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When an Algorithm Takes the Wheel
Wired has an interesting look at Jaguar's new automated driving dynamics system in their new XK convertible. From the article: "During an extreme test of the XK's handling capabilities, the car only fishtailed back and forth once after I jerked the steering wheel on a wet road around a 90 degree turn while driving at about 60 mph. The car's back wheels swung first left then right before the XK's sensors registered a difference in torque between the rear tires and, transparent to me, righted the fishtailing effect by a combination of de-acceleration, tire rotation and vehicle weight distribution control. More often than not, the sensation of flatness, as if there were a vertical force pinning the car to the road, was also felt then and when taking less extreme curves at high speeds."
This technology is great, but for the love of god, please let me be able to turn it off when I want to! If I want to give the car some extra gas through a corner and kick the back end out, don't interfere with me. Safety is a great goal, but I want to tell the car what to do - I don't want the car telling me what I can do. There are times when traction control gets completely in the way of non-spirited driving, too (like going up a snow-covered driveway).
Toyota/Lexus is horrible about this. They include intrusive control systems and don't give you any easy way to turn it off.
The cadence you get to experience when the XK's engine is pushed toward the 600 rpm point is what Jaguar touts as a centerpiece technology feature.
Either it got some kind of weird V8 engine, or this is a typo. I think it is the latter - in fact, 6000 rpm would sound about right.
"You mortals are so obtuse." -Q
KITT: "Michael, I don't think I can do that"
Michael: "That's alright little buddy, I know you can" [Pushes button to do STUPID ass maneouver]
Also, "Little buddy" does Michael not realize that he is a human, 6'4, probably about 180lbs (David Hasselhoff is kinda lankey) talking to a car that you know - weighs a lot - especially with all the toys it has built into it.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
the car only fishtailed back and forth once after I jerked the steering wheel on a wet road around a 90 degree turn while driving at about 60 mph.
I've never wanted to be a Wired reporter so bad...
SecurityPub.com
Side sensors on the car's side, for example, gauge if the car is about to roll over, and then activate the roll-over bar, which breaks through the glass of the back windshield.
For front-end collisions, a fiber optic connection from left to right registers impacts. The sensors' algorithms then program the hood and front end to react differently according to what is hit.
For pedestrians, a mesh-like material is activated in less than 50 milliseconds beneath the hood, which serve to cushion the blow upon impact.
These well-nigh amazing safety features leave me asking the same question that I ask myself when I hear GM's OnStar commercials, touting features like calling emergency services on airbag deployment.
How many lives does a feature have to save before it should be required equipment?
Early automobiles were deathtraps, until a fellow by the name of Ralph brought the issue to national prominence in 1965 with Unsafe at Any Speed , a book to which many of us owe our very existence. Since then, we have assumed a right to a safe vehicle. No car company would be allowed to sell a $3000 rattletrap with no seat belts and no air bags and an engine in the passenger seat, even if they required purchasers to sign a safety waiver. I think this can be counted as "progress", though the more Libertarian folks out there might disagree.
But assuming that Da Gooberment has an obligation to obligate safer vehicles, where do you set the bar? If a "mesh-like material" is the difference between injury and Pedestrian Souffle', why not require such a system on all vehicles? Or do I have to cross my fingers and only step out in front of cars built by Jaguar?
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Heh. The guy is brownnosing Jaguar. The high end sedans from BMW, Legus, and Audi do better than six seconds. My Volvo has less than 3000 dollars in mods, and gets 5.3 on a cold day. High-end tuning indeed.
No good deed goes unpunished...
"More often than not, the sensation of flatness, as if there were a vertical force pinning the car to the road, was also felt then and when taking less extreme curves at high speeds."
Yeah, if only there was such a force...
I drive a 1999 Toyota Solara SLE V6. There is a switch beside the transmission to disengage the traction control systems. I absolutely agree with you that their traction control is awful on snow. Getting from my house to the main roads through the residential neighbourhood requires disengaging the traction control and manually shifting the transmission between 1st, 2nd, and automatic. Probably because I'm too cheap to buy snow tires. A 2006 Lexus IS I looked at recently had a 3 way traction control switch: On, Off, and Snow. Apparently, Lexus agrees with us you about their performance on snow. CS
I rotate my tires periodically as well, but not usually when negotiating a 90 degree turn at 60 mph.
...ordinary stability control?
But assuming that Da Gooberment has an obligation to obligate safer vehicles, where do you set the bar? If a "mesh-like material" is the difference between injury and Pedestrian Souffle', why not require such a system on all vehicles? Or do I have to cross my fingers and only step out in front of cars built by Jaguar?
When the costs of the increase in safety make it too expensive for the poor to afford even the cheapest "safe" car.
Blessed be he who reads this post, Cursed be he who tells my boss.
I think I might love this idea being fully explored. Add some more IA, a social conscience. The I-5 and I-405 will get much nicer.
Or,
Or,
To be honest, I still want control of my car. I'll drive, thank you. (Still don't trust ABS since I hit that deer.)
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
Why don't they concentrate their efforts on something more worthwhile - such as making their cars suck less?
Seriously, I've known at least 3 people who bought them (against my advice) who all unloaded their problem-prone cars within a year to some other poor soul. (Just for the sake of not picking strictly on Jaguar, BMWs suck quite a bit sometimes too. I have a friend that I pick up from the BMW dealer's service dept at least once every 2 months or so).
Before any Jaguar fanbois flame on, there's certainly a reason why the resale value of a Jaguar plummets to 21% of its original retail price after only 5 years of ownership.
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
I can build you a vehicle in which you are completely safe at any legal speed. No problem. A first year engineering student could come up with most of the design. Of course, I'm charging a million bucks each for these safety cars but they would save the lives of 90% of the people who annually die of auto accidents. Aren't the lives of all those people worth the extra $985,000 per car. A side benefit would be reduced wear and tear on the roads because of much reduced traffic volume.
A while back there was this airplane show. One of the planes had to fly close to the ground in a sweeping motion. The computer thought it was about to land, and started the landing procedure. For a couple of minutes, the pilot where fighting the computer. The ending was tragic, because the plane did land - in a forrest - and burst into flames.
Some lady slowed to a stop without her tail lights working, so I noticed it at the last moment. I deliberately fish tailed my car, and I was about a foot from her rear bumper. If I had ABS or anti-fishtailing, I would have been in an accident.
God spoke to me.
"I think this can be counted as "progress", though the more Libertarian folks out there might disagree."
What most capital-L Libertarians fail to realize is that you can't "vote with your dollar" if you're dead.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
...but no matter how cool it is, it is still a Ford.
a combination of de-acceleration, tire rotation and vehicle weight distribution control.
Translation: The car tossed him out the window.
The opinions stated herein do not necessarily represent those of anybody at all. Deal with it.
My Volvo has less than 3000 dollars in mods, and gets 5.3 on a cold day. High-end tuning indeed.
That's right, those "type-R" stickers, huge tailpipes and big-ass wings sure can turn a Volvo into a Jaguar. I know, I've seen it in Fast and Furious...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
...the car only fishtailed back and forth once after I jerked the steering wheel on a wet road around a 90 degree turn while driving at about 60 mph
You could also just slow down.
