Honda Crash Detection System

MImeKillEr writes "MSNBC is reporting that Honda Motor Co. unveiled an early crash-detection system for one of their vehicles. The system is unique in working even before the driver responds. A radar in the front of the car stashed behind the Honda logo detects vehicles within a range of about 300 feet ahead. It then taps the brake and tightens the seatbelt. A buzzer goes off and a light on the dash is illuminated. If the driver responds, the braking power is boosted. If the driver fails to respond, the system kicks in and brakes more while also tightening the seat belt. Unfortunately, Japanese regulations don't allow for the system to fully stop the vehicle."

Comments

DOes it work ?

[dargaud]

Now I write radar software and I really don't have a clue how such a system can work reliably. A non-moving car 100m ahead ? That happens every time there's a parked car in a curb. Car radars are not like aircraft radars. The latter only has to see something ('anything') in the middle of a big mass of air. Nothing else around. A car radar would have to sort out lots of echos at various doppler: the ground is coming towards you (when it's far ahead), other cars going the same direction (slower in the right lane, faster in the left lane), cars coming the other way, parked cars, things hanging overhead (bridge, street lights. advertisement...)

Just imagine driving on a mountain road and out of a right curb comes a car driving the other way. The radar sees it right in front of you, coming your way. How does it react ? I'd hate to see it break suddenly, particularly if the road is wet or snowy.

Re:DOes it work ?

[Brento]

Just imagine driving on a mountain road and out of a right curb comes a car driving the other way. The radar sees it right in front of you, coming your way. How does it react ?

It works fine. Check out the radar-based cruise-control from Mercedes, now available on a few models. You can set your cruise to follow a vehicle ahead automatically. You just steer, and the two (or more) of you can pass cars and go through tunnels just fine without the cruise control panicking.

Re:DOes it work ?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're assuming this is an all or nothing, one-time decision. This thing probably re-evaluates the situation 40 - 100 times per second.

I doubt it will jump to any rash decisions. If a car pulls out in front of you a ways a way, the system knows that in 2.4 seconds there will be an impact if things don't change. It taps the brakes (no big deal) and tightens the seatbelts in preparation for that possibility, then reassesses the situation another 100 times before it makes any decisive action.

I think it's great. I'd have it in my car in a second. Honda is one of the best innovators there is in the car industry, and one of the safest and most reliable (yes, I drive a Civic). They wouldn't release something that's half-baked. They simply don't have a history of doing it. They're also about the only company that has a viable upright-walking robot, and have been for 10 years. They have the technology.

Re:DOes it work ?

[Anonymous Coward]

It only has to save my life during any one of the possible scenarios before it's worth it to me...

Re:DOes it work ?

[Fred IV]

I doubt it will jump to any rash decisions.

I'm not sold, it jumping to even one rash decision is one too many.

I drive on the NJ Turnpike to and from work. Drivers there are always moving at high speed, making sudden lane changes and/or tailgating.

If it thinks someone suddenly pulling in front of me is good enough reason to hit my brakes, there's going to be a thirty car pile-up behind me as all of the tailgaters come smashing into me at 90 MPH.

No thanks.

Re:DOes it work ?

[Anonymous Coward]

This just in... driver happy with turbo porsche! ;-)

Re:DOes it work ?

[valkraider]

I just don't think that we're far enough along to have the car make judgements

Couldn't we say this about ANY technology? "I dunno about them newfangled self-powered wagons. Seems dangerous. I don't think we have the technology. We should just stick to old reliable horse drawn wagons."

We have to gain the experience *somewhere*.

Re:DOes it work ?

[Twylite]

It taps the brakes (no big deal)

Wrong. This is a huge deal if you happen to have seen the problem 125m ahead and are taking evasive action other than braking, for example changing lanes or even swerving. The slightest braking during a sharp direction change can throw your car into a skid.

It is illegal in most (all?) countries to interfere with the driver and/or the car's controls. Why should techology -- with less sensory input and a poorer decision making ability -- be permitted to do this?

Re:DOes it work ?

[Black Perl]

Let's say you're on a 6-lane highway. All three lanes in your direction have cars ahead. You turn this thing on, and it follows the car in front of you.

Now the highway turns sharply to the right. Suddenly oncoming traffic is directly in front of you. How does it know which car to "follow", i.e. keep a safe distance from? If it makes a mistake, thinking you need to keep a safe distance from oncoming cars, when you go around the bend it'll slam on the brakes and you'll get rear-ended (unless of course the person behind you also has this system, in which case he'd stop too. In fact all cars would stop at every sharp turn).

Even if the system somehow knows exactly how much the road curves in front of you (which I doubt unless the road has transmitters or other indicators), it would be very hard to maintain a lock on the same car. Police radar cannot distinguish between two cars that are one behind the other. And if it doesn't track a specific car, how can it tell the difference between an oncoming car and a car ahead slamming on the brakes?

Re:DOes it work ?

[Uart]

Wow. I wish I had that. I hate it when I turn the cruise control on and then some asshat in front of me decides to make sure his brakes still work.

I basically gave up on cruise control because of that.

Re:DOes it work ?

[Proaxiom]

I don't think so. This is way different.

It's fairly easy for a radar system to pick something up in front of you, and for a computer to track it. What we're talking about is picking out all the things in your path, and figuring out if you're going to hit any of them.

The trouble the previous poster was referring to is that so much depends on context. For instance, what if I'm in a left turn lane drive directly toward a car in an oncoming left turn lane? We're not going to collide, but does my car know that?

Re:DOes it work ?

[Jad LaFields]

The smart thing would be if the 300-ft limit was not hardcoded, but depended on the speed you were traveling. 300 ft seems somewhat reasonable if you're going 80 on the freeway, but really dumb when you're crusing at 30 on residential streets.(actually, I still don't think most people give nearly that much room between cars on the highway, but they give more).

Re:DOes it work ?

[American AC in Paris]

To be perfectly frank, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if they could get this to work. It'll require years of testing, tweaking, trial-by-error, and careful design, but I can easily see the day arriving where they've successfully addressed enough "what if" scenarios that they have a highly reliable product.

To take your example: Honda engineers discover that an oncoming car in a right curve that appears out of "nowhere" (from around the side of the mountain" causes the device to activate unnecissarily. Solution? There are lots of possible solutions. Is the vehicle approaching you at greater than your own speed? If so, it's oncoming traffic, and automatic braking is an inappropriate response (though a warning light/buzzer -may- be.) What is the four-second history of the angle of your car's wheels? If it suggests that you're on a right curve, it would make sense that an oncoming vehicle would appear to be directly in front of you; no alert necessary. Heck, you could even disable the entire system whenever your steering angle is greater than some small angle--it's safe to assume that if you're engaged in a turning maneuver, your attention is on your driving (whereas if you're bombing down the Interstate in Nebraska, it's much more likely that your attention will wander.)

I'm not saying that we shouldn't expect stringent and rigorous development and testing of such systems, but I find it a bit disingenuous to question the ability of such a system to work successfully because one can imagine scenarios where it wouldn't work. There are umpteen-thousand potential scenarios in which it wouldn't "work". That does not mean, however, that Honda cannot produce a system that provides a very real safety enhancement without putting drivers at risk from unnecessary activation.

Airbags, when they first came out, did their job pretty darn well, but there were still a small number of cases--very short people, overly-sensitive triggers, overly-forceful deployment, etc.--where they were problematic. These kinks got ironed out. Today, airbags are really, really, really reliable, they make cars considerably safer, and I'm glad we have 'em. I can see a system such as the one Honda is developing having a similar history--pretty good launch, a few rare but highly-publicized problems, second and third generation systems being excellent safety systems.

Re:DOes it work ?

[Dachannien]

Why should techology -- with less sensory input and a poorer decision making ability -- be permitted to do this?

You're assuming an awful lot about the driving ability of the average person out on the roads.

Re:DOes it work ?

[digidave]

Radar-based tracking is a fairly proven technology. It knows the difference between two different objects, so it starts tracking the car in front of you and should operate fine even if it switches lanes, so long as it's within radar range and whatever side to side, up and down tolerances are programmed.

Re:DOes it work ?

[tmhsiao]

Why should techology -- with less sensory input and a poorer decision making ability -- be permitted to do this?

Because a lot of people have an inexplicable confidence in technology. They think computers are infallible. Airbus jets, for example, are programmed to override the pilot in crisis situations.

Re:DOes it work ?

[valkraider]

Many people are misinformed about the newest radar systems. With new technologies, police can do a lot more with "regular" radar than most people think. Check out Radartest.com for more in depth info and some good links.

Re:DOes it work ?

[GreyPoopon]

Wrong. This is a huge deal if you happen to have seen the problem 125m ahead and are taking evasive action other than braking, for example changing lanes or even swerving.

You know, the article doesn't say so, but I'm guessing this puppy is only engaged with cruise control, and is intended as a safeguard against highway hypnosis or simply falling asleep at the wheel. Otherwise, it just doesn't make sense. If you are taking evasive action, you probably don't have your cruise control on. And for last-minute evasive action when cruise control is on, I would guess Honda has already factored that into the device. It can probably detect sharp direction changes. Still, I'd want to be VERY reassured of those safeguards before I employed the technology. Let's wait and see how well the system works in Japan before we slam Honda too much.

