Study Suggests That HUD Tech May Actually Reduce Driving Safety 195
Zothecula writes: Having a heads-up display constantly feed you information while cruising down the road may make you feel like a jet pilot ready to avoid any potential danger but recent findings suggest otherwise. Studies done at the University of Toronto show that the HUD multi-tasking method of driving a vehicle is dangerous. "Drivers need to divide their attention to deal with this added visual information," said Department of Psychology professor Ian Spence, who led the research. "Not only will drivers have to concentrate on what’s happening on the road around them as they’ve always done, they’ll also have to attend to whatever warning pops up on the windshield in front of them."
The problem... (Score:5, Insightful)
IF you have some kind of info 'popping up', there's your problem there. Show speed. Show specific information. Do not constantly CHANGE that information to make drivers deal with new data.
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Helmet fire (Score:3)
He painstakingly measured how much information an astronaut/jet pilot could pay attention to at once, and react to within a certain time frame.
Aviation folks have an awesome term for when pilots freeze from information overload. They call it having a helmet fire [wikipedia.org] which to this day cracks me up and is a perfect term for the problem.
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Pretty much. The only pop-ups I can see are navigation prompts.
Navigation prompts are going to decrease your attention to the road but far less than a map would.
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Exactly: is it better to have pop-ups from your nav system telling you when and where to turn, or is it better to fumble with a paper map, or drive around endlessly in circles lost, or pulling over and stopping constantly to ask some codger for inaccurate directions (and then getting lost again because the directions were bad)?
Re:The problem... (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually I think that was the point. A "big red box" popping up is going to distract the driver more and they are going to be paying attention to the box and will miss seeing the moose.
Re:The problem... (Score:5, Interesting)
My new car has exactly that feature. If a car ahead of me stops abruptly, it flashes a red car on the HUD well in advance. The timing is the key, the couple of times it has happened, the car "saw" the obstacle VERY early, giving me plenty of time to stop. It happens very rarely, such that if that warning is up, you know it's important to be alert. It's pretty intuitive and really doesn't distract as it's complementary to what I've hopefully already been looking at. It's also small and low in your field of view, so it doesn't block your view of traffic. The car will also apply the brakes itself to avoid a crash.
TFA shows a red car with a green arrow directing the driver to go around. I can definitely see how that might be too much in an emergency situation, particularly if you aren't trained on how to interpret and respond to that alert. My "red car icon" is more of a "HEY! WAKE UP!" and mostly leaves the avoidance decisions up to me. I could see more complex HUD alerts like in the TFA also being beneficial, but requiring training, so less time is needed to understand and react to the alert.
I don't think TFA's controlled tests are representative enough of how mature drivers drive. We practically drive on auto-pilot most of the time. The alerts are really helpful at getting you to focus when you need to, if your mind wanders a bit because you're making the same drive you've driven hundreds times before.
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I don't know about the OP, but my new Mazda3 has this feature as well. There's a HUD (it projects onto a piece of clear plastic that sits in the driver's view right on top of the instrument panel), and it also has a FOW (forward object warning) system which changes the HUD display to "BRAKE" with an alarm sound if it senses an impending collision.
The HUD itself I find very useful, because it doesn't require me to refocus my eyes much to see it, and has useful information: the current speed, the set speed f
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Actually I think that was the point. A "big red box" popping up is going to distract the driver more and they are going to be paying attention to the box and will miss seeing the moose.
That depends. If the big red box is a present, they will think they are getting a gift. If the big red box is drawn around the moose, they will probably see the moose.
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... a if it's designed by Dice, the box will cover the moose.
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There are these things called optics, they can allow something to appear to be further away than they are. When optics are used on the HUD, the virtual distance can be quite far away so you are never refocusing.
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1. No matter how much you post this I will not argue the point with you. You are wrong, and that is all I need to say.
2. You do realize that what you are doing could be considered libel against AB+ don't you? Many of your claims are actually patently false as I have shown you in the past.
Now take that and go cry in your cereal. I don't need to argue with idiots on the internet, and no amount of you trying to prove yourself right will ever prove you right as numerous people have posted to you in the pas
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Different people obviously have very diffferent requirements. In the UK, you can be fined huge amounts of money for a small excess of speed, so speed is important. If you are an older driver, the time taken to refocus from the dashboard to infinity (or vice versa) can be very long. However, spotting moose or crazy drivers is probably automatic (not that there are many moose on the road in the UK).
