Building the Zero-Fatality Car 509
CWmike writes "In the future, new cars might include an appealing sticker: 'This car is rated for zero fatalities.' John Brandon reports that Volvo, for instance, has launched a program called Vision 2020, which states, 'By 2020, nobody shall be seriously injured or killed in a new Volvo.' It includes not just new protective measures in the car, but technology for communicating dangers to and from the car. Other car companies have similar, less formalized programs. As ambitious as it seems, Ed Kim, an analyst at automotive research firm AutoPacific, says the zero-fatality goal is achievable. In the next 10 years, there will be a confluence of safety technologies — such as road-sign recognition, pedestrian detection and autonomous car controls — that lead to safer cars, says Kim. Will your next car look something like this?"
In a Volvo? (Score:4, Interesting)
By 2020, nobody shall be seriously injured or killed in a new Volvo
But what about those outside the Volvo?
Re:I thought they already solved this problem (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't know if you've seen TFA or just making a quick joke but a comparison between the main picture and a google image search for "demolition man car" shows that you're basically spot on!
Re:Auto-car. (Score:2, Interesting)
To paraphrase Mr Heinlein, "forget Republican or democrat, left or Right; there are two kinds of people in the world, those who wish to control others, and those who have no such desire."
Fatally flawed!! (Score:3, Interesting)
Great concept, but there are some rather glaring problems.
Let's take the "Pedestrian detection with auto brake" feature for example:
http://www.volvocars.com/intl/top/about/corporate/volvo-sustainability/safety/pages/pedestrian-detection-with-full-auto-brake.aspx [volvocars.com]
Lovely in theory, except for all the moronic teens who will delight in jumping out in front of Volvos confident that the car can't hit them. You're going to have idiot kids hit by drivers of old style cars, as well as a whole bunch of tail end collisions caused by this. It'd render roads near schools undrivable at closing time.
Oh, and you have to love the fact that they're adding a warning light that flashes when it sees a problem. Which seems to miss the fact that the warning light itself is going to immediately distract you, and make it more likely that you're not going to see the pedestrian it's trying to warn you of.
While backed by the best of intentions, I just can't see this becoming reality for a long while.
Re:Sounds like zero-vulnerability network security (Score:3, Interesting)
Seriously. I have a vision of somebody with a bumper sticker that triggers other cars' pedestrian avoidance system to slam on the brakes because it sees a "person". That'd be lovely on the highway.
Re:Auto-car. (Score:4, Interesting)
With human controlled cars, the human is presumed to be the responsible agent, unless the vehicle can specifically be proven to be at fault(ie. brake failures under normal use, flipping over and catching fire if you tap a wall at 10mph, spontaneous acceleration, etc.). Humans are actually pretty miserable drivers, especially the distracted, tired, intoxicated, bored, old, trying-to-outrun-the-cops, and other pathological case ones; but the liability for the deaths, injuries, and property damage caused is spread out across a huge number of them in a fairly thin layer.
Now, if the car were automated, there would be a strong case to be made that the car, and thereby its manufacturer, is the responsible agent. Even if a car achieved, say, a factor of 10 reduction in accidents(not wildly implausible, with some technological advance), the amount of liability incurred by the manufacturer would be absolutely crippling.
It would take a sea-change in how accident liability is allocated for automated vehicles to make it out of test tracks, rail systems, and specific instances(like antilock brakes).
when were the laws of physics repealed (Score:2, Interesting)
until they can stop your organs from slamming into your rib cage there will always be auto fatalities.
Re:Auto-car. (Score:2, Interesting)
There are plenty of people who shouldn't be driving. Age shouldn't have much to do with it, but aptitude should. Unfortunately, we give licenses to any idiot with a pulse that can answer most of a list of twenty questions and take a brief street test without running someone over.
Though older and younger drivers are the most dangerous, there are plenty of exceptions across the board (more dangerous people in the middle and some safer one toward the extreme young/old ages). I don't see why we can't require more frequent and thorough testing of people as they ramp up to learning and getting their license and then toward the more senior years to ensure they remain safe and capable drivers. Unfortunately, that isn't the case in most states (or any, for all I know?).
Of course, with an automated system, the human would be the brain of the system who can override in emergencies, but could otherwise carry on about their business in the cabin/cockpit while the car automates 99.9% of the process. Allowing mobility and independence to those young and old who may otherwise currently be a danger to the public or in an ideal world of more frequent and thorough testing, prevented from enjoying the freedom of travel seems like an ideal solution.
Re:Auto-car. (Score:1, Interesting)
I don't think I'd ever be able to handle a car that was partially automated.
I've run off the road on ABS trying to recover, because when I squeeze my brakes my focus immediately goes to my car (I have a sports suspension in a tiny economy car, go figure...): if it starts to lose traction, I respond by easing off the brakes and executing reflexive recovery maneuvers. In normal driving, I don't need my brakes except to stop; if I can't adequately slow down by backing off my throttle, I am going too fast.
So of course, either I'm correcting for an error or I'm avoiding a sudden hazard (idiots popping out into the street--children actually look first, wtf?-- or other idiots in cars). At that point, I'm completely aware of my car's behavior, and focusing on keeping it in control. When the ABS kicks in, the dynamics change is so drastic I have to completely give up on handling my car to switch strategies; this has caused me problems. Specifically, my main problem is I lose all braking control: the pedal sinks completely to the ground when ABS kicks in, as the computer is now managing my brakes and I don't have access to that dynamic in any fine-control form anymore.
