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And Now, A Hat That Tells You When You Are Driving Fatigued

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Ford Safe Cap

When you see a trucker hat, you’re inclined to think about a few things right off the top of your head. Axe Body Spray. Ashton Kutcher. Tetsuya Naito. Actual truck drivers. But Ford Brazil’s Heavy Truck division is looking to add alertness to that list with its new Safe Cap—a trucker cap equipped with sensors that monitor not your Axe Body Spray saturation levels, but the head movements of a driver that might indicate fatigue.


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“Ford is the first automotive company to think about creating a wearable device for drivers to use for the time when they are behind the wheel that can contribute to prevent accidents. This way, we are able to reinforce our commitment on bringing embedded technology not only for vehicles, but also through accessories that are capable of making the lives of drivers easier and the focus on safety as a priority in our technology investments,” said Ford South America President Lyle Watters.

The Safe Cap issues three kinds of warnings when it senses that a driver might be fatigued: vibration, sound, and light. The prototype has been tested for eight months over the course of 5,000 kilometers of real driving conditions. It’s not likely that the Safe Cap will be mass produced in the short or medium term, but once Ford completes testing and passes the patenting and certification process, it will likely share the technology with partners and customers to some extent.

Until such a day where drivers are equipped with their Safe Caps, they will be Men (and Women) without Hats. We’ll show ourselves out.


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