The question is, is it better than people at spotting small children running out fr
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In the UK, you can be fined huge amounts of money for a small excess of speed, so speed is important.
I like HUD, but I think that GPS-enabled cruise control (with camera backup) is the best way to handle avoiding excessive speed with technology. The hardware for that is in most cars now.
The question is, is it better than people at spotting small children running out from behind stationary buses?
That actually seems like a pretty easy thing for a computer to handle detecting, so the answer is probably yes. A lot of cars will now not only detect that but actually brake for you.
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I like HUD, but I think that GPS-enabled cruise control (with camera backup) is the best way to handle avoiding excessive speed with technology. The hardware for that is in most cars now.
You can't use cruise control (of any kind) on most non-highway roads. If you're driving through town on a road with stoplights, cruise control is obviously not safe to use there. However, that may be a place that's a favorite spot for cops.
On a highway, you have a good point, but cops do not only issue speeding tickets on l
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Downside on the latest one is it will display some radio information (station freq. or CD track number) when you make a change to the radio settings - they don't "stick" for very long. I suppose the idea is to keep the driver's eyes up rather than looking at the center stack for radio settings, but I could live without that info on the screen.
That's exactly the idea. It's better for you to get a quick update (esp. if you're actively adjusting the radio) on your HUD, rather than divert your attention to a d
How does that compare to desktops? (Score:5, Informative)
Similar statements could be made for desktops, where tray icon pop-ups for updates, email and chat notifications distract and interrupt workflows.
Maybe both for desktops and cars, this problem can be solved by detecting whether the user is currently focussed (on the road or a task) or relaxed/idle, and may be interrupted. Mylyn is a very impressive demo of thinking in this direction, I would like to see more of it.
Re:How does that compare to desktops? (Score:5, Interesting)
Similar statements could be made for desktops, where tray icon pop-ups for updates, email and chat notifications distract and interrupt workflows.
This. This is why when I want to get work done and not get distracted I shut down Outlook, IM, my browser and any other thing that might distract me. The difference is if I get distracted on my PC, I get distracted. If I get distracted in my car people could die.
A big popup interface on the windscreen is going to serve as a fantastic distraction. Especially as it's primary use is going to be Facebook, Twitter and so forth. People who are already terrible drivers will be staring right at the back of the car as they plough into it because their brain wont even register that the car is coming closer as their too distracted reading the latest tweet about gluten free mittens or some such.
As such, I'm filing this study under N for "No shit".
Re:How does that compare to desktops? (Score:5, Insightful)
The HUD that's augmented reality (overlaying IR on real view, so you see deer sooner and such), that should never be a distraction.
What is in the HUD that's distracting? Everything the ECU knows, displayed in Matrix style? Yes, distracting and not useful. But the tasteful HUDs? If they are distracting and intrusive, that's more a driver problem, not a HUD problem.
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My car has the speedometer right below the windscreen, in the driver's eyeline when looking forwards. It's actually distracting. With the police using dodgy equipment and the proliferation of cameras you become obsessed with making sure I'm never even 1MPH over the limit. That if I see a mobile site in the distance I can slam on the brakes and do a good 15 MPH under the limit, to offset errors form their equipment. They camouflage them so you have to be extra vigilant.
Obsession with speed and limits makes t
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My car has the speedometer right below the windscreen, in the driver's eyeline when looking forwards.
You mean front, top and center? Well, that's just bad design, right there. There should be a tachometer there.
With the police using dodgy equipment and the proliferation of cameras you become obsessed with making sure I'm never even 1MPH over the limit
Blaming your speedometer for bad ticketing practices is like blaming cotton for slaves getting whipped.
Obsession with speed and limits makes the roads less safe.
That doesn't really reflect on the validity of the idea of a HUD, though.
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There should be a tachometer there.
Given that most cars are automatics, there's no need for a tach anymore.
And the tach should be on the HUD, a bar at the top of the windscreen running from right to left that turns red at 90% of redline, and flashes at 100% of redline. The reason the tach is front and center (and big) is so that you don't have to look at it. Your peripheral vision can pick up the location with sufficient accuracy for timing shifts and such. The speedometer should be in the same spot so you can watch the road with periphe
Re: How does that compare to desktops? (Score:2)
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Facebook and Twitter will be its secondary purpose,.
