Toyota has set aside $50 million over five years as funding for its Collaborative Research Safety Center, when it announced the CSRC project last January. This week, it announced its partners will include the Massachusetts Institute of Technology'sAgeLab, the Transportation Active Safety Institute at IUPUI, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Washtenaw Area TransportationStudy in Ann Arbor, and the Wayne State University School of Medicine.
The CSRC's projects center on the most vulnerable passengers: children, and the most accident-prone drivers: teenagers and older seniors. One of the most exciting and timely studies is MIT AgeLab's two-year project on driver distraction and cognition, and at what point voice activation and feedback becomes a distraction instead of an asset. CSRC and the AgeLab will concentrate on figuring out whether drivers can process what they see when they're looking directly at an oncoming vehicle or other potential hazard while concentrating on voice controls for infotainment systems.
In addition to keeping the driver safe, Toyota is also working on keeping pedestrians and bicyclists out of harm's way. They have developed a futuristic synthetic motor sound to alert pedestrians that there is an electric car nearby. The electronic noise raises pitch under acceleration and lowers it while deceleration. It will be added to the Toyota RAV4 EV that goes on sale in 2012, as well as the Prius line and other hybrids and plug-in hybrids from the company.
Check out all the hybrids and other new and pre-owned Toyota vehicles available in Indianapolis at Tom Wood Toyota.
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