I Remember: be something white at night...
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icture the scene: it's a pitch.
black night on an unlit coun try road. Approaching from one direction, a large motor vehicle; from another direction, a representative of the local wildlife in the form of a small wandering deer. They collide. Result; one ex-Bambi and ta-ta to that no-claims bonus. That little scenario could soon be a thing of the past, thanks to General Motors, which has developed a thermal night imaging system for one of its Cadillac models. Called Night Vision, it allows drivers to see five times as far at night as they can using car headlights. Based on the infrared imaging technology used by the military and emergency services, the image is captured by a robust infrared camera mounted behind the car's front grille. A small crystal screen on the dashboard displays a monochrome picture in which warm objects are white and cold objects are black. A specially shaped mirror projects the image directly on to the windscreen, compensating for the curvature of the screen, so the image is not distorted. The position of the image can be adjusted according to the driver's height. At the pace technology moves today, tomorrow's world arrives before you get there.