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High-tech Cars Replacing Driver Skill?
Nick writes "What happens when you take a bunch of average drivers, put them in a car with no high-tech systems like anti-lock brakes and traction control, and ask them to drive on a safety test track? 360-degree spins, of course. And not only do today's drivers need ABS and traction control to keep their cars under control, it also turns out most drivers can't even name the high tech safety systems that are continually saving their butts. And to make matters worse, carmakers plan to install automatic radar-based blind-spot checkers so motorists can avoid looking over their shoulders while changing lanes. Even geeks find some of these technologies scary, including Wired's Bruce Gain, who drove Mercedes' S-Class with automatic braking."
I drove an '89 Celebrity with no ABS or anything other than power steering up until a year ago. You just need to know how to drive the car you're in, not some hypothetical automobile from 20 years ago
yeah, thats going to be real popular, untill there is a sensor malfunction and you take out the little old lady in the pinto stationwagon. Those would have to be out for a few years before, and open source, before Id even begin to trust them.
..i LIKE to drive. Sometimes helpful systems that assume control take all the fun out of things.
This "study" is big-time BS for the simple reason that the typical road-going driver has NEVER been able to pilot a vehicle safely through these sorts of dog-n-pony show tests which is why all of these technologies got invented in the first place.
Seriously, the people doing this study actually think that your typical driver facing a panic situation somehow had the foresight to remember some verbal instruction back from a high school driver's ed class about "Cadence Breaking" before ABS was a standard feature? Or that drivers from as little as 10 years ago had the sort of skid-pad training required to drill in the muscle memory and experience necessary to control a car in an understeer/overseer situation? No way; it was the inability for the typical driver to control a vehicle in these circumstances that led to hundreds of millions of dollars of automotive industry investment in these technologies.
I see what the study is getting at and it is a point that any rational person will agree with; drivers need better skill training. Telling people which way to move the wheel in a spin or how to massage the break pedal out of a textbook (or even on a video) is a useless substitute to making a student actually experience car control and build the muscle memory actually required to apply those skills in a high stress situation. At the same time, rational people also realize that nobody will ever invest the billions of dollars necessary in the sort of meaningful driver education on a skidpad and through static exercises.
Given our inability (through unwillingness of lack of funds) to train drivers, I believe that the technologies we've put on the typical passenger car are pretty amazing.
At the same time, the biggest contributing factor to accidents is simply the fact that people don't pay very much attention. Even with all of the idiot drivers on the road and the noted lack of car control skill, the overwhelming majority of accidents are totally avoidable. Unfortunatly, doing so requires the typical driver to have situational awareness above that of a rock...
Ack! Please, no! I hate it when games put acceleration and braking on the same axis. Please don't do that to real cars. If I can't hit the brake and throttle at the same time, how am I supposed to heel-and-toe downshift (don't tell me to drive an automatic, or a sequential manual) or trail-brake (okay, not on public roads :)? Throttle and brake are independent inputs, and should be treated as such.
People learn the skills appropriate for their lives. Do I know how to castrate a bull or build a replacement wooden wheel for my Conestoga wagon? No, because I'm not a settler living in the early 1800's.
Why not an article that asks the same questions about medical technology? Does the fact that we have made advancements in heart repair, diagnostics, medicines and more somehow indicate that people today are weaker or dumber than those of ten years ago?
Correlation != Causation, yet that seems to be what this article is obliquely suggesting.
If you buy their premise, then go ask some pirates about global warming, they have strong opinions regarding its affect on their trade.
If the ABS comes on then you are driving in a manner likely to endanger life. Most probably your own!
The same applies to traction control. Off the race track, hardly anyone would ever encounter a situation where traction control is needed. Driving on the streets is not like a race track. Nor is it like a video game. I was recently persuaded to try a video racing game by my son. His lap time was 1/3 of mine, but he bumped into all sorts of things that would have cost 1000s to repair in a real car. Persuading kids that "driving a car is just like the video game" will cost a LOT of lives. Far more lives are lost from car crashes than terrorism already. Pretending cars are like video games is more dangerous than Al Quaieda, and no more sensible.
