Tiger Woods Genesis Crash Could Expose Advanced Safety System Issues

It was revealed by the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department that Tiger Woods never hit the brakes during his crash last month. This is all the information that was provided by the police investigators at this time. Even if Tiger never hit the brakes, the Genesis GV80 should have taken some corrective action to avoid or minimize a collision.

According to the Genesis website, the GV80 is equipped with lane-keeping assist and forward collision braking. The automatic braking system uses cameras and radar to detect pedestrians, other vehicles or objects in the road. These systems can help to avoid or prevent a collision by taking over the steering and braking in an emergency. But, these systems can be deactivated by the driver through the controls and menus in the dash. Or, Tiger could have been confused by the corrective actions from the GV80 and tried to use his skills to correct the problem.

This investigation is far from over. The black box from the vehicle will reveal more information from the accident. The information will include all of the sensors related to the brakes, steering and corrective actions taken by the safety systems. It will also show what Tiger did to try to avoid the crash.

The forward facing cameras on most late-model vehicles do not capture images and videos like you might think. These types of cameras produce a continuous feed of data that is processed by a computer module. It is unlikely we will have an in car video of Tiger’s crash.