Re:DOes it work ?

[danheskett]

override the pilot in crisis situations

This is a real good thing, in my opinion.

I've flown planes - albeit much smaller planes. There are so many variables, and in a split-second crisis situation I can 100% guarantee that a pilot can not assess enough data to make a rational decision.

A lot of things can happen on an airplane in a very small amount of time. Microseconds can be critical. In many cases it is *impossible* that a human being could see the problem, realize it as a problem, consider options, choose a course of action, and follow through. In some cases - imagine rapid depreasurization or a critical area birdstrike - the time to avoid a fatal catastrophe is virtually instantenous in nature. You have 1.25 seconds to shutdown the left second turbine. The knobby switch for insta kill is 2.5 feet from your nearest hand. Do you feel lucky?

Re:DOes it work ?

[Titusdot Groan]

How did this get an informative? This is an obvious (deliberate?) misreading of the parent post!

The work reliably part had nothing to do with speed it had to do with orientation -- how do you tell the parked car 100m ahead is in YOUR lane -- radar can't read the lines on the road and tell that your lane is about to curve and take you safely BY the parked car.

Re:DOes it work ?

[PD]

Not a problem, do what police radars already do. Don't measure the doppler shift, instead combine the waves of light with light of a fixed and known frequency. Then, you measure the beat frequency.

Re:DOes it work ?

[drudd]

That's the argument people always used to use with seatbelts... what if I were trapped inside the car and it was burning, and I couldn't get out because of the seat belt?

You just have to do a cost/benefit analysis... as long as the new technology saves more lives than it endangers, it's worth pursuing... you can always improve it to reduce the false positives.

Doug

Re:DOes it work ?

[drinkypoo]

You didn't quote an important part of the comment above yours.

Wrong. This is a huge deal if you happen to have seen the problem 125m ahead and are taking evasive action other than braking, for example changing lanes or even swerving. The slightest braking during a sharp direction change can throw your car into a skid.

[...] Why should techology -- with less sensory input and a poorer decision making ability -- be permitted to do this?

You're assuming an awful lot about the driving ability of the average person out on the roads.

It's assuming a lot that the person is going to be changing lanes or swerving? That seems like about the most likely response... either that or just jumping on the brakes at full, which is why we have ABS; to handle panic responses from people who really have no business driving to begin with.

Now, this system definitely has less sensory input. It has only one sense - depth. We have five, at least two of which apply to driving in every situation; vision and touch. Hearing usually comes into play as well, unless you have the radio up so loud that you can't hear anything else. (This is generally only a problem when the windows are up.) And your brain is necessarily more complex than this auto-braking system.

It has been shown that some technologies that do things for the driver can be beneficial to yahoos who don't know how to drive. ABS is one of them. However it doesn't do anything on its own, it only comes into play when you actually do something. This system does not, and as such it is fairly worthless, and will most likely cause more harm than help. Another one is skid control, unless you are driving in a way that you probably shouldn't be on the street (Though my car is designed to slide, and I do it basically every time I drive, in a quite controlled fashion) skid control is a great thing. Of course, it builds on ABS, and is really just an extension of same. But you see, those things are good because they help you maintain traction and therefore control. The best thing about ABS is that you can slam on the brakes as hard as you can, getting "maximum" stopping force (ABS actually stops longer than a skilled driver with manual brakes of the same size) while still being able to steer.

So if your argument is that people might not be steering to avoid something, well, those people shouldn't be driving at all. This invention will harm both those who can and those who cannot drive. The only people it will help are those who are asleep, and I think we need to work on more technologies to keep them awake instead.

Re:DOes it work ?

[f97tosc]

The trouble the previous poster was referring to is that so much depends on context. For instance, what if I'm in a left turn lane drive directly toward a car in an oncoming left turn lane? We're not going to collide, but does my car know that?

Perhaps the emergency system does not kick in until the car can calculate that a collision is inevitable or at least come very likely. In your left turn example, this would not be the case, because both of you are travelling at speeds where you have plenty of time to break or turn before hitting each other.

But if you came speeding into the intersection, the car could calculate that even if the driver would break, and/or turn, there would be no way to avoid a collision. Time to tighten the seat belt and try to slow down.

Generally speaking, I am surprised to see how negative Slashdotters are to new technology, especially before knowing much about how it works. The assumption always seems to be that the implementation will be completely useless, dangerous and insecure.

Of course there will be troubles to get this to work properly. Honda will solve those problems, and put the technology in their expensive cars. If it is efficent and cheap enough it will go mainstream. That's all there is to it, pretty much.

Tor

Re:DOes it work ?

[jiminim]

>Tell me how you do that without adjusting your cruise control.

1. Take left shoulder and pass.
2. Do not die.
3. Return to left lane.

Re:DOes it work ?

[alienw]

How the hell do you think radar works? It usually measures doppler shift of a reflected radio signal. That's how, say, police speed guns work, which do basically this exact thing. "Lidar" guns (laser) simply bounce a laser beam off a car a few hundred times a second and count the number of nanoseconds it takes for it to bounce back. It's millions of times easier than measuring doppler shift of light, anyway.

Re:DOes it work ?

[WolfWithoutAClause]

Wrong. This is a huge deal if you happen to have seen the problem 125m ahead and are taking evasive action other than braking, for example changing lanes or even swerving. The slightest braking during a sharp direction change can throw your car into a skid.

Ok. Good points. But I have a few observations:

a) if the vehicle has ABS (I assume it has), then a skid is unlikely

b) The system should be able to detect the cornering and adapt to it anyway to a large degree

c) in most cases a modest reduction in speed will greatly improve cornering anyway- maximum cornering goes as the square root of your speed- a reduction of 10% gives ~5% tighter cornering whilst reducing the energy of the car by ~20%.

Re:DOes it work ?

[Tackhead]

> > [ Airbus jets, for example, are programmed to ] override the pilot in crisis situations.
>
>This is a real good thing, in my opinion.

Your points on some events - turbine blades about to shred the passengers in the cabin - notwithstanding, might I suggest you read Pilot in command, or computer in command?? Some birdstrikes are bad. Most runwaystrikes are worse.

(If nothing else, I learned a new joke today: What are an Airbus pilot's first and last words? The first: 'What's it doing now?' The last: 'It's never done that before!'. :)

Re:DOes it work ?

[Zebbers]

with that ability, or lackthereof comes liability, blame

who do you blame when this system fucks up.

Im against automated anything with cars. Do you know how often small electrical sensors go bad in cars and start to cause it to run unreliably. Up till now it meant your mixture control got fucked up and you started running lean, now it could mean your car suddenly decides to lock them up doing 85 on the highway.

People drivers aren't perfect. But its easy to counter their imperfections. When driving, a good driver is aware of everything around them and can tell when someone is not in command of their vehicle. You cant tell when some automagic sensor is about to fail.

Im sorry. I havent done the research admittedly, but I dont think traffic accidents are quite bad enough to say we're assuming an awful lot about the driving ability of the average person out on the roads. Id say youre underestimating it. Drunk driving. Now theres a crazy real problem, and no system like this could fix it.

Re:DOes it work ?

[Jerf]

Oh come on... either you are lying to us and you just obviousally told all of us that by making that statement or you dont have enough coffee to think this morning...

No, the problem is you obviously have no experience dealing with real world data. Writing software is a lot harder then "seeing a way to do it". For instance...

1 - simply measure the speed of the car in front of you relative to you.

Not even all the way through your first sentence and you've already hit major problems. First, all measurements have noise in them; you can't know the "speed" with perfect reliability, and how you determine the speed from the incoming data is a non-trivial problem. Since lives are on the line, it's important to get it right. A simple "moving average", for instance, won't work because it will slow the reaction time of the system down unacceptably.

Also, we have a problem with "car in front of you". Now, "thing in front of you" may work, but A: how do you know it's a car? and B: how do you know it's truly in front of you? Maybe you're just turning and that "thing" you see coming at you is just a mailbox.

Pop quiz: You are a radar system. You detect something coming at you at 70 mph from a hundred feet away. You're turning slightly, but not much. As a radar system in a car, this is all you know. Do you slam on the brakes?

Yes? Oops. Turns out that you're on the left lane of a three-lane highway, and somebody's parked their car on the right shoulder due to car problems. The car gets rear-ended by a tailgaiting Mack truck and the driver dies. You get sued because your system was not supposed to hit the brakes then.

No? Oops. There was a Mack truck jackknifed across the road which the driver wasn't looking at and didn't see. In the .4 seconds it takes for the driver to react that you could have been braking, the car continues at 70 mph. By the time the driver reacts, its too late to slow the car down to a survivable speed. The driver hits the cab of the truck and dies. You get sued because your system was supposed to hit the brakes for the driver.

This isn't so easy, is it? The car only has a very limited number of senses; in human terms it's blind except for one whole pixel, deaf, and can only feel limited information about it's own state ("I'm going 50", "I'm turning", etc.). It's not like the car has a picture of the whole road to work with... and of course the reason it doesn't have that is we wouldn't know what to do with it if we did. Computer vision is still a very limited technology; it can not handle the real world to any significant degree yet.

if the car is doing 50mph toward the radar source, hit the breaks!

