NHTSA Toughens Crash Test Rating Standards 165
mrspoonsi sends word that the U.S. government wants to toughen crash tests to measure pedestrian impact and evaluate driver assisting technology. USA Today reports: "U.S. regulators are overhauling the process of assigning safety ratings to new vehicles by proposing requiring more crash-avoidance technologies to achieve a perfect score and adopting new crash-test dummies to assess performance. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) on Tuesday proposed revising the current ratings system from a single overall score of 1 to 5 into a multifaceted scorecard that would include the score on crash-avoidance systems and a mark for pedestrian safety. Currently, NHTSA ranks cars simply based on crash-worthiness. Five stars is a perfect rating. The number of deaths on U.S. roadways fell to a record-low, based on incidents per miles driven, of 32,675 fatalities in 2014. But an 8% uptick in deaths in the first half of 2015 fueled concern that progress on vehicle safety may have stalled. Under the current system, which hasn't been updated in several years, more than 90% of vehicles earn a rating of at least 4 stars."
That's 30,000 deaths people!!! (Score:3)
[Full disclosure - I'm a cyclist; I'm very careful around over large chunks of metal hurtling at excessive speed...]
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Yes. A lot of people.
There were 32,675 fatalities in 2014 due to cars.
And no less than 33,169 deaths related to firearms in 2013.
Given the pervasive use of cars one would consider that having more people killed by guns than by cars should be quite a concern.
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60% were suicides. There were 11,000 homicides. two-thirds of those are in big cities. I guess paying people to have babies by random sperm donors as a social experiment has been a failure.
Meanwhile, I'll be keeping my guns to deal with their uncivilized spawn should they come my way, thank you very much.
Re:That's 30,000 deaths people!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
60% were suicides. There were 11,000 homicides. two-thirds of those are in big cities. I guess paying people to have babies by random sperm donors as a social experiment has been a failure.
Oh, but abstinence-only edumakashun and defunding Planned Parenthood as a social experiment has been such a success.
Meanwhile, I'll be keeping my guns to deal with their uncivilized spawn should they come my way, thank you very much.
That's a roight good plan you got there, guv. Ship the decent-paying jobs overseas, deny people a living wage because Job Creators, keep 'em barefoot and pregnant because Shameless Hussies and then wonder why their "uncivilized spawn" are resorting to violence.
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"Oh, but abstinence-only edumakashun and defunding Planned Parenthood as a social experiment has been such a success" -- Irrelevant, I didn't say those were good nor did I say I endorsed anyone who held those views
I have a decent paying job because studied, worked hard, and I've collected skills my whole life, what's the problem? Someone who doesn't do those things finds themselves out of work and needing a handout and that's my fault? guess again
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That's wonderful for you, and good advice in general. The problem is we only need so many engineers, professors, lawyers, etc. The vast majority of the labor *demand* is for low-skill workers - clerks, janitors, factory workers, etc. Society *needs* most people to work the "lousy" jobs - there aren't anywhere near enough "good" jobs to go around, and society will collapse if those "lousy" jobs don't get done.
And in the US today, if you're working a lousy job it's basically impossible to get ahead, no mat
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Tax rates are almost irrelevant - yes, our highest corporate marginal tax rate is almost half again the average, but the real cost is in our environmental and working-condition regulations. The only way we can compete with China and other developing economies without invoking some sort of trade barriers (tariffs, etc) is to lower our own standards accordingly. So, are you volunteering to work for 1/10th your current wage and let factories dump toxic waste into your drinking water and the air you breathe?
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I absolutely agree that regulatory capture is a major problem, but I think you need to do a little research on just how terrible environmental conditions were before government regulation stepped in. The problem is that, just like buying stuff made in China today, people buy mostly on price, somewhat on quality, and to hell with the people being poisoned at the manufacturing site. Sure, if GM is dumping toxic waste into your city's water supply you might boycott them, but they still have the rest of the c
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Apples and oranges.
21,175 of the Y2013 firearm deaths were suicide. 11,208 were homicide. Only 505 were accidental.
There probably were a few motor vehicle homicides included in the figures, but not a statistically significant number. More suicides, it's hard to say how many... but certainly the vast majority were accidental.
