Falling asleep at the wheel is a major concern among the truck driving community. Long hours spent on the road can cause highway hypnosis, leaving drivers paralyzed by sleepiness.
Veteran trucker Tara Kate explained, “I hate to say it, but unless you’re on the phone or something, a lot of drivers do what I do – you just kind of zone out.”
But according to WESA, a new technology may make the trucking industry and our roads a safer place. Maven Machines has invented a wearable headset that is used to monitor a driver’s safety while on the road.
The device checks for specific movement such as head bobbing which would indicate that a truck driver has fallen asleep. This device also allows truck drivers to receive messages from managers, to which they can reply with verbal commands or by nodding.
Maven Machines founder and CEO Avi Gellar said that the device checks how often drivers check their mirrors.
He explained,
“There was already a federal guideline that truck drivers should check their mirrors every five to eight seconds. So, one of the things we did with this technology is we became the first mirror-check monitor.”
Gellar noted that before this invention, the only solutions involved sensors located on the vehicle which could detect if a truck veered outside its lane or drove too close to other vehicles.
Trucker Tara Kate has been using the headset and admits that it’s improved her driving safety and awareness.
Gellar reported that six fleets have jumped on-board the technology and have logged more than 150,000 miles together with no accidents to date.