Sure it may be its secondary purpose, but it will be its primary use.
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Extra information is bad. Information that you would have been taking eyes off the road to see anyway is more safely presented in a HUD.
What the study found is that having the nifty display is an invitation to push more information to the driver than they previously were processing.
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Similar statements could be made for desktops, where tray icon pop-ups for updates, email and chat notifications distract and interrupt workflows.
Popups and notifications are high on my list of things we can do without. If I am sitting at my computer it means that I am there to accomplish a specific task. I do not welcome interruptions on my computer any more than I appreciate robo-calls when I sit down to dinner.
Highest on my list are those dialog boxes that pop up after selecting an option that say "Are you sure you really want to do that?" Yes, I am you fucking retard that's why I clicked the button in the first place and to think that someone had
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Tell it!
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Or websites where the number of responses (and sometimes one or more category icons) obscures text you're trying to read.
Yyyyyyup. (Score:2)
Look outside, not inside (Score:4, Insightful)
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Your wife has a flying car? That is so cool.
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All 'vette owners think they're pilots.
Apparently, a surprisingly large amount of pilots also own 'vettes. Because, you know, it was good enough for the astronauts. ;-)
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My wife's 'vette has a hud in it and the first thing I do when I drive the car is turn the hud off. When flying the best advice is to keep your head 'out of the cockpit', in other words scanning the skies around you. New pilots' are always glued to the instruments, mature pilots eyes are focused outside except for quick scans of the instruments.
This, a thousand times this.
I was trained to drive defensively from the word go. This means keeping your eyes outside the car. You'd only need to scan your instruments (which realistically means just your speedo and maybe your rev counter if you drive a manual and cant hear or feel the engine (AKA: the most incompetent manual driver in the world)). I check my instruments every 10 to 15 seconds, about the same interval as I check my mirrors.
As such I've never understood the argument "I keep getting sp
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So you turn off the HUD and use the Force?
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Those "quick scans of the instruments" are quicker when you can glance at the HUD (which can be done without refocusing) instead of having to look down at the dashboard and refocusing your eyes.
"quick scans of the instruments" are the whole reason the HUD was invented.
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New pilots' are always glued to the instruments, mature pilots eyes are focused outside except for quick scans of the instruments.
I guess you'll never be an instrument-rated pilot.
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Original poster wasn't talking about IFR -- obviously there's no point looking out the window in that case (if you're in cloud, you couldn't even see the wingtip).
But you're not going to get a new pilot flying IFR, because it takes a while to get the training and experience needed for that rating. Thing is, because a new pilot doesn't have the experience to know what attitudes look like (where's the horizon on the window? which way is it tilted? what sound is the engine making? etc), he's tempted to keep
Re:Look outside, not inside (Score:5, Insightful)
Show me a pilot that has to rely on their instruments and I'll show a pilot who can't fly.
Contrarywise, show me a pilot who *can* rely on their instruments, and I'll show you one who can land at SFO in the fog.
Re:Look outside, not inside (Score:5, Insightful)
Show me a pilot that has to rely on their instruments and I'll show a pilot who can't fly.
You're not a pilot, obviously. Every airline pilot has an instrument rating to ensure they can fly safely without external reference to the ground and horizon (when flying through cloud, a snowstorm, fog, or even at night over a sparsely populated area between cloud layers. You (usually) need an instrument rating to land through cloud and when conditions are below visual limits.
It is almost impossible to stay oriented in thick cloud without using instruments, because one of the side-effects of turning in an aircraft is that in a properly coordinated turn, the occupants of the aircraft will feel that they are being pushed "down" toward the floor of the aircraft. That's convenient and feels more comfortable than sliding out of your seat. However, it means that it's quite possible to enter an extremely steep turn that fools the body into thinking that everything is OK. Bad things can easily happen unless you learn to ignore what your body is telling you and instead rely on what your artificial horizon is telling you.
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If you're driving a car under IFR rules there's something seriously wrong with you.
Sure, every pilot with some instrument training knows to trust the instruments when he can't see anything out the windows -- he also knows he's got ATC tracking him, helping him navigate and warning of other traffic or potential trouble (like t-storms).