I'm kind of sick of seeing commercials with cars driving 60mph through 2 feet of snow as if it were a hot summer day.
FYI: those cars are sold... they are used. So people that want 3k cars get crappy old ones, instead of what would naturally be better new cars. Just pointing out that because you make something illegal doesn't mean the desire goes away. This is what Libertarians make a fuss about.
But someone dying in a 3k less safe new car is a tragedy. Someone dying in a used 3k car is normal, so we tolerate it.
We always have to find a happy medium for things like this when it comes to safety. You might as well ask: if F1 racers can slam into a wall at 100mph and have the driver walk away... why don't we require all cars to be able to do that? (hint, F1 cars cost millions)
How much does it cost to fix when it breaks!
Sorry, I know for some people, its not an issue. But I can't stand gizmos that break and cost $1k + to repair. Why don't we just mandate better driver education. (Like weekend car control bootcamps or something!!! Like the motorcycle safety courses.)
-=fshalor
Well, the safest thing you can drive is probably an M-1 abrams tank, for $5,000,000, but I doubt many people would actually buy one of those even if they were available to the public :)
They are, they're called SUVs: same weight, same mileage, same damage to other cars in an accident, it just doesn't have the big gun and the tracks.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Or do I have to cross my fingers and only step out in front of cars built by Jaguar?
WTF?! Maybe I am misunderstanding, but if your stepping out in front of moving traffic plan on getting turned in to shusi. What happens if you get knocked over and your head gets ran over by the next car? Saftey devices are great and all, but they can never replace paying attention.
Look left, look right, live.
You have just posted one of the most insghtful and astute statements I think I have ever read on /. And it was pithy to boot.
Thank you.
my pet machine
Examples include: Proper adjustment of the seat and headrests for best control and protection; proper wearing of the seatbelt; proper use of child-safety seats; keeping signal lights in proper function and using the turning signals; Taking new drivers on a real high-speed driving course where they actually do accident avoidance maneuvers; teaching new drivers how to recognize treacherous road conditions; more emphasis on cooperative driving instead of purely "defensive driving" (which quickly turns into a passive-aggressive "I can be in the left lane because I'm doing the speed limit" game).
Less is more.
Actually, what most Libertarians realize is that you cannot govern based on emotions, and that everything has a value.
For example, the latest just-approved medical treatment is usually very expensive (it may have cost $1bn to develop), while the treatments we had 10 years ago are cheaper, but not as effective. Should every medical plan have to cover the expensive option?
For a more stark example, six healthy British men nearly died while participating in a safety test for a new drug. Do you think it ok for drug companies (and indirectly, us consumers) to pay for people to risk their lives for this? Or is it wrong to ascribe a value to this?
Don't anyone mistake this for what it is: a robot that overrides your control inputs.
While enabling the car ( or should I say, irresponsible driver ) to turn corners faster, does it also enable the car to stop hitting the pedestrian crossing the road round the corner? Maybe we should be delveloping that software *first*, and then the 'drive more irresponsibly' later?
Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
Not going to bother looking for it, but the new lexus has a system where the front end is designed to push you up and onto the hood instead of knocking you over, then the hood pops up an inch to cushion your fall. Seriously.. Can't wait for a family to sue because johnny still died.
Playing on the road when nobody is around or when you are on your private land or lake (driving on the ice), is no big deal. In fact, partly growing up on ill/wisc. border, we were taught to play/practise with the car in schools yards, parking lots when nobody was around. Playing with the car is how you learn to handle not only the easy driving but the hard driving as well. The GP is quite correct in wanting a way to turn off the computer.
OTH, it sounds like idiots like you, want total control of how others do things. If you really wish to stop the accidents, far more accidents occur because of drivers talking on the cell phone while driving. Sadly, I would guess that you are one of those idiots.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I still think the best safty feature is the one I invented. A very sharp pin from the dashboard just a few inches from the drivers left shoulder. :)
You'd drive much more carefully with such a "safty" device. And it probably wouldn't kill you unless your a bleeder.
Maybe the Chinese will sell us their used bicycles.
I think it'd probably be better to wait for the car to pass before you step out then hope it's a Jag.
"Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck." -George Carlin
If you're some sort of awesome super-driver that could pass a police offensive driving course while dying of alcohol poisoning and helping your wife give birth, then by all means, you should have a car that lets you "play". But the jackasses that can't get to the grocery store without riding up onto the curb or rear-ending someone, definitely need a car that makes fucking-up harder.
Automated highway systems will never happen.
First, and foremost, you could never have a mixed environment of automated and manually driven vehicles. Watching iRobot and seeing Will Smith take over manual control on an automated highway was completely ridiculous. In an environment where computers will have to react to the unpredictable behaviour of human drivers, the computes will always lose. How many 200 car pileups will have to occur before it is realized that computer drivers and human drivers won't mix. Computers cannot anticipate the irradict behaviour of a drunk driver. Nor can they anticipate a woman swearving across 6 lanes of traffic to hit her exit because she was too busy putting on lipstick to pay attention to the exit signs. Humans and computers won't mix.
Secondly, you need to either put the highways underground or put a cover on them. There is no way a computer driven vehicle will respond appropriately if a deer rushes on the road, or suddenly there is a freak blizzard and the road conditions go from dry to slick. Putting highways in tunnels will mean your eliminating weather and most other external obstacles from interfering with computer driven vehicles. A human might pick up a deer standing still off the side of the road and slow down anticipating if it might jump out. A computer probably wouldn't register the deer was standing there until its firmly embedded in its windshield.
Lastly, simple fact will be that there will be some significant flaw in the entire system. Your not going to get all car manufacturers to use the same systems. Your going to need some external system regulating the traffic and communicating with a variety of different systems which will vary city to city, state to state. Even if the communication protocol is standardized, your still going to have some car manufactures that implement automated driving better then others. A Jaguar or other high end vehicle is going to react faster and have better handling them some Geo Metro or Ford Escort.
Bottom line is, in an environment with so much variation, something will go wrong, and it will cost significant human life. When this happen, people will abandon the concept of computer driven vehicles.
Its a nice hobby, but its a complete waste of time. Unless they invent anti-gravity and force fields, your never going to have an automated highway system.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
There are mods, and then there are mods. Just because most people prefer cosmetic modifications does not mean that you can sneer at performance modifications. And finally, I have no beef with people who modify their car to look cool. They pay for it, and they enjoy it. More power to them.
But an article that feels it can compare the Jaguar performance to Ferrari? It's been a decade since this was honest.
No good deed goes unpunished...
from BMW's motorcycle page:
the K 1200 S hurls you from a dead stop to sixty mph in just 2.8 sec
Like pi? Try 10,000 digits.
My father complains about his anti-lock brakes, says they don't feel "natural." Personally I even hate power steering. Does anyone else feel like these kinds of things distance you from a more natural, intuitive feeling of control?
This space available.
Why should we all have cars again? Why should any of us have cars, actually? It seems more intelligent to be sending these recources into public transit..