So, completely different concerns. Easiest way to red
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"Guns are a net positive in society."
So much in fact that USA is, on average, a much better place to live than Norway or France because guns are not easily obtained there.
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1 in 100 = suicide
1 in 109 = unintentional poisoning
1 in 112 = motor vehicle accident
1 in 144 = falls (mostly elderly)
1 in 358 = assault by firearm
1 in 164,968 = struck by lightning
1 in 598,009 = terrorist attack (though the latest attack probably dropped this significantly because it's so rare)
Those annoying commercials telling y
Sounds good to me. (Score:2)
Sounds good to me. Part of the point (maybe the biggest part) of these evaluations is so that consumers are equipped to make good, educated decisions when it comes to the cars they purchase. Another is to provide incentive to car manufacturers to actually improve tech. That means evolving standards to always get better. It's very similar to the fleet MPG standards... the best outcome is complete protection for passengers and pedestrians. We know that's not possible, but we know we can do better than we
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I agree that they need to toughen and expand the standards to reach any given score occasionally, but I think that more than a 1 star move is perhaps too much, because it can lead to confusion over why a 2017 model 2 star model is safer than a 2016 4 star model. It's better that the 2017 stays a 4 star if it adequately improves it's safety, or drops to a 3 if it doesn't.
On the other hand, this can lead to either widening the scale or doing updates more often.
That being said, I don't know if it'd be fair to
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For the first point, I see what you're saying and agree, but at the same time, it sounds like it's not actually going to be a 'star' based system (which is why I was saying 'star equivalent), and I think that gives them the ability rate older models in the new system alongside newer models, without the confusion, since the rating system isn't going to be just the one measurement, if that makes sense. For the second part, I think it's totally fair. I mean, if Tesla is the only company that has put in the w
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Having reread the article, it seems a pretty standard coverage of a draft proposal set. Sure, they propose a 'multi-faceted' rating, but later they mention one of the approved things is allowing half-star ratings. So the stars will still be around.
As for Tesla's safety, well, they actually ARE doing something that the other manufacturers can't effectively do - not have an engine in their vehicle.
Conventional auto manufacturers spend a lot of work on controlling where the engine goes in a crash. With a Te
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And what exactly is stopping other auto manufacturers from not having an engine in their vehicle? If they choose to keep investing in legacy technology instead, well it's only fitting that their rolling bombs be rated as such.
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http://www.euroncap.com/en/res... [euroncap.com]
Compared to say a similar size Jag XF (92%): http://www.euroncap.com/en/res... [euroncap.com]
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They won't retest it unless it is a new model. A software update is not a new model. And what did the update actually change?
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Yes, a software update IS a new model. Teslas don't have "model years", they make changes on-the-fly, whether they're hardware or software. (SW changes usually get rolled out to everyone that has the compatible hardware, HW changes are normally only done on the assembly line.)
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Because that's worked so well in the past - just look how automakers rushed to put seatbelts in their cars after it was shown how much safety they added. Oh, wait, no, they remained very rare until the government began mandating them.
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Hmm, I must have misremembered. Retracted.
I agree with your general objection to "for your own good" regulations, with one major caveat: You must accept full responsibility for the consequences. You don't want to install seat belts in your car, fine - but if I cause an accident with you I should be absolved of any responsibility for injuries you sustain that would likely have been avoided if you had been wearing a seatbelt. Same goes for other safety features. As for bystander-protection features - well
Was anybody else... (Score:3)
More startled than any other part of the summary by how close the number of fatalities was to a 16 bit signed integer? Maybe God does not play dice with the universe, but he does use ancient hardware.
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More startled than any other part of the summary by how close the number of fatalities was to a 16 bit signed integer? Maybe God does not play dice with the universe, but he does use ancient hardware.
Yeah, like some old early-90's Pentium, for example.
Harmonizing with Europe (Score:2)
Dammit, just stop (Score:2)
At some point it makes sense to say cars are safe enough that, barring an order-of-magnitude improvement, we should stop adding ever more expensive measures for ever diminishing returns in safety.
