AI technology targets traffic safety, aims to reduce 40,000 annual U.S. roadway deaths

AI technology is being used all around us to help bolster safety, and a recent innovation is aiming to help prevent traffic accidents.

“It really is one of the biggest crises in the U.S., to see 40,000 people a year dying on our roadways,” Vice President of Rekor Systems Paul Zamsky said.

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Rekor Systems was founded in 2017, with the goal of using AI and roadway data to make drivers safer.

“Detecting where crashes have happened without having to wait for a 911 call or identifying the areas that are riskier so that we could identify potential preventative measures and work with agencies to help prevent crashes from happening,” Zamsky said.

Zamsky said the technology has been out in pilot form for a few years now across the USA, and said it is more than just using historic data of crash hot spots.

“There’s weather, there’s contextual driving behavior like are you swerving, accelerating, decelerating, is there an event happening, is there construction happening,” he said.

Data from cars helps the company identify risky roadways and possible solutions. Zamsky said all the data they do get is anonymous and in an aggregated fashion; he said the car acts almost as a virtual sensor.

“That enables us really to see what is happening on the road without having to have physical infrastructure, millions of dollars of hardware and cameras and everything put on the side of the road to be able to understand those roadways,” Zamsky said.