Most Drivers Don't Understand Limitations of Car Safety Systems, AAA Finds (usatoday.com) 262
A new study by AAA found that most drivers don't understand the limitations of advanced safety technology installed on their new vehicles. "The study indicates that drivers overestimate the capabilities of features such as blind-spot monitoring systems, automatic emergency braking and adaptive cruise control," reports USA Today. "The findings raise questions about whether Americans are ready to adapt to partially self-driving vehicles, which typically require drivers to remain alert and ready to take over the steering wheel if the car can't handle the conditions it encounters." Here are the problem spots flagged by AAA:
- Blind-spot monitoring: Nearly 80 percent of drivers don't understand the limitations or thought that the system had greater capability to detect fast-approaching vehicles, bicycles and pedestrians. Relying too much on blind-spot monitoring, about 25 percent don't look for oncoming vehicles when they change lanes.
- Forward-collision warning and automatic emergency braking: Many drivers confuse the two. One is a warning system, while the other takes action. More than 40 percent of drivers don't know these limitations.
- Adaptive cruise control: About 29 percent of drivers who use this system, which accelerates and brakes on its own, are sometimes comfortable "engaging in other activities" while the system is activated, according to the study. The researchers did note that these safety features can prevent about 40 percent of crashes and 30 percent of crash deaths.
- Forward-collision warning and automatic emergency braking: Many drivers confuse the two. One is a warning system, while the other takes action. More than 40 percent of drivers don't know these limitations.
- Adaptive cruise control: About 29 percent of drivers who use this system, which accelerates and brakes on its own, are sometimes comfortable "engaging in other activities" while the system is activated, according to the study. The researchers did note that these safety features can prevent about 40 percent of crashes and 30 percent of crash deaths.
And this is why I am for public transportation. (Score:5, Insightful)
Hire a well-paid, attentive train driver, hold him to the flame, and be done with it.
Re: And this is why I am for public transportation (Score:4, Interesting)
Try taking a train in the US. It's seriously fucked up.
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> Public transportation yet again solves this problem in addition to just about every other problem you can think of.
Baloney. I love driving, especially offroad in the desert. show me a viable public transport alternative.
Until a train or bus can immediately pick me up right from home on my schedule not theirs, and drop me right at the door of wherever I personally want to go just as fast as I can drive there, public transport can never be as good as owning a car.
Re:And this is why I am for public transportation. (Score:5, Insightful)
public transport can never be as good as owning a car.
Traffic jam vs subway.
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It's a false dichotomy. Relying entirely on public transit is never as good as also owning a car. But car owners may sometimes choose to use public transit in certain circumstances -- for instance, traveling to the downtown area of a large city without having to worry about traffic or paying for parking.
I agree, it's not black and white (Score:2)
Relying entirely on one car is never as good as owning 2 or 10. Car owners may sometimes choose to use one car in certain circumstances.
I was responding to the never part, which is clearly wrong. Showing examples where a car is better - is it too much of a stretch to call that a strawman?
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You do realise changing the wording changes the meaning. It's almost as if the words have meaning.
I don't doubt different places have different public transport. Choose to buy a car, of a few. Or chose to live somewhere with better public transport and/or closer to your work/transport etc.
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It's a false dichotomy. Relying entirely on public transit is never as good as also owning a car..
That depends on a lot. If you include costs then owning and parking a car in a lot of cities that have good public transport infrastructure doesn't make sense. The cost of a parking space could exceed that of [businessinsider.com] many long taxi journeys and hiring a car for a holiday. Add to that the cost of car purchase and maintenance and not owning a car could well be a better option.
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MOST of the US is not super urban with the population piled onto of each other like NYC, nor the glut that is Los Angele
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Yes, it's very important to fuss with registration, make insurance payments, and live with a vehicle taking up space and outgassing pollutants even when it's not in motion.
The alternative of planning your life entirely around public transit, biking and walking has absolutely no downsides, except for increasing your expected lifespan by years.
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public transport can never be as good as owning a car.
Traffic jam vs subway.