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
...this is next: You don't want Mickey D's- eat at Wendy's! You can't put Exxon in me! I want Wawa gas! and for a small fee Sorry, bud...the exit for mom-in-laws is this one.
I hope slashdot got paid to put this up. Sounds like a car commercial to me...
Slashdot didn't, but I'm sure Wired did.
As long as I'm going to lust over a BMW, it might as well be the K 1200 R. I'll give up the extra 4 HP for something that I think looks better and doesn't have to have expensive fairings replaced when I lay it down to avoid that old lady crossing the street.
I have a 1997 Cadillac DeVille, as part of the Northstar system I have ABS/Traction Control and ICCS (Integrated Chassis Control System) AKA Stabilitrak. My car does what this Jaguar does by keeping the car going where I point the steering wheel, and Cadillac has had it since 1997!
The system does what it is supposed to and does it well, it has saved my ass a couple of times on icy winter roads. My only problem is that if you are a good driver these systems will help you, if you are the type that pushes a car just because a system like this in in place you will get into trouble. The systems work very well but they haven't figured out how to change physics yet, a 3,500lb car will not change direction or stop on a dime.
The old adage "Just because you can doesn't mean you should" definatly applies here, drive these cars in a "spirited" fashion but a left turn on an icy road doing 60 mph is not in your future.
Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion, you must set yourself on fire.
I agree with you on the 'high end' tuning front btw. I had a 15 year old supra turbo (bought for £600, ~$1100!) with no mods apart from an air filter and a less restrictive exhaust that'd eat that new jag alive.
"Physics is to math as sex is to masturbation." -R. Feynman
(Rant about cannel road, near Toronto, Canada left out for your sanity)
I know this is going to sound wired but these things are really a major danger in a lot of cases. They make people feel invincible or something like that.
All these systems do not protect us from out own stupidity. Which is what people seem want or at lest expect and the better the system the stupider people get. When something dose go wrong people want to blame anyone or thing but them selves.
After a certain point these system become a hindrance and not a help. (This is actually true for most system that humans have made or built)
And to finish a Quote which I think fits:
"Build a fool proof system and god will build a better fool"
Maybe the fool's need fixing and not the system.
That's medium speed in the marine engine world. If you're really the kind of person who gets off on the noise made by a hot little box with dinky little pistons doing a few hundred horsepower, you really need to experience the engine room of a small motor ship. After a few minutes spent in the presence of several thousand horsepower doing their stuff, you'll realise that any car is really just another form of transport, and pretty far down the pecking order at that.
Pining for the fjords
The solution to 'thousands of people injured by an encounter with a retard' isn't reducing a vehicle's capabilities by installing some "limiter" that prevents the driver from taking a turn "too fast." If it were, we could pretty much completely eliminate all driving fatalities by restricting cars to a top speed of 3 mph, forcing drivers to make only right-hand turns, and requiring a monthly driving test. The solution is personal responsibility. There should be severe consequences for retards who injure people. Anything else is the Patriot Act: well, someone somewhere _might_ be using an NGO to support terrorists, so let's bug all the offices of every NGO in the country.
I don't think it could work, but I always liked Heinlein's proposed solution in "Number of the Beast" (I think) where the person who ran over a pedestrian and then drove away was himself run over and then required to wait for medical attention the exact amount of time that the original victim had to wait.
Why is it that on slashdot, your solution is "insightful" if you want to control how other people drive, but you're a -1 Troll if you want to place limitations on p0rn on the Internet? Can you say "double standard"?
I'm opposed to both ideas.
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
I think having the vehicle control emergency systems is a lot safer than having the car completely drive itself at this point. It combines the best of what people are good at, which is being able to physically identify where they need to be on the road and maintain basic control, and what a computer is good at: namely, crunching numbers.
Humans are worse at thinking logically in situations where they have to emergency brake, or steer, etc. and are more prone to panic. If the computer could figure out these functions for the driver, that would make driving a car a lot safer in hazardous conditions.
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
The dealer looked it up in his Glass's Guide and said "No, Reliant Robin, same age, same miles, I could give you £20 more."
Pining for the fjords
For pedestrians, a mesh-like material is activated in less than 50 milliseconds beneath the hood, which serve to cushion the blow upon impact.
Sweet! Now I can hit all the pedestrians I want!
Safety: read that: get poor folks off road and force them to buy new cars. The whole idea here is to create something to take the place of 60s built in obsolescence as a way to sell more cars. The Safety Dodge (TM) is a great way to further capitalism-by-mandate. Cars need to work properly "for our own good" -sign here. This safety thing is the latest gimic used to help us boys and girls since we obviously don't know how to oursleves. We need safety everywhere...
For example, take the new proposals for EPA licensed remodelers for any house older then 1978. Must protect all of us from lead paint you know.. and that protection comes from lead pencil pushers best. -Of course, this increases the cost so much that a 1915 vintage house would be too expensive to repair, too much of a burden for Joe poverty to keep, beyond the middle income to renovate, and only available for demolition to the license holding fellow who just happens to have a condo project lined up, the local building commission on a information junket to Maui, and compromising pictures of the mayor with his secretary..... Federal EPA bureaucrats are just another win. Oh but please...Safety comes First!
- Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
I agree, your line "How many lives does a feature have to save before it should be required equipment?"
has been said too many times and given as an example already too often. The problem here is the same problem as with most of the situations. It's the benjamins (bills) that ppl are addicted too, therefore the goal most of the time is probaly in this order:
- To produce something which ppl will like first of all
- Produce something that meets saftey standards
- Make it as cheap as possible while still meeting requirements
Erik
My '97 Volvo 850-R (yes, came that way from the factory) can do 0-60 in just over 6secs without mods, and I have no plans to install any. It also comes with most of the same features you find in Jags: leather seats w/warmers, dual zone climate control, traction control (though not the version as mentioned in this article), power everything including sunroof, more airbags than most cars have standard today, and Volvo's (before being bought by Ford) excellent safety track record, but lacks the Jaguar brand tax. In fact, the 850-R has been used as project cars for several tuning groups, and they have reported that the R version of the 850 comes close to its max potential as setup from the factory. An ECU reprogram is about all that is necessary to get it to peak performance: See Here
tm
Support TBI Research: http://www.raisinhope.org
When I read "When an algorithm takes the wheel" I was sure it was something about new advanced virus for the UNIX-platform...
--
The really wierd thing is that it is no joke.
Personally, I would rather the motorcycle accelerated with me still sitting on it rather than hurling me "from a dead stop to 60mph in just 2.8 sec"
Should every medical plan have to cover the expensive option?
Yes. That's the point of a medical plan.
Otherwise you die because you aren't rich.
That's not how a society is suppsoed to work, nor is healthcare.
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
For sure! There's no faster way to turn a corner (often as an emergency maneouver) than to stomp on the gas of a rear-wheel-drive car and let the back end swing out. When you've got the car in the direction you want, you release the gas. There's nothing to it.