How hard? What threshold for distance? Does the distance threshold change if the relative velocity changes? How does the brake hitting relate to the relative speed? What if I'm driving down the road at 60mph, I go into a turn, and a mailbox momentarily looks like it's coming at me at 55mph? Do I slam on the brakes then, or wait until I'm sure it's a car? How can I be sure when all I have is a distance and a relative velocity anyhow?

If you're wrong and you "hit the brakes", you may end up killing the user. Lives are on the line; you can't gloss over any of these questions. One wrong answer and people die.

you simply have a threshhold setting for distance to trigger and speed.

That is naive beyond words. The real world is much more complicated then that.

and simply adjust that according to the car's current speedometer reading.

How, exactly? "adjust" is an empty word until you give more specification. It's damned easy to say "simply adjust", but there are hundreds of plausible way to "simply adjust", and most of them are wrong. (It's even possible all of them are wrong; there's no guarentee this system is even possible, you know.)

2 - to hell with the speed of X Y or Z look at the doppler shift. if I detec

Re:DOes it work ?

[netsharc]

Maybe the car should have a radar at the back as well, taking into account what will happen if it suddenly brakes. A predictive system should probably turn on the brake lights (although no actual braking is taking place) just in case it really needs to break soon right after.

Re:DOes it work ?

[Lurch00]

Yes and no.. I'd love it if the average driver weren't allowed near the wheel, or if we stepped up driving requirements to requre agressive testing in skid control, poor weather driving, etc. But I'd still trust a human, any human, more than I'd trust this thing.

We've got plenty of safety critical technology aids in cars already. Witness ABS brakes, automatic transmissions, cruise control, etc. They all all aid the driver (in most cases) but don't drive for him. This system starts to drive the car instead. Would you want the computer to jerk the wheel on you? I think controlling the throttle (cruise control) is a bad enough idea. Anything that requires the driver to concentrate less on the path and speed of the vehicle is bad, imho..

Actually, I worry that a system like this could make the driver LESS effective in avoiding the crash than alerting him to it. A sudden acceleration of the body is FAR more disconcerting than a noise or light going off. The time it takes the brain to understand why it just got jerked is probably more than it'd be to just realize the situation and take corrective action with the aid of a buzzer or something. This is moreso when the driver isn't paying attention. If the driver is actively monitoring the impending situation and the car takes action prematurely, he's likely to be less surprised. But if he's already paying attention, then you don't need this stupid thing anyway. An unfocused driver isn't going to be expecting a jerk like that, and is likely to spend more time in the "what the heck was that" mode than "move my limbs we'regunnadie!!!" mode. I'm not a physiologist, I'm just guessing..

Re:DOes it work ?

[elmegil]

I am surprised to see how negative Slashdotters are to new technology

Perhaps because many of us have seen it fail miserably despite glowing claims?

Re:DOes it work ?

[vladkrupin]

exactly my point. How about a couple more confusing scenarios?

1. Some dork cuts you off on the freeway and steps on gas. You don't want or need to break even though the idiot is only 20 feet in front of you.
2. Wet pavement, your friend is tail-gating you. Now you neighbor's cat runs across the street. You would rather run over the stupid thing (and remove stupidity from the gene pool as an added benefit) than get rear-ended by your friend.
3. You are merging into a tight spot on the freeway. If you push the breaks, you are likely to "clip" the car in front of which you are trying to merge.
4. Some dork didn't bother looking when merging/fell asleep/whatever-else and is drifting into your lane on the freeway. Behind you is a semi truck. The only way (besides honking) to avoid a collision is to downshift into second gear and step on gas even though the car in front of you is closer than 300 feet.
5. Your example of the left-lane turn is very good too. It's a classic "looks like a head-on" scenario.

Also, sudden breaking under some circumstances (steep turn, slippery pavement, poorly distributed load in the vehicle, etc) drastically reduces responsiveness and maneurability of the vehicle.

Re:DOes it work ?

[lamz]

Generally speaking, I am surprised to see how negative Slashdotters are to new technology, especially before knowing much about how it works. The assumption always seems to be that the implementation will be completely useless, dangerous and insecure.

I may not speak for all SlashDotters, but perhaps our negative attitude comes from having seen the little man behind the curtain a few too many times. Although I am a web application developer, I still do my taxes with paper forms, and refuse to sign up for receiving bills by email instead of regular mail. I'm perfectly willing to order t-shirts and books on the web, but for the important stuff, I want to see paper documents. And there are few things more important to me than the performance of the vehicle I'm riding in.

Perhaps it is the typical SlashDotters familiarity with the concept of probability that makes us suspicious. What percentage of false-positives would be acceptable for a car that applies its own brakes?

Also, I just keep picturing some driver getting creamed by a truck while looking back, asking: "Who's pulling on my seatbelt?"

On the bright side, pay attention to the technologies that SlashDotters are excited about. Linux, Open Source, Macs, TiVOs, MySQL, PHP -- good stuff!

Re:DOes it work ?

[rworne]

Depends on the driving habits of your local city.

Here in Los Angeles, I always try to maintain a safe distance and keep several car lengths between me and the car I am following.

Unfortunately for most drivers, just one "car length" means "I can change lanes and drive here" and cut you off.

So basically you have to keep hitting the brakes because asshats decide to use your buffer zone because they decided that your lane is going .01 MPH faster than the one they were in originally.

Re:DOes it work ?

[jellomizer]

1. Slighty annoying but no major safety hazzards
2. Durring an accident from tail gating the person who is tailgating you is responcible.
3. Dude wait for a safer enterence.
4. The semi-truck is tailgating you. See #2 and if you have an automatic downshifitng is not much of an option so you still have to slow down. If you crash into the car the semi truck will still run over you.
5. How fast do you do your left turns.

Please remember that they dont put you in a compplete stop just slow you down.

Re:DOes it work ?

[cens0r]

Well, I've seen aritcles in road and track where pro drivers were able to shave a few tenths of a second of their lap time by turning off the ASC, so obivously they were a little better than the system. But the average Joe is not Micheal Schumacher and has no business turning off the system (unless they're doing some sort of auto cross event).

Re:DOes it work ?

[[Zappo]]

It's assuming a lot that the person is going to be changing lanes or swerving? That seems like about the most likely response... either that or just jumping on the brakes at full, which is why we have ABS; to handle panic responses from people who really have no business driving to begin with.

ABS makes a simple interface work as advertised with fewer exceptional cases, and lowers the amount of experience needed to achieve proficiency.

It corrected a flaw in the interface, not in the user. The same is true of traction control. The brake and the steering wheel now, "do what you mean," much more often than before.

Re:DOes it work ?

[JerkBoB]

Aren't you supposed to turn your car off for those carwashes? It's not like the wipers are going to run when your car is off.

Nah, at every one I've been to the monkey running it has just asked me to put it in Neutral and keep my foot off of the brake. How else would I listen to the cd player? :)

NOTE TO /. COMMUNITIY: THIS IS HOW ONE SPELLS THE WORD FOR THE PEDAL NEXT TO THE ACCELERATOR!!! There has never been a 'Break' pedal in any car I've driven. Sorry, I've just seen that too many times in the comments for this story.

Re:DOes it work ?

[Belgand]

Slashdotters may be more accepting of technology than most. Then again we're also far more likely to make regular off-site backups.

Knowledge and acceptance of technology is one thing, but with that knowledge you also learn a great deal about the problems of technology. Things can fail easily and sometimes things designed to help end up merely causing more problems and work. In this case I think it seems far more likely that adding in a dangerous, unpredictable element that will only have limited knowledge of the situation and may not even be technically capable of doing what its job effectively into a dangerous enviroment is likely to cause more accidents. Anything that controls the brakes of the car that isn't directly driving it seems like a bad idea to me.

Damn!

[Gortbusters.org]

And here I bought a new 2003 Honda Civic Hybrid. I hate when ya buy something and then they come out with new features.

Being cut up

[rf0]

What about if you are driving along then you get cut up...how hard will the system engage the breaks? enough to make you skid?

Rus

Re:Being cut up

[AlinuxNCSU]

For those of us not familiar with the idiom you're using, we would use the term "cut off".

In other news...

[NetDanzr]

...drivers in New York suddenly face a severe shortage of parking space, as they are unable to parallel-park more than one Honda within 300 feet of each other.

Control over the vehicle

[notque]

Unfortunately, Japanese regulations don't allow for the system to fully stop the vehicle

Because what I want is to have less and less operation value, and rely more on technology!

We are slowly devolving into a society that not only has no common sense, but cannot operate anything without help.

No thank you auto stop. I have breaks. I know how to downshift. I'm fine.

I feel much safer knowing the control is in my hands, than an arbitrary machine anyway.

Is it just me?

Re:Control over the vehicle

[EyeSavedLatin]

Hopefully the "breaks" you speak of aren't taken while braking... otherwise you'll really need this system!

Re:Control over the vehicle

[fred_sanford]

HAL: "Let me put it this way, Mr Amer. The 9000 series is the most reliable computer ever made. No 9000 computer has ever made a mistake or distorted information. We are all, by any practical definition of the words, foolproof and incapable of error."

Re:Control over the vehicle

[SnowDog_2112]

I feel much safer knowing the control is in my hands, than an arbitrary machine anyway.

People have said the same thing about anti-lock brakes, traction control, power steering, and automatic transmissions over the years. And heck, some people do prefer to have control over everything.

This is an option; don't buy it if you're not the target market.