Of course there was an increase in deaths in 2015; miles driven are trending up again, having dropped in 2008-9 and then leveled off for a while. It's the raw rate that's up 8%; the per-mile-driven rate is up ~5% ... after being down 5% the year before, and another 5% the year before that, which was up 6% from the
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"At some point it makes sense to say cars are safe enough that, barring an order-of-magnitude improvement, we should stop adding ever more expensive measures for ever diminishing returns in safety."
We? I assure you *I* don't add any safety measure to *any* car.
And why do you think you are more clever than the whole market? As long as they are not mandatory (you can reserve that for those "order-of-magnitude" improvements), market will decide. The important part would be to properly signal the advantages:
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Hrm, I think your 17 star rated vehicle would probably weigh ten tons, have tracks, and sacrifice anything around it in order to keep the precious inside safe. Want to stop tailgating? Put a spike on the center of the steering wheel! :D
I believe better educated people might be better money spent at some point. I'm not sure we've hit that point yet though. Troubleshooting those various system 5 years or more from now is sure going to suck. Getting the ABS working right and continuing to work on one of my veh
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Any person who hasn't grown up in a hippie commune can tell you that people are selfish assholes and will not pay for measures to improve safety for other people, so the market won't come up with a nice solution. We have drivers who run over people and back up and run over them again to make sure they're dead. A free market solution will be to put spikes on the cars to make it easier to kill pedestrians. Any safety options will be geared towards protecting the occupants of the vehicle.
Why is the fatality rate so high? (Score:3)
Is it just me or does that fatality rate seem really high?
Last year Australia had 1100 deaths or 5 per 100,000
UK had 1713 in 2013 or 2.85 per 100,000 population
France had 3250 in 2014 or 4.9 per 100,000 population
US at 32,675 is 11 per 100,000
And having a look at average mileage per year Australia is about the same as the US, but double the UK (so call them 5.7) and about 50% more than France (so again call them 7.5).
But speed limits are slower in the US than all of those examples. So where is it going wrong?
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testing basically.. Australia, UK, and France have more stringent licensing standards, it also cost more money and they often have higher age requirements to get a drivers license.
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On top of that *everyone* seems to think they are a 'good above average' driver. I personally am an average driver. I make mistakes here and there. I get distracted easily. etc,etc,etc...
Oh bullshit. I'd be willing to bet good money that you're a well-above-average driver. The fact that you recognize your deficiencies and know and practice all the driving rules you listed (2-second rule, signaling lane changes, etc.) proves it. It's the people who think they're great drivers who are usually the bad ones.
Re:Why is the fatality rate so high? (Score:4, Insightful)
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But I did correct for average mileage of passenger vehicles per year. So yes UK drivers travel on average half the distance of US drivers, so I doubled their rate of fatalities to 5.7 per 100,000 population.. Australian average annual travel is almost identical to the US....
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I would also hypothesize that the poor long-distance rail system in the U.S. also contributes. Most long-haul freight transport in the U.S. is by large trucks. The trucks I saw while driving in Europe were much smaller (and fewer).
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Long-distance rail isn't that bad in the US; we haul a huge amount of freight by rail. Trucks are used a lot because they're more flexible and can haul to the final point-of-use (like a big Walmart store), but there's a lot of freight that comes by container on a ship from Asia and then gets put on a train. Also, a lot of bulk cargo (like coal) is shipped exclusively by train.
As for trucks, how often do you see an accident between a semi and a car? They just aren't that frequent; it's stupid car drivers
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Ah ok. I thought the speed limits were 65 or 70mph for highways. That is what google told me anyway in which case all of Europe is faster. If it is 85mph then no they aren't faster.
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States have the right to put their own limits on. Here in the west, we typically do 80 or 85 max, though nobody pays attention to it.
Instead, most will run at 90-95. And in Texas, Idaho, and Montana, it is common to do 100+ with a $5 ticket for speeding up to 20 MPH over if there is light traffic.
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I think you might have accidentally identified another reason for the difference. 30kph over the limit here in Australia would get you an instant $549 and 6 point fine. Two of those and you lose your license.....