Traffic jams in my city show up about once a month and cost me maybe 10 minutes on a half hour trip. No subway where I am. Busses only come within three or four miles of my house, even ignoring that the bus route requires switching busses in mid trip, walking a mile to the connector and waiting an hour for the next bus.
Personally I'd love to ride the bus to work and use the time to get some work done, but in the past 15 years, public transportation here has not improved in the slightest.
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The biggest change I've seen in public transportation is when they removed a bunch of stops, so you have even farther to walk to the bus stop.
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Traffic jams in my city show up about once a month and cost me maybe 10 minutes on a half hour trip. No subway where I am. Busses only come within three or four miles of my house, even ignoring that the bus route requires switching busses in mid trip, walking a mile to the connector and waiting an hour for the next bus.
Personally I'd love to ride the bus to work and use the time to get some work done, but in the past 15 years, public transportation here has not improved in the slightest.
I tried taking the local Public transit buses. There was a stop right outside of my office, and I live 2 miles from work. Coupled with a stop right in front of my house, this should be great. But the timing was that I had to either leave work a half hour early, or wait a half hour for the next bus. Then the bus took a grand tour around campus and town before heading to the burbs. Then a shopping center, then tour of the neighborhood next to mine.
finally, I was frustrated and got off and walked the last
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If you're driving offroad you're probably not going to be confused about blind spot monitoring features.
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And lane keeping is less of a priority if there are no lanes.
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If you're driving offroad you're probably not going to be confused about blind spot monitoring features.
Though I've found a backup camera to be a real lifesaver.
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You might as well have said, fuck everything I want to burn the planet, America fuck yeah, like it actually means something.
More constructive to the discussion, with those car safety systems, with the level of reliance people are attempting, those system when they fail for what ever reason, the car should stop moving. What are the fault detection methods for those vehicles, how reliable are they, will they detect failures in the system, will they detect inaccurate readings, how reliable and durable are the
Stopping on the road is very dangerous (Score:5, Insightful)
> the car should stop moving.
FYI, that's one of the more dangerous things you can do. You're quite likely to get rear-ended or T-boned. Some people's default reaction of stomping on the brakes whenever something unexpected happens is a leading cause of accidents.
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This is an area where we are already seeing improvements. Vehicles are being developed and equipped with automatic braking to prevent collisions. They don't always prevent collisions (particularly over rated speeds) but they tremendously reduce the impact velocity, and thus serious injuries/deaths.
I prefer to not be dead (Score:2)
> Victim-blaming much?
I prefer to not be dead. I don't want it to be the other guy's fault that I'm in a crash, I want to not be in a crash. Your inability to think on terms of the consequences of your actions, instead framing everything as you decalring what other people should do tells me something interesting about you. More on that in a moment.
> There are plenty of situation where coming to a full stop as quickly as possible is the only viable and safe option.
The situations where avoiding the obs
Typo: steer THROUGH the crash (Score:2)
I had a typo. For a high-speed crash in front of you, professional drivers often steer THROUGH the crash.
If you watch professionals you may be surprised how often they steer through the middle of a crash rather than going around it. That's because they know that crashing cars may bounce off to the left and right, but they WILL move from their current positions, so aiming for where the car is now guarantees it won't still be there two seconds from now.
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Agreed.
However, regarding shoulders, in the city there are no shoulders, there are parked cars. (and double-parked cars) In the area I live, many of the highway shoulders are unpaved and too narrow for a bicycle to use safely - pulling off to the shoulder would likely end up with your car in a ditch. And in many places on the expressway that have decent sized shoulders, shoulders have workers, disabled vehicles,
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I only want to point out that stopping when you're six inches off someones bumper and following at the appropriate distance for speed are not comparable. Swerving around an obstacle can be the best course of action, but coming to a stop is easier and safer for most people to avoid over steering and other accidents. BUT you need to STOP trying to defend someone that rear ends another car. The rear ender should have either been driving with enough distance to stop, or should have swerved around the stopped(st
Suing someone isn't defending them (Score:2)
> BUT you need to STOP trying to defend someone that rear ends another car.
Where exactly did you see me defending anyone who read-ended another car?
