By Onn Haran
One doesn’t need to have a driving phobia to experience stress behind the wheel. A 2023 survey[1] on the biggest fears of UK drivers revealed a wide range of concerns. Interestingly, V2X technology has the potential to alleviate many of these stress factors.
The top fear among drivers is reckless behavior from others. While V2X cannot change driving habits, it can provide warnings about reckless drivers nearby. It can detect various risk factors, such as vehicles rapidly approaching from behind, red-light runners, or cars entering intersections at excessive speed. By tracking the anonymous identities of vehicles, V2X can determine if the vehicle approaching from behind has previously tailgated others. Swerving vehicles in the vicinity can also be detected and flagged. With these real-time alerts, drivers gain valuable time to react and avoid reckless drivers, significantly reducing stress on the road.
Another indirect benefit of V2X is its ability to offer early alerts about road anomalies ahead, such as a blocked lane. Additionally, V2X enhances mobility and eases traffic congestion by optimizing traffic flow on highways and vehicle arrivals at traffic lights. This, in turn, helps reduce driver frustration, aggression, and reckless behavior, which is the root cause of this fear.
The second biggest fear is bad weather. This is where V2X technology excels, as it functions reliably in all conditions, snow, rain, and fog, without depending on the visibility of road users. Unlike other sensors that struggle in such conditions, V2X further extends the detection range, giving drivers more time to react and initiate braking, helping to compensate for the increased stopping distance.
The third biggest fear is cyclists driving recklessly. Traditional vehicle sensors often struggle to detect them, especially when they are hidden behind parked or moving vehicles. V2X overcomes this limitation by reliably detecting cyclists even when they seem to appear out of nowhere.
V2X can’t assist much with the fourth biggest fear: driving in unfamiliar areas. However, it can ease a major stress factor: finding available parking. With the Cooperative Parking feature, V2X-equipped vehicles share real-time information about open parking spots, whether on the street or in a parking lot. This helps drivers find parking more efficiently, reducing feeling stressed from circling around and slowing down traffic.
The fifth biggest fear is being involved in an accident. V2X enhances vehicle safety as the only sensor capable of detecting hidden risks beyond the range of any other sensor. It helps prevent all types of collisions, side, rear-end, and head-on, across all road users, including trucks, buses, cars, motorcycles, bicycles, and even pedestrians. V2X has the potential to prevent over a third of fatalities in multi-vehicle crashes while also reducing the severity of those that do occur.
The sixth biggest fear is driving alongside a lorry, a concern that is well-founded, as truck collisions account for a quarter of driver fatalities in multi-vehicle crashes. V2X can help eliminate this risk. Once all trucks are equipped with V2X, drivers will always be aware of nearby vehicles, reducing blind spot-related accidents as well as all other truck-related collisions.
In summary, V2X has the potential to ease stress in five of the six most anxiety-inducing driving situations and provide some assistance in the remaining one. Since high-intensity driver stress contributes to driving errors and aggressiveness, reducing it also has a positive impact on overall traffic safety.
[1] https://www.jtape.com/news/survey-uk-drivers-biggest-fears/
