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A driver speeds around a dark curve in the road. He doesn’t realize that just around the bend ambles a slow-moving, enormous tractor-trailer. The way the sedan careens around the blind curve, it seems that the worst outcome is unavoidable: a head-on collision. Very likely fatal. But then, suddenly, it doesn’t happen.

Crucial seconds before the car finishes the turn, the vehicle’s adaptive headlights have turned on their own to spotlight the truck. The car senses the problem with its forward-collision warning system and sends a warning to the driver, as it prepares to automatically activate the car’s brakes to stop short of the truck’s path.