(Also note that the system is much more complicated than described in the MSNBC article; you don't think Honda would actually go to market with something that wouldn't let you get within 100m of another car, do you?)

But for those who do buy it, it will make driving safer. It provides a visual and audible warning when it thinks a collision is likely. If you don't respond, it provides a tactile warning (tighten seatbelt, tap brakes). That should be enough to jolt you out of your daydream (or cause you to look up from whatever you are doing which took your eyes off the road).

If it determines a collision is unavoidable, it does what it can to reduce impact on the passengers within -- tightens seatbelts and brakes with force. At this point, if the engineers at Honda have done their jobs, the car is going to crash, it's just trying to make it easier for you to survive the impact.

Re:Control over the vehicle

[|/|/|||]

I don't agree that having more technology makes us unable to "operate anything without help," but I absolutely agree that I would never own a car with this ridiculous feature.

Sure, there are a lot of technological advances in automobiles that I am happy to have - cruise control, for example. However, my cruise control must be under my command! When I say "go this speed," the car must go this speed until I tell it to stop. I'll make the decisions. I'm the one with a real brain, not just some sort of expert system with limited sensory powers. I don't know how the control logic is implemented, but my opinion is the same regardless of the technology. If it were smart enough to satisfy me, then I wouldn't be driving at all, because the car would be better a better driver than I am.

Now, to be fair, this might be useful if it were simply a buzzer (that could be disabled in certain situations). Sometimes the car in front of you decides to slam on its brakes just as you're fiddling with the radio, and it's nice to have someone else in the car say "holy shit, watch out!" On the other hand, I would not be able to stand driving around with someone who hits the brakes for me whenever they feel endangered. Especially if they're not intelligent enough to understand where we are and what we're doing and why.

Re:Control over the vehicle

[Twanfox]

What I love is the notion that the car's computer is capable of judging better than I what needs to be done, and has the designer given authority to act on that. That sounds a lot like a passanger plane incident in which a malfunctioning autopilot (or anti-crash system, something like that) kept trying to wrest control of the plane away from the pilot under the false assumption the ground (or rate of descent) was too great. The plane stalled midair like 2-3 times before the pilot somehow managed to land it.

Now, with the examples you mentioned, the difference there is that they are assisting you do something, they are not initiating action on their own. You are already applying the brakes if the antilock brake system engages. You are already accelerating (and intending to) if traction control activates. You are already turning the car while the power steering turns the wheels. These systems are not making decisions, they are responding to the driver's input and helping him.

Personally, I am overcautious when it comes to systems that make potentially life and death decisions for a person. What happens when such a decision making system makes a mistake? What happens when it's inputs become garbled? What if there is a manufacturing flaw (these certainly crop up often enough in complex systems)? Is it any consolation to a driver that there was a buffer the programmer failed to cap off properly in the software, activating the brakes off center at full strength on an open road, causing the vehicle to swerve and crash?

There are a lot of scenarios that can come up while piloting a vehicle of any kind. The human pilot is the one ultimately responsible for anything that happens, the human pilot should get the final say. Though, I can just see it now in court.

Judge: You caused a major accident involving 15 cars. What do you have to say for yourself?
Defendant: My honda did it.

Re:Control over the vehicle

[NukeIear]

Of course ABS was NOT designed to make you stop faster. Though in theory it could make you stop faster, something you might have proved in highschool physics. But the world is a bit more complex then HS physics problems, so sometimes abs is faster, sometimes standard brakes are, depending on road conditions and who is driving.

Finally!!

[enigma971]

They can't get this installed in my girlfriend's car soon enough!

Re:Finally!!

[thriemus]

Funny this system sounds like my girlfriend!!

It gives me notifaction to brake when a car is hundreds of feet in front of me... even when doing 15 mph.

So

[mrgrey]

So you don't die from the crash, you die from suffocation or from being cut in half by the seat belt.

If the driver fails to respond, the system kicks in and brakes more while also tightening the seat belt

Yes please, more security

[cwernli]

If the driver fails to respond, the car brakes more and tightens the seat belt further to soften the blow of the crash.

The system should be expanded such that a driver who fails for, say, three times to brake when she should is not allowed to drive anymore. Or not allowed to accelarate to more than 25 mph. That should increase the drivers awareness instantly, shouldn't it ?

Gotta love loopholes...

[PseudoThink]

It then taps the brake and tightens the seatbelt...If the driver fails to respond, the system kicks in and brakes more while also tightening the seat belt. Unfortunately, Japanese regulations don't allow for the system to fully stop the vehicle."

But fortunately there is a loophole in the regulations, allowing them to gradually strangle the driver with his seatbelt until he stops the vehicle on his own.

Re:Gotta love loopholes...

[Luveno]

I'm somehow reminded of the Simpson's episode of when they went to Japan and were on the gameshow:

Host: Our game shows are a bit different than those in America.
Homer: How so?
Host: In America, you reward intelligence... here, we punish ignorance.
Homer: Ignor-what?

*flamethrower shoots out of microphone*

How is this going to work?

[Zerbey]

You mean to tell me whilst I'm driving on I-4 every morning every time some idiot kid in a tricked out Honda (stupid large muffler, big fin, silly rims... pet hate :)) cuts me off I'll be rammed in the back by the his idiot friend who happens to be tailgating me because my car decides it needs to brake?

Re:How is this going to work?

[gurps_npc]

No. It means that unlike you, Honda was smart enough to put radar in the BACK of the vehicle as well as in the front.

The system is a lot smarter than you seem to be willing to grant it.

Why does everyone hear assume that a complex auto-breaking system is going to be built by idiots that do not even consider simple situations?

While I am sure that this device might cause problems in complex situations, the simples ones should already be accounted for.

Re:How is this going to work?

[Pyrosz]

Just do what my neighbor does (hes a cranky 90 year old bastard who hates everyone)... he tosses marbles out the window at any car who is tailgating him (I've seen the bag of marbles)!

Re:How is this going to work?

[Kashif Shaikh]

"While I am sure that this device might cause problems in complex situations, the simples ones should already be accounted for."

But we mortals can already, most of the time, handle simple situations while driving.

It's the complex ones that are complex, and that's where this car is going to fuck up and perform an incorrect decision.

Goody!

[OrangeGoo]

Goody! Now I don't have to be bothered taking my foot off the gas pedal and putting it on that pesky brake pedal, unless of course I need to come to a complete stop! But who does that? Stop signs might as well says "slow down a little and look both ways." If they park a car next to it, this system will handle it for you! Yay!

Geeze ...

[SuperDuG]

... this is going to make it even harder for wives to run over their husbands now ...

... as if that whole legal and moral thing wasn't enough, technology enters into the game.

Mercedes System already does this

[servicepack158]

The AMG benz's come with a cruise control system that when active will slow down if a car in front of you is going slower then you, and speed back up to cruise speed when they get out of your way. It can apply up to 20% of the breaking force of the vehicle too if there is a sudden stop. you can look at it and watch a flash presentation on the website. To the dork programmer who doesn't understand how it works: That's why honda didn't hire you for the project :) You only activate such a system above certain speeds. So basically it's an autopilot system for a car, but people always change lanes without looking so now they need to invent something to lock the steeringwheel :D

I can picture this...

[selderrr]

one car suddenly brakes and all honda drivers behind it are strangled by their auto-tightening seatbelts.

4-point seatbelt wearers are castrated rather than strangled.

Re:I can picture this...

[Jens_UK]

Four point seat belts wouldn't castrate you; you're thinking of five point belts.

Hmmm...

[leviramsey]

Am I the only one who thinks 300ft is a mite bit too far to look ahead to get reliable results? What was the old drivers ed rule, one carlength spacing per 10 miles per hour of speed? A typical car is what 20 ft., tops? 300 feet is reasonable then if the vehicle in question is going c. 150 mph.

Since most traffic is less than half of that speed, I can only shudder at the number of false positives this system's going to come up with.

Honda: at least do this: make this system by default only operational when running in cruise control (which at least takes out the cases of heavy traffic false positives).

Brakeing isnt the solution

[snack]

90% of the accidents i've seen are from people just SLAMMING on their brakes. They cant stop in time, and careen into the back of another vehicle, or T-bone them.

The solution is more drivers education. You have to learn that you have more than just 1 dimention of freedom, and can change lanes to avoid a collision. More education, Less 'toys' in the car to distract the driver.

-Tim

Re:Brakeing isnt the solution

[snack]

This is why we have perepherial Vision, and Mirrors in our cars.

I for one am constantly checking my mirrors and mentally keeping track of where other cars are around me just incase something unavoidable does happen and i am forced to change lanes. So no... it isn't blindly.

It mainly boils down to drivers training. This is something that they kind of teach in the more expensive classes (Master Drive). Having situational awareness has saved me from multiple accidents.

-Tim

Too bad..

[MImeKillEr]

.. they don't have an early warning system for when you've exceeded the maximum number of ricer mods (R-Type stickers, neon, over-sized wing). I'd find that just as useful.

Re:Too bad..

[MImeKillEr]

This would've saved the moron I saw in a Suzuki Samurai who pulled upto a Chevy 1500 at a red light & revved his engine. The guy in the Chevy had his windows down and was openly laughing his head off. When the light turned green, you could hear the strain in the Samurai as he attempted to accelerate to catch up to the 1500.

