Zero road fatalities the goal for researchers
FIRST ON 7: One of the world's leading crash test specialists believes there's a way to eliminate human error as the cause of most motor vehicle accidents.
Automatic breaking technology has already been developed and experts say that's just the beginning.
Ulf Torgilsman crashes trucks for a living.
The Swedish safety specialist is working to make driving safer. He says human error causes 80 per cent of accidents.
Another of his experiments shows how serious bad judgement at the wheel can be.
"Sometimes mistakes take place and that's when the active systems should go in," he said.
Active systems are the new frontier of road safety. It's when the car senses an emergency and takes over.
Automatic breaking and passenger airbags already exist. It's been the subject of research at QUT's driving simulator and results show it's hard to know when a driver is in trouble or simply frustrated.
"To develop those methods to pick that up and decide when to intervene are the challenges in that area," Dr Mark King from the QUT Centre for Accident Research said.
The goal is zero fatalities. Distraction and fatigue remain the fastest growing problems for modern drivers.
"One of the things we know car manufactures are looking at these days is the car you don't have to drive - a car that drives itself," Paul Turner from Queensland motoring group RACQ said.
