TRW’s public policy expert says rapid advances in vehicle safety allied with Silicon Valley technology are a bit of the “Wild West” as perceptions of transportation alter at startling pace.
A plethora of safety improvements such as lane departure warning, automatic emergency braking and adaptive cruise control systems among many others, is increasingly being married with a suite of lifestyle technologies often embracing non-automotive spheres.
“There is now Silicon Valley, IT and the telecom industries coming into safety, it is changing the safety industry,” Potomac Alliance managing director, Kevin McMahon, who acts for TRW in Washington, told just-auto, on a conference call in the supplier’s global headquarters near Detroit.
“It is a little bit of the Wild West right now. What the vehicle manufacturers choose to promote and put on their vehicles, what the government chooses to regulate on vehicles, remains to be seen, but more change and more rapid change is coming to this industry than ever before.”