It was all I could do to keep from wrecking as I passed the Samurai in my wife's minivan..

Re:Too bad..

[SuiteSisterMary]

Nonsense. It stands, or at least, can stand for 'rice burner,' indicating that it comes from an area with high yields of rice. If referring to a region based on suitability for certain food crops is 'racist,' then we've got problems.

What astonishes me..

[popeydotcom]

Is the number of "300 yards! what about rush hour" posts here.

Think about what you've just said guys! Do you REALLY, honestly think that they would release a car that stamps on the brakes when *anything* is in range. Give it some intelligence.. Sheesh.

Limited to Cruise control?

[PhinMak]

This system would be most useful to people who are traveling on highways and have their cruise control on, methinks. Just last night I had to let my girlfriend drive us home because i was about to fall asleap at the wheel. Maybe all the seatbelt tugging is to wake us up? I might buy into this safety device...

I immagine the system would have to have an on/off switch anyway. And that it would have to have some kind of limitations so that when I'm driving around a mountain road i don't take a flying leap over some cliff.

Re:Limited to Cruise control?

[Oliver Wendell Jones]

I immagine the system would have to have an on/off switch anyway.

Of course there will have to be a black box that records the status of the switch so your insurance company can legally deny your claim because 'you disabled an integrated safety feature that your policy requires be enabled "for your own protection"'.

Re:300 ft ?

[letxa2000]

3-10 ft at 50mph is about .04-.13 seconds. Even a computer needs more time to brake than that. With the object at 300 feet there's about 4 seconds reaction time to determine if the object is a potential threat and then to brake if necessary.

That said I see too many problems with this in terms of many driving conditions resulting in conditions that might look like a potential crash that are really "normal"--and I don't see how such a system could distinguish between the two.

Re:Whatever happened to Volvos being the safest?

[AlinuxNCSU]

If you recall, Volvo was purchased by Ford. I don't have anything against Ford (my family has owned three Tauruses), but they don't have the same reputation that Volvo had. It was at that point that Volvo's styling began to change, going from a less boxy style to the more consumer-friendly styles of today.

Since then, Volvo has shut down it's Swedish offices and moved headquarters to California. They have always had the reputation as safe and conservative in design, but Volvo is not the same company as before -- they are a Ford-owned American car company that uses the Volvo name. I won't pass complete judgement, not having followed Volvo's production for the past couple years, but I would venture to guess these basic facts have something to do with your complaint.

-ALinux

Here's a link to more info from Honda

[zptdooda]

Hereâ(TM)s more from Honda:

CMS

So itâ(TM)s more than just the 300 ft test, which would be arbitrary. It looks at "distance, speed and and anticipated path".

Sounds worse than a backseat driver though.

Production will be limited

[Boyceterous]

since they can only run the assembly line with the vehicles 300 feet apart.

"Crash Detection"?

[schon]

The title reminds me of a body shop near my work.

It was called "Certified Collision"

I always wondered - so you get in an accident, call these guys, they come over and say "Yup, you hit him!"

Now, maybe it's just me, but I think "Crash Prevention" would be much more desirable than "Crash Detection" :o)

Anything that improves safety is worth it.

[FFFish]

I mean anything. Traffic accidents are one of the biggest killers in America (#1 killer of kids, I do believe). And yet it is so unnecessary to allow driving to continue being so dangerous.

Regular driving exams, say every three to five years: great idea.

Graduated licensing programs: great idea.

Mandatory driver training: great idea.

Black boxes reporting accident data: great idea.

Automatic safety systems: great idea.

Photo radar: great idea.

Hell, GPS tracking of vehicles would, if it reduced traffic deaths by a few percent, would be well worth the loss of privacy.

I'm at the maximum safe driver discounts. I haven't even been close to being in an accident in some fifteen years (arsehole ran a red light!). I maintain an attitude of defensive driving.

I'm not worried that I'll be the cause of an accident. But I'm scared shitless of your driving, because you are, in all probability, one of the drivers who is a threat to my continued well-being.

I'm quite willing to jump through some annoying hoops -- the repeated testing, the black box, the privacy invasions -- in order to save my life. I treasure my freedoms and privacy, I detest government interference, etcetera... but I value my life more than all that.

So bring it on.

Let's get our streets safe.

Re:Anything that improves safety is worth it.

[slittle]

Regular driving exams, say every three to five years: great idea.

PITA, not to mention a greater health risk than unsafe drivers. Have you seen the ferral creatures that inhabit the local RTA (DMV, or your regional equivalent)?

Graduated licensing programs: great idea.
Mandatory driver training: great idea.

Three days over 6 months to get a motorcycle license in Oz (NSW), after you have completed the road rules test, which you may take at your leisure.

Day 1, you are required to demonstrate you are able to ride a bike before you're given your L's (Learner plates/license). 3-6 months later, you're back for another two days worth of obstacle avoidance, emercengy breaking and general "how not to get dead" theory and practise. Gruesome video footage of people who fuck it up is optional. You are then tested on your emergency skills, plus a standard road ride, before being issued a Provisional license. This allows you to do upto 80km/h, upto 0.02BAC (one standard drink), and three whole points. You get to wallow in your lameness for a year or three - if you fuck up, you're off the road. If you don't, you get an unrestricted license. By this time, you have real experience under your belt, are now 20+ years old(er :) and theoretically, less likely to go nuts - you've been weened into your freedom.

Re:Anything that improves safety is worth it.

[Zathrus]

While I agree with many of your statements, there is such a thing as going too far.

Hell, GPS tracking of vehicles would, if it reduced traffic deaths by a few percent, would be well worth the loss of privacy.

No. Sorry, but the privacy bit is too big. It's still possible to do it, but not with a total loss of privacy please.

I'm not worried that I'll be the cause of an accident. But I'm scared shitless of your driving, because you are, in all probability, one of the drivers who is a threat to my continued well-being.

I used to be an incredibly shitty driver... oh, sure, I thought I was a good one, and could drive fast, yet safely, etc... but then I got married and started driving more safely. Partly because my wife made it quite clear that she didn't like my driving (yes you did hon), but mostly because I couldn't live with myself if I got in an accident and hurt her. And to all you dweebs thinking that it's sappy and crap - yeah it is, and if you ever really love someone then you'll understand it at that time. I know I didn't until it happened to me.

Driving more safely now, I'm amazed at just how many utterly shitty drivers there are out there... and I also know that just about every single thing that I see them doing is the same crap I used to do. It's not safe. You are not some god of driving. You are causing problems by tailgating and making other drivers uncomfortable around you.

Yeah, I still speed, but not like I used to. I no longer consider the speed limit as a posted minimum, and I'm a lot more wary of rapid lane changing and weaving. Tailgating is just abysmally stupid. Not that I recognized these things as bad back when I was driving like that, and not that I actually expect any of the moron drivers out there to become enlightened based on reading this... but maybe in a few years they'll also look back on their driving habits and realize what idiotic punks they really were. I do.

All of that said, as long as the system works well (which is a huge caveat), I'm all for it... this probably would've saved my sister a great deal of physical therepy when some stupid driver decided to cross over the double yellow line in rush hour traffic and hit my sister's brand new Honda at 45 mph (which is the speed both cars were going... in opposite directions). My sister was fortunate to live through the accident, thanks to modern safety systems, but she wasn't able to drive for nearly 6 months afterwards due to injuries. And I know she was lucky.

If both cars had been equipped with such a system maybe each car would've only been doing 30 mph at impact instead... which would've been less than half the impact force. Sounds good to me.

Re:Anything that improves safety is worth it.

[n6mod]

Regular driving exams, say every three to five years: great idea.

Graduated licensing programs: great idea.

Mandatory driver training: great idea.


Stop right there. You were on a great roll there. We have hideous safety statistics in this country precisely because we give out driver's licenses in Crackerjack boxes. And we respond by lowering speed limits, which doesn't really work.

You want safe roads at any cost? Really? OK, simple: National 15 MPH speed limit, enforced with severe jail time. Or maybe death. Didn't think so.

You make a few great points here. Driver training and licensing in this country is a joke. I don't have his statistics handy, but there is an ER doctor in Southern California who is tracking the DMV records of a group of drivers who participate in performance driving schools (NASA and SCCA street schools, Open Tracks, AutoX schools and the like). He's seeing better than 90% reductions in both accident and moving violation rates. Ninety Percent! From better driver training. Not automagic systems that drive for you, just having a human that can actually control the machine.


Black boxes reporting accident data: great idea.


There are very real privacy concerns here. And very real property right concerns. It's not that having good data in a real accident is bad, it's the legal environment surrounding such data in the country that is horrifying. We have an environment where speed limits are set for political (I don't want them going fast near *my* house) and revenue reasons, not actual safety and engineering reasons. Yet exceeding those artificial speed limits is prima facie evidence of fault in any situation.


Automatic safety systems: great idea.


Maybe. Have you ever been in a situation where avoiding the accident required accelerating? How do you think the brake grabbing systems described here are going to react?


Photo radar: great idea.


If it were actually being used to enhance safety in places where the speed limits are set rationally, yes. But they're not. They're used to enhance revenue in places where the speed limits are set arbitrarily.