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I have two vehicles, one is a 20 year old sports car and the other is a 13 year old SUV. My SUV had ABS brakes. When I need to stop NOW like someone cutting out in front of me, I hate them because if I slam on the brakes the ABS kicks in and I don't stop. However, in my car when there's snow on the road just tapping the brakes can lead to a loss of control.
ABS does shorten stopping distances on wet or snow covered roads, but if the road is dry, the stop time will be much shorter if the wheels lock and you skid.
What I would like to see is a steering wheel mounted kill switch for ABS. I know when I need to maintain control and I know when it's more important to lock the wheels.
LK
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Being a Mercedes owner, I am always aware of the lengths Mercedes has gone to innovent with new safety technologies that eventually trickle down to everyday cars. However, no matter how many driving schools I go to, no driver ever assumes the car will drive itself. These are bit of technology here to ASSIST but to never REPLACE the driver. The 2007 S-Class offers the ability for its rader-based cruise control to completely stop the car if necessary but as usual the story summary is bunk. WHoever is using or testing these devices as a full replacement for braking are complete idiots. A recent test in Germany showed that the system can fail. With that said, my order for a new S550 is already into the dealer and my car will be here in a few weeks. Hopefully the large amount of money necessary to purchase the car will make the entry of the usual idiot drivers into this space a moot point.
This test is pure bullshit. The only thing it proves is that people don't instantly adapt. If you had done the opposite, taking drivers accustomed to older cars and putting them in a new car with high-tech safety features, they'd fail all the same...
ABS is a very good example. When it came out, it was causing a large number of accidents. People accustomed to standard brakes would continue their "cadence-braking" techniques on their new ABS-equiped vehicles, and would therefore be unable to stop.
Even though people are accustomed to it now, I personally dislike ABS because of the trade-offs made... It is a system that assumes that less braking ability is okay, provided you are still able to steer. That make be true a lot of the time, but not always. When you have to slam on your brakes, but you still roll into an accident, you can thank ABS for that...
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What does this prove? See subject for an easy analogy.
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My fun/backup car is a 1977 honda civic, complete with manual choke. It takes an act of god to start it, but I have JUST the nack to get it every time. Most people getting into the car wouldn't have any idea what a manual choke is.
Does this mean that anyone who can't start it is not skilled at starting modern day cars?
Ask your typicall 747 pilot to jump into a spitfire and fly 500km.
You see where I'm going. It's like programmers bitching about no one knowing assembler any more, when no one apart from serious system optimizers (or race car drivers....) need to know it.
>After all, why should we expect drivers to keep their *!@?% car in their own lane
Are you being purposely dense or were you born an idiot? This system, just like other safety systems in the car, is made to prevent dangerous situations. The beeping, in fact, is to wake the driver up in case he falls asleep. It doesn't happen often, but it does, and the fact that this device can and will prevent accidents from happening is the whole point of the system and a reason good enough for it to exist. After all, why should we expect drivers not to crash and kill themselves? That's why we have belts and airbags, and they're obviously unnecessary because anyone who knows how to drive shouldn't crash.
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Except you now have an additional set of potential points for failure in a system many will come to rely upon to keep themselves safe. There's alot of evdience(go google it) that suggests people drive faster knowing they have ABS,APRS,SC[stability control],TC[traction control],etc. to help them drive (and survive accidents in the case of Active Passenger Restrain t Systems[airbags].)
There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.
One of the things that makes a steering wheel a good control input for a car is that in order to make large changes in what your car is doing, you have to make large changes in the control input. Want to floor the car? You have to STOMP the gas peddle. What to stop SUDDENLY? You have to STOMP the brake. Want to make a SHARP turn? You have to turn the wheel at least a half ref, often up to 2 revs for really sharp, and almost a quarter for a turn that will induce a skid at highway speed before you have a chance to correct it.
There's also a reason your acceleration and braking are controlled by your feet - because your leg muscles are stronger than your thumb muscles. You can't have your acceleration/braking controlled by a non-resistive joystick, because it'd just be too easy to sneeze/drop your coffee/knock it with your elbow and have sudden acceleration or braking. You need pretty stiff resistence to prevent accidental input. Now can you imagine driving for an extend period of time using your thumb muscles instead of your leg muscles?