In fact, I sued the guy who t-boned me. The thing about suing them is that it helps to be alive while suing. It's hard for me to blame the other guy when I'm dead. So I'd rather not be killed by their fault.
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If this seems counter-intuitive and you want to see it for yourself rather than read a study, watch a NASCAR race once. You'll notice the million dollar, best drivers in the world NEVER slam on their brakes when a crash is happening in front of them. They always steer.
The goal of NASCAR driving is not to drive the safest way possible. If it was there would be a 15mph limit on the race track. Also on a NASCAR track, you can go around an obstacle without having to worry that there will be an oncoming car. Also, you are 100% familiar with the track, so you can calculate much quicker. In a road driving situation, if there is a sudden stop ahead, slamming on the brakes carries a known risk. You've pointed it out well. Trying to go around on a shoulder? What if there is
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I don't know, if active comma avoidance is, available for your vehicle but if, it is you, should get it.
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many people do not like to travel in close company with many other people of unknown quality and nature.
Particularly sick people. Nothing like getting on a bus with people sneezing and hacking away in confined quarters.
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when they fail for what ever reason, the car should stop moving.
Hell no. I don't want to have pull over on whatever road I'm on whether there is a shoulder or not and call a tow truck because a lane departure warning system had a hiccup. Or if the car continues but then won't restart after it's turned off, maybe I won't be stuck on the side of the road but it's still an enormous inconvenience and possibly very expensive for a system I might not even care about. We don't even make cars fail to run when the seat belts aren't buckled, and that is far more important than
Door to door hybrid situations (Score:2)
Baloney. I love driving, especially offroad in the desert, show me a viable public transport alternative.
That is an entirely different class of situations. Here you're not considering "driving" as a mean of transportation to get from point A to point B, but as a hobby.
That's beyond the point of this discussion.
BTW: horse-riding is probably an example of a type of hobby where you enjoy getting around scenery, while offloading part of the driving to some (natural, non-artificial) intelligence.
Now back to track:
Until a train or bus can immediately pick me up right from home on my schedule not theirs, and drop me right at the door of wherever I personally want to go just as fast as I can drive there, public transport can never be as good as owning a car.
This has been extensively developed in some countries (e.g.: Switzerland) and has some fancy name like
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Right now big corporations make money selling you personal vehicle and convince you with billion dollar ad budgets that this is the best option for you. Things could change in a jiffy.
Public transportation is funded using tax dollars by local municipalities. They can sign unvoidable 100 year contracts. They have the authority to collect taxes to pay for their obligations. Their elections have very low turn out. If the biggie
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Cool and in the meantime I am going to work hard to make sure that leaches like you don't get a chance make these changes. People who don't pay taxes and are not educated should not be voting. With a few more SCOTUS appointments maybe we can make that happen.
You probably do pay taxes are are qualified to vote but that does not matter without the rabble you won't win.
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And I don't resent it.
It is the price we pay for having a civil society.
My view on taxes: The Government is the largest venture capitalist. Only it has the deep pockets to invest very widely and wait for it to bear fruit. It invests in ALL the citizens, it invests in the entire country's infrastructure. It does not know who is going to hit a home run and become a super duper billionaire. It does not know which company can take advantage of the infrastructure of roads, bridges, netwo
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The taxes, paid by the corporations, is not a penalty for taxes ^H^H^H^H^H success
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wherever I personally want to go just as fast as I can drive there, public transport can never be as good as owning a car. ... or Frankfurt.
Public transport is usually not affected by traffic yams, and depending where you actually want to go to: 3 times faster. E.g. My town Karlsruhe to Paris
Living in a 3rd world country with a 3rd world attitude about cars and public transport simply makes you forever stuck in your self fulfilling prophecy.
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> Public transportation yet again solves this problem in addition to just about every other problem you can think of.
Baloney. I love driving, especially offroad in the desert. show me a viable public transport alternative.
True enough - I've yet to find public transportation as entertainment on my 4 wheeling adventures.
But now I have these ideas of all-terrain buses.....
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You're quibbling. Nobody is suggesting public transportation as an alternative for 4x4 offroading.
