Self-driving cars with medical monitoring could be the future

How would you feel if your car was constantly aware of your medical condition and overall health? Would that feel like a good thing, one that made you feel safer and better about your life? Or would it feel like a violation of your privacy, and on some level a little bit weird? No matter how you feel, the prospect of such a vehicle is very real in the coming decades. As self-driving cars continue to be developed and researched, new systems and ideas are taking shape — and a medically-monitoring autonomous vehicle is just one of these ideas.

There is a clear benefit to such a vehicle: it would go a long way towards preventing car accidents that are precipitated by a medical emergency. With a smart car that could monitor your health, such a self-driving vehicle could then safely assume operation of the vehicle if the driver had, say, a heart attack.

Some studies have been done on car accidents and the medical emergencies that can cause them. Amazingly, heart attacks were not the top reason for such accidents. About 20 percent of car accidents that were precipitated by a medical emergency were due to diabetic events. Heart attacks accounted for 11 percent of said accidents.

Self-driving cars open up many wondrous possibilities. But at the same time, they also could create some unexpected problems. Liability in car accidents that involve self-driving cars will become a very serious issue in the years ahead.

Source: CNBC, “Soon your car will know when you are having a heart attack — and know how to react,” Joe D’Allegro, Nov. 17, 2017