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Lower standards to get a driving licence, cheap powerful cars with poor handling, vehicles that are more likely to cause pedestrian deaths in an accident.
For example, EU rules require there to be a certain gap between the top of the engine block and the bonnet (hood in US English). When a pedestrian is hit they tend to rotate, slamming their head into the bonnet. The gap gives it room to flex, instead of bringing their skull to a hard stop against the engine, and thus such accidents are much more survivable
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Why on earth would you want to crush a car unless it's too old or damaged to be usable? If you want to confiscate someone's car, that's fine, you can just resell it. If you want to crush cars, you need to do some kind of "cash for clunkers" program where you buy up shitty old cars and crush them, and I don't mean 10-year-old cars either like that last poorly-run program, I mean 70s-80s junkers which have terrible crash safety, poor fuel economy, and very high emissions. For poor people who rely on those
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Do you commute to the otherside of America for your job? Most people will commute about the same distance to and from work irrespective of country.
UK annual average mileage is about half of American average mileage. But even correcting for that, by doubling their fatality rate it is half the US rate.
Pretty soon cars will be completely safe... (Score:2)
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90% get at least a 4 star rating, and yet ... (Score:2)
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Maybe to some extent but I appreciate more protection from what some other texting moron might do. You can only control yourself and your own actions. Have you looked around yourself on the road lately?
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Safety devices like reinforced doors and crumple zones give more protection against other morons. So do better brakes and sticky tyres, although they aren't usually considered as safety devices.
Things like blind spot monitoring and automatic braking are crutches for bad drivers, as the OP said.
In the end, though, people are much more likely to buy a new car because of the infotainment system than any safety device.
Re:Safety devices (Score:4, Informative)
Things like blind spot monitoring and automatic braking are crutches for bad drivers, as the OP said.
I dunno; I think I can do better than automatic braking on a good day, probably even a typical day, but when it comes to safety I should consider the kind of driver I am at my worst; when I'm angry, tired, and distracted for example.
When we think of ourselves as drivers we imagine ourselves at our best, which is why everyone thinks he's a better than average driver. Most people probably are better than average half of the time. But people aren't consistent like machines; we aren't always at our best. Even good drivers are bad drivers occasionally. If you're honest with yourself you'd probably admit to yourself that from time to time you make a stupid mistake that you normally wouldn't.
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Automatic braking or ABS braking? Automatic braking is supposed to be a last ditch save your ass kind of thing and is pretty new. Volvo and some high end luxury stuff pioneered this and it's supposed to be pretty good but can be conservative.
ABS? Most if not nearly all drivers aren't going to out brake that particularly in a panic situation or in a traction compromised situation. Some cars have crappy 3 channel ABS that's less than optimal but then the brakes aren't all that either on such a vehicle. But if
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Rear view cameras I'm iffy on, I have one and I don't use it too much.
Most or all only work in reverse, when you're going slowly enough that the risk of a fatal accident is already near zero. The "near" part is mostly about backing over kids or others who don't see your or can't get out of the way in time, where the cameras can help.
I also have a rear view camera, but mine is tiny compared to some I've seen. Combined with the large field of view, it takes a second to adjust your eyes to. Still, I've made an effort to use it whenever I back up just to make sure.
Re:Safety devices (Score:4, Informative)
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If there is a kid behind you they don't have to get out of the way, you have to yield.
I don't believe I suggested otherwise, did I?
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Rear view cameras I'm iffy on, I have one and I don't use it too much.
Most or all only work in reverse, when you're going slowly enough that the risk of a fatal accident is already near zero. The "near" part is mostly about backing over kids or others who don't see your or can't get out of the way in time, where the cameras can help.
Yes, it's mainly the kid behind the car thing. We always joke about th e"think of thje children thing, but I know personally two guys who backed over their children - killing them. That's a hellava thing to carry with you the rest of your life. Two other uses that aren't so mainstream. I use mine full time in my RV, which is a big help. I have a fresnel lens in the faraway rear window, and sideview mirrors, but the more to osee the merrier.
The third help is when I'm 4 wheeling, at night, and backing up.
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but I know personally two guys who backed over their children - killing them.