For an excellent demonstration of rear-wheel-drive handling capabilities with a skilled driver, check out the parking lot scene less than 20 minutes into the Blues Brothers, where 4,000lb 1974 to 1978 Dodge Monaco police cars are fishtailing through tight corners between rows of parked cars.
Safety is a great goal, but I want to tell the car what to do - I don't want the car telling me what I can do. There are times when traction control gets completely in the way of non-spirited driving, too (like going up a snow-covered driveway).More importantly, the computer has insufficient knowledge. It doesn't see the guy who just pulled out of his driveway without looking and is directly in your way, so it doesn't understand that you intend to use basic driving techniques to break the back end free and swing the car onto the lawn.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Another blow to the evolutionary process.
I suggest that everyone RTFM that comes with their automatic transmission equipped car.
IMHO, it's a stupid decision on Toyota's part to not include that ability in certain automatic transmissions.
For those of you who don't know: During low traction situations, putting the car in a higher gear will reduce wheelspin.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Actually, what most Libertarians realize is that you cannot govern based on emotions, and that everything has a value.
It's ironic, then, that the libertarian program itself is so much based on emotions; many of the policies advocated by libertarians make little sense from a rational or economic point of view, but libertarians promote them because they give them a sense of freedom.
So now /. is stealing headlines from Wired? Good grief.
http://www.bynarystudio.com
What?
bzzt! Wrong. on most Lexus/toyota:
Start engine with parking brake on.
depress brakes twice, holding the brake down on 2nd depress.
While brake is depressed, depress parking brake twice.
Let go of brake
depress brakes twice.
Voila. Your dashboard should light up solid with the "trac" or "vdim" or whatever toyota has on your car. Otherwise, repeat steps.
This works on most latest toyotas and on my lexus.
Let's not all suck at the same time please
That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. A car is a very expensive item, even without safety gear. Furthermore, whoever said that you have a right to drive a shitty car?
> a locked tire will slow you down faster than ABS in many circumstances.
Not only wrong, but dangerously wrong. This is the kind of incorrect belief that can get people killed.
For car tires, static friction (i.e., when the tire is rolling) is almost always significantly higher than dynamic friction (i.e., when the tire is skidding). In other words, skidding tires brake slower than rolling tires.
ABS makes your car more controllable; it also makes your car stop faster. This is, in almost all situations, not a tradeoff---ABS is simply flat-out better than non-ABS in all meaningful ways.
There is a reson why insurance companies don't give out ABS discounts any longer in places where it snows regularly. They don't work well because conditions are variable from one second to the next, and the algorithms that are programmed into the controllers can't measure intent. In fact, among people that I know that HAVE ABS on their vehicles, the first thing they do is pull the fuse to disable it in winter.
I wish I had done the same. My vehicle was involved in one moderate crash over a thirteen year span (I bought it new) and two minor ones due to the fact that the ABS controller was not programed with an optimal solution for downhill on ice, i.e. acceleration despite intervention by the controller. As a result not only was my stopping distance increased, but I was unable to actively steer the vehicle into the curb to gain additional traction from the median snow and from the collision with the curb.
Don't give me the "but the systems have improved since you first bought yours". No, they haven't. Try this on a northern winter day when conditions are icy - go out for a test drive in a new vehicle with ABS. Go to the nearest mall/shopping center, whatever. Get the car going, try to stop, measure the stopping distance. Now find the ABS fuse and remove it. Repeat test. Result: ABS makes car stop straighter, but increases stopping distance. In addition, ABS makes car stop dead-straight, (no you can't steer with ABS in near-zero-traction conditions - total myth - try it), so any chance you have of using a skid to maneuver yourself out of the way is completely out the window.
Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies.
Never forget: 2 + 2 = 5 for extremely large values of 2.
Systems like these do make it easier to control a car, that's why they are there.
For those of you who say that it robs the driver of a real experience, I agree. I used to race go-karts in my younger days and I participate in ametuer rallying every month. ABS for example, is no match for cadence braking but your average driver dosen't posess these skills so ABS (unfortunately) has been made standard equipment. Basically, what I'm trying to say is that stop your bloody whinging,
systems like these are great, they stop the 19 year old girl from t-boneing you because she was too busy talking on her mobile.
Nice rant.. one nit though, that developer will still have to clean up the lead paint. It's just that they have the funds to do this and still make money because they're going to build condos. We're going to be paying for our short-sightedness for a long time. Asbestos, lead paint, PCBs, etc etc..
That's why I said "no easy way". That's not exactly something I want to go through in order to turn it off, and it sure as hell isn't something I can do halfway through driving.
Should every medical plan have to cover the expensive option?
Yes, that is progress. If only the very rich used the new method it would go down in price very slowly, if ever, thus keeping future progress down as well. Someone has to pay off that research you see, and the faster it is paid off the faster they can start new research. I assign a high value to progress, mostly as I prefer to live a long life.
Do you think it ok for drug companies (and indirectly, us consumers) to pay for people to risk their lives for this?
Huh? People get paid to work at a lot of dangerous jobs, and assuming that care is taken to make the dangers not unreasonable no one seems to complain, so why would medicine be any different? Seems like a shitty example to me.
agreed, Jaguar is no longer impressive.
Jaguar's are one of the least reliable vehicles on the road.
A 0-60 time of low 6s is more the territory of low-end $30k luxury cars like the Infiniti G35 (second road test) than $80,000+ convertibles.
So why buy a Jag unless I'm trying to impress someone?
I also didn't like the quote:
""The clever bit is how you integrate, balance and harmonize separate systems that allow you to drive the car in a spirited way, but don't feel in any way in danger, overpowered and intimidated," said Martyn Hollingsworth, Jaguar's director of engineering. "This is real important when you are in a car approaching up to 400 horses.""
when the 2007 Jaguar XK really only has 300hp (second source)
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
...but, had I not had the ABS, I probably would have stopped sooner. It was a dry, high desert winter night in southeast Oregon. The deer couldn't decide to jump right or left so it jumped left (good idea) then decided to jump BACK into the path of the car. On the good side, I was driving a '90 Volvo 970. The box design did what it was supposed to do, it killed the-ever-living-frack out of Bambi, and my wife and I were able to make it down the road to check for repairs and send a reservation trooper after the carcas. We continued our trip.
Now, don't get me started with Volvo rounding the frame of their new cars. Nothing beats 300 pound livestock like a square nose.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
if you track or autox your car, you want to be able to turn of these driving aides, as you want to be able to push your car closer to the edge that software usually allows. driving aides run counter to teaching one how to improve their car control.
for the average driver, or on normal road conditions i leave the various ESP etc programs on.
Once you track and autox, most people realise high performance driving is better suited to the track than typical road conditions, which involve poorly maintained roads, poor visibility, and unaware drivers.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
If the government really wanted to save lives, then they'd mandate a speed-limiting seer be put on all cars, so the car couldn't go faster than 20mph. Or maybe they'd just outlaw vehicles, or most of them, and we would all have to walk or ride a horse... then again, how safe are horses compared to cars, per mile traveled that is? We'd probably get more exercise by walking, and live longer because of that too.
if you know how to threshold brake, you will stop in a shorter distance than ABS allows.
