Automotive / Cars
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Background: The video game Cyberpunk 2077 is set in a dystopian corporate future where life is cheap, but it (surprisingly) features a courteous automotive safety feature. Specifically, some flying vehicles in this setting will project a red “Warning: vehicle is landing here!” grid onto the street before descending, so that no one is crushed by a…
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Background: A trend started in the 2020s where car owners would affix stickers to their car reading “Student Driver: Please Be Patient!” (Examples: https://www.google.com/search?q=student+driver+stickers+fad). For some reason, the wording of these stickers is almost always identical: “Please Be Patient” or “Thanks for Your Patience.” Proposal: The goal of these stickers seems to be to increase the…
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The Issue: Car turn signals (or “blinkers,” if you prefer) make an audible “click… click… click” noise when they’re active (Figure 1). Bizarrely, this sound is both 1) not customizable by the driver and 2) identical for both the “turning left” and “turning right” signal. Proposal: The fix is so obvious. Just as a user might set…
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Background: Many automobile drivers enjoy zipping around other cars and rushing ahead to a red light as fast as possible (Figure 1), then slamming on the brakes and waiting for other cars to catch up. It’s surprising that people are so motivated to drive like maniacs to reach a red light, since there’s no prize…
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Background: In the years before the invention of the car, the only way to design a city was with walking (or at least public transit) in mind. However, once cars became widespread, cities started being designed with wide roads and large areas set aside for parking. The Issue: This style of design made driving very…
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Background: Occasionally, people will apply a sticker to the back of their car that says something to the effect of “Baby on board!” This allegedly has a nebulous beneficial purpose in informing other drivers of the presence of a relatively helpless infant in the vehicle, but it also has a major downside: specifically, it is…
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Background: A car owner may sometimes be ticketed for parking in a location that was valid, but became invalid due to a highly specific restriction (e.g. “street sweeping every 2nd Tuesday, 8–9 AM”). These “rare” restrictions can be hard to remember or notice. Proposal: Thanks to modern omnipresent surveillance infrastructure, a person’s cell phone can now…
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Background: Cars, trucks, motorcycles, and bicycles all share the roadways.However, drivers often entirely fail to notice bicyclists and motorcyclists. One study even suggests that drivers may often literally tune them out entirely: https://www.google.com/search?q=car+drivers+don%27t+notice+bicycles+study. For this particular idea, let’s focus on motorcycles, although the same general principle will also apply to bicycles. The Issue: At night,…
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Background: Automobile names come in many categories: some are whimsical (e.g. “Ford Fiesta,” “Fiat Panda,” “AMC Gremlin”), while sports cars are often named more “professionally” (“BMW 507“) or aggressively (“Dodge Viper,” “AC Cobra,” “Lamborghini Diablo”). The Issue: Maybe the name of the car influences the behavior of the driver. Consider how the following (sadly not…
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Background: Cars have a lot of instruments. These typically indicate the car’s speed, the current gear, and various other qualities of debatable utility. Nowadays, cars have all sorts of additional sensors (potentially including LIDAR, cameras, GPS, etc…), but the dashboard instrument panel has not changed substantially since about 1950. Proposal: Let’s add a new indicator…
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