I wonder if, before they backed over their own kids, if you were ask them if backup cameras were a good idea, they would have scoffed at the notion like a bunch of moronic "technologists" here do. Honestly, I feel like this place is full of the nursing-home crowd sometimes.
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but I know personally two guys who backed over their children - killing them.
I wonder if, before they backed over their own kids, if you were ask them if backup cameras were a good idea, they would have scoffed at the notion like a bunch of moronic "technologists" here do. Honestly, I feel like this place is full of the nursing-home crowd sometimes.
Its a good point that a lot of the slashdotters seem a little lacking in empathy. Some sort of weird inability to think of other people aside from themselves. And yup - until it happens to them.
I remember one of our proud Slashdot libertarians who was aghast that backup cameras were being made standard equipment, because "the evulz guvmint is just making another intrusion into my freedoms!"
I don't even like safety culture, but a backup camera is such a cheap and simple, yet lifesaving addition to a ca
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It's not just the wacky-libertarianism and complete lack of empathy (and worship of Objectivism) that gets me here on Slashdot, it's the old-fart-ism. You'd think that a place that's supposed to be full of self-professed "nerds" ("News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters") / technologists would be full of people who like technology, but no, it's really full of people who hate change and want to stick with old shit, whether it's some shitty old 70s car that they refuse to give up and claim is far better than any
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It's not just the wacky-libertarianism and complete lack of empathy (and worship of Objectivism) that gets me here on Slashdot, it's the old-fart-ism. You'd think that a place that's supposed to be full of self-professed "nerds" ("News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters") / technologists would be full of people who like technology, but no, it's really full of people who hate change and want to stick with old shit, whether it's some shitty old 70s car that they refuse to give up and claim is far better than any modern car, or the insane belief that they're a race-car-skill-level driver and can outperform ABS systems; I'm sure I could find a bunch more examples if I looked. I'm pretty sure I've seen posts bitching about surface-mount electronics at some point. And I'm someone who sticks with tried-and-true a lot, but the people here take it to a ridiculous extreme. It's not just here; I've seen it with a lot of other engineers too, it's a weird trait for people who are supposed to be creating new technologies.
Posts that should be a plus 5, but betchya they won't be modded up.
And I couldn't agree with you more, so I'll go down your list.
Old cars. Those wonderful old cars have some cool, but that's about it. My first real car was a 1965 Buick Skylark. It was pretty nice, but at 100,000 miles, it was done. TIres were doing well if you could get 15 K out of them. As I heard 100 K, it was a litany of replacing water pumps shock absorbers twice radiator, rebuilt carbs. And rust. Well, my last 2 vehicles I put w
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Yeah, same here on SMT. It's a lot easier than thru-hole crap, unless of course you get to BGAs. With a good fine-tip soldering station and a hot-air rework station, you can work on all kinds of things, and a lot faster and easier than with PTH components.
The old fart-ism does seem to only afflict some people, and frequently at rather young ages. I think a lot of it does correlate with extreme political conservatism though.
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As one of the resident automobile enthusiasts and someone who has not only driven professionally but has taken many, many advanced driving courses, let me inject that ABS is a wonderful thing for the vast majority of folks out there - like you stated. There are some contrived situations where I can demonstrably prove that I am capable of doing better than the ABS but those are rare and, frankly, irrelevant.
An example might be, I'm *very* familiar with driving on snow and ice. Assuming a familiarity with the
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>The solution is to stop letting stupid people pilot a giant chunk of metal down the road at death-defying speeds.
And *that* is why I think autonomous vehicles have great promise. Outside of a few cities with good public transportation, cars are pretty much a necessity in the US, so we can't reasonably ban idiots from driving. Yes, there will undoubtedly be corner cases where autonomous driving systems make bad choices - but even good drivers sometimes make bad choices in those situations, and the auto
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Maybe. So long as it is not mandatory, I do not mind - personally. It might suck to be you, on the other hand. By aiming to ensure the lowest common denominator is safe we're opening up those who are skilled to risk should this becomes mandatory. I can come up with piles of reasons why autonomous vehicles are bad but that's not the subject at hand.