I couldn't even drive an automatic on the highway very well; if other drivers drove dumb and didn't react to my occasional misjudgments of what the car was going to do (particularly, going into high gear when I need to ACCELERATE, NOW), I'd have caused 4 or 5 accidents a year at least, maybe twice that many. Now I have a clutch and I execute the exact same maneuvers (merging into faster lanes from slower lanes in dense traffic), and don't cause any disruption to the flow of traffic. Ever. My predictions on what's possible also follow what the car actually does.
A semi-automated car with me behind the wheel would be worse than a regular car with a drunk behind the wheel, or a fully automatic car with flawed programming. At least the flawed fully auto would register "oh shit I just hit another car" and take action to rectify, damaging property but possibly avoiding major accidents. I can't react to a computer constantly changing the dynamic of my vehicle, or changing it at inopportune times; I work off physics, and I have to plan what changes to those physics are about to happen if I'm going to react to them.
Re:Not good enough (Score:1, Interesting)
Remove the driver, that way, you get zero fatality pedestrians too. And then you can design any kind of car, even a tank with rocket boosters. It's the idiots behind the wheel that kill, not the cars themselves.(Well there are design errors that make that possible, but that's not what this story is about.)
Re:Volvo in 10 years.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Good luck making a zero fatality car with the chinese at the helm...
Don't worry. That just means you'll be less likely to die in a crash and more likely to die of lead or melamine poisoning!
Re:What? (Score:2, Interesting)
hit a bridge pillar
Autonomous collision avoidance would stop the vehicle or steer around the obstacle.
at max speed
Roadsign detection and speed governing would mean max speed = roadway speed limit. Smacking a properly-designed modern car into an immovable object at any legal roadway speed is generally not fatal.
after removing his seatbelt
In Scandinavian Volvo, seatbelt removes you. Seriously, they'd probably have some form of interlock that prevents you from removing the seatbelt while the car is at speed.
Regardless, I'm sure someone will manage to kill themselves (cars, for example, would have a hard time differentiating land from water, so your nearest boat launch would provide ample opportunity).
Re:Don't see the big deal (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, I'd prefer to kill you than have to pay 5 cents extra for gas, but as a society we've decided that not killing people is a pretty good thing to do.
Sort of, but not really (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, I'm under the impression that some of the bleeding obvious warning have little to do with "nature designing a bigger idiot" as with basically a law system where people can pretend to be idiots to sue for millions. And where juries of disgruntled anti-corporatist can actually decide to award an idiot that a company pays his medical bill, even when essentially ruling that the idiot is to blame for his own misfortune. Just because, you know, it would be somehow mean to tell a little old lady to pay for her own skin graft, when you can just take some money from a corporation to cover those costs.
E.g., "Wanda Hudson, 44, of Mobile, Ala. After Hudson lost her home to foreclosure, she moved her belongings to a storage unit. She says she was inside her unit one night "looking for some papers" when the storage yard manager found the door to her unit ajar -- and locked it. She denies that she was sleeping inside, but incredibly did not call for help or bang on the door to be let out! She was not found for 63 days and barely survived; the formerly "plump" 150-pound woman lived on food she just happened to have in the unit, and was a mere 83 pounds when she was found. She sued the storage yard for $10 million claiming negligence. Even though the jury was not allowed to learn that Hudson had previously diagnosed mental problems, it found Hudson was nearly 100 percent responsible for her own predicament -- but still awarded her $100,000."
Source: http://www.stellaawards.com/2003.html [stellaawards.com]
Roll that around in your head. Even after ruling her responsible, they _still_ awarded her $100,000. God knows what for. Apparently just because it would be heartless _not_ to rob a company to pay for a trespasser's misfortune.
More worryingly, even warning signs really don't matter any more.
E.g., "Hornbeck volunteered for the Army and served a stint in Iraq. After getting home, he got drunk, wandered into a hotel's service area (passing "DANGER" warning signs), crawled into an air conditioning unit, and was severely cut when the machinery activated. Unable to care for himself due to his drunkenness, he bled to death. A tragedy, to be sure, but one solely caused by a supposedly responsible adult with military training. Despite his irresponsible behavior -- and his perhaps criminal trespassing -- Hornbeck's family sued the hotel for $10 million, as if it's reasonably foreseeable that some drunk fool would ignore warning signs and climb into its heavy duty machinery to sleep off his bender."
Source: http://www.stellaawards.com/2007.html [stellaawards.com]
E.g., a woman sued Burger King after spilling the coffee onto her own lap, because, get this, although the cup did warn that the coffee is hot, the employee didn't also warn her verbally that it's dangerously hot. Because, you know, apparently otherwise it doesn't matter.
Source: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/806345/posts [freerepublic.com]
Worse yet, in some parts you can even get to pay big bucks for something you didn't personally cause or had any way to cause or prevent.
E.g., when a hare-brained pyrotechnics stunt went wrong in a bar and resulted in a deadly blaze, it wasn't just the owners that had to pay. The list of those who were made to pay millions or had to reach a settlement (again in the millions), included the radio channel which aired an ad for the event, and the manufacturer of the beer they served there (and literally had no other involvement with the event, and likely only heard of it when they got sued), and the importer of that beer, and Home Depot who sold the material they used as insulation and which was ignited by their hare-brained pyrotechnics. (Although Home Depot never sold it as fire-proof or anything.)
Source, for example: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-02-13-540 [usatoday.com]
Re:Sort of, but not really (Score:3, Interesting)