We humans are creatures of habit; we automatically compare the best case for the way we habitually do things to the worst case when we contemplate doing something differently.
Of course under ideal conditions for driving it's better to drive. If you're driving from your house to your reserved parking space twenty minutes away on uncongested roads, it's going to be impossible to even imagine a more convenient p
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I could not STAND to live in an ultra dense city core...ugh.
I prefer having a non-attached home, with a back yard so I can do fun things like have crawfish boils for friends, have my smoker for BBQ, even set up targets for my crossbow, raise a garden, etc.
I can't stand to live stacked up on top of each other.....and sharing walls where I'd annoy someone when I turn my stereo up to enjoy.
Nope, I'll take my suburban life and the c
Re:And this is why I am for public transportation. (Score:5, Insightful)
> having a human in the loop is a setup for failure.
No, having a BAD DRIVER in the loop is a setup for failure.
The problem at least in the USA is that the driving test is pretty much only focussed on your ability to follow road signs and laws. it does almost nothing to test your actual ability to properly control the vehicle itself, especially in loss of traction type situations.
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No, having a BAD DRIVER in the loop is a setup for failure.
No. Humans are fallible and non-deterministic. Good drivers are also a setup for failure.
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No, having a BAD DRIVER in the loop is a setup for failure.
No. Humans are fallible and non-deterministic. Good drivers are also a setup for failure.
And machines are peferct and godlike.
To err is human, to really fuck up requires a computer, as the old cliche goes.
As recent tests, including this article, show is that computers are not as good as a decent human driver... not a good one, just a mediocre one. This is because computers cant handle fuzzy logic, to put all the "intuition" things that drivers do instinctively into absolutes that computers are good at dealing with would require computers that might fit onto a small articulated lorry. Not
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I suspect every driver is a bad driver on occasion. Humans aren't machines, even the best-trained professionals make the occasional mistake. I know I do, despite several advanced driving courses and a rigorous attitude to driving (no distractions, etc.).
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I suspect every driver is a bad driver on occasion. Humans aren't machines, even the best-trained professionals make the occasional mistake. I know I do, despite several advanced driving courses and a rigorous attitude to driving (no distractions, etc.).
I don't believe there are bad drivers. "bad" implies that its somehow not their fault and cant be improved, nothing could be further from the truth.
What we have are lazy and/or arrogant drivers. These are drivers who could do better, but wont bother and are completely unwilling to change.
Whilst I agree that every driver has bad moments, bits where our attention falters. However the differences between a good driver and a lazy or arrogant driver is:
1. A good driver makes mistakes infrequently.
2. A go
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I don't believe there are bad drivers.... Lazy, arrogant drivers will never admit to making a mistake and as a result, will make the same mistake with alarming regularity.
That sounds like bad drivers to me.
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> having a human in the loop is a setup for failure.
No, having a BAD DRIVER in the loop is a setup for failure.
The problem at least in the USA is that the driving test is pretty much only focussed on your ability to follow road signs and laws. it does almost nothing to test your actual ability to properly control the vehicle itself, especially in loss of traction type situations.
That's the problem? You speak as if you can test for a bad driver? How many times do people drive and not get enough sleep, or are sick, or have a heart attack mid trip with little or no warning... oh and how do you account for the learning process of either becoming a better driver or learning bad habits?
You can probably envision a world with far fewer and just the most capable drivers on the road. I can envision a much better and safer system where people are not driving at all.
Re:And this is why I am for public transportation. (Score:5, Interesting)
I both work in this industry and own a vehicle made by someone we don't compete with.
People think it's like a Movie or TV show they watched.
Where is the repository to submit an issue? As someone that deals with CANape and ADAS systems all day long, where can I get the .a2l file for my car? Without me cracking it open to see, what embedded chipset(s) are you using? What ADAS level are these? What ASIL level is your entire stack? Can I see a basic block diagram (Simulink) of the system?
If anyone at Subaru is reading. The 2019 Outback with EyeSight adaptive cruise control doesn't detect a stopped vehicle as a 'vehicle' ahead of it.