If you're driving a car when you can't see out the windows you're a fucking loony, and a danger to everyone else out there. If you're relying on looking at the instruments (an
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So you're one of those losers who wrecks their plane with their relatives in it because you have no experience and no ability to fly by instrument and get killed because you think you can fly by the seat of your pants.
People shouldn't even be allowed to fly with only a private license. If you can't fly at the standard of a commercial pilot, you have no business piloting an airplane.
wait for the Windshield Spam (Score:2)
What were they testing? (Score:3)
They asked the people to report a box showing up? That isn't normal when driving, therefor the test its self might be distracting.
HUD displays should only be used to display info that is normally checked anyway like the speedometer as well as things like the new IR cameras that can detect deer near the side of the road which will be invisible. Having displays pop up some virtual brake lights on a stopped or slowing down car is fine but it has to be done right. It took aviation decades to get the basics for instruments right. The stuff that looks cool on a HUD demo in an office isn't what will work best in cars on a dark foggy road.
Re:What were they testing? (Score:5, Funny)
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HUD should only show vital information (Score:2)
Don't throw distracting trivia at the driver. DO use computational methods to highlight things the driver should definitely pay attention to that might not be obvious.
For example: if the view ahead is obstructed, or visibility is limited, a supplementary warning about oncoming objects that are out of sight could be useful.
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V2V is coming whether it's a good idea or not, but on the plus side it will produce a lot of data which would be useful on a HUD. It could tell you which vehicles are braking even when the sun is in your eyes and you can't see their lights, for example. It could also guide you to one side of the lane or the other (or to another lane entirely) in order to dodge a pothole or other road obstacle that you can't possibly see, well ahead of time. So yeah, there's a whole lot of data coming which could well be use
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Except, it won't. Not really nearly as soon as you think, and nowhere near as widespread.
Sure, there will be some fancy expensive cars with it. But look around at the cars on the road. The overwhelming majority of people will simply NOT be paying for this feature.
They'll be driving older cars, or they'll be unwilling to pay a premium for it.
All of these wonderful future pieces of tech are contingent on two things: people actually paying for them, and adoption
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In reality, that guy behind you in the 1987 Malibu isn't going to have it, and never will.
Until the insurance companies start requiring it in order to have the best possible insurance rate, then he will pay for the retrofit, once it doesn't make any financial sense not to add the system.
This still requires that V2V be affordable and provide sufficient benefits.
I don't see it sticking with fancy cars only.... If backup cams have been made mandatory, then I see V2V safety features becoming mandat
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Sure, there will be some fancy expensive cars with it. But look around at the cars on the road.
I have. The average age of the American car is 11 years, and that's an all-time high. They're putting fancier and fancier tech into cheaper and cheaper cars because it doesn't cost them that much and it's a way to compete. V2V works best when it's in the most vehicles, so they'll want to put it in a lot of vehicles. They just won't put the HUD into a lot of vehicles, they'll want to charge you extra for that.
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They'll probably "give away" the V2V enablement, and have all that stuff turned on by default, so it's maximally useful to OTHER drivers who pay for the feature, BUT for getting the V2V features that most benefit the end user, they will probably be options or "licensed feature packs", for example... you need options to have a display or warning tones to alert about hazards immediately ahead by the V2V network, or you need additional 'sounding devices' or 'display features' to show the construction/s
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Well, that's kind of the issue .. the people who have $5k will, and everybody else won't. I sure as fuck wouldn't pay $5k for it.
V2V stands to be fucked up for a multiplicity of reasons: shitty engineering, corporations trying to monetize it, and privacy issues are the ones which immediately come to mind.
I maintain that all technologies which are touted as "so awesome we can't say no", but which are predicated on consumers payin
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V2V stands to be fucked up for a multiplicity of reasons: shitty engineering, corporations trying to monetize it, and privacy issues
Bad engineering and monetization efforts ought to only foobar the 1st generation products. Remember..... before Ethernet, we had DECnet, and many proprietary network protocols designed to help corporations attempt to monetize it by making themselves the patented standard everyone would have to buy.
Note we no longer use all those protocols, but the Internet still became
Headline is bollocks (Score:2)
Study shows that when you misuse HUD, it can distract drivers.
