When it comes to vehicular accidents, we don’t really think of heart attacks being the cause, but rather our minds jump to talking on the phone or drunk driving, but apparently having heart attacks while on the road is dangerous (and possibly common?) enough to the point where Toyota is reportedly working on a steering wheel that will be able to tell when you are about to have a heart attack.
Through the use of contact sensors that have been embedded into the steering wheel itself, it will be able to detect abnormal heart rhythms via the driver’s hands. When the system detects that you’re having an irregular heart beat, it will slow the car down automatically to give you time to pull over to the side of the road safely, as opposed to jamming on your brakes or suddenly swerving over to the emergency lane.
No word on when or which models Toyota plans to implement this new steering wheel, although initial demonstrations were made with the Prius, but it seems that they are not alone as Ford has something similar planned, except they will use sensors in the seat as opposed to the steering wheel.