So, well, as long as I can choose to not have to rely on this then I'm okay with it. It may make it more expensive for me but I can afford it. It may, of course,
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Agreed, this should absolutely remain optional, at *least* until it gets better than a good driver and cheap enough to not significantly increase the cost of the vehicle, and preferably longer than that. Though I could see them getting preferential treatment - for example dedicated autonomous vehicle express lanes on crowded highways that can take advantage of the superhuman reflexes to allow for much faster, denser traffic.
Heck, as long as it offers an off-switch I imagine it will be quite popular
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That leads me to question this... Some of us seem inclined (I am not one) to think that this should become mandatory yet they don't seem aware of the privacy indications. There's simply no way that this is going to work in aggregate without a lot of compute power to control the grid, not for the foreseeable future. (Model traffic, you'll understand.) There's a minimal mesh network required if not something more capable as an offloaded compute source if we want this to be viable.
That said, I wonder how many
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Why do you say that? Yes, you do need a lot of horsepower to keep city-wide traffic flowing smoothly, but there's no reason it needs to be centralized. Humans have been doing a not-completely-terrible job of it for a long time with no more communication than blinkers and an occasional hand-signal. So long as each vehicle does its part in maintaining the smooth flow of traffic in it's immediate surroundings, traffic will (mostly) travel smoothly. It's just that humans are provably really bad at doing tha
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I encourage you to look into vehicular traffic modeling. One thing computers can't do is interpret intent (this is but one small example) for which you'll at least need mesh networking. But, for that to work, you're going to have to prioritize. In order to prioritize you'll need centralization. In short, no - it's not going to work on a large scale without this. Everything does *not* go as planned. Traffic modeling is very close to modeling chaos and for a bunch of very complex reasons.
As for the computer t
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With respect I would suggest that autonomous systems would have a *much* easier time of navigating streets than of navigating around each other in a big box, for the simple reason that the acceptable behaviors are far more constrained (i.e. most of the possible decisions have been pre-made by the road designers) - your options are really only continue in this lane, change lanes, turn at an intersection or driveway, or parallel park. All of which have simple and well established methods of communicating im
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I don't think any cars still use 3-channel ABS; that was a thing back in the 90s. As for pro drivers, I'm sorry, they can't out-brake ABS either. There's only one pedal for braking on any car (except tractors which have 2): ABS controls the brakes individually. It isn't physically possible to do that as a human. Nor is it possible to sense a wheel has locked up, even if you had a way to release brake pressure on that one wheel.
Blind spot monitoring should be mandatory. Lots of people suck at checking t
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ABS does offer super-human abilities for straight-line braking. In a crisis situation, especially on deep slippery surfaces (gravel or snow), or sometimes even just in a curve, a *good* human driver can potentially outperform it though. Extreme example: you can often shed speed a lot faster in snow or gravel using your wheels as rudders in a controlled sideways slide than you can braking properly. The trick of course is maintaining control in a slide, and being willing to pay for the `damage you do to th
Re:Safety devices (Score:4, Informative)
ABS has NEVER been about stopping distance. ABS is about keeping control of the vehicle while stopping, ie not getting into a skid or slide.
When I learned to drive (long before ABS was popular), a whole lot of the training was on how to stop in slick conditions. Step 1: do not stomp on the brakes. Step 2: PUMP the brakes quickly so the wheels don't lock up and send you into a skid. Step 3: When step 2 fails, get off the brakes and steer into the direction of the skid to try and recover from it.
Note that if step 1 and 2 are properly followed your stopping DISTANCE is increased.
For the first 20 years or so of driving I used those three steps, including step 3 way more often than I would like (never had an accident though). Since I have a car with ABS, never had to use those steps, because the ABS is taking care of steps 1 and 2, and since it does it far better than I did step 3 hasn't been required.
Yes, there are contrived situations where a person could do better than ABS, but on the whole ABS is much better.
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Step 2 is a horrible idea. Instead of braking, you end up repeatedly not braking and skidding which is worse. Pumping the brakes is about the stupidest thing you can do in a car.