But if you're showing them an alert about something they're clearly not aware of, then are you making them more or less aware of their surroundings?
If they don't have to look down to see the next navigation instruction, are you making them more or less aware of their surroundings?
Bullshit story is bullshit. Welcome to Slashdot!
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Essentially. My visitation rates to Soylent News has ticked up quite a bit recently.
Clickbait pablum like this is meant for linking to 'socials'.
Fuck that. Fuck dice.
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Most of these kind of studies are pretty much bullshit ... they tend to try to measure something easy with a correlation with accidents for a given situation and then pretend the correlation will hold come hell or high water.
If they had to actually put people in sims for 1000s of hours for each paper they couldn't publish a lot of papers of course.
Reminds me of hands-free cell phones (Score:5, Interesting)
When the dangers of driving while holding a cell phone became clear, many places banned hand-held cellphones while driving but allowed hands-free cell phones. After further research, it seems clear that hand-free cell phones aren't any safer [wikipedia.org]. Even a little distraction can be very dangerous when you need quick reflexes. Minor distractions are particularly dangerous because most of the time you don't need quick reflexes; you're just cruising down the highway -- lulling you into a false sense of security. I'm guessing a HUD causes similar problems.
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Yes! Absolutely!
While we are at it, can we please ban other passengers from cars, especially children! They cause all sorts of distractions.
I also suggest banning all roadside signage, 'loud' paint jobs on cars, personalised number plates, DEFINATELY in car entertainment, anything within visibility of the road that can create light glare.
Oh, and could we PLEASE remove all the cup holders, what the hell are drivers doing eating or drinking in their cars?
And while we are at it, how about teaching people to dr
Apparently cell phones are more distracting (Score:2)
I reported some facts, added a little interpretation, and finished with one sentence of speculation. Where did I suggest banning anything?
Surprisingly, you reminded me of something relevant. IIRC, there's evidence that talking on a cell phone (hands free or not) is _more_ distracting than talking to a passenger in the car. (I don't have time to look up sources ATM.) It sounds weird, but it's plausible that interacting with something that's actually in the car is less distracting that paying attention to a d
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I used to think that a hands-free phone should be fine when driving, since I was used to a fair bit of radio chatter while flying a plane.
But there are significant differences: radio chatter while flying is about the flying -- you're giving or getting info about your flight from ATC, if you're in formation you're discussing with the other aircraft where everyone is relative to each other and what your about to do, etc. You're not having a discussion about Junior's day in school or what John and Mary are
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None of those studies had any statistically significant real accident rate numbers for hands free calling ... the simulation measured metrics during conversation (which is not the critical point of cellphone use in a car) and the questionnaire stuff is all from pre-2005, so they'll have what ... 2 hands free callers in there?
Smoking takes very little cognition ... why does it cause accidents? Because when something burning at high temperature falls into your crotch you start paying attention, it's the edge
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Smoking (and regular cell phone use) also tie up a hand. If you've ever driven under less than ideal circumstances you know how helpful a second hand on the wheel is. Most people hesitate to drop their burning plant matter or expensive cell phone in an emergency.
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Distraction much? (Score:3)
Who would have thought that distracting drivers with information would make them less safe as drivers?
Profit (Score:2)
But does the HUD reduce profit margins?
It's immature... (Score:2)
We have had a century to figure out the "unplugged" car interface, and it is simpler: dials for speed and tachometer, nothing else. Drivers train from an early age to drive with this sort of instrumentation.
The lack of safety with these HUD's is likely a consequence of inexperience both on the part of the HUD designers and the drivers. Once the interfaces themselves iterate a few times, and then drivers get experienced with them, I imagine they'll be much safer.
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I hate dial meters. I wish they'd die a horrible, gruesome death.
That's because you're not a driver. You're a passenger behind the wheel. If you were a driver, you'd like dials. Maybe not so much for the speedo; you don't need to see how fast you're going faster than you can read a number. But in a driver's car, the front-and-center-mounted tachometer needle is absolutely critical. You can't function without it.
With that said, I like the idea of self-driving cars, and of being able to be a passenger myself. But as long as I'm driving, I like to really drive. Also, note t
THANK YOU CAPTAIN OBVIOUS! (Score:2)
Sorry, it just had to be said.