Also, stop treating the 'keep your lane' feature like a bang bang controller. Estimate a dead center path and keep it centered on that. You'd also probably subconsciously train the drivers to keep it in the middle of the road instead of bouncing from side to side.
Most of these complaints would probably be addressed by giving product demos. At some point I'm going to string up a tarp and see exactly how braking acts. I've pushed it to my "Holy shit stop" limit already.
Also, the icons are confusing as shit. I know some UX team spent years on those, give me a better way to know you see the car in front of me than some blinking light. Half the people on the road would drive with an oil light on, and do.
They also need to standardize on some name. Every company has a cutesy marketing term for what their product does.
Re:And this is why I am for public transportation. (Score:5, Informative)
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Also, stop treating the 'keep your lane' feature like a bang bang controller. Estimate a dead center path and keep it centered on that. You'd also probably subconsciously train the drivers to keep it in the middle of the road instead of bouncing from side to side.
Or perhaps you'd just subconsciously train drivers to go other activities while the car drives itself smoothly instead of weaving without them at the wheel. Until the car really can drive itself, I'd prefer that the car act as an erratic backup to bad drivers rather than something that fools them into feeling safe taking their hands off the wheel.
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I can think of a problem it doesn't solve right off the bat: people loathe it. A car takes you where you want to go when you want to go there. Public transportation takes you only where it goes when the schedule says it will. People hate that.
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We've gotten this idea that things just happen without effort, so if something takes e
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What makes you say a "professional" driver is any better? From my sole visit to the USofA back in 1991, I distinctly recall a bus driver who couldn't handle the buses stick shift. Seriously? Any youth having passed the (automobile, not bus) driving test home (in Europe) would've fared better, if not legally. And this guy could legally have had a bus full of people killed.
I'm quite convinced that the more tech you build into the cars/buses/trucks/whatever, the less the driver will actually retain competence
Re: And this is why I am for public transportation (Score:2)
(Were you trying to be funny, Pope, or did you just get ahold of some bad weed??)
Average age of a car in America is 11.5 years (Score:2)
I will say this, I got caught on the freeway in the rain once. Real rain, the kind where you just get the f*** off the road and wait it out because you can only see 5 feet in front of you. I kept having numbnuts in Audis and BMWs pass me at 70 mph because the had driver assist features that kept them in the lane. I did manage to get off the freeway without getting creamed, but those shmuck
Re:Average age of a car in America is 11.5 years (Score:4)
The Lane-keep Assist can't see through pouring rain either. Those Audi and BMW drivers are endangering themselves and others.
Of course, this isn't really a problem with just new cars. Even in old cars, my fellow Californians drive in mountaintop snow as if it's still a sunny day! Coming from the snowy northeast, I think it's insance to see people doing 80 mpg when it's snowing, but Californians don't know any better.
- In all of these cases, they just have no clue that they should "slow down" in dangerous conditions. Some don't even turn-on their headlights when it's raining & hard to see. Probably a lack of thinking.
Re:Average age of a car in America is 11.5 years (Score:5, Informative)
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I would imagine that these "driver assist" technologies are helping reduce accidents or their severity. Or are we meant to believe these car companies are adding these features that are causing more accidents?
Partial automation only has to slightly decrease accidents for it to be a win.
So if any single one of these driver assist technologies saves one single accident from happening (total net accidents), he's been proven wrong.
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You can barely see the line markers in light rain especially as it starts getting dark, I'm surprised it would work in heavy rain at all.
As for first-world problems, I do remember some cars where you actively had to fight the steering wheel because it would randomly jerk left or right by itself.
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Having to fight the steering wheel on dodgy road surfaces is called "tramlining"
It's a combination of wheels, tires and suspension geometry that causes it. The front wheels follow cracks in the road surface.
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These kinds of higher-end features have a way of making it down into less expensive models over time. Hell, many of them, like airbags and ABS, have become mandated equipment. So being aware of this as a problem, even a "first world problem" now, and understanding how to mitigate it, will become more important over time.
It is already happen
Seems to me in their Advertising (Score:5, Insightful)
Also if the safety devices may be perfect, How are driver less cars to work at this point in the development cycle. I believe in driver less cars but feel they are further in our future than most think.
