What (Fish) Schools Can Teach Us About Safe Driving

CREATIVE COMMONS: NOAA Photo Library by Dr. Dwayne Meadows

The children’s riddle, “Why are fish so smart?  Because they swim in schools!” may prove true for improving driving safety.

We have been applying the Science of the Positive to impact traffic safety culture and norms for over two decades. Now, in addition to focusing on reducing impaired driving, increasing seatbelt use, and engaging bystanders to intervene – maybe we need to go fishing!

According to TechCrunch, "Honda is looking to nature to improve the safety of driving, using bio-mimicry of the behavior of a school of fish to inform a new technical concept it’s unveiling at CES called Safe Swarm....Safe Swarm essentially means that cues picked up by one vehicle equipped with connective communication tech can pass along information to others in proximity, far before a driver would be aware of anything. Cars can shuttle their collected knowledge down the line, propagating info about a pile-up potentially miles ahead in near real-time to help make it easier for human drivers to take action to avoid problems before they happen."

This fascinating new technology may require us to rewrite one of the touchstones of the Science of the Positive to say, "The Solutions are in the Community...of Fish!" 

Read more at techcrunch.com.