Dark Cockpit (Score:2)
Only display that which needs immediate attention.
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Only display that which needs immediate attention.
Yeah, Saab used to put a "night switch" into their cars to dim the lights. Saab who, you say?
What The Shit? (Score:2)
Here in New Zealand (Score:2)
We have a "Head Down Display"
Since if you travel more than a few k's over the limit, you should expect to be pulled over, ticketed and issued demerit points.
take from the aircraft/drone world (Score:2)
HUDs only make sense if you're truly a supervisor of the vehicle, not the control system.
In aircraft/drones, HUDs are OK cause the aircraft really flies itself, the pilot is there for emergency situations and what I call trimming (small adjustments).
In a car, you control everything--still want to end up in that ditch--pretty easy....sure go ahread....
Once we get real supervisory based cars [latimes.com], yes, HUDs make no sense other than wiz bang. And much like 8" touchscreens & phone integration in cars are whiz ba
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Passenger jets didn't have HUDs for a long time (maybe most still don't). Fighter jets got them pretty much as soon as the technology was practical. HUDs were designed for providing information in circumstances where the pilot is very much in control, and under a heavy workload.
I remember reading about HUDs in the nineties though, and the design was critical. What you presented, and how, made the difference between a valuable tool and a worse than useless distraction.
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Even if you're just changing focus rather than the direction your eyes are pointing, you're looking away. There's very little information while driving which is so essential you can't flick your gaze away for a fraction of a second (you'd better be doing that anyway to check your mirrors). If traffic is that tight, you don't need to be looking at your speed, just stay with the flow. Your fuel gauge isn't going to suddenly leap from half-full to empty (if it does, you have other problems).
That said, a
Trained vs Untrained... (Score:2)
Fighter pilots go through countless hours of training to learn how to deal with a HUD during air combat. During the other 90% of flight time there's nothing for them to hit if they're not paying attention to the sky. Drivers, on the other hand, go through a few hours of just barley paying attention in drivers ed., and/or a few minutes skimming the book just to pass the test before taking to the road. Automobile driving requires constant attention to the road, and with no training what so ever what do you
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Really? I'm curious how your bell curves work. Please share.
Kinda got one... (Score:2)
In a sense, I have a HUD. Over the years, I've found it invaluable. It's a good, old-fashioned GPS with a sucker-mount. My job involves a lot of driving on unfamiliar two-lane highways in rural Ontario. I keep my GPS mounted just below eye level to the left. It gives me my speed, the shape of the road just ahead, and it will pop up an actual point-of-view picture of some exits and entrances from larger highways. This is available to me without having to take my eyes off the road even for a split secon
Re:If you can't keep your eyes on the ROAD (Score:5, Interesting)
And wait for your night vision to get completely turned to ass when they start introducing these HUDs in different colors as a fashion statement. Anything other than red - you're much more likely to crash at night because your night vision is being fucked with.
No, there is substantial debate on this subject still. There are two camps: red light does not affect your night vision, and blue light helps you stay awake. Actually, night vision is regularly impaired while driving anyway, so that's a dumb argument. Get a car with good headlights, use them.
Re: If you can't keep your eyes on the ROAD (Score:2)
Actually, red light does affect night vision, just less so than other visible colors.
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There is debate with chemical fact? Rhodopsin is bleached when it absorbs light, and it absorbs maximally in the blue-green region of light and minimally in the red region. That is not up for debate; it is simple and pure chemistry.
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There is debate with chemical fact?
Facts are useless if you don't comprehend their relevance. While you drive down the road, it's normal for your night vision to be impaired anyway due to reflections, oncoming traffic, stationary light sources...
That is not up for debate; it is simple and pure chemistry.
The world is neither simple nor pure. If you wanted simplicity and purity, you should have become a theoretical mathematician. Applied arts feature complexities.
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Here are some statistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org], clearly the current methods are pretty sucky because they are not doing enough to limit deaths, let alone ten times that in major injuries and hundreds of times that in lesser injuries. You know what, no matter how many people, scream 'IF ONLY' and, no matter how many times they say it, it will have absolutely zero impact on the consequence that results in the 'IF ONLY'. Solutions have to be actual solutions not just empty complaints. Likely smart
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So your night vision isn't getting fucked with by the head lights of oncoming cars?