Note the Tesla driver putting his car on auto pilot and then watching a movie before his wreak. Can't say that was really Tesla's fault! They say your supposed to be poised with your hands hovering over the wheel and aware of the situation and be ready to take control. In that case I would just be doing the driving to help me stay aware and awake.
Just my 2 cents
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"Also if the safety devices may be perfect"
should be
"Also if the safety devices may not be perfect"
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> Note the Tesla driver putting his car on auto pilot and then watching a movie before his wreak. Can't say that was really Tesla's fault!
I call that natural selection. If anything we need much more of it.
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driverless cars work in limited, pre arranged pre setup pre programmed stretches of travel where nobody decides to fuck with them with traffic cones or whatever.
Anyhow, generic self driving has been hyped through the moon, not least due to tesla using it to raise funding(oh our cars are "ready" for it!)..
assists are relatively simple to code. braking assist is useful. but if people are so fucking stupid as to not look at a road, I think they would read the newspaper while driving even without assists.
howeve
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Cars have been getting easier to drive ("dumber" as you say) for decades. Automatic choke, automatic gearbox, traction control, ABS, auto-dimming mirrors. It's generally not a problem if it is done right.
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It's generally not a problem if it is done right.
They do it wrong so often, though. All of those things, in fact, including the choke which was replaced by the air bypass system, and more recently by throttle by wire. Those things fail all the time. Most ABS sucks rocks in gravel, which is especially sad because it's not that hard to make it work properly. Traction control is usually garbage, it can make you lag hard when trying to pull into traffic across a little bit of dirt in the gutter, creating a dangerous situation in traffic. And auto-dimming mirr
Interfacing and insturction is too vague (Score:2)
The problem with this stuff is that the interaction with the tech is too vague unlike say Cruise-control. The operation of cruise control is very straight forward, arm it, set your speed, and brake or cancel when you want to stop. These other systems provide little in the way for you to understand the limits of the tech and get a feel for them. The manufacturers want some of these systems to function similar to air-bags or anti-lock brakes, but people want to rely on them more actively than this.
I believe H
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And Google home is generally very capable of working in that way. It will tell you if it can't work your sprinklers or that it can. I have noticed that it sometimes fails to recognize a command for turning on devices if the word order is wrong. "(OK Google, turn the living room lights on" vs. "OK Google turn on the living room lights.") but other times it has no problem at all ("OK Google turn off the lights" and "OK Google urn the lights off" both seem to work.)
In many ways Google assistant/home is suppose
Try rewording the warnings: (Score:5, Funny)
"WARNING: This device has a 30% chance of getting your dick torn off if used improperly."
Politicians and marketers learned you have to be short, blunt, dramatic, and over-simplistic to get anybody's attention these days.
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That'll just encourage women and especially MTF transgenders to use it improperly.
Another Problem (Score:2, Interesting)
The assistive technologies increase the average response times of the drivers according to German research. The response time can be as long 6 to 8 seconds, with 90% drivers taking 12 to 15 seconds to check mirrors and become fully aware of the traffic. The out of sync brains need to re-synchronize with the speed of traffic, probably. Maybe an automatically administered UN-forbidden stimulant with some repeating electric shocks could help? Everything for safety is the word on the street, after all.
There are probably lots of reasons (Score:2, Interesting)
Disclaimer: Opinions follow
1. Technology is magic - Joe consumer doesn't seem to understand just how far apart technologies are. "Hey Alexa order more toilet paper" is just as magical to them as self driving cars.
2. The tech industry - to hear them tell it we've entered the AI age, machine learning, buzzword buzzword buzzword. But most of what is being called AI is really just really clever data analysis
3. The media - the media makes my previous points worse by playing up the buzzwords and "technology is
Control groups? (Score:5, Interesting)
Some of these numbers seem about like what I've observed of drivers who probably don't have these technologies. Within the past week I've had at least 4 drivers I can remember, including a bus driver and a truck driver, switch lanes while I was beside them. I doubt I drove more than about 80 miles total during that time - all in city traffic. I don't think the vehicles I remember were new enough to have blind spot monitoring or that I was really in a blind spot. Also, I drive about the same speed as the other traffic, so I was not approaching fast or anything that could have caused the issue. None of them looked.
