After all the bad news we have been hearing about cell phones being detrimental to our health, there’s finally some good news. Japanese car manufacturer Nissan has made public its plans to test-drive an advanced cell phone-based system to reduce accidents involving pedestrians, but only if they are carrying a mobile phone on their person.

Nissan’s homegrown Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) will use cellular networks to collect GPS data on the pedestrians in relation to cars in the vicinity. The car will then activate a warning to alert the driver. If successful, Nissan will introduce the new feature in its later models.

According to Nissan, this advanced ITS research consists of the following process:
1) Via cellular packet communications, the system collects probe data from the vehicle and position data from pedestrians. The received data is then computed to determine the corresponding location of the vehicle relative to the pedestrians on the road.
2) The ITS detects pedestrians ahead of the vehicle, and send a warning alert to the driver at the event of a potential conflict.

If Nissan goes ahead with the ITS, cell phone sales are sure to shoot up. After all, who wants to risk being run over by a car? I’m sure the cell phone industry is keeping its fingers crossed on this invention!

Via: crave-cnet