada, scientists are experimenting
on volunteers.

They're finding out if our
instinctive, evolutionary response

to danger might actually make us
MORE vulnerable in a car crash.

I'll ask you to push
forward a bit...

Now we see the activity from
the neck flexor muscles.

Push relatively hard please...
OK, thank you.

Today, they're testing
this volunteer's involuntary

reflex reaction to mild whiplash,

by subjecting him to the kind of
impact common in a rear-end crash.

What happens during a rear-end
collision is that your torso is

being accelerated forward while your
head stays stable in space,

and at that point
the tissues in your neck muscles

are being stretched, and a lot of
forces are going through them also.

So we're interested to know
how the body reacts and if that body
reaction is actually detrimental.

So all the equipment is
ready and working now,

so we'll be ready to go on with
the experiment. So are you ready?

So first off I'll
have to start the motor.

Here we go.

Now I'll ask you to relax your neck
muscles - put your hands in your lap

and just relax, and the motion will
come in the next minute.
Here we go...

It's a sudden impact.

So on the screen here we
have the response of the...

of our volunteer to the simulated
rear-end collision with our sled.

The white line is the
acceleration of the sled,

and you see that it reaches around
2Gs in a very brief period of time,

in the blink of an eye -
about 50 milliseconds.

The next two lines are the neck
muscle responses of our subject,

and these are all automated
response, all reflexes that the
subject has no control over.

It takes less than 1/10th
of a second for the volunteer
to respond...

..a reaction that has protected us
from harm throughout our
evolutionary history.

The startle response.

The startle response is something
that's not only present in humans -

it's something that most animals
have also and it's a protective
response to a strong stimulus.

That stimulus could be happening
like when you're being pushed
from behind,

when your head is moving strongly,
or when you have a loud sound.

And during a whiplash collision,
all these things are happening.

So you have everything to actually
trigger that startle response.

But far from protecting us,
this instinctive reaction

puts us at greater risk of
injury during a crash.

The startle response kicks
in at the exact moment the
neck is most vulnerable.

It causes the muscles to spasm...

inflicting additional damage.

During a rear-end collision, your
torso is accelerated forward while
your head stays stable in space.

That puts some strain on
your ligament in your neck.

So at that point, if there's
a startle response evoked by

the collision, it can activate your
neck muscles and it can increase

the strain that's being applied to
that ligament, and it may lead to
injury or exacerbate injuries.

Having identified the problem,
scientists now hope to solve it.

They've learned the startle
response will be reduced
if the body has just flinched.

The plan? To trigger an artificial
startle response, before a crash.

There are many ways
that we could create

an artificial startle response
prior to the car crash.

It could be through, you know,
either a tactile stimulation -

so like,
moving the seat belt on you -

or we could actually send a loud tone
through the audio system of a car.

This understanding of the way our
brains react to danger could reduce
your chance of suffering whiplash -

another step towards limiting
the severity of a crash.

But for scientists attempting to end
fatal accidents once and for all,

the importance of the way our brains
react begins long before
a crash occurs.

At the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology,

scientists famed for their quirky
engineering solutions

are researching
people's driving abilities.

Cognitively, the human brain
is a really fancy computer,

and in essence,
we're only capable of so much.

And hence the problem
of cognitive distraction.

Cognitive distraction -

overloading our brain with excessive
tasks - comes in many forms.

It can take the form of the
information and the thoughts
that I bring into the car,

the conversation I had with my wife,

my children, my business partners.

All of this information is bottled
up in the brain, and as we're

thinking about that and trying to
drive at the same time, in essence
we're trying to do too much.

Maintaining an optimum level of
attention is vital for safe driving.

There's a fundamental relationship
between workload and performance.

And it's called
the inverted U phenomenon.

So in a car, we can think about
too tired, not having much to do.

We don't drive too well.

So when you have a moderate degree
of stimulation,
we do a very good job.

Too much, not so good.

The challenge for the MIT scientists
is to discover how cognitive stress
affects driving performance.

So the next sensor is a
skin conductance sensor.

And it's going to tell us
how your fingers are sweating,
which is an indicator of stress.

To find out, the MIT research team
have developed an experiment
with volunteer drivers.

Hopefully you don't feel
too much like Frankenstein.

By monitoring Gaye's heart rate
and skin conductance as she drives,

researchers will detect
variations in mental workload
that might lead to distracted...

and dangerous... driving.

Feels a little weird.
They don't hurt or anything,
you've got it so that

I can move around. Yep.

Although
I need to be plugged in somewhere.

If you'd like to come in
and take a seat here. OK.

Just grab those wires there.
Thank you.

The car Gaye is plugged into
contains a sophisticated
selection of cameras

to monitor her position
on the road.

She will now drive this car
on a set route through Boston.

So we're going to be driving south
on 93 for approximately 30 minutes.

Of course, driving's a complex
business to begin with...

but what happens if you raise
a driver's stress level by
increasing their cognitive load?

We're about to begin the tasks
where she's going to be
engaging in two different tasks...

that basically bring her stress
level up to a moderate level.

And while she does the task,
we're going to monitor her
heart rate and skin conductance.

The test is fully automated -
it plays through the car speakers.

We are now going to complete
a series of score trials.

In this task you are to repeat out
loud the number that you heard
two numbers ago.

Try to be as accurate as you can be.

Remember? Repeat the number
you heard two numbers ago.

8, 7, 4...

8. 5.

7.

2. 4.

3. 5. 1. 2.

9.

3.

6. 1.

0. 9.

Not easy at all...

especially while concentrating
on the road.

Cognitive stress like this
is common in cars...

the mobile phone call,
the kids fighting in the back...

any distraction will divert brain
power from the task of driving.

