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Carmaker Ford has said it is experimenting with technology to detect potholes and warn drivers of their locations.
Cars equipped with cameras could constantly scan roads during journeys, with resulting data on potholes displayed on other drivers' dashboards.
The idea is being tested at the firm's research centre in Aachen, Germany.
One expert said altering routes to avoid potholes might not always be possible.
"A virtual pothole map could highlight a new pothole the minute it appears and almost immediately warn other drivers that there is a hazard ahead," said Uwe Hoffmann, a research engineer at Ford.
"Our cars already feature sensors that detect potholes and now we are looking at taking this to the next level."
Waze already does that with a helpful, "Watch out, pothole ahead!"
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 18 2017, @10:07PM
I have two quick thoughts on this:
One: This may serve as an extraneous distraction to the driver concerning information that is not vital to the driving of the vehicle. An example: A driver is making a turn and a pedestrian steps out into the road in front of them. They see the pedestrian and start to turn to avoid them as they continue to make the turn. Right then the pothole avoidance system beeps at them loudly. They are distracted, overwhelmed, and crash the car into a light pole. Did it really matter if they hit a pothole at that moment?
Two: I am concerned about what seems to be excessive electronic systems in the new cars being made today -- mainly from a maintenance and privacy standpoint. All these complicated systems have a bunch of expensive sensors connected to them that will start to fail with age, and require replacement. This costs money. Furthermore, while not related to this article, it seems that pretty much every car being made has a cellular data modem built in that is spewing god knows what back to the corporate mothership. I'm not a big fan of this.