Let's look at a related issue, one that based on your comment is near and dear to your heart: Red light cameras. There have been numerous cases over the past couple of years of municipalities reducing yellow light duration to increase revenue. In Fairfax County, VA, cameras were installed at one intersection because of high incidences of red light runners. The cameras were catching an average of 52 events a day. Increasing the duration of the yellow from 4s to 5.5s reduced that number from 52 to less than 1. Engineering fixed the problem, not enforcement.


Hell, GPS tracking of vehicles would, if it reduced traffic deaths by a few percent, would be well worth the loss of privacy.


Do I *have* to quote Franklin?

I'm not worried that I'll be the cause of an accident. But I'm scared shitless of your driving, because you are, in all probability, one of the drivers who is a threat to my continued well-being.


I hear you. The average joe out there can't drive. The solution is to *teach them to drive*. It really is that simple.


Let's get our streets safe.


Through training and safety engineering, yes. Trying to idiot proof the roads and cars isn't going to work. Reducing the idiocy of the average driver will. (And does!)

Re:Whatever happened to Volvos being the safest?

[luugi]

Maybe Volvo doesn't have that technology because it's not safe yet.

Re:Great...

[fataugie]

Wrong...what we need is an AssHole Detector (TM) installed in every car.

The car could record your driving habits over a period of time (week, month, whatever) and make a decision as to whether or not you are an AssHole(TM).

If you fall into the AH catagory, the car/truck/suv uses it's built in ejection seat to remove the problem...so there would never be anyone following you close because they would be ejected.

See how simple that would be? Excuse me while I make my way to the patent office....

The death of Cruise Control

[dsmoses]

With as many people that tailgate and cut over directly in front of other cars (including just a few feet in front of one they just passed on an empty highway to then just step on the brakes), this should wreek havoc on cruise control systems and also wear through brake pads like sawdust.

At 60 mph, a one second distance gap is 88 feet. So 300 feet is roughly 3.4 seconds. Does anyone even stay that far behind the car in front of them anymore? I remember driver's ed/mva handbook recommending 3 seconds or so in distance, but my observations are that this is rarely more than 1 - 1.5 seconds.

Also, isn't it the last thing people need is a distraction in the event of an emergency. Granted it will take their concentration away from a cell phone or makeup application. How many times has a startled passenger's shrieking caused confusion just enough to distract the driver from the real danger?

Re:The death of Cruise Control

[Tenebrious1]

At 60 mph, a one second distance gap is 88 feet. So 300 feet is roughly 3.4 seconds. Does anyone even stay that far behind the car in front of them anymore? I remember driver's ed/mva handbook recommending 3 seconds or so in distance, but my observations are that this is rarely more than 1 - 1.5 seconds.

Perhaps, but when the system automatically slows you down, on a country highway at night with no other cars, and as you gently roll to a stop you finally see the deer standing frozen in the middle of the road, you'll be thankful for it. Most people hit deer because by the time they see the deer within their headlights, it's too late to slow down.

Or maybe in the rain, when you need more time to slow down. Heavy rain, some fog, is that car really 300 feet in front of you? Those tail lights look dim enough to be 300 feet, but maybe the fog is so heavy it's only 100 feet? Maybe the idiot is running without tail lights.

There are plenty of situations where this could come in very handy.

Re:Whatever happened to Volvos being the safest?

[Brento]

since when has a volvo ever been considered a "sports car"?

The C70 does 0-60 in 6.8 seconds, for starters. Mine tops out around 135. It's one heck of a sports car.

Full service

[HarveyBirdman]

It then taps the brake and tightens the seatbelt. A buzzer goes off and a light on the dash is illuminated.

An in-dash audio/video capture system allows the driver to make any final requests if they are clear headed enough. If not, it'll make a great file for collision and safetey research centers or alt.binaries.tasteless.

An embedded MP3 begins to play a prayer in the religious demoniation of the driver's choice or, if the driver is an athieist, something by, uh, Isaac Asimov or something.

The driver's lower portion is wrapped tightly in Saran-Wrap[tm] by robotic arms so that the ambulence workers can be shielded from the soiled underwear.

A small hole opens in the seat, and a pair of cybernetic lips firmly and lovingly kisses the driver's ass goodbye.

Re:300 ft ?

[turgid]

It depends how fast you are going. 300ft at 70mph is approximately the minumum safe distance to leave between cars to enable them to take the appropriate action in the event of an emergency. If everyone knew this and stuck to it there would ba a heck of a lot less accidents on the motorways.

Re:Older Drivers...

[cayenne8]

THis is what old people need. I have been rear ended 3 times by old people now.

Well, that brings up a whole new topic....as we all live to be older..we need to consider when you are too OLD to drive...not by just age...but, probably testing at a certain age.

I think Dennis Miller put it best.."I don't think you should be allowed to drive IF you are old enough to remember when there WEREN'T any cars..."

Re:300 feet?

[dex22]

You don't like seatbelts, and you claim to have exceptional response skills.

It is for people like you, who think they're great drivers so don't pay attention, that this system was developed.

Tailgating problem

[kongjie]

I think most of the posts (even those in jest) show what a lot of people already know: there is a serious problem on US highways with vehicles not leaving adequate distance in front of them.

Following closely to prevent someone "cutting in" is dangerous and illegal. If someone enters the space cushion you have left in front of your vehicle, then you have to slow down until you re-establish a safe zone. It's too bad for you if you think you're a road warrior and can't bear the idea of allowing a crappy driver to get in front of you.

Safe driving begins before you get in your vehicle: if you are in a mindset where you need to drive recklessly in order to shave five minutes off your driving time, you've already screwed up. Leave earlier or move closer to work. Take public transportation.

With all the attention paid over the last couple of decades to drunk driving, you would think that people might notice that the real deadly statistics come not from driving drunk but from driving itself. It is time when we Americans need to realize that the numbers of people killed on highways because of aggressive, irresponsible and careless behavior is no longer acceptable just to maintain our carefree, my car represents my Yankee Doodle individuality lifestyles.

Honda would be taking a chance

[luugi]

They would have a lot of courage to put out something in the market like that. I could see a lot of people blaming the device for accidents. How would they prove the system worked properly?

The specified distance makes no sense

[mark-t]

300 feet is wrong.

The distance that the car should be measuring should be based on whatever the current speed of the car is to compensate for the fact that the faster the car moves, the greater the breaking distance, and if the car is barely crawling (as in bumper-to-bumper rush hour traffic), the stopping distance is practically zero.

Most driving guides recommend that you follow the car in front of you no closer than 2 seconds and I would think that any automatic braking system that kicks in at around that would probably be very appropriate, personally. But 300ft? Even at highway speeds that's almost 4 seconds of distance between cars!!! For in-city driving, it would be absurd.

Re:Instead of braking...

[SnowDog_2112]

It starts with an alert chime. It doesn't apply the tactile feedback (seatbelt+brake) unless you fail to respond and it feels a collision is still likely.

Honda has a whole page about this feature; check Google (or just read other posts in this thread, it's been linked twice already that I've seen).

Jeez

[Z0mb1eman]

99% of the replies so far may as well be modded -1 Redundant.

Do you people honestly think the Honda engineers aren't bright enough to think of the objections people here came up with 5 seconds after reading the article summary and pouncing on the "Post" button?

The article is light on details, but it still makes the point that this is a collision WARNING system. It doesn't seem to be designed to stop the car or brake to avoid collisions; it's a system that fires off a small warning whenever it detects a potentially dangerous situation - say, if you're dozing off in rush hour traffic and you don't notice the car in front of you is stopped, this'll ideally snap you back to attention.

It doesn't seem that it will brake enough to get you rearended; I'm SURE the Honda engineers can come up with a way to tell the difference between a squirrel, a tree, and an SUV; it's not very difficult to tell which way a vehicle is going, so it's easy to make the system ignore cars going past you in the opposite direction, or cars passing by perpendicularly at an intersection. I don't know the reasons behind the 300 feet range (although I'd imagine the range is dynamic and proportional to your vehicle's speed), but without more information I'll have to assume the Honda people did their research and have some rationale.

There, was that so hard? I'm a couch Honda engineer too now!

New warning buzzer

[WinDoze]

DING, your door is ajar.

DING, your headlights are on.

DING, you just crashed into a semi.

The Problem

[Schezar]

The problem here is that the majority of people are poor drivers. I blame our driver's education system. Notice, these classes teach very little about vehicle handling or basic mechanical functionality: they teach about the laws and rules of the road.

Now, it's good that Timmy knows the difference between a white line and a yellow line, but that won't help him when he doesn't understand that if he decellerates on a slick curve, the weight of the vehicle will transfer to the front wheels, possibly causing the rear ones to lose traction and induce an oversteer (Timmy spins out and causes an accident).

Or how about proximity? Notice how, when there's a small piece of debris in the road, most drivers give it a good 4-6 feet of berth just because they don't actually have a sense of the boundries of their car.

Driver's education should be rigorous and difficult: not designed so that everyone passes. (How many people -actually- fail Driver's Ed? There was one in my entire high school class of several hundred, and she was, shall we say, half a half-wit ((a quarter-wit?)) ).

[end_rant]

This is going to hurt

[WinDoze]

Honda: ALL YOUR BRAKES ARE BELONG TO US!

I'm really very sorry. That was very Tourette's-like.

Volvo...