The downside is that it is a difficult skill to develop, and can't be safely practiced on the streets.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_braking
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
And what logical progression would have you walking out in front of any cars, rather than waiting and watching?
Also, this sounds like a good idea, but what if someone is suicidal, and steps in front of your car on purpose, but instead of dying, he turns into a quadriplegic, and sues you and the car manufacturer for medical treatment and living expenses?
I predict more people will be killed/mangled if more of these safety systems are put in place.
When people feel safer, they tend to be less cautious in their driving.
This is why traffic fatalities, at least of pedestrians, increased when seatbelts became required. Everyone started driving a lot faster, figuring they were safer.
. . . before he turned my parent's 1974 XJ-12 into a bulldozer.
What?
But by staying a little futher behind her you never would have had a "I fishtailed to keep from getting in an accident" story to tell us.
If you knew her lights were not working why would you be close enough to lessen your chance of stopping if she jams on the breaks for the Pink Elephant in the road. (they ARE there).
Drive a Lil' more carefully
Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion, you must set yourself on fire.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Hear hear. My strictly stock 330i ZHP (hardly BMW's high end) pulls at 5.7 -- another ten grand would have put me in an M for 0-60 runs at 4.8. That's still 25 grand less than Kit, here.
On another tangent, putting Ferrari, Porsche, and "high-end tuning car" in a performance phrase in the same sentence is pretty gratuitous. Enzo calling, he wants his 3.28 back.
M
trustedworlds.net - gaming, security, and the gunk that lives in between
No it is not wrong. Nor is it correct to say that someone's life is worth an ammount related to their ablity to pay. Value has many meanings NOT just monetary and there are times when the money pushs a solution that is not the most valueable to society.
One more technology that allows people to drive even more carelessly and dangerously, blindly relying on automation to keep the car under control. Physics will always remain the same, and I suspect that when the driver DOES lose control of the vehicle, the outcome is going to be all the worse for this.
Not to mention what happens when inexperienced drivers learn to drive with this stuff and then move to a vehicle without it. For example I have never driven a car without ABS and I suspect I need to kept well away from them, as I don't have the correct reflexes to prevent wheels from locking in an emergency.
There was once this British driving instructor who said that all cars should have a long, sharp spike protruding from the center of the steering wheel... it would be the best imaginable safety equipment.
I want to play Free Market with a drowning Libertarian.
From the sounds of the review, it seems that this kicks in only when the car is pushed beyond certain limits, and that it performs certain actions faster than a human driver might be able to because the sensors and feedback mechanism are inherently faster through the computer than they are through the human behind the wheel. Humans can outperform the computer only when they correctly anticipate all of the road conditions.
Correctly applied, this can allow the human to push the car further than would otherwise be safe because you have fine grain closed-loop compensation that is superior to pure open-loop anticipation. The driver can offload a few unknowns onto the car's compensating systems and really dig into it. For one thing, I don't think I've seen a car with human inputs for controlling the torque available on each of the four wheels. In contrast, several of these high-end systems can do tricks like partially applying individual brakes to force the differential to divert torque to non-slipping wheels. Last thing I want is four brake pedals.
This has some implications. First, for a performance car, this should be relatively easily disabled, or at least severely restrained for cases where the driver wants to perform some "trick driving" actions inconsistent with "going down the road fast and staying on the road." e.g. intentional donuts, spinouts and burnouts. Second, when active, the system better not fail when the driver is relying on it to take up certain slack since a driver accustomed to the computer compensation has mentally offloaded some of the burden to the vehicle.
I don't think this is about putting kid gloves and nerf on the car.
--JoeProgram Intellivision!
From TFA (emphasis mine)
The cadence you get to experience when the XK's engine is pushed toward the 600 rpm point is what Jaguar touts as a centerpiece technology feature.
Gee, and my beater Jetta idles at 850 rpm . . . it must be a sports car! This is just ONE of the places the author shows he's pretty fuzzy on mechanical concepts. This is a slashvertisement designed to look like a pseudo-technical article -- there's almost no meat in this bit of fluff, and most of that is incorrect.
First off, libertarians generally count on an informed consumer base, which is exactly what happened when your budy Ralph started publishing books. Of course in the ideal libertarian world that would result in consumer revolt and not legislation, but don't shoot the messenger.
Additionally, imagine the possibility that there is a bug in the code. Or a security vulnerability of some sort (not sure what that would look like, maybe a bluetooth virus, who knows). Shouldn't we be able to turn it off? Technology should be used to manage complexity, not control it.
Lawrence of Arabia had a point.
He proposed a theory that is now known as "Risk Compensation" the safer a driver feels the more risks he takes. He was a motorcylist and hated cars, he suggested the best safety device I have ever hear of, a steel rod connected to the front bumper, coming up through the steering column and ending in a sharp point 6 inches from the drivers face, this would force the driver to concentrate.
Automatic driver aids, like ABS and traction control make the driver feel safer, and so they will take more risks, I for one detest these devices.
A no-cost "feature" is generally one of those flip-a-switch options in the car's internal computer.
How much do you trust a chunk of software driving your car? If you live in a cube farm in a software development outfit, take a walk for some coffee and look at the people you work with. Also look in the mirror to include yourself in the sample. Then think this: "Lowest bidder".
I have a friend that has a car with microprocessor controlled gearbox. When it overheats the micro seems to crash and the box stops shifting. You need to cycle power to get it working again. Now that's not exactly the sort of performance you want out of a steering system or similar.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I think the problem with drivers' licenses is that, once you get one, it's nearly impossible to lose it short of driving drunk (and even then, you have to get caught doing it a few times). The premier of my province was actually pulled over for drunk driving in Hawaii, with essentially no reprimands. Anyway, I think yearly recertification and a low-bar for losing your license would help, although the effects would be far too destructive in most locales due to the utter necessity of having a car there.
At any rate, while most of the messages from it have been broken long ago, some are only coming to light today using mass computing power.
Use a good encryption, and you'll be safe 'till the sun eats us.
For more good info on encryption, check out Steve Gibson and Leo Laport's Podcast, Security Now!, with special care taken to listen to episodes 30 through 35.
"Gratuitous complexity is akin to chaos" - True Vox
Yep. Our short sightdness will pay that developer, and the asbestos, lead paint and other stuff will end up in a landfill. It may or may not one day show up as a "scandal" on Eyewitness News investigative reports (depending on how much the news station manager has invested in the condo company)..
Greed and Stupidity always trumps altruism.
-ranting isn't just a good idea, its the law.
- Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
Early automobiles were deathtraps, until a fellow by the name of Ralph brought the issue to national prominence in 1965 with Unsafe at Any Speed , a book to which many of us owe our very existence.
Is this the same Ralph that, with Joan Claybrook, worked hard to get airbags put in designed only for average males? The one that had the standards set such that airbags would vault the heads of infants in proper rear-facing seats right through the back window, while the rest of the body was strapped down? Is this the same Ralph that had those forced in every car without any warnings as to possible side effects?
