Trailing a slow-moving truck while driving along a two-lane highway can be a rather frustrating experience for most drivers. But it’s also dangerous. Taking a risk to slide onto the oncoming vehicles’ lane in a bid to pass the heavy vehicle means putting one’s life at risk. This problem is more pronounced in countries where two-lane highways constitute a major proportion of the overall road infrastructure. But this could change. Technology behemoth Samsung is using its expertise to help drivers overcome this problem with a clever solution – a ‘clear truck.’
A prototype of this truck has been designed by Samsung and is already plying on highways. The workings of the truck are fairly simple – the seemingly transparent truck is fitted with a camera at the front, which feeds live images to a screen fitted on the truck’s back. This gives vehicles trailing the truck a clear picture of oncoming traffic, enabling them to overtake the heavy vehicle when they see that the road ahead is clear.
By making overtaking safe, Samsung hopes to help reduce accidents that occur because of drivers’ visibility being blocked by heavy vehicles ahead of them. And it’s not just overtaking that the truck hopes to address. Drivers can see potential dangers such an animal crossing and reduce the speed of their vehicle accordingly.
In one of its recent blog posts, Samsung said that it has tested the prototype truck with an Argentinian B2B client. The company chose Argentina for its test because the country has a high rate of road accidents which is largely because of its two-lane roads.
Currently, the prototype truck isn’t plying on the roads, but the company said that it will be working with local non-profits and similar agencies to bring these trucks onto the road in a bid to help curtail road accidents.
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