A World Without Car Crashes

ANN ARBOR, Mich.—"This curve here, you wouldn't think much of it," Debra Bezzina is saying, "but somebody was killed here two years ago, and they didn't even find him right away." Our van, driven by Bezzina's University of Michigan colleague Rick Byrd, is coming up on a curve that indeed looks relatively benign, even in this icy January weather. But Bezzina shares the story of the man who took the curve too quickly and skidded off the road. He wasn't the first to do so.

I brace myself as we approach, and something unusual happens: an alarm sounds from the dashboard, and an alert flashes in a corner of the rearview mirror. I realize the mirror doubles as a heads-up display — it shows a right-turn arrow against a blue background that suddenly turns red to warn of danger. Byrd, at the wheel, slows down.