A dashboard-mounted device that tells motorists when a car has crashed in the
vicinity could reduce motorway pile-ups. Accelerometers in the gadget detect the
rapid deceleration in an emergency stop or collision, and a transceiver
broadcasts a warning to all other users within a 1-kilometre radius. This
triggers an audio alert in cars heading towards the incident, with the alert
becoming louder the closer they get. Stuart Boorn of the device’s maker Roke
Manor Research in Hampshire expects the system to help prevent the rear-end
crashes that so often occur when drivers come across motorway traffic jams.
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