An error in judgment, simply not paying attention, an act of good ol' stupidity — next thing you know you're in an accident. That is, you would have been, if your car didn't take control of the wheel. Nissan is working on a system that will override control of the vehicle if its spider-sense starts tingling. The auto would do more than steer out of harm's way, depending on the situation. It could also pump the brakes to send the driver a signal if they, say, try to pull into an occupied lane or fail to react to a threat in the vehicle's blind spot. It's all part of an initiative by Nissan to give drivers more feedback about the vehicles surrounding them — from cars backing out in a parking lot to the distance between bumpers on the highway.The technology isn't so far-fetched. We already have sensors installed in most modern vehicles, such as a warning beep when you're about to back into something.

If it sounds like your car will drive for you, it won't. "Ultimately, we want the driver to have the final control," a Nissan engineer at the company's Oppama facility in Yokosuka, Japan told Reuters. The automaker hopes to significantly reduce the number of accidents drivers of its cars get into, with the lofty goal of nearly eliminating them altogether.

Via Reuters