If you don't have ABS (which is very rare now) you should threshold brake where you apply pressure until you feel the tires start to skid and then let off the pressure again. You feel your way to maximum braking pressure without locking up.
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'Apply pressure then let off...'. Hmm, seems like a heard that somewhere else with a different name. Now what was it? Oh, yeah, PUMPING THE BRAKES.
Pumping the brakes has never meant 'stomp on then completely release the brakes'. It means to modulate the pressure so as to prevent lockup.
Here is what the NHTSA [nhtsa.gov] says ABS is:
What ABS does is similar to a person pumping the brakes. It automatically changes the pressure in your car's brake lines to maintain maximum brake performance just short of locking up the wheels. ABS does this very rapidly with electronics.
Emphasis mine.
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Yes exactly, the guy claiming he can outperform his car's electronics is full of it and he has never tested in any scientific fashion at all. As I said previously, lot's of folks think they're better drivers than they are and he's a prime example.
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Things like blind spot monitoring and automatic braking are crutches for bad drivers, as the OP said.
I dunno; I think I can do better than automatic braking on a good day, probably even a typical day, but when it comes to safety I should consider the kind of driver I am at my worst; when I'm angry, tired, and distracted for example.
Me too. Problem is that that guy who won't pass me but has to ride so far up my ass that he should at least buy me dinner and a movie also thinks he has the refelxes better than anyone else.
And since they won't stop, I for one will welcome our new anti-tailgating overlords that force these asshats to follow at a safer distance.
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I think this depends on where you are in your stage of life. With young kids safety of the vehicle came first, second and third on our priority list.
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"In the end, though, people are much more likely to buy a new car because of the infotainment system than any safety device."
Not me. I would prefer if the car would just mirror my phone, it has all the infotainment I need, GPS included.
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AGREE! The OEMs build truly crappy systems in this regard and their GPS NAV blows. I've even got an aftermarket GPS in my stereo in one car and I prefer Waze 100% more. I, once again, kick myself for having purchased a GPS when my phone is much more versatile. Likewise for music, my phone does indeed do better. sadly to get some options on some cars you have to swallow the nasty "infotainment" POS pill. GRR!
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Which is why there is a preview option. Depending on how you use Slashdot, it may even be mandatory.
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There is enough computer power that we could know where every vehicle is located and its speed and direction of travel at all times. Computers in every cell phone tower with communications with all vehicles should do it. Every vehicle would have to have a gps system, cruise control and a cell phone technology to communicate with the tower. With mass production that would probably be cheaper than anti-lock brake technology. In a given area all vehicle would travel at the same speed. Weather would be con
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I think you seriously underestimate what that would take unless each vehicle was acting independently using it's own sensors - which is what companies like Google are striving for. I'm not sure that GPS would be accurate enough for this at speed and there are sometimes areas where GPS flat out isn't working and neither is a cell tower. Not to mention who funds this? I own several vehicles and I like them, are you going to give me what I feel they're worth? Doubtful. Some of us actually enjoy driving. Eventu
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Citation? Or is this simply a gut feeling akin to "raising the speed limits means people will simply drive ever faster" - which is crap.
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-1 Dumb. The statistics speak for themselves: the number of deaths per mile driven have fallen greatly over the past few decades. Obviously people aren't driving that much more recklessly than before. Maybe you're just getting old and have turned into one of those people who loves to drive 10mph under the speed limit at all times, and gets pissed anyone passes you because you're causing a traffic jam.
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Until the first half of this year at least, when there was an 8% uptick according to the summary.. Could just be noise in the data, could be that the improvement in safety systems is beginning to lag behind the corresponding increase in recklessness. We'd need more information to tell.
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Sounds like noise in the data or something else. Considering how long people are keeping their cars now (someone else here posted the average age of a car in the US is 11 years), how strong the used-car market is now, and how soft the economy is now (esp. regarding new-car purchases), I think the idea that at least 8% of drivers have suddenly bought brand-new cars, within 6 months or so, with these safety devices is pretty silly.
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I made no such claim. The normal process is
- person buys vehicle with new safety feature X, which (usually) immediately increases safety
- person begins (over the course of years) to rely on X, becoming more reckless and at least partially neutralizes the effectiveness
- person buys new car with added safety feature Y...