Perhaps if the baby killer had been more worried about actual safety rather than trying to feel like he was making a difference, I could stand behind him. But he lied to Congress about the airbags. They are an immense waste of money. Smaller females were safer without the airbags than with, and belted adult males saw so little difference that the money blown on the explosives mounted in dashes and pointed a people's faces would have been much better spent on helicopters to reduce response time in rural areas.
If you pretend it is a zero sum game (and no, it isn't) Ralph killed many more people because the funds from the airbags would have saved many more lives if the money was used in other ways, rather than the inefectual, dangerous, and poorly conceived airbags. Oh, and if you actually read Unsafe at Any Speed, you'll see it is a book ranting about the safety record of automobile manufacturers designed to incite emotions to call for government regulations. There weren't real suggestions. There wasn't proof of current failures. At best, he pointed to recent changes to make cars more safe as "proof" that they were unsafe before. It wasn't a plan. It wasn't a condemnation of current autos. It was an indictment against an industry. He obviously had a personal grudge against the automakers, and didn't write a book that was helpful unless your goal in life is more government regulation. And based on his work on airbags, having him work on that regulation isn't any good for the rest of us.
(and yes, I probably deserve a -1 troll for calling Ralph a baby killer, but I can't help it if that's what I feel about his involvement with all that crap)
Learn to love Alaska
How about the part where the traction control is absolutely atrocious in snow? This isn't the first example of traction control actually screwing up the car's dynamics, and in one of the trickiest situations to drive in. For a person with the ability to control their car in the snow the traction control does more harm than good. Rain is fairly predictable, its just wet pavement (or standing water), snow is another matter entirely and I think that is where an algorithm is going to fail. I'd like to see that thing tested in various cold conditions (ice, snow, packed snow) to see how it does. As far as we know, MOST of the time, its going to help, but it only takes one instance where it hurts. Are you willing to bet YOUR life on that? I'll take my good driving practices over a computer's limited view of conditions any day.
Being poor, I can say I could never afford anything but a used car. So that time is now?
The 4-cylinder turbo-diesel engine in my Ford Mondeo is quite happily roling along well below 1000rpm, and I never have to take it above 3000rpm
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
I suppose it wasn't as easy as you thought
ABS is not threshold braking, the ABS kicks in when you start to slip.
s tem
Threshold braking is going to the absolute limit before your brakes would lock. This is not the same as the brakes pulsing on and off.
Again, from wikipedia
"As noted above, maximum braking effect is achieved with the wheels on the limit of friction, whereas ABS works by releasing the brakes as the wheels break traction, so a skilled driver should be able to exceed the braking performance of an ABS system. Few drivers, however, have the skill and practice necessary to do this correctly or instinctively, and a common response to an emergency is to under-brake initially and then to over-brake, a situation in which ABS (and brake assist) will work well."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-lock_braking_sy
I am a track newbie with only 6 track days, but this is something that you work on, trying to brake at the limit before the ABS kicks in. You can threshold brake with or without ABS. When you are first learning the technique, you often trigger the ABS. I don't have it down, but with more seat time I will.
Further some of the more recent software freaks out if a driver attempts to left foot brake!
Perhaps you are thinking of other traction control programs?
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
But by staying a little futher behind her you never would have had a "I fishtailed to keep from getting in an accident" story to tell us.
So the motivation for driving safely is what, exactly?
Come on, man...I know you're right...but it's a cool story...
"We take it for granted now, but I remember when the first laws came out forcing the old machines off the highways and limiting travel to automatics. Lord, what a fuss. They called it everything from communism to fascism, but it emptied the highways and stopped the killing, ..."
Isaac Asimov (1953).
The costs of regulation and safety really hinder the poor's ability to own and operate personal aircraft as well, but I doubt you lament the fact that we don't have many old jalopies blithely flying over your house dropping parts and avgas into your pool.
I for one is very dissappointed that so few of the self-proclaimed "nerds" here know the difference between anectodal "evidence" and statistical evidence. Most of the people in this thread should stick to reading "People" magazine rather than Slashdot. Be very ashamed of yourselves, you ignoranumuses!
Stop the brainwash
http://www.abs-education.org/faqs/faqindex.htm
In what circumstances might conventional brakes have an advantage over ABS?
There are some conditions where stopping distance may be shorter without ABS. For example, in cases where the road is covered with loose gravel or freshly fallen snow, the locked wheels of a non-ABS car build up a wedge of gravel or snow, which can contribute to a shortening of the braking distance.
OK, being able to have a car that helps me drive is good and all, but how long until I can go to the bar and then have the car drive me home instead of paying for a cabbie? Hell, how long until computers are mandated to drive ALL CARS during rush hour to make for perfect traffic optimization.
.: 2+2 = PI SQRT(1+N)
At first I didn't like the idea of not being able to turn features like these off. After all, it's my machine, and I hate it when computer software won't let me get out of noob mode.
But then I realized that getting into advanced configuration mode in computer software and fucking up only screws up that computer, which can be fixed and is just some property damage, whereas a car failure (which, let's be honest, is the driver's fault in 95+% when it comes to computerized aids) will likely kill people.
I for one will sacrifice my real-life driving fun for your statistical safety, and stick to go-cart and videogames for fishtailing.
The 'Net is a waste of time, and that's exactly what's right about it. - William Gibson
You realize, of course, that medical insurance that covers very expensive treatments has to be very expensive (it's the premiums that pay for the treatments!). My point was exactly that "complete coverage you can't afford" is not better than "incomplete coverage" even though this requires the understanding that not everyone will get the best coverage because not everyone is equally wealthy. Of course we can simply all share everything (ever been to a Kibbutz?) -- but that solution excepted there have to be inequalities.
Car safety works the same way. Let's say spending $1000 more on your car will make it somewhat safer. Perhaps investing the same $1000 on your car insurance instead might be better for you? Perhaps spending the same money on food for your kids might even be better, even though you'd be risking your life do drive a more dangerous car?
The "Libertarian" point is that it's usually not the government's place to make the decision for you. Sometime it is: when you make decisions that affect other people (e.g. about installing features that make your car less likely to kill a pedestrian). In general, however, it's likely that you're in the best place to decide what's best for you.
This doesn't come without costs, of course: some people will make decisions that are worse than the ones the government could have made for them (for example because they had worse education in decision-making). Because of this, not all "Libertarian" ideas have equal merit (at least as far as I'm concerned).
Side sensors on the car's side, for example, gauge if the car is about to roll over, and then activate the roll-over bar, which breaks through the glass of the back windshield.
Great, so now as well as trusting that I'm not going to have a built-in pyrotechnic device explode in my face if I brake too hard, I also have to worry about the car blowing out the rear window if I corner too sharply? To be honest, I'd rather not have too many of these devices be mandatory.
If I don't put anything here, will anyone recognize me anymore?
If you're buying a Jag I don't think you're too worried about how much it costs to fix the automotive computer if it breaks.
If you think laying it down will help you avoid that old lady, then I'd suggest staying off motorcycles altogther. (Hint: rubber on asphalt will stop you MUCH faster then metal on asphalt)
On the other hand I do like the K12R better as well.