Also, I've seen people going down the interstate reading newspapers, reading books, shaving, etc. most of my life. They were likely using plain old-fashioned non-adaptive cruise control. I don't know that 29% feeling comfortable doing other things while using their adaptive cruise control is a significant increase over regular cruise control without seeing the control group data.
AAA is all about changing people's behaviors. Even if these technologies show no increase in problems, they would still publish this story because they see a potential for improvement if people change. And they would always leave out the control group because they want to shock people.
In general, if a technology requires driver education to be effective, forget it in this country. The only question that matters is whether the statistics indicate there is a reduction in accidents with the technology. If there is, use the technology. The fact that some get killed who might not have without it is irrelevant. Only the average matters when looking for societal progress.
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AAA is all about changing people's behaviors.
They certainly changed my behavior recently. Been a customer for 20 years and got stuck on the side of the road in a hazardous location. They claimed they had dispatched someone and they would be there within an hour, when they in fact had not even found anyone who was willing to come and get me. Luckily the problem was heat-related, and I was able to make it home and cancel my AAA membership.
[OFFTOPIC] AAA (Score:3)
The AAA lobbies for road building (as opposed to public transit, bike/pedestrian facilities, etc), claiming that it's large membership is behind them. If you don't want to support their lobbying efforts and are just looking for road service, there are other organizations out there...
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Lane departure warnings should improve drivers who don't indicate a bit. At least they will get some feedback every time they do it.
Of course every car I've seen that has it lets you turn it off.
Lack of driver dependence or experience (Score:2)
I bought a Volvo with blindspot warnings about 10 years ago. I've never found it helpful mostly because I spent 25 or so years driving cars without blindspot avoidance. I've basically ingrained blindspot checking into my driving behavior and retraining myself to rely on the technology and drop manual checks seems hard, and by itself it doesn't add much to manual blindspot checking.
It could also be a function of the implementation. Mine uses orange lights in the car near the region where you look at side
technology is not your problem (Score:2)
most car driver are inconsiderate (Score:2)
tl;dr (Score:3)
Most drivers can't drive.
Not a surprise (Score:2)
And that's a problem that extends into self driving cars or cars with semi-autonomous functions. The car appears to do more or less the right thing for the most part and naturally the driver becomes less and less attentive. The problem is that even the smartest automated
Which is why it needs to be all or nothing (Score:2)
Which is why it needs to be all or nothing. Either fully automate everything, or else keep the human actively responsible for everything.
We humans are not good at partial attention. At least most of us aren't.
I'm guessing most drivers (Score:2)
Time to Kill These "features" (Score:2)
I have a relative who works as an actuary for an insurance company. She constantly goes on how these new "safety" features are unreliable and are the reason why premiums are going up around the country.
They're the first safety add-ons that truly make driving more dangerous for the 1 out of 10 times it doesn't work. The same argument does not apply to power steering, antilock brakes, and stability control. Why? Because these systems provide a consistent experience each time they engage.
The newer ones? Not so
Ban Automatic Everything (Score:2)
Go back to 100% manual everything and force drivers to DRIVE THE DAMN CAR!
Going up hill downshift.
Stop sign, stop and back to First Gear and smoothly release the clutch.
So easy even you grandmother could do it.
Name that effect (Score:2)
It's a pretty well-known effect-- or at least, it's a commonly strongly suspected effect-- that safety equipment can perversely encourage accidents by providing a false sense of security and encouraging risky behavior. Clearly we need a name for this effect in order to encourage discussion of this possibility (and, of course, intimidate people who haven't learned the name yet). As far as I can tell, it hasn't been named yet, so if anyone has a good, catchy idea, the glory may be yours.
A friend of mine arg
Cruise control (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Your first mistake is believing that software engineers strive to build idiot-proof programs.
Your second mistake is thinking that software engineerd aren
Re: (Score:3)
Some do of course, and the idiots in question aren't always customers but can be other people in the vicinity. Ie, customer wanted us to turn off the power LED on the devices that are put up on telephone poles, because the customer said that in their state people like to shoot at boxes with LEDs for target practice.
