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Samsung thinks giant screens on the backs of trucks will make highways safer

It's sunset, sometime in the near future.

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You've been driving on the highway for the last eight hours, and your back is aching. You can hear soft snores wafting from the backseat. You can see headlamps from an oncoming car briefly illuminate your children's faces in the rear-view mirror.

Then you turn your attention back to the road — and you see this.

samsung safety truck screen
Samsung/YouTube

This is Samsung's plan to improve highway safety. Outdoor monitors mounted on the backs of trucks will display feeds from front-mounted cameras for trailing vehicles. Here's one in action:

Note how a camera-screen rig behaves differently from a visual tunnel through a vehicle.

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Here's another look, showing how the bright screen will shine at night:

The project addresses some real safety issues. Samsung points out that trucks on narrow highways offer trailing cars little opportunity to check for oncoming traffic before passing. Further, it might offer more lead time for braking in the event of an obstacle on the road. 

Various highway agencies recommend car drivers avoid drafting behind trucks, especially near their various blind spots — car drivers should always safely pass trucks on the left side. But it's easy to imagine lots of car drivers do it anyway. And this could help.

On the other hand, car accidents can be caused by distracted driving — smartphones, fatigue, and children can all impair concentration. But scenery can also be distracting, so a giant LED on the back of a moving truck might not be the safest idea. And what will happen at night? Will this giant screen's affect even more drivers with all those bright lights?

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We've reached out to Samsung to get answers to some of these questions. We'll update the piece if we hear back.

Samsung is still in the very early stages of this project. The company says it plans to test these "Safety Trucks" in Argentina, where narrow highway accidents are apparently common.

You can watch Samsung's promotional video for the project below:

Samsung Transportation
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