Life-saving fingerprints?
By Donald Melanson 
posted June 14th 2005 4:20PM
posted June 14th 2005 4:20PM
A group of researchers and organizations including Cranfield Impact Centre and Nissan Technical Centre Europe have developed a system they hope will eventually save the lives of car drivers and passengers simply by scanning their fingerprints. It works by determining the bone strength of each passenger through an ultrasound scan of their finger, adjusting the force of seatbelts and airbags accordingly — the goal being to reduce the amount of injury caused by seat belts and airbags in accidents. The group eventually sees the system being integrated into dashboards or even into the gear lever, and drivers would be required to register their fingerprint in order to start the car.
Someone failed reading comprehension. It scans the BONE of your finger, it doesn't take a fingerprint. Take the stupid pic off next to it, it's making you look stupid.
Alot of people would just find this to be an inconvenience (the same people that tend to not buckle up). To implement it best I would also integrate keyless ignition with the finger print detection.
What happens when you get you're finger gets cut off while in a bar fight and you need to get away from that guy you shanked with a beer bottle and his friends? Bet you didn't think of that, did ya?
Um...and for the passenger?
My car recognises the RFID chip imbedded in my skin and adusts my car immediately I sit in the drivers seat. Positioning, tensioning and switches on my favorite music. The car then asks me my destination, checks for traffic problems and maps out my route for me.
Right now I have to drive myself, but I'm thinking if I hire a driver I can even throw away my RFID chipset.
Why doesn't the car just look up your FBI/CIA/HS record and, based on whether or not you're determined to be a "dissident", will decide whether or not to drive you over a cliff or slam you into a tree? That way everybody's safer.
I call Big Brother.
Uh, #1 it looks like you are the one that failed comprehension, the fingerprinting is used to IDENTIFY the person, not assess their bone strength. I assume the manufacturer provides some facility for the bone scanning and then just uploads the results to the car's computer.
Not sure why it needs your fingerprints though, what's wrong with just selecting your name off a preloaded list of drivers?
Sounds like a useless technology invention that if used will just hike up the price of cars to even more insane prices. There's a reason for safety standards and I doubt even a 100 pound difference will affect how effective the pulley/motor system of the seatbelts and the airbag deployment is for a person.
I don't like that idea. It seems the costs outweight the benefits. Still, I guess they should do it to see if it can be done. No sense stomping on innovation now, is there?