Amazing Things Your Automobile Can't Do 641
dslmodem submitted this NYT story on nifty automobile technology that isn't coming to the United States. The report suggests that legal liability is a significant reason for not offering various driver-distracting options in the U.S.
Re:We still don't have a lot of 'em.... (Score:3, Informative)
This feature has been available since the early 90s in the UK to anyone with a http://www.radioandtelly.co.uk/rds.html [radioandtelly.co.uk]RDS (Radio Data System) enabled set.
Re:Video would be nice (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Tort Reform Redux (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Video would be nice (Score:5, Informative)
Between 95 and 97 percent of all lawsuits filed end in settlement [mediationtools.com].
80% of all lawsuits are filed by businesses, not individuals. These suits are usually not brought because of their merit, but because they have some business purpose. For example, maybe someone wants to buy a piece of property for less than the offering price. They bring a suit against the party selling the property, that in some way casts the ownership of the property in doubt. Even though their suit is groundless, while the seller is waiting for the case to come up and be dismissed they can't sell the property. The plaintiff makes an offer for less than the property's worth, and the seller concedes. An attorney friend of mine handled just such a case.
We live in a litiginous society not because individuals sue others so readily, but because businesses use groundless or just-barely-justifiable lawsuits as weapons against their competition, and because lawyers love lucrative class-action suits. Dismiss the frivolous suits within days instead of months or years, and make class-action suits less lucrative for greedy lawyers, and a lot of these lawsuits would disappear.
Re:Glad (Score:5, Informative)
The point is, that guy next to you CAN do all those things (read : laptop?), BUT that guy won't take responsibility for his.... LACK of responsibility, he'll blame the manufacturer of the device that's "distracting" him. There ARE applications where these toys would be fun and SAFE to have, but in the States we have to worry about liability for EVERYTHING, and it's restricting more and more markets.
Re:More annoying than being regulated out... (Score:1, Informative)
You have to talk to the owners then. (Score:3, Informative)
a) Misaimed either intentionally to get better visibility or by accident because the driver or mechanic don't know what they are doing. You don't have to mis-aim a lamp by much to throw a lot of light at oncoming drivers...one degree too high is more than enough to do it.
b) Retrofitted with pumped-up aftermarket bulbs which the lamp was not designed to use. Even if you use a kit which claims that it's designed for the vehicle in question if you drill out a hole in your lamp to put in an aftermarket HID system you WILL screw it up. Get that sucker out of position by half a millimeter and you're going to blind everybody who looks at you.
Sueing the OEMs won't change the behaviour of the vehicle users.
In response to the article itself, the thing I most miss that the Euros have while we NAers tend not to is the mighty Rear Fog Lamp. Since certain states *cough*Virginia*cough* do not allow their use, most foreign OEMs disable the rear fog functionality on the cars the export to NA. I drive a Mini Cooper and it has a rear fog cavity in the tail-lights but the damn thing is turned off in the CAN-bus and there's a plug in my dash where the switch should be! Anybody who has ever driven behind a car that does have these in the rain knows how much we need to update the FMVSS code to explicitly allow them here.
-Pinkoir
Re:I ride a motorcycle (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Instead of adding, why not remove shit ? (Score:3, Informative)
most of the time it is because they are misadjusted. the biggest problem is the rednecks in the giant pickup trucks. they do not readjust their headlights after lofting the pickup another 4 feet for their extra cool big tires.
I have those insanely bright headlights in my insight. I adjusted them properly so that from oncoming traffic lanes, they look like normal brightness, and I get the benefit of extra light on the road shoulder and that side of my lane.
most people do NOT adjust their headlights. and many cars are misadjusted from the factory.
Re:Glad (Score:3, Informative)
Rubbernecking: 16 percent
driver fatigue: 12 percent
looking at scenery: 10 percent
other passengers or children: 9 percent
adjusting the radio, cassette or CD player: 7 percent
So does all the fancy extras include windows? radios? passanger seats?
Re:It's too easy (Score:3, Informative)
In Germany, the actual written test is a simple 4-pages multiple choice test with some numbers to fill in (amount of meters you need for breaking at 100 km/h and so on), and the question are chosen from a...100 pages? catalogue of all possible questions. With average intelligence, it is possible to read all questions one time and pass the test with 0 errors (9 errors are allowed, one questions counts between 2 and 4 error points).
The practical test depends heavily on the examiner - between 15 minutes and 60 minutes of driving, with parking, city, Autobahn, everything. Everyone can have bad luck and spoil that.
The biggest difference between the US (at least what I know of it) and Germany is the driving school: You are not allowed to drive with your parents, you have to drive with a teacher. And you need a minimum amount of driving experience to do the test (12 hours, 3 hours Autobahn, 3 hours overland, 3 hours in the night). Most people use between 18 to 25 hours. It's really expensive to get a drivers license, it is not easy to stay within 1.500 EUR.
But in the end, nearly noone who just passed the drivers test is actually able to drive. You just need at least half a year of experience to know what you are doing, and after that, the most dangerous time starts - the kids stop using their brain while driving...and the boys start using their
Re:good, we don't need that crap. (Score:3, Informative)
Each year, an estimated 284,000 distracted drivers [unc.edu] are involved in serious crashes. Probably good to keep that number at least stable--if not lower--than it currently is.
Re:Glad (Score:3, Informative)
Yet in the USofA it's still legal to use your hand held cell phone while driving, in most developed(!) European countries only hands free phones are allowed.
Big companies like BP and Shell have now disallowed hands free as well because statistics show they're just as distracting and dangerous as hand helds.
So it's only a matter of time for these European countries to follow suit and write it into law.
But I can say that just about every trip I make on the I-10 between say Houston and Lafayette I see people driving while watching portable DVD players. And that road is, compared to Europe, full of cops.
Re:Gets rid of those #&%! kids and their socce (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Gets rid of those #&%! kids and their socce (Score:4, Informative)
The system is simple... you apply moderate brake pressure, and the system parks. Your foot pushes down, it stops. Your foot goes off the pedal, it stops.
Re:Video would be nice (Score:3, Informative)
The McDonald's coffee lawsuit brought by the elderly woman was legitimate. McDonald's was aware that its coffee was dangerously hot and had injured several other people, but chose to ignore these previous warnings. It was also aware that it was holding its coffee well above normal temperatures for stored, brewed coffee (according to McDonald's, this helped retain the flavor). The woman in question suffered severe burns which required grafts. She was mainly compensated for the medical bills she incurred from the injuries. The initial award that is frequently tossed around, like most awards in this type of suit, was reduced to reasonable levels by the judge.
The coffee was knowingly being held at abnormally high temperatures for stored coffee. As such, it was unexpectedly dangerous which is why the jury handed her a win. This is more akin to accidentally cutting your thumb off with a pair of safety scissors that have been made razor sharp and suing than it is to sticking your hand in a running mower blade. You are expected to take reasonable precautions, but if the only reason you didn't take reasonable precautions was that the item you were handling was abnormally dangerous for the type of item it is (without warning), then it's hard to fairly place the blame on the person who is injured. There are many examples of stupid litagation due to greed or ignorance. This is not one of them.