Even on vehicles that have throttle controls (like planes and boats), the throttle is a separate input device, has a large range of motion, and the vehicle being controlled usually experiences INFREQUENT velocity changes.
paintball
I would be interested if my assumption is true, and that is the more you automate the car into preventing the driver from losing control the more likely that driver will eventually pay so little attention to their driving that when they do ultimately push the car too far the result will be catastrophic.
The less drivers need to think about the fact they are in control of a couple of tonnes of metal adhering to the whims of inertia the less attention they'll pay to that fact. When this innatentive Michael Schumacher finally does push his vehicle past its ability to correct for driver stupidity, the speed at which the car leaves the road is therefore higher, making a bigger crash and increasing the chances of making driver/passenger/pedestrian into shoe custard.
SO, if that is the case, adding more stupidification features into automobiles may reduce the number of collisions, but increase the odds of the collision causing death.
Something for the grant hungry amongst you to draft a study proposal over.
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Well, say what you will, I like having power steering and power breaks. I could do without the automatic transmission, but apparently many cars no longer come with "standard" transmissions.
The ability to slow down for traffic in front of the vehicle would be appreciated as well. I have been in two accidents where the driver of the vehicle following did not pay attention and slammed into someone that had stopped. A system that helped prevent this from happening would have saved time and effort on my part, especially since the insurance payments are never really enough to cover your expenses.
When driving I also worry about my blind spots quite often. I now drive a minivan and it's difficult to see small cars that are traveling in my blind spot... As a motorcyclist I often have people pull into my lane and have to keep a constant eye out to prevent injury.
So nebulus comments about how no one needs traction control outside of racetracks, attributing new driver skills to skills picked up in video games and talking about how if you took away modern technology like anti-lock breaks etc modern drivers would have more accidents... Well, I'm sorry wasn't that why the new systems were added in the first place? To make driving safer....
Also, I'm highly doubtful that locking the brakes on dry pavement will stop you faster than anti-locking brakes. From my own personal experience it takes longer to stop and you have less control so it appears to me that this is just FUD.
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I think much of what goes wrong in driving is the result of the increasing disconnect from reality that modern drivers face.
When you're riding a bike, the danger of what can happen if you're not cautious is all too real. Same with skiing. Same with walking.
Cars are another story entirely. It goes far beyond gadgetry like ABS, traction control, and the other modern technologies. It's far more fundamental than that.
You're in an enclosed environment. The windows are up. You can't fully hear the sounds outside the car. When you're on the highway going 80 mph, you've got the windows up. You can't feel or hear the loud, howling, fierce, blistering wind, the loud, raw sound of the tires grinding down the pavement. The shrieks of cars and trucks passing you by. You hear and feel maybe 20% of that, with the windows rolled up. These are all danger cues, things to keep you on high alert, but you've blocked them out, enclosed in the false security of your vehicular cockpit, with comfortable reclining bucket seat, music and talk radio, comfort-maximizing air conditioning and heating, zero wind, etc.
And then you've got those nice cars with the great suspension. No longer can you feel the all-too-real road beneath you. Now you don't even realize you just drove over a giant pothole at 40 mph.
The car control schema itself is like a video game. One pressure-sensitive button to stop, another to go. A wheel to steer. Each of these controls, your low-effort movements are amplified 1000x to control the multi-ton vehicle you're sitting in. Tired of pressing the B button? No problem, flip on the cruise control.
And most importantly, of course, is the need for speed! We love going 70, 80, 90 mph -- as fast as we can get away with. Why? Because we love to live in the moment, and that's ALL you feel when you're zooming along at 100 mph down an open road. You're steering a giant death machine at 100 mph...you don't have TIME to think about anything but the present.
And this, "living in the moment," is dangerous for exactly the same reasons it's enjoyable: You're not thinking about the future. Not even the near future. Not even the next few minutes. You've all but completely blocked out all thoughts, all concerns of the potential consequences of your actions.
Now people have argued that keeping a skill like driving a vehicle safely is no longer required as computers will be able to do it for us. But the required skill here- to be able to pilot a big hunk of metal, plastic and glass among other similar vehicles without anyone getting killed will still be a required skill for many years to come.
I think the real question here is how much control of these machines can be safely handed over to the judgement of an automated system, and whether we'd be willing to accept human death caused by such a system.