[httpamphibio.us]

Volvo unveiled this in their safety vehicle about a year ago. It hasn't made it into a non-concept car yet, but this technology seems nearly identical.

Oh goody even less attention required.

[Moderation abuser]

I wonder what the radar profile of a pedestrian is.

No thanks

[BigBir3d]

I will leave the driving to me. This sounds even more absurd than the Linked Braking System that Honda uses on some of its motorcycles. That took 3 or so revisions to make it reliable, and un-noticable.

Imagine the number of brake checks in your commute to work it it goes off anytime a car is slowing down within 100m of your front bumper. Where will the fuse for this be located again? ;-)

As much as I love technology...

[Polyphemis]

As much as I love technology, I still hold my own discretion in higher regard. I can see how something like this COULD be useful in some situations, but typically there's so much going on around me on the road at any given time that I'd rather rely on my own judgment than place faith in a machine.

Also, if this type of thing eventually becomes common in cars, I could see how something like this could motivate some people to pay LESS attention to the road and be more likely to cause accidents than that would have without it. I wouldn't mind if the device was designed in such a way so that it merely redirected attention to another aspect of driving while providing a safety buffer, but something that could encourage people to pay even less attention to their own driving concerns me.

How about PRE-Crash Detection?

[medscaper]

I saw the title, Honda Crash Detection System and I'm thinking, "Gee, that's retarded", while picturing in my head a horrid rollover accident with flying airbags and broken glass and bodies in the street...

...and this little red beeping "Crash" light flashing on the dashboard.

Real helpful, Honda. {smirk} Thanks.

Re:How about PRE-Crash Detection?

[zerocool^]

...flying airbags and broken glass and bodies in the street...

And pieces of "type R" stickers and rear deck spoilers *everywhere*. /me drives a honda.

Re:How about PRE-Crash Detection?

[nadadogg]

I wonder what happens when they take off the stock Honda badge and replace it with an indiglo glow in the dark badge. You think it will still work, or will the glowing pretty light make the automatic braking system do the macarena?

Re:How about PRE-Crash Detection?

[Fascist Christ]

I imagine it would go as follows:

1. Drive a Honda
2. Observe flashing light on dashboard
3. ???
4. CRASH!!!!

Re:How about PRE-Crash Detection?

[TheRaven64]

I got a flashback to MS Flight Simulator 4, which had a checkbox labeled crash detection in the settings. If you disabled it and fled vertically downwards then the game would crash instead of the plane...

Re:How about PRE-Crash Detection?

[SuiteSisterMary]

Maybe it'll VOX little haikus to you while you lay bleeding in the street.

Spring birds fly above,
Your car lies in many parts.
Can you feel your legs?

Crash Detection System

[AnalogDiehard]

MSNBC is reporting that Honda Motor Co. unveiled an early crash-detection system for one of their vehicles.

Will it detect impending crashes like Enron, Worldcom, and Tyco?

We SO need one of these for the stock market.

Re:ABS Works

[Alan Partridge]

"Oh, how did you figure that braking and releasing would ever be better then constant braking. I mean if the wheel isnâ(TM)t moving wonâ(TM)t it have more friction then if the wheel is allowed to rotate, even a little?"

Errmm... the REAL point of ABS is to allow you to steer - and thus retain control of - your vehicle under emergency braking. It's saved my life TWICE.

well that sucks

[calethix]

" If the driver fails to respond, the system kicks in and brakes more while also tightening the seat belt. "

What if I'm *trying* to hit someone because they cut me off. Is there a button to disable it?

For those humour impaired people, I'm joking.

Re:well that sucks

[solarrhino]

What if I'm *trying* to hit someone

"I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that."

Great Feature

[AlgUSF]

Now I don't have to even look at the road when I got my car on cruise at 85.

Great idea!

[tyroneking]

Sounds like a great idea, if a little worrying at first.

I think the article gives slightly the wrong impression; implying that the car takes control if it detects a crash is likely to happen - a good trick if a piece of hardware can predict a crash before a human can ;)

In fact the system seems to detect the liklehood of a crash and warn the driver, tightening seatbelts and readying brakes, and if the driver agrees that a crash is possible and applies the brakes, the system helps this process.

Some good info on the Honda site (good graphics too), here's a snippet:

"This system determines the likelihood of a collision based on driving conditions, distance to the vehicle ahead, and relative speeds, and uses visual and audio warnings to prompt the driver to take preventative action. " ... and I suspect that radar is not the only component.

Seems like this is part of a long term drive in Japan to make safer cars: remember the device that sprayed the driver with lemon scented water if it sensed him/her getting drowsy? Or the breath-alcohol test device that prevented drunk drivers from starting their vehicles?

Apparently, part of the CMS system will also keep the driver in their lane too.

Not sure why such systems are not more available in the West, maybe Japan's drivers are more ready to accept such restrictions on their driving freedom. Whatever the reason they seem to have reasonably safe roads even by Nordic standards

I guess in the West drivers are keener to protect their driving freedoms; this is certainly the case in the UK, but let's face it, most people can't drive well most of the time because driving is risky and stressful. Speeding, driving whilst talking on a mobile phone, driving when sleepy, driving while under the influence of alcohol or drugs or prescribed medicines, are too common - and at the end of the day it's just another poor working stiff who ends up in hospital or the cemetery.

I remember this project at Penn State

[Anonymous Coward]

Dr. Tony Ferraro worked on this project along with my current advisor, they actually used a radar device placed in a round container stuck to the front of a car...crap was bigger back then... from the videos I saw it worked quite well. It actually compared the present situation with an enormous database full of other situations. It did set off the alarm when they quickly approached a guard rail on a sharp turn though. Among other things, it knew current speed and acceleration relative to objects in front of the car.

unexpected feature

[bbc22405]

Who will be the first to spoof the radar, so that the Honda next to you will kindly slow down and let you cut? :-)

Directional Radar

[Eightlines]

Focussing the radar seems like an easy solution in which there's no need to associate it with GPS or road conditions. Simply target it based off of your steering wheel rotation.

If the steering wheel is pointing to the right, focus the radar to the right as that's where the collision would most likely happen providing it was you doing the hitting.

Now if it was someone going to ram you from behind could it temporarily boost the speed for a second?

Drivers Ed

[Malicious]

Back in my Driver training years ago, I remember my instructor having his own break pedal, in the case of emergeny.
Every time he touched the thing, i wanted to hit him. If he thought for even a second that I was going to fast, he'd apply the break. Then when I would reach for it, it wouldn't be there (it would be slightly depressed) and I'd panic.
[sarcasm]
This is just what I want in my car 24/7
[/sarcasm]

Re:Yet another reason for people to stop thinking

[kalislashdot]

And this is a bad thing? We can wipe out crashes once we get all the cars to drive themselves. I can't wait for the day.

Most people are crappy drivers, and don't think anyways. I am always being tailgated in heavy traffic. "Where are you going to go", they need to pass me and get in my 2 car length space for no reason. I deal with these jerks everyday.

Bring on the automation I say, as long as it runs QNX, hehe.

Crash Detection?

[ivanmarsh]

WARNING: You have crashed!

8^O

Great, but...

[SmurfButcher Bob]

...having done rescue on a few thousand accidents, and been in a few myself... I don't want some naieve black-box 2nd-guessing my decision to smash into something. As odd as it sounds, consider:
- A nice frozen bridge. You've got a stopped/crashed car or obstruction in front of you, and a 90 ton Semi coming in behind you. Sorry, but I'm gonna get through that obstruction and out of his way, thanks.
- Hitting snow/ice banks at a low speed is a stupid idea that usually gets you stuck.
- If some on-coming idiot swerves into my lane, the last thing I want to do is stop and spend MORE time in his path. Thanks, I might prefer to add a little more energy and get out of his way as quickly as possible.

This idea ranks right up there with cars that refuse to start unless the clutch is pushed in. It sounds like a really great idea... until you stall in a high speed intersection, and then you're dead along with whoever hits you. Rather a shame, considering that you could otherwise just stuff it into gear and crank your car out of the way... but hey, cars never stall, fuel filters never ice up, and timing belts never break.

- SBB

Waiting, wishing, for automated driving

[freality]

I'll probably piss-off the red-bloded Americans here, but man, I can't wait to not drive my car. I want to have fully automated driving. I want to finish work on a Friday afternoon, go home, grab my stuff, go to my car and say "Miami Beach, Please!". I want to watch movies for a couple of hours or finish reading Dune, and when I wake up, I'm parked right at my favorite beach. Same thing for the reverse trip Sunday night and Monday mornings wouldn't be half as bad. Paint fuel-cells into that picture and it wouldn't even tweak the greens.

CMU's robotics program has been working on automated driving systems for years. When I was there I heard one of the professors had outfitted his normal home car with about $1500 of equipment and "drove" to school and back every day mostly hands-off. All based on neural-nets and some snazzy control systems.

And that was like 6 years ago. I'm sure there's wisdom in not rushing into something like this, but I also get the feeling there will be some hard lobbying against it. Like, what happens to truckers, cabbies, UPS/Fed-Ex drivers, etc. etc.? Will the (perhaps undeserved) reputation of dangerous speed-freak truckers come home to roost?

I wonder how Detroit would feel. At first, it's a shinny new feature == more margin. But beyond that, I can't help but see cars become even more commodity. All you really end up caring about is your comfort/ammenities.. there won't be as much attention to "performance".. ahhh.. Detroit will ~love~ it, BMW won't.