Or the street lights? Although they tend to be yellow (but that's probably because sodium vapor lights are efficient and reliable). The move to LED street lighting is going to see a lot more blue light at night (white LED's being a blue LED with yellow phosphor)
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Even the multi-function displays in the middle of the instrument panels on *all* cars made in the last three or four years is too much. Old fogeys like myself, at the crusty old age of 29, have gotten used to associating a particular spatial location in an automobile's console with a particular piece of information so that it's second nature.
This is how the mind is wired to absorb information from the world at a very basic level. Want to see what the weather it is? Look up. Want to see if y
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Try a flight simulator sometime, like Falcon BMS. The HUD in the fighter aircraft will be consistent, with everything always in the same place - except for state changes by the pilot, such as providing landing cues when the pilot has turned them on, and aiming system adapting to selected weapons (without changing location).
Heck, even the warnings in the HUD have specific locations, not interfering with either the view or the rest of the HUD. And this is for trained fighter pilots, selected for high ability
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Even the multi-function displays in the middle of the instrument panels on *all* cars made in the last three or four years is too much.
The MFD in the middle of my 1997 Audi A8 (from which all other MFDs today are descended, it seems... esp. in VAG-land) is no more distracting than the MFD which was in the middle of my 1980 280ZX, but it's actually useful because it does more than just show me system status during the POST. It then provides the trip computer. If I had infotainment then it would show me tracks. If I used FM it would show me radio stations. But since I don't do either it only shows me driving-related information; MPG and the
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Same in a car, or fighter jet for that matter: Want to see the time? Look at where the clock is. Want to see what radio station you're listening to? Look at where the tuner is. Want to see how much gas you've got? Look at where the fuel gauge is. This is constant-time lookup. If you have multifunction displays that *change* where these basic things are, now you've upped the cognitive load on the driver in that he now has to keep track of what state the display is in rather than just glancing in a well-remembered spot.
Ford did a pretty good job of this in the Cmax hybrids. The things you need to know to drive the car don't change location, and are the way they've been on cars forever. The speedometer is a big analog rotating needle, so you just have to glance at the needle position-- you don't have to evaluate numbers. The hybrid details are also displayed as analog dial information (using the LCD) to minimize mental processing. They're also in an unobtrusive side display of the driver's side triptych and you can cho
Re:Bullshit? (Score:5, Insightful)
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People invariably think that they are much better at multitasking then they really are. Every time someone does a controlled study they find out that interruptions have a profound impact on most peoples ability to function. It doesn'tmake any difference if the interruption is when you are online trying to complete a task or in a car and driving. Attention switch has an intrinsic cost.
I've know a few military aircraft pilots and they are the only people I would trust to us
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No speedometer?
What the hell is the instrument panel in a car for?
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I live in the middle of nowhere so I can get away with it to some extent but I still am much more attentive and even tend to change my driving position before doing so.
that's why these cars have three or four seating positions, right? One for me, one more for me, and if there's any left then maybe I'll let someone else have one... but I'm going to also need a backup of my primary settings in case someone craps on them
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I teach sailing. I've noticed that almost all students are nearly incapable of switching their attention among multiple things. They fixate on what they're doing with the throttle when backing out of a slip and forget about watching where the boat is. Or they remember to watch off the stern and forget about the bow. Actually sailing, they watch their heading and forget about the wind, or vice versa. If they get distracted, it all goes to hell. But, with practice and a teacher reminding them, they lear
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The first time I ran out of gas, I nearly had a heart attack as the car put up 3 warning signs and asked if I wanted to be directed to the nearest gas station. :-D
The HUD must not be all that great if you keep running out of gas multiple times.
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On the two cars I have had with HUD's, the focus is set to infinity. Personally I like HUD, as I can glance briefly to the bottom of the windshield and without needing to refocus my eyes, check speed or tach. Why anybody would complain about HUD is a mystery to me. You can always turn it off if you do not like it. Again in my case, the HUD was configurable to show as little as just speed or as much as tach/speed/one gauge setting/nav info.
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When I first moved to Quebec I was shocked at the number of drivers who would just blow through a stoplight. I mentioned it one day, and someone said "it's not surprising, most of them can't tell what colour the light is anyway."