Pedestrians to stop driverless cars with a wave

Pedestrians of the future will use hand signals to stop autonomous cars to help them safely cross roads, says New Scientist.

According to researchers from the UK's Royal College of Art and Imperial College London who have developed the new 'Blink' technology, driverless cars of the future will not only read the road but human body language too.

The new technology works by first identifying a person waiting to cross near the side of the road.

Once detected, Blink displays an organic light-emitting diode display (LED) image of a figure on its windscreen that is clearly visible to the pedestrian.

To let the pedestrian know it has seen them, the figure lights up and mirrors their movement or actions.

If the pedestrian raises their hand to stop the figure in the windscreen turns green, signalling it's safe for the human cross as the car is slowing down to stop.

The new technology, it's thought, will render road crossings obsolete and reduce the need for infrastructure designed to keep pedestrians safe.

Unfortunately, not everyone is keen on the idea, reports the science journal.

Vocal critics of the new tech have already attacked Blink over claims that, effectively giving pedestrians the right of way will gridlock busy city centres as countless pedestrians disrupt traffic flow.

Blink co-creator, Raunaq Bose, remains unperturbed and says his invention will help the public become more comfortably around self-driving cars.

"This provides a really nice opportunity to rebalance the road power dynamic."

According to Bose, "several car-makers" have already expressed an interest of incorporating his technology into their autonomous offerings for the future.