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!important

Your Digital Safety Belt

Technology

!important works with car manufacturers, telecom companies, and government officials, improving road safety for all. Our mission is to save 1 million lives over the next decade. Help us protect vulnerable road users (pedestrians, bicyclists, motorcyclists, etc.) around the world by using our app in your daily commute.

Pedestrian

Our app creates a Virtual Protection Zone around each individual via their mobile device.

Application

The app communicates the user's (anonymized) location coordinates to all nearby certified automated vehicles.

Vehicle

The app's data augments the vehicle's sensor input to ensure the pedestrian is recognized and tracked to prevent any collisions.

Are you !important?

All of these fatalities and injuries are preventable with the new technologies available in the market today. The ability to detect and protect lives of Vulnerable Road Users (VRUs) from Automated Driving Systems (ADS) can be complemented today with technologies like !important’s, solving the 65% of crash scenarios left unaddressed or weakly addressed by on-board vehicle sensors, including the infamous Trolley Problem.

Figure 1: Example of !important's patented Pedestrian-to-Vehicle (P2V) solution

!important P2V (pedestrian-to-vehicle) solution is the new seatbelt for pedestrians. It has the potential to save lives by the millions Worldwide. As shown in Figure 1, it tracks VRU locations via mobile devices, sends that data to our cloud server where our proprietary AI is applied to determine a risk factor between each VRU and nearby connected vehicle. Connected vehicles are informed of VRU locations, projected paths and likelihood of collision, and VRU’s are sent a warning alert when the risk of an accident is high. Patents are pending for the system to also slow down vehicles and trigger the brakes automatically if a collision is predicted (patent granted in South Korea. USA still pending).

Distinct advantages of !important’s software-only solution:

  • It does not require a line-of-sight between the subject vehicle and the target
  • It is robust in all lighting and weather conditions
  • It can quickly react to unexpected pedestrian behaviors (such as darting out into traffic)

Solving most pedestrian fatality scenarios when the driver and the other sensors fail to detect VRUs.

Figure 2: Pedestrian Fatality Causes

As illustrated by Figure 2, vehicle-based sensors can at last replace for the better the driver and be helpful in roughly one third of pedestrian fatality accidents, corresponding to the 35% of scenarios caused by driver error. Leaving 2 thirds of the pedestrian fatal scenarios unsolved.

The remaining 65% can be solved by a combination of V2I & P2V technologies. We know that one out of four fatal accidents happen at an intersection. Therefore, V2I can solve one quarter of the remaining fatal scenarios-one sixth of all scenarios, representing crashes which occur at or around intersections. Between vehicle-based sensors and V2I, one stands a good chance of preventing or mitigating around 50% of all pedestrian deaths-please refer to Figure 3.

Figure 3: Pedestrian Fatality Solutions

The outstanding 50% of accidents occur on open roads, away from intersections, and are unrelated to driver error. Therefore, vehicle-based sensors have limited effect on these scenarios, and no infrastructure is available with which to take advantage of V2I benefits. The only technology possibly present for the pedestrian in half of the scenarios is her or his smartphone, smartwatch or IoTs. !important’s P2V solution represents the difference between life and death for 50% of all pedestrians killed on our roads.