But how did Gaye get on?

When we asked this individual
to count back and remember one
number back in the sequence...

9. 3.

this individual, heart rate
increased, workload increased.

And throughout the task,
their heart rate and their
skin conductance was elevated.

1. 5.

As heart rate and skin conductance
increase,

we see a person devoting some of
their attention to something other

than driving, which inherently
leaves them at a higher risk

of not perceiving things around
them and getting into accidents.

Recent studies using in-car footage
of real drivers have shown

that a stressed driver
is as dangerous as a drowsy one.

The challenge for researchers?

Not only to monitor
a driver's mental state,

but to find a way of intervening
if they're not up to the job.

This is where scientists start
getting creative in their attempts
to prevent fatal crashes.

In the vehicle here
we're using an ambient orb

as an illustration of one way we
can test how colour might be used.

It allows us to provide the driver
with potentially very different
shades of colour, from green per se

when they're doing well to shades
of orange and yellow as they're

having more difficulty, to red as is
the case right now where a driver is

really stressed, just giving them
a soft, subtle reminder that
you probably need to take a break.

Of course, not all drivers
will stay alert,
and fatal crashes will continue.

So here, at General Motors'
research lab in Detroit, scientists

are investigating how the car itself
can make up for our shortcomings...

by enhancing the driver's senses.

They are developing
a prototype windscreen,

which they hope will give drivers
a kind of "superhuman" vision...

the Advanced Vision System.

What we aim to do is not change
a viewer's perception of the world,

we just want to
augment key features on the world.

It's an ingenious system.

Infrared cameras film the
driver to monitor head position
and gaze direction.

What you're looking at here
is a head tracking system,

which is used as part of
the enhanced vision system.

It's important to know the gaze
direction precisely of the driver.

And to do that we use
three infrared cameras.

What you see is the result of some
software manipulation of the
images that are captured by these

infra-red cameras which picks up
key features on my face that can be
tracked as I move within the car.

The red lines coming out of
my eyes are basically
the results of calculations

from the inputs of these cameras
that predict or show the exact angle
in space that my gaze is directed.

An awareness of exactly where
the driver is looking allows the car

to assist them
when the going gets tough.

One of the common driving scenarios
that we can help with

is the situation where
you're driving on a foggy road.

What we can do with the technology
that we've assembled here is actually
highlight the edge of the road,

augmenting reality effectively,
making it more apparent to you

so that you can release your
attention to other things that
you should be scanning for.

And what you can see is that using
the eye tracking technology,
as I move my head,

the blue line stays aligned
with the foggy road edge.

It's only prototype technology.

But the promise of projects
like this motivates scientists
worldwide.

The goal?

A future where fatal crashes
can be avoided,

and lives saved.

Hallered, Sweden.

Winter, 2010.

There is so much
happening on the road, a...

just a fraction of distraction, just
a maybe even a part of a second,

may be sufficient that something
in front of the car changes, and

if you're not paying
attention, a minor mistake
may have very severe consequences.

Junctions are a relative complex
traffic situation. As a driver,
you have to pay attention to a lot

of things and it's not only you but
also the other people on the roads
and but even if you as the driver,

you are paying attention to the
traffic light and waiting

for the signal to become green

and it becomes green and you
think you are safe to approach but

it's not always the case,
as you saw here.

Fortunately for
scientist Erik Coelingh,

he's collided with a plastic balloon
car, used here at Volvo's test
track for crash avoidance research.

HE SPEAKS SWEDISH

A collision like this with a real
car could potentially be lethal.

Side impacts at junctions
often lead to traumatic injuries
to the brain and the heart.

If you are getting hit from the side,
then there is not a lot
of material between

the outside and you as a person,
there's just the door in there,
and of course the doors are very

strong, there's a lot of steel, but
if the relative speed between the
two objects are very high, it's very

difficult for the passive safety
systems to deal with the situation.

Passive solutions like side-impact
bars only do so much.

So Erik and his team have
developed an active system
in this car - auto-braking.

This car has a sensor system
that tries to detect where
the objects around the car are.

In this case we need to know
where the red balloon car is.

And for that we're using
a GPS sensor system.

So what you see here is
a GPS measurement unit,

we have an antenna on the roof
and we measure the location.

What we really want to know is
the relative position of this car
as compared to the balloon car.

This technology's
still at an early stage...

but today Erik is ready to see
if it can prevent a dangerous
side-impact collision.

The balloon car is
prepared for another run.

So now we are back at the
intersection, and we have activated
our collision avoidance technology.

So we will
again drive the same scenario...

I will approach the intersection
and we will see what happens.

I will keep my foot on the
accelerator pedal all the time.

It's approaching us, and I will try
to drive right into the side of it.

And you felt how the car
was automatically braking
and keeping the vehicle to a stop.

And it kept the car still
until the red balloon car

had passed us and it was safe for us
to drive on to this road.

We believe that accidents
are not inevitable.

And we have a vision that in...
in the future there will no...

there will be no collisions,
will be no fatal accidents
with vehicles any more.

A world without fatal accidents.

Millions of lives would be saved.

It's a hugely ambitious goal.

Success won't come easily
or quickly.

I think to prevent fatalities
altogether is wishful thinking,
at least in the immediate future.

But in the long run,
scientists are convinced
they are on the road to success.

I think at some point, er, we may
not see fatal car crashes any more.

That's not going to happen
tomorrow, but look at a car
like this, this is a

pretty severe crash and, you know,
for a person to do well,

that's an enormous amount
of engineering,
and we're getting better and better.

Advances in engineering and medicine
have the potential to save
millions of lives on the roads.

These advances mean that the fatal
crashes which have
bedevilled the car

since its creation
over a century ago

might one day become
a thing of the past.