It's hard enough to accept death if it's human error or bravado that caused the accident. But when an error on your onboard computer means your car rams the back of a 7 seater and kills the two five year olds in the back seat, who do you blame?
Now people will answer with 'but planes already have autopilots and all sorts of automated systems' but a n autopilot doesn't do much more than keep a passsenger plane pointed at the desired heading while two or three professional crew members keep the plane safe. There's still a pilot and crew watching out for the safety of the plane and passengers, there are Ait Traffic Controllers making sure that planes don't come within miles of each other, and planes don't have to watch out for pedestrians (much).
Computers won't make driving much safer for now, and if we're going to allow automated systems such as these to get into the hands of ordainary people, who will take them as an excuse to pay less, not more attention at the wheel, then we're going to have to deal with the consequences of computer error killing people on a regular basis on our roads.
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You sir, have hit the nail on the head. AFAIK, drivers 30 years ago were the same as they are today. 30 years ago, most people didn't take advanced driving courses, or even know that much about their cars. The article makes it sound as if most drivers used to be taught advanced driving skills but nowdays aren't. This is not the case. The systems in todays cars do nothing but increase the safety for both average and advanced drivers.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but I've never seen an episode of Initial D and I detest drifters. Heel and toe downshifting and trail-braking are both valid, legitimate maneuvers used in all forms of racing (you know, even NASCAR drivers heel/toe, though they really don't turn so much to need trail-braking). It also just so happens that both of those techniques require throttle and brakes to be discrete inputs. I don't mind drive-by-wire so much (the throttle on my car is drive-by-wire), but I do need my throttle and brakes to be able to respond simultaneously. That can't happen if they're mapped to opposite ends of the same axis. There's no way you can have z+ input at the same time you have z-.
'... it also turns out most drivers can't even name the high tech safety systems that are continually saving their butts'
Why is this a problem? There are plenty of things my Mum doesn't understand about her PC but it doesn't stop her getting enjoyment from using it.
I bet most of the youngsters her don't understand what double-declutching is, why it was needed and what invention came along that made it unnecessary?
Do you understand how the electronics in the ECU that drives the engine works? I'd bet half the geeks here don't know that a cam shaft and a crank rotate at different speeds.
This is soooo much of a non-story.
Sure some cars have all these automatic features, but many of these are for people who are either too lazy, or have neglected their good driving techniques for far too long. A machine is not a good substitute for informed human judgement. Sure antilock breaks are more effecent than regular breaks, but if you need radar to check your blind spots, perhaps the vechicle you're driving is too big. There are countless people who drive mammath suvs who learned how to drive on a small car. Because of this, they have bad habits like taking 2 parking spaces in a parking lot. I drive a small compact (1999 ford escort se) and i have 2 very small blind spots, I don't need radar, and i really dispise people who drive large suv's and then almost merge into me because my roof is up to their mirrors. Perhaps suv drivers should be forced to get a new licence to prove they can drive the supersized cars.
Either way i'm not a fan of automated features. Like automatic transmission, its great for people who are lazy, but most times a manual will be more effecent (and imo safer in unsafe road conditions). Certanly there are features that without a doubt make people safer, but these features are no subsitute for safe driving practices.
Pardon me, but the poster can't drive well either. It's dangerous to look over your shoulder when changing lanes. Only look to the left and right to see if there are cars next to you. Use your mirror to look behind you. Looking over your shoulder takes your eyes too long the front. Many accidents happen this way.
I have always thought that modern learner cars allow the pupil to get away with far too much. When I learned the car had ABS, power steering and fuel injection. Now they even come with parking sensors! Being able to drive in a car that does everything for you is great, until it doesn't. Then you're screwed.
My last car was a Citroen AX - carburettor engine, manual choke, no ABS, no power steering, no parking sensors - nothing. Car before that? 1986 VW Polo - that didn't even have servo assisted brakes (PUMP THAT PEDAL!)!. Did I ever crash them? Spin them? Lose control in a skid? No. Why not? Because I learned how to drive, not just how to work the controls. I was well aware of the limits of both the car and myself. If I pushed, it would let me. And I'd be the one suffering.
