Toyota’s pre-crash safety system enhancement which can determine if a driver’s eyes are properly open – a claimed world first – will be available only in Japan for the foreseeable future, a Europe-based official said on Thursday.

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“At this moment we have no specific plans outside of Japan for this new technology,” Toyota Motor Europe spokesman Etienne Plas told just-auto.


“It might come in the future of course, but unfortunately I cannot be more specific.”


Toyota Motor Europe already offers a pre-crash safety system – including a steering column-mounted device which can tell if a driver is not looking ahead – as standard or optional on its flagship Lexus models. The system is also available in other markets world-wide.


Toyota Motor Corporation in Japan this week said  it expects the new eye-monitoring feature, along with the system’s current ability to determine the direction of the driver’s face, to play an important role in reducing collision-related damage.

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The system, “scheduled for launch in Japan in the near future”, uses a driver-monitoring camera and image-processing computer to determine the position of the driver’s upper and lower eyelids.


If the system senses that a collision is imminent and also determines that the driver’s eyes are not properly open – or, by using the face-monitoring feature, determines that the driver is not facing forward – it issues a warning to the driver earlier than it would without such driver-condition information.


A Toyota official this week said that, although the latest safety device cannot detect all drowsy drivers, it would help reduce traffic accidents.


Graeme Roberts