That sounds like it makes sense, but then again... explain the lack of roll-cages to me.
Jaguar is touting their automatic roll-bar, which is controlled by a high-tech system that deploys it when needed, but that's so insanely unnecessary that it sounds like some sort of electronic deadbolt which only engages when someone walks up to the door...
Roll-cages are as cheap as the cost of a few feet of metal tubing, and there is no other safety feature more thoroughly tested in history. There aren't any drawbacks where it could be more dangerous than without it, unlike A.B.S., air bags, and even seatbelts.
So, please explain to me, by what criteria do air bags become required standard equipment, while a basic roll cage doesn't qualify?
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
come on you are exaggerating a bit there.
if a tank is in an accident with virtually any other vehircle including a SUV its going to be the other vehicle that is reduced to twisted metal.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
"For the price of the Jag, buy two Subaru WRX STis (5.49 seconds), and throw in a Sportbike (numbers aren't usually published, but it's obscenely fast!) for grins. That ought to do it."
Subarus, sport bikes, and Jaguars are all aimed at different market segments. The typical 50-ish dude looking at the Jag might not be caught dead in a Subaru.
"Also, when will people realize that horsepower doesn't matter? It's all about the power to weight ratio. If the vehicle is light enough, you can toast anything with only 20 HP. And this Jag makes 400 HP? How much does the thing weigh?"
To clarify your point: horsepower determines top speed. It's the torque that determines the acceleration. My car has 190 HP and hits 60 in under five.
"Instead of focusing all their precious R&D effort on an automated traction control system, why not take some weight off! It'll clean up the handling far better than this silly system, and improve the gas mileage, and performance, too!"
Because they are building a Jaguar, not a Subaru. The weight gain necessary for things like a quiet cabin. The 50-ish dude does not want a car that sounds like a Subaru when you're in it.
Jaguar has made some attempts to get the younger crowd with the X-Type, but the XK Convertible is squarely aimed at the middle age buyer. Under no circumstances is Jaguar interested in making an STi clone.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
Disclaimer: Important, if you're a leading action star in a hollywood sci-fi movie do not, we repeat, do NOT use a car with a self control devices installed as this may result in elaborated, lengthy and dangerous action scenes.
Reference: Minority Report, I Robot, Total Recall.
Your definition of society does not jive with most civilized people.
Not so. Preventing the wheels from locking up actually maximizes the amount of friction between the wheels and the ground, and this both reduces the stopping distance (compared to locking the wheels into a skid), while also giving you more directional control and stability. This is because static friction (or specifically rolling friction, which is a type of static friction) is the upper bound of the available friction between two surfaces. Transitioning to kinetic friction (which occurs when two surfaces are sliding past each other) decreases the amount of friction between the tires and the road, making the car slide farther than it would have if the wheels were kept right a the edge of going into a skid.
..wayne..
Like the sig ;-)
..."
"Just on the border of your waking mind, there lies another time, where darkness and light are one
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
Thank you. That needed to be said.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
is that they only do their jobs as intended if every car, truck, or whatever on the road uses them. Case in point: the anti-lock braking systems or ABS. In parts of the country in which it snows regularly, owners see them as a boon... and everyone else shits their pants as they frantically try to stop behind drivers who are traveling too fast and using similar stopping patterns as they might use in rain or even dry pave.
The problem with driving today has very little to do with the fact that the act of driving an automobile is inherently unsafe... it is. Duh. However, rather than calling upon the driver to use more cautious, less agressive driving habits in middling to poor road conditions, all of these driver assist options seem to make people think they can drive more recklessly with greater survivability. Driver assist is no excuse for poor driving, but people being what they are, that was the first application they set it to.
That'd be STEERING tires brakes driver
Steering will get you out of trouble more than anything else.
Listen.... In no way do I think I am a better driver than a computer (though my driving record is one of no accidents in 25 years of driving other than a guy clipping my rear bumper as he backed out of his driveway as if he were rocket propelled) but sometimes, I'd still like to be able to turn it off.... When I was learning to drive, one of the things we'd do in the winter was go to abandoned parking lots and put the car into wild spins and try to regain control. It taught us a lot about driveing, didn't endanger anyone, and it was FUN. Everyone wants to remove all danger from everything, and in the process, remove all the fun. don not cross the line, don't go beyond the fence, don't get too close to the edge, don't do anything to stop the computer from driving the car.... I want to be able to turn it off..... not on the hihgway, not on busy city streets, but when I'm tooling the back roads, I want to be able to kick it out on the corners. When I'm coming up the hill in 6" of snow, I wasnt to fish tail the back end and make my kids squeal at a whopping 10 mph....... I want to do it because it's FUN. Going down the straight-away on the old county road, I want to be able to suddenly decide that no one is coming and make that squealing, screaming right hand turn onto the Hog's-Back Road......... Because it's FUN. Don't take all the fun out of my life: bad enough they got me fenced in most places.
There's been enough comment on traction control, but did you notice the part in TFA about the noise? There is a speaker built into the car to produce part of the engine noise.
Engine noise has gone from something to be suppressed with a muffler to something that should be managed and shaped with a muffler, now to something that is simulated with a speaker.
That's just silly. It's one thing to think that the sound which is a byproduct of how your engine works is cool, but to actually generate the sound with a speaker: that's pathetic and silly.
What's next? A playing card in the spokes?
I hate it when I make a joke and I get modded "+5 insightful". Mod the stupid comments "funny", not "insightful", pleas
If you practice, in a well deifned event, you will be able to beat the ABS in a straight line stop, if you have any reasonable skill.
The thing is, a straight line stop is NOT what the ABS is designed to improve. It gives you steering control while braking at almost the optimum rate.
Now, you may be able to beta the ABS while steering and braking simultaneously, on a dry road, with some practice.
But, if you add in wet roads, driver inattention, and lack of practice, the ABS is a better bet.
Some companies do alter the calibration to cope with snow and gravel. I don't know what they do for snow, but for gravel the cycle time is extended and the wheel is allowed to lock.
Yup, the deer would be a problem. What the computer can do that a human can't, is react in milliseconds. What the human can do that the compute rcan't, is look at the deer and determine what it is going to do, and either keep on driving, or put the appropriate force to the brake pedal. what's the computer going to do? Slow or stop according to how close the animal is to the road? That is, of course, if it can even determine that there IS a deer alongside the road.... Maybe the trade off of computer control will be worth it on the highwys, but not on the country roads where I drive.
which quickly turns into a passive-aggressive "I can be in the left lane because I'm doing the speed limit" game
I am always puzzled by this. It is illegal to go faster than the speed limit. It is also (in most places) illegal to aid someone in breaking the law.
I do not believe that just because something is illegal necessarily makes it immoral or dangourous. Breaking the law, when done because the law is unjust and other avenues do not work is a civic duty!
Yet I do not understand why exceeding the speed limit falls into this category. I know that the speed limit is not always designed according to traffic engineers recommendations (it should be set at the 66th percentile of driving speeds, according to a slashdot artice a couple of months back. Prehaps the editors would be kind enough to dupe it for us ^^). But the 66th percentile is set by how we drive: if we try and ingrain the speed limit and stick to it, then if we feel it is too low we should appeal to the local authorities to change it. Not make it up as we go along.