- repeat
The result being that if you graphed safety over time you get something like an inclined sawtooth wave - at any given moment the safety of an individual driver is gradually decreasing
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I wonder what the pedestrian safety rating is for mandating that a sharp, sheet metal blade be affixed to one's front bumper (a license plate).
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Heh, I got pulled over for not having one bolted on. The officer suggested I could use double stick tape to put it on my bumper since I refused to drill it or put it on my dashboard. I told him the dashboard sucked since I didn't want a blade flying in my car in the event of an accident and the double stick tape was as likely to get a motorcyclist killed as anything else. I told him I'd take the ticket thanks! He also dinged me on tint that was too dark thanks to the previous owner. It was and I stripped it
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if it ain't broke....
...you carry on making it better.
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At what point do you declare diminishing returns?
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At what point do you declare diminishing returns?
When someone that thinks that driving 3 feet behind me at 70 miles per hour is acceptable cannot do that any more.
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Technology is improving, so it becomes practical to address safety measures which were too difficult to approach before. Computers and sensors are smaller and faster, so we don't have to rely on meatbags to prevent every accident.
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Perhaps we could up our game in driver's ed? While we're at it begin doing something about dumbass pedestrians?
The other day at late dusk I was driving through a neighborhood and had something move up ahead of me, I hit the brakes thinking it could be a deer. Nope, some schmuck in full desert cammo to include a backpack and hat had decided to stroll across the street in front of me. I was coming up on a T intersection where I had to turn and what was behind this moron was dead brown grass on a hill. He cros
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Perhaps we could up our game in driver's ed? While we're at it begin doing something about dumbass pedestrians?
Drivers Ed is going the way of the dinosaurs. Costs too much. No one wants to pay for it.
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" (and yeah I've sometimes recognized the site they're on!)"
I have a big problem with drivers spending too much looking at other drivers rather than paying attention to traffic conditions. When I pull out a bit from a driveway and I get some idiot staring at me individually I often wonder what would happen should the person in front of them stop suddenly. If you can honestly tell someone is using Facebook on their phone you are NOT AT ALL paying attention to road conditions and have no place talking about o
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Completely wrong on both. Paying attention to other drivers is an important part of paying attention to traffic conditions, as any defensive driving course will tell you. To use your example, if you pull out of a driveway 'a bit', YOU are my most immediate threat. Until I make eye contact with you I have no idea what the hell you are going to do or even if you have seen me. This is one of the reasons why playing with your damn phone is stupid even at a stop - you are unnecessarily distracting other driv
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There's only so much that you can get out of better driver's education and stricter testing; here in Vienna the testing is becoming stricter and stricter all the time, to the point that they have covered every possible bad driving behaviour, and are moving into the terrain of pure bullshit.
Here it is considered an error, for example, to grab the steering wheel in anything position other than the 9:15 one; even the 10:10 position is considered an error, even though it was the mandatory position two years ago
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Changing lanes in a turn? They deserved to fail, that's fucking STUPID. Sure, there's situations where you can do it safely, assuming you've fully cataloged the surrounding traffic conditions before attempting it, but it's generally illegal and a dangerous habit to get into - and if you do it during a driving test then it's definitely become a habit.
It's one of the things that really pisses me off having moved back to my hometown after living in Denver for a few years. In Denver everyone gets it - don't
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The problem with a harder driving test is that people are going to be more careful and attentive during the test than in real life. I don't see how education is supposed to stop the stupid things you've listed. There isn't a person who doesn't know that texting and driving is stupid and they do it anyway. Engineering guards are more effective than protective policies because people don't and won't follow policies even if they know what they are.
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-1 Stupid. You can easily buy a very nice used car for $8 these days. You don't *need* to buy new; as long as everyone is continuously moving to something *newer*, things get better. 10 year old cars these days are still very safe, far better than 20-year-old cars.
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You might want to learn a bit more about the ECUs in your car before you think plugging in an OBD-II scanner is some sort of an invasion. You're right, you don't know enough about these systems but you could certainly learn if you tried.