You could even share these kind of cars, like the Zip cars, but instead of you going to the cars, they come to you. Or perhaps just the under-carriage comes to you and connects to your personal travel cabin. Then, you pull out of the driveway and merge into a long train of like-designed cabins-on-wheels, all virtually-linked together via 802.11z. The road/car system routes you shortest-dijkstra-path to your destination and then your car parks itself once it's dropped you off. There's traffic density that would make clog up modern highways for years, but its all flow-controlled, so you go 120MpH with only inches between cars, so your trip takes half the time.

The moving sidewalk (armchair) of the future? :)

Re:Waiting, wishing, for automated driving

[MagFox]

You know, they have these great things called busses that will take you almost anywhere without your attention required. ;)

Re:Waiting, wishing, for automated driving

[swillden]

I want to have fully automated driving.

I just make my wife drive. It's very pleasant as long as I don't look out the window.

Re:Waiting, wishing, for automated driving

[An Onerous Coward]

As someone who spends about 2 hours in his car every day, I hear you. I've never been in an accident, but I've had some very close calls and my reflexes kind of suck. For example, one time a duck landed on the highway right in front of me, and I nearly creamed an Oldsmobile trying to dodge it. Stupid, yes, but that was the decision my brain made. I'm trying to deprogram myself by occasionally whispering "death to all lower life forms" as I drive. Next time, the duck is roadkill, but I still believe that the highways would be safer if my judgments were removed from the equation.

The fact is, even the best driver among us as moments of inattention, bad judgments, irrational desires to gun it and chase down the bastard who swerved in front of you, and incomplete situational awareness.

The system would be difficult to implement on a car-by-car basis. Whatever problem the computer has to solve, it would be infinitely simpler if each car knew what the car next to it was about to do, and could warn neighboring cars about the drastic measures it expected to be taking. Networking would also have advantages because it would enable a higher degree of coordination: routing traffic away from potential jams, allowing groups of cars to drive "in formation," and clearing the road for emergency vehicles.

But that would take a massive investment, and I don't see any easy way to switch over. But a non-networked system might be useful. Even a mediocre system would be useful as a punishment for chronically bad drivers, or for people who aren't capable of driving themselves.

Another thing that's been bothering me: Traffic lights. Even with sensors, they're painfully stupid at times. An ideal system would not only sense the single car idling at the red light, but also the pack of fifteen cars heading towards it on the cross street. That way, the system might wait until after the pack has driven through to switch the light. A vision system to implement this wouldn't have to be very sophisticated, and it would speed up the commute, use less gas, and save wear and tear on brakes.

Eventually, I'm sure cars will drive themselves. We'll all be nervous at first, but I don't think a system would be allowed on the road until it was at least as safe as a better-than-average driver. But even if switching fully over would lead to the same 50,000+ deaths that we're racking up now, we would be better off.

Re:Waiting, wishing, for automated driving

[MxTxL]

There's traffic density that would make clog up modern highways for years, but its all flow-controlled, so you go 120MpH with only inches between cars, so your trip takes half the time.

The problem with this is that everyone has to have the same car performance-wise. That might be achievable. There could be standards mandated to enter the particular roadway... but then everyone using these cars/trucks will have to keep them maintained and performing in the same fashion. This probably isn't achievable. One guys car breaks down suddenly, and the whole system crashs... Literally, as in, into each other. Bob's car has a tire fly off, the 600 cars behind him are going to have a rough time if they are travelling at 120 with scant inches between themselves, no matter how smart the highway is.

This is dumb and this is why

[onyxruby]

This has got to be one of the dumbest ideas I have ever heard about in automotive engineering. First, this thing has a range of 300 feet. This range is so long as to be useless for rush hour traffic. In many metro areas you can't get 300 feet in front of you even if your driving an ambulance with light and sirens. Drivers are going to cut in front of you, and there is nothing you can do about it. The net result of this is two fold. First it desensitises the driver behind you to your brake lights. After someone has their brake lights on for 25 minutes straight, drivers behind them aren't going to know when he puts them on for real. They will become desensitised to his brake lights - this is a bad thing. The second thing this will do is cause a safety problem with the Honda itself. Since the car is riding it's own brakes, they are going to be much warmer after constant usage for 10 to minutes, and thus more prone to failure.

This could also encourage laziness in the part of the driver as he is conditioned not to brake until the car starts braking for him. Remember Pavlov's dog? Same premise works on humans as well. The worst thing about this though is that these vehicles will be driven on roads that see ice, freezing rain and snow conditions. Touching the brakes unexpectedly in these conditions can easily cause a vehicle to go out of control. This is nothing like driving on dry roads at all, and requires much more skill on the part of the driver. Since I live in Minnesota, a state renowned for it's winters and bad weather, this is not an idle concern. Vehicles with brake systems that engage without the driver pressing the brake pedal first should be banned from public roads for safety's sake. I am not referring to brake assist feature in some cars that helps push down the brake pedal when panic braking on behalf of the driver is detected. I say this all as someone who has been in a very severe accident where such a system in the vehicle behind me just might have prevented the accident (rear ended at freeway speed by full size truck).

Famous last words

[Mannerism]

"Yeah, dude, and it's got one of those new collision detection systems...check it out."

Re:Idiots - what about rear collisions?

[morcheeba]

A freind-of-a-friend got the biggest trailer hitch he could find for just this problem. He doesn't have a trailer; it's just additional metal to slow down/inflict damage on tailgaters.

possible scenario

[Archfeld]

you are cruising on the free-way at speed, the car in fron off you slams on its brakes. You realize that you are folloing too close( just like everyone else), and quickly check the lanes to the left and right, taping the accelerator you slide to the right and avoid the hazard, giving the driver behind you ample time to break and avoid the same obstacle....NOW the same scenario, only as you scramble for an exit to the left or right, your car begins to brake by itself making a lane change MUCH harder than it would be if you were at traffic speed or slightly faster. Granted this is probably a fairly rare happening but there are a LOT of options and complications to deal with, and I for one would not feel comfortable driving in a vehicle which did not respopnd EXACTLY as I asked it to.

Big non-boonies highway patrols still use RADAR

[Chazman]

CHP (California Highway Patrol) uses Ka-band RADAR almost exclusively. In fact, in the last five years of driving around southern California, the vast majority of the detector hits I've gotten that I could pinpoint to a particular law enforcement source have been Ka-band RADAR. I've only been hit with LIDAR once. That was a Newport Beach city police motorcycle unit. How do I know this? I've got a Valentine-1 and a Lidatek Laser Echo, and I keep them both on nearly all the time.

Yes, LIDAR has greater range and greater selectivity (can pick out a single vehicle) than RADAR. But it also requires a stable platform and sighting equipment to be used properly. It cannot be used from a moving vehicle. RADAR can. It cannot be used in a shoot-from-the-hip quick reaction scenario. RADAR can. It cannot be used without a sight attached to a stable semi-fixed platform. RADAR can. For these reasons, the demise of RADAR is vastly exaggerated.

New Technology is OK until your life depends on it

[AHumbleOpinion]

Generally speaking, I am surprised to see how negative Slashdotters are to new technology, especially before knowing much about how it works. The assumption always seems to be that the implementation will be completely useless, dangerous and insecure.

New Technology is OK when its just geek toys, but when your life depends on it things are different. A historical example: Dive computers for SCUBA diving. Basically a SCUBA diver can stay at a given depth for only a certain amount of time. Exceed that time and going straight to the surface is no longer a safe option, decompression stops are now required to avoid injury or death. The traditional way to determine time was to use the US Navy dive tables, or something closely based on these tables. In the 90s dive computers appeared and I recall a discussion on a dive boat. Everyone was interested and curious, but who was actually using the dive computers? Doctors, lawyers, business types and such. Who was using mechanical analog guages and dive tables? Engineers, programmers, and other techies.

Big trucks have had this for a while

[DonGar]

They've had this for a while on the big trucks, where the system costs in the $100k range.

They really seem to work, because they've been shown to boost the safety records of the drivers/companies that use them.

I used to have an article about it laying around. I dug it up when a friend and I were discussing what it would take to really build a self-driving vehicle for mass production.

braking and turning

[Merk]

I'm a bit of a racing fan so let me use a few observations from that. ABS helps if you're braking in a straight line, but no form of gas/brake traction-control system helps when your tires lose traction sideways. Once the wheels start to slip to the side they're gone and only counter-steering can help.

The tightest corners can be made when you're not braking or accelerating. You want the car to be completely balanced so that the load is balanced equally between the front and rear tires. Too little downforce on the front and you understeer. Too little downforce on the rear and you oversteer and potentially skid out. While it's true that you can "corner faster" in degrees per second when you're going slower, it's much more difficult to corner well under heavy braking than it is to corner when you're neither braking nor accelerating.

When you're taught "defensive driving" techniques for avoiding an accident, they always teach you to brake, then take your foot off the brake to swerve so you don't end up skidding. The problem I see here is that to do this kind of maneuver well takes coordination. You have to take your foot off the brake as you make the swerve, but if someone/something else is controlling the brake, can you do this well? Even if the system monitors your steering wheel input, will you be expecting whatever it does to the brake once it starts using it?