New Monitoring Technology Can Pull a Car Over if the Driver Is Incapacitated

An increasing number of new vehicles sold in the U.S. can slow down a vehicle within its lane if a driver becomes unresponsive, but they can’t pull over to the side of the road automatically and call for help, and they can’t detect what’s wrong with the driver. But we should expect to see those features in the future, says Jake Fisher, senior director of CR’s auto test center…

Early versions of these technologies are already appearing on cars in other regions. For example, some Volkswagen Arteon sedans sold in Europe and equipped with the Emergency Assist 2.0 feature will turn on their flashers and pull over to the side of the road if a driver becomes unresponsive…

In Japan, Mazda has said it will debut its Co-Pilot system on new vehicles this year. Tamara Mlynarczyk, a Mazda spokesperson, tells CR that the system is “continuously monitoring” the driver’s performance.