And there are better idiots being generated of course. One radiation therapy machine put on two buttons to initiate the process far apart on opposite sides of the console to ensure that two ope
Re: (Score:2)
Well that cruise control confusion has been around a long time. It was a big deal when cruise control was new and some drivers actually believed that they could take their hands off the wheel and do other things. The prevalence of such stories has gone down over time as people got educated but never really went away completely.
Some people will just insist on doing their makeup, looking at the phone, or plucking nose hairs while commuting.
Re: I've quit caring (Score:3)
I dispute the likelihood of this story being accurate... for the simple reason that we didn't have Millenials back then.
Re: (Score:2)
Replace lazy ill-informed hubris-filled humans with bots designed by lazy ill-informed hubris-filled corporations. Genius!
Re: (Score:2)
Heck these days most men are oblivious too.
It involves moving a couple of these levers [classicunimogs.com], IIRC.
Re: (Score:2)
Somehow all this garbage came standard, but I'd have needed to buy a more expensive model to get keyless entry.
Which models have none of this garbage?
On the other hand, I will stick with my version of keyless start [youtube.com].
Re: (Score:2)
So you drive illegally, risking the lives of everyone on the road with you. Don't think your feedback on safety features is very valuable to anyone, then.
Re:All I want to know is how to turn this crap off (Score:4, Insightful)
Whether or not it's the rule, you're a fecking idiot not to.
For a start, airbags are about one tenth as effective without them.
And the reason that countries have it against the law for even your passengers to not wear seatbelts is: that them being fired into you at 130+mph when you have a head-on crash kills them, you and people around you. You survive the impact because of your own belt and airbag and crumple zones and then the fucking 60kg lump behind you hits you at 130mph and shoves you into the remains of your dash and wheel and airbag. You can literally launch people through the windscreen at that speed.
This guy sounds like EVERY point he brings up is to demonstrate exactly how he's the PRECISE category of person the article is aimed at. All kinds of warnings and he wants to turn them all off and ignore them, rather than drive such they aren't activated, and without even the basics of a seat-belt.
I honestly, genuinely hope the guy hits a static lamp-post or something - anything that'll show him he isn't the better judge of speed and distance, and why you want to wear a seatbelt whether it's law or not, and without hurting anyone else but himself. But, no, he's the type who'll take out a family coming the other way because he drifted out of lane, spent 20 seconds shutting off the warning, then it was too late to brake because he wasn't paying attention.
P.S. you get in my car, you put the belt on. It's not optional. I don't care if you're 8 or 80. Even though adult passengers have their own responsibility in my country (myself and any children are my responsibility as the driver). Literally, you take it off, I'm stopping the car. You refuse, you're walking. You "unclip" later in the journey, I'm stopping again.
Not because I'm a 20mph-everywhere kind of guy - because I ain't gonna visit you in hospital, or pay my insurance excess for you to try to claim your injuries against me, or deal with the paperwork of you being dead and proving that I advised you otherwise. I also ain't going to let your kids see you do that if you're with me.
No belt, no drive. It was the first English that my Italian relatives/friends (including kids) learned from me, because they're quite lax over there and when I was driving, even if it was "nono"'s car, they were having their belts on. There was no negotiation possible.
P.S. the fucking beeping warnings are there for a reason.
Re: (Score:2)
> - Finally, the thing that beeps at me because I don't use my seatbelt can still be fooled by wrapping the seatbelt around the back of the seat and keeping it fastened like that forever. Thank god cars still aren't smart enough to see past that trick.
Why in the hell would you even do this? Are you really that fucking stupid?? Simply put: seat belts work.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The guy who administered my driving test took points off for shoulder checking. "You won't be able to do that when you're old." And yes I used my mirrors first.
Sounds like that guy should be fired from that job, he's very obviously incompetent. Also, he should be forced to drive a motorbike - he'll learn to curse all those people not looking over their shoulder (which he passed) before changing lanes, at least until he'll have been killed by one of them.