Look at the image above – click it for a larger image to help you get a clearer view. Did you notice the pedestrian standing in front of the car in the top half of the image? Now look at the bottom half of the image – the pedestrian is now clearly highlighted.
According to statistics, pedestrians are as much as four times more likely to be injured or killed in a traffic accident at night compared to in the daylight. Add to the fact that there are just so many roads here in Malaysia that are not really very well lit, and the probability goes up even higher.
At the recent BMW Innovation Days in Munich, BMW demonstrated to members of the media their new Dynamic Light Spot technology, which helps highlight pedestrians (or even animals – apparently all cats are grey at night?) in dark areas so that drivers are more aware of them, thus helping reduce the likelihood of an accident.
Before this, BMW had the Night Vision feature, which in Malaysia is present on some cars such as the more expensive 7-Series models. It helps the driver identify pedestrians in the dark by highlighting them on the iDrive screen using a thermal imaging camera.
Conventional low-beam light allows drivers a theoretical range of vision of about 50 to 85 metres at night, and tests have shown the recognisability of a darkly clad pedestrian in twilight was found to be just 29 metres. BMW Night Vision can increase this positive recognition of pedestrians up to 97 metres on average.
However, using the feature can be a little distracting as the thermal image appears on the iDrive screen and sometimes you not be paying enough attention, or perhaps you’ve just forgotten to turn the feature on.
The new Dynamic Light Spot feature takes this concept one level further – it uses a thermal imaging camera to sense a pedestrian, but instead of just highlighting them on the iDrive screen, a marker light using a sweveling LED array comes on to illuminate the target clearly for the driver to spot them.
It’s not just a bright light pointed at a person or animal – there is also a thin but defined strip of light projected onto the road in the path leading up to the object in danger, which helps draw the driver’s attention even more. According to BMW, during the development phase of this new feature, one object was detected and highlighted every hour on average.
Check out the video above to view a demo of BMW Dynamic Light Spot in action. For demo purposes, a BMW 5-Series GT was used and the swiveling LED array was retrofitted in a small housing where the fog lamps used to be.
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like ghost story movie…
mak aii….seram giler..haha..
i agree… on closer inspection of the pic… the pedestrian looks really REALLY spooky..! come to think of it… I’d rather not see him at all if he looks like that..!! whoohoo… :P
what if the light on and there is nobody there. its pretty scary..
btw, nice feature. good job!
which means if there’re 8 pedestrians, more merrier..
8 LED lights will point out at every single of them…
hmmm, thermal imaging. Perhaps the infared camera picks up a hotspot, directs the light only for the driver to see nothing there? On a serious note, this technology would be rendered irrelevant if not for stupid pedestrians (perhaps drunken ones) wondering on the road in the middle of the night. I very much prefer lights that collaborate with the GPS to anticipate road lines and adjust their directional beams accordingly
hahahahh..S-class what u gonna do now ??
I think it’s overkill, imagine you’re doing 80km/h on a narrow road in europe on slightly icy road, suddenly this beam shoots forward highlighting something, you will instinctively hit the brake no matter what it’s reflex you will hit the brakes, next the back steps out and you’re in deep shit.
Next what the hell would a bloody pedestrian be doing on the side of a pitch black road.
Sure its a pedestrian?
Could be “something” else.
hahahaha, was thinking of that too! those normally ‘unseen’ ones floating around! :D
probably works with deer or moose or elk as well.
And as per your back end stepping out, a good driver will know what to do….as for the rest, that’s why you have ABS, EBD, DSC, VSC, ESP…etc etc……. I’ve had many surprises getting my back end out, but after years of driving on unlit icy back roads, it becomes instinctive on what to do.
A pity we don’t get more dynamic headlights standard on more cars.
On a side note, a few years back when the NKVE was on the 3rd lane expansion, those flag waving mannequins spooks the hell out of me. Especially when you are doing a good clip at night, turning into a corner and suddenly you have this thing at the side of the road waving a flag….hahaha. One of those WTF incidences that get your heart beat up in a jiffy.
You do realize that in even in europe that the people who can afford this cars and this feature which i assume is going to be a very very expensive option are people who are at least 40 years of age and have never dealt with any emergency conditions?
Should try this on our highways
esp the jangan pandang belakang hotspots !!
Nice !!
it doesnt matter LED Laser thermal imaging dog imaging whatever imagining
but when ur eyes DONT see something on the road coming
or worse still your eyes half open half close or 3 quater close because of that henessey or JD binge session
or u kinda caught getting blowjobs and lost your normal driving instinct
then no technology in the world can save u from collision
i totally agree with u. i welcome any new technology to improve safety and all that but at the end of the day, it all comes down to you, the driver. and i like the blowjob part lol
good for all and i supposed volvo should be the leader in car safety :P
*the probably goes up even higher.
u mean “the probability”?
so what if there is more than one pedestrian? will the light go back and forth between the pedestrians rapidly (cool effect hehehe), or will it only highlight one? or will there be multiple LEDs to highlight all at once (which then becomes an issue if there are insufficient LEDs to highlight all pedestrians)??
If you are driving a 3 series, most likely you will still kill this pedestrian because this technology is only available on 5 series and above. LOol..
Why? Because of things like this “BMW had the Night Vision feature, which is present on some cars such as the more expensive 7-Series models.”
Just pray that BMW decides to hav it compulsory on low end models.
Paul, forget Dynamic Light. LASER LIGHT is the next big thing frm BMW.
Until they can invent something that can totally avoid collision altogether, whatever they came out now are just mere marketing. Worst still, they are now adding more and more lights and soon we will all have to wear sunglasses at night. Ultimately is your two eyes and defensive driving that can give you the ‘most advance’ technology in safety.
I probably hit the pedestrian more often with this… you see, when I drive I like to follow the line….
Cool! Now I just need to replace the LEDs with guns…
wouldnt this be distracting for oncoming traffic like motorcyclist or people riding on bicycles, and maybe even people that are walking?
the light intensity looks to be blinding..
Exactly…and if there are so many cars from the front, all they will see is the disco lights coming from this car..Bogey night…..
Polis buat speed trap pon boleh hilight ni haha
too late.. police’s new speed camera can catch u from 1km away.
Hahaha… good one. Wish proton can also do the same :(
In our corner of the world it is probably NOT pedestrian we are worried about. Rather, stray cows, buffaloes, cats, dogs and chicken. Maybe not all of them but buffaloes standing/sitting/walking/lying in the middle of rural roads have caused quite a lot of accidents. Some even caused death.
gajah dan tapir pun pernah kena langgar :(
A much better way of utilizing LED technology rather than the one employed by VW groups.
JAIS should be the first to buy this car…can drive around and look for khalwat…
hey will it follow if somebody just walking by..i think tht person can be afraid of tht
this article looks scary to me.
Ghostbusters should use this..
If you are a pedestrian you will like it.