It has probably happened to you: you're out driving late at night or on a long road trip, and your head starts to nod. You start to struggle to stay awake, drifting back and forth in your lane, until you decide to pull off the road and designate a different driver or take a nap.

If you've been in this situation, you have hopefully always been able to catch yourself before you fell completely asleep and got into a car accident. Many people, however, are not that lucky. That's why several automakers have begun experimenting with technology aimed at preventing drowsy driving accidents.

Specifically, car companies' "lane-assist technology" is meant to keep drivers in their lanes and alert them if they begin to drift. Ford's "Lane Keeping System," for example, relies on a camera mounted to the rear-view mirror. When the system is turned on and the car is driving more than 40 miles per hour, the camera will use the road's lane markings to determine whether the vehicle is drifting toward either side of the lane.

If the system senses that the car is veering to either side of the lane, and if the turn signal is not on, the steering wheel will vibrate. If the driver does not correct the car's direction, the power steering will engage and steer the vehicle back toward the center of the lane.

Thus far, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has hesitated to recommend lane-assist technology to the general public. The agency says that more research needs to be done on the systems before a recommendation can be made.

What do you think? Would these systems be effective at preventing drowsy driving accidents in Arizona?

Source: New York Times, "Trying to Nudge Drowsy Drivers," Randall Stross, Jan. 21, 2012