One of the rules of the driving test in the UK is that the driver MUST be in control of the vehicle at all times. So, let people have their electronics, their gizmos and their gadgets, but don't let them into the toy cupboard until they've proven that can go without.
"You have to STOMP the gas peddle. What to stop SUDDENLY? You have to STOMP the brake. "
No you don't. Its the mark of an experienced driver to be giving huge inputs for any reason.
The amount of pressure needed to floor the gas is only slightly higher than that need to move forward a 1 MPH. Likewise, unless you're driving a huge 40 ton earthmover, braking force to lock the wheels is only slightly greater than the force necessary to gently stop the car.
Since you seem to be inexperienced, let me point out a few things to you:
1) the gas pedal does not provide proportional input to fuel system. That is, pressing the gas slightly may provide proportionally greater amounts of fuel than if you press the gas 3/4's of the way to the floor (and before you argue I'm wrong, re-read the sentence. Remember the key word is "proportionally")
2) The brake pedal is very proportional because it allows you to do what's called "modulating" the brakes. The gives you the ability in emergency braking to take your brakes right to the limit by modulating pressure as you feel a wheel starting to lock.
I realize to most 17-25 year olds with only a few years of driving that the controls seem poor when compared with your PS2, but remember, if you understand how to drive, you'll realize that video game controls are crude compared to the controls in an automobile. Its also not helped by the fact that the SUV's you tend to prefer have *bad* control systems, because you guys decided that "chunky looks" and bad gas mileage are way cooler than operating a vehicle that requires precision and finesse. And now you're bitching that the crappy vehicle you chose is no fun to drive. Boo hoo.
Consider yourself lucky...my experience with SUV and pickup drivers is that they want to drive 20 over the speed limit in blizzard conditions. So if I'm going 10 under in my little Cavalier, they cut you off and slam on their brakes because the person that (was) in front of me has to slow down to turn left (sounds odd, but this is a daily occurrence in the winter). I wouldn't say I'm an excellent or even great driver, but ABS has saved my ass constantly in these situations (and at night where it's difficult to judge road slipperyness, and not wanting to get caught by the red light camera adds to the freak out factor).
The problem with destroying the car in front of you is that unless you totally vaporize it you'll have to drive through the debris. That really sucks.
while driving his enormous SUV 52 in the 65 passing lane and backing up traffic for a mile behind him
While I agree that driving well below the speed limit in the passing lane is indicative of poor driving skills, I do not understand why people get upset when somebody is passing another vehicle while driving at the speed limit.
Don't get upset at me just because I am temporarily preventing you from speeding. It's called the passing lane, not the speeding lane.
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I think some rear-facing, side-mounted, wide-angle video cameras would be better than "blind-spot checking radar." I would never be able to trust a simple indicator light. An actual visual from a better angle would be more useful, I think.
The picture you sketch makes me see roads almost as a system of public transport. You punch in your destination, and with minimum input from you, you're driven to it (quickly, safely, smoothly and efficiently). Sounds great to me! But in a system like this, what's the use of having a sporty car that can pull serious g's when accelerating and cornering? Really, the weakest of economy cars could perform just as well as a sporty one in an automated system like the one you describe.
As for me, I think this is a very good thing: it would encourage responsible, economical cars. But I also know that the more nostalgia-prone drivers who prefer sporty cars would really hate this.
If you want to turn off the DSC (dynamic stability control) you can do so from a switch on the console. Of course, this leaves the ABS engaged, but I can definitely notice a difference with the DSC off. For those who dont' know, the DSC system controls the amount of power transferred the engine make. For instance, it prevents wheel spin by reducing the flow of fuel so you can't "peel out" with DSC engaged.
All of these technologies are tools to improve driving safety. The point of ABS isn't to allow drivers to stop without pumping the brakes, the fact of the matter is that computer control allows the car to stop in a significantly shorter distance than any human could manage. Partly because the computer samples and responds several hundred times per second, but also because computers never lose their cool when coming around a corner and seeing a semi truck stopped in the middle of the lane.
A (silly) analogy would be saying that antibitoics are inhibiting the ability of the human immue system to evolve, so we should just let people die.
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It gives you greater control over the vehicle.
Stick is the CLI of driving.
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