Ok, let me start by saying this, if this could work, it could work for more than just deer. In my hometown and elderly lady was driving at night, on a highway, and a small kid with a dark sweater walked across the highway, and got hit and killed. It was not her fault, technically, why would a kid be crossing a highway? Also, how many people hit deer in the night, and total their car, or maybe swerve to miss the deer, and get injured in the process...and ruin the brand new car? Or in a bad snowstorm when you can't see other cars, but you can't stop, lest you get hit yourself. I HAVE AN IDEA! There are heat sensing devices that have been used by the military for YEARS...why not put something similar to this on a vehicle. Something that would sense the heat of an animal, a kid, another car, and signal with a tone, and have a screen (directly in front of driver, so driver doesn't have to try and find the monitor whilst trying to avoid the heat source). It would of course have to be able to be turned off in town...if one would like, so that it would not constantly beep at them because of the heat of other cars! But you could put some heat sensing device someplace in the front of the vehicle, even mounted in front beneath the frame, stuck out just enough to increase it's viewing area, and of course couldn't be behind/near the engine or it would not be able to differentiate the heat of your own car and somebody elses... A small monitor could be affixed somewhere on the steering wheel, or somewhere on the dash, close to the driver...that shows what the sensor is seeing or maybe has an arrow pointing in direction of heat source. And when a certain heat is noticed, a warning tone could sound. I know there are impact sensors on car, that tell you when you are too close to other cars, but that doesn't help you when you are going 65 mph on a dark road! One could turn the sensors on when it is dark, or they are in deer country, or just whenever they feel the need. Think of the possibilities in a bad storm, when somebody all of a sudden can't see anything, not even the car five feet in front of them. If there was ever something that could help avoid death and severe accidents...this would be the thing. Smash lab, please try this...for the sake of our vehicles, our lives, and bambi of course!
Just so your aware, this system was introduced into the car market in the 90's. no one cared because it is too expensive to put heat seeking instruments into a car. so therefore it was taken off the market. great idea though.
Well, the smashlab tries out a lot of expensive ideas! I think that initially it would be expensive, but as things became more mass produced it would get cheaper. Just like computers, used to be thousands upon thousands of dollars when they first started catching on. And then of course it became something in every american home, and now you can get a cheap computer for like, $500 at walmart! Its doable. I don't know that everybody would be interested, but people who don't like driving at night but have to...like me who always drives fifteen miles per hour under the speed limit because I know deer run out on the highway to the nearest town (drives my husband NUTS...LOL), people who live in the country, people who live in really bad blizzarding areas. You never know...it could tie in with your GPS system, maybe even use the lasers you see on gun scopes to show the distance of the object...just might work. It's worth a try. Come on, they tried to use rockets to stop a vehicle! That's different, why not take a chance! The world will go nowhere if people don't find innovative ways to do things!
Well, the smashlab tries out a lot of expensive ideas! I think that initially it would be expensive, but as things became more mass produced it would get cheaper.
I don't think you get it... THESE SYSTEMS ARE ALREADY BEING MAS-PRODUCED! THEY ARE OPTIONS ON SEVERAL DIFFERENT CARS! It has nothing to do with cost! It's the fact thats is already been DONE!
mcollum83, as you can see, if you go to the links provided by ratpack you will see that the technology you want smash lab to demonstrate, has in fact already Been Done
To go a step further, I would tie the existing GPS systems with global thermal signature recognition, thus widen the field, sort of like a air traffic control system. But this would probably cause cancer
I think you're on the right track mcollum83. It's a good idea that isn't being used. To say it was started in the 90's is like saying cell phones were made in the 90's, why would we need to improve them? And if this is widely being utilized in cars as your critics say, why are there still so many accidents with deer? I posted an idea similar to this before i saw yours. Great thinking...
I know an electrical engineer who recently designed a system similar to this same technology. There was an article written about it in the local paper. The article says there may be a similar system for moose. The system designed here is for residential purposes but it could be easily broadened. Here is the link.Traffic light on driveway protects child or pet
