The automaker says it's just a patent, not a product plan, for now, but we've a couple questions about this tech nevertheless

Buckle up, readers — there’s a lot to unpack in Ford’s most recent patent which is, well, peculiar. Ready? In July 2022, Ford filed a patent for a smartphone app that enables cars using self-driving mode to communicate with pedestrians via their phones. Half-points awarded for an attempt at reducing pedestrian fatalities and injuries.

U.S. Patent 11396271 explains that it’d alert “vulnerable road users” (read: pedestrians) to the presence of a nearby autonomous vehicle. The autonomous vehicle (AV) would communicate its intentions to the pedestrian through an “augmented reality” overlay on their phone, and gather info via machine learning to power “an impact event prediction indicative of a future impact between the AV and the mobile device.”

Simply put: The app will tell you when an autonomous car is going to, in fact, not stop for you. Yikes.

Firstly, if you’re distracted by your phone while walking or crossing the street, you’re contributing to a potential collision, where the majority of the time, the several thousand pounds of moving metal will defeat bones and skin. To echo every parent, look both ways before crossing the street and always follow the road safety rules and laws. Whether you’re walking, jogging, running, riding a bike, pushing a cart/stroller, etc., for goodness sake, keep your head up and know your surroundings.

Secondly, the app only communicates in one direction (no, we don’t mean you, Harry Styles). The app user cannot communicate with the AV. It wouldn’t matter if it could, as I imagine it’s a matter of seconds between receiving the alert, processing it, reacting to it, and then hopefully not getting hit. There simply wouldn’t be time to respond to the app saying “lol, pls don’t hit me!”

Here’s the terrifying part; instead of the AV stopping when it senses it’s close to a pedestrian’s mobile device, this app simply shares the AV’s next moves, and hopes you can react accordingly. Hopes. You. Can. React. Accordingly. Imagine being in the driver’s seat, the car doing the driving, you seeing a pedestrian glued to their phone, them sauntering into or across the road, and the car not avoiding them?

We’re in a “Big Brother” society where nearly everything is filmed or captured at every moment, so having a plethora of phones in a dense urban location means that whatever or whoever is in the AV will be photographed or filmed. Moreover on the privacy side, where will the vehicle data that connects with phones be housed, by who, and for how long?

What’s Ford got to say about this? As per a recent Jalopnik article, the Blue Oval said “Ford is a leading automotive innovator and submits patents on new inventions as a normal course of business. Patent filings don’t necessarily indicate confirmed production plans.”

Still with me? Good. I’ll wrap this up by saying your eyes are the best safety tool as a pedestrian — not an app telling you you’re likely going to be hit by an autonomous vehicle.

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