Maybe someone can explain to me why driving above the speed limit is acceptable? There is nothing in the law (at least where I live) that says the left lane is for people that wish to speed.
Cheers
Damien
RTFM, but normally that value specifies an upper limit.
1 means 1
2 means 1 or 2
3 means 1, 2, or 3
Etc.
Neither does yours. Most of us try to deal with the real world - even the sucky parts.
No - one point of a medical plan is to even out costs, so that you pay a modest, guaranteed amount, rather than taking a 1% chance of being screwed over. Another point is to even out your expences, so you don't spend $0 for a decade and then have $50,000 in medical expences in one year.
Otherwise you die because you aren't rich.
Poeple die for all sorts of reasons, most of which aren't their fault. Poverty is one of them.
That's not how a society is suppsoed to work, nor is healthcare.
A cure for cancer that costs a hundred trillion dollars will not be covered by any plan anywhere on earth, while a $.01 cure would be covered by all. At some point, it's just too expensive.
As for society, that may not be how you want things to work, but you aren't the only one who gets a "vote". Some of us have different ideas, and you can't just ignore them.
irregular patches of ice
I hate ABS on ice, dry pavement, gravel, wet pavement, etc. (God damn fucking ABS!)
I love ABS on mixed surfaces. I do not have four separate brake pedals, one for each wheel. Threshold braking works great if I can quickly determine the threshold, but not if the correct threshold varies rapidly and isn't the same for all four wheels.
You get that on roads that are partly shaded by trees. The ice melts in the sunny spots, but remains in the shaded spots.
I think he meant "you cannot govern based on you immidiate, short-sighted feelings" as opposed to governing based on a more pragmatic and rationally thought out system.
Who gave you the right to take it away from me?
actually most people who track their cars know its better to drive aggressively on the track than on the public streets.
why?
you share the track with other people who actually want to drive, and aren't distracted by their coffee, conversations on the phone, radio, kids in the back seat etc.
the track surface is clean and well maintained, if there is an oil patch, coolant patch, or debris, the track shuts down until it is cleaned up for safety (unless perhaps when racing).
however, on the track and through autox you learn car control skills which can improve your driving, and make you a better and safer driver. on the otherhand you could use the same skills to drive more aggressively. on an interesting note, statistically, drivers after their first track day become more dangerous on t
from my own expereinces on the track, i believe that normal driving tests should be more difficult and require a car control element. if my motorcycle exam required emergency lane changes, braking within a short distance without locking the wheels (aka threshold braking) and the like, why shouldn't a automobile license require the same.
Further, if you ever have the opportunity to take a highway safety clinic, you learn the same techniques as you learn on the track, the knowledge may save your life.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
passive safety is a great thing, however people need to learn active safety skills (most noteably situtation awareness). That is an element soley lacking in most drivers and could prevent many more accidents than passive driving aides alone.
the current computer control systems have no idea when it is a good idea to lift the throttle (throttle steering), left foot brake (yes they can brake individual wheels, but that inhbits this technique) and when more should be applied (throttle oversteer). All of these are car control techniques which allow a driver to pivot their car to either a) take a corner better or B) get around an object in an emergency situation.
Skills like that are learned on the track, and can not be safely learned on the street. The downside is that stability control programs can prevent a driver with this knowledge from being able to use it. One of my track instructors detailed two experiences. One where he didn't use these techniques and t-boned a car which entered the road without looking to their left, and a second time where he used these techniques to pivot his car and go around a car which had entered the intersection without seeing him.
These are LIFESAVING techniques, that should be required knowledge for ALL drivers.
I agree for the average driver with no track experience, or in inclimate weather that stability control programs are usefull (except when accelerating in a straight line in the snow). However, in the dry things change considerablly.
Go to a highway safety clinic such as www.carguys.com or bsr-inc.com or take a track school and you will realize how little the average driver knows and you will become MORE scared while driving on the road. You will learn invaluable skills from these courses. Even 15 minutes on a skidpad (basically a wet parking lot) or on light snow will allow a driver to recognize oversteer and understeer and how to correct them. Further, understeer is not safer than oversteer, it can cause you to plow into all sorts of objects on the road. Knowing how to correct for it, even in snow is a very usefull skill (shorthand, lift the throttle, or at low speed, turn the wheel and pull the ebrake for a second when in light snow, it is a practiced skill).
When I took my motorcycle license exam, I had to demonstrate threshold braking, being able to exit a corner properly, and emergency lane changes. As a motorcyclist I have to use these same techniques nearly everyday because people do not see me, because things fall off trucks, and because there may be road debris.
Why aren't these elements required in a drivers license test? If they were, I would feel safer with YOU on the road in an automobile as everyday, things fall off trucks or peoples cars, people don't see you when merging, and objects or sand/dirt/oil appear on the road.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
wrong!
One of the most dollar-conscience people I know *doesn't* drive a high maintanence car cause they can't stand hidden costs.
Of course this is the same person that still uses mac os 8.6 on his g3 beige tower (main desktop), os 9.1 on their prismo (because I refuesd to reinstall 8.6) and os 9.3? on their new and nifty 4 year old emac. (which sits unused about 3/4 of the time cause it slows them down.)
Another drives an ageing audi for status. And its in the shop half the time.
I've had *one* auto issue with a toyota in my eleven years of driving that caused significant down time. And a shop never fixed it (because they couldn't, it was someone else's fault for hacking up the wiring.)
-=fshalor
Generally, the left lane is for people that wish to pass other traffic. Most places (not Alberta, but we have signs proclaiming "keep right except to pass" or some such thing) have laws that prohibit you from passing on the right. In that case, someone traveling at whatever speed in the left lane presents a legal obstruction to anyone else on the road. Suppose they have a defective speedometer and they think they're doing the limit when they're actually doing ten under?
When I tow my camping trailer on the highway, I travel at about ten under, just to keep the fuel costs somewhat under control. Accordingly, I keep to the right lane. If someone wants to pass me and they stick to the speed limit, then it will take them about ten to 15 seconds to go by. However, if they speed up so that they're going ten over the limit, then their exposure time in the left lane is cut in half, and this frees up the left lane for other traffic. Staying out of the way of other traffic as long as doing so doesn't put you in danger somehow, is just good manners.
Less is more.
I'm not taking anything away from anyone. Put down the red herring and answer the question.
And then every passenger will have to submit to an iris scan and dna analysis and the data will be checked for a match on a no-drive list before the car can start.
The point of ABS is not a decreased stopping distance, the point is keeping control of the car while you're braking. Without ABS the wheels will lock if you floor the brakes, and no amount of turning the steering wheel will make the car change direction. With ABS, the wheels will keep rolling and you'll still be able to steer the car around an obstacle the car would have otherwise slid straight in to...
I'm sorry, but if you read the article, it tells you: Anyone who knows anything about Jaguar knows that it isn't built for speed off the line - why waste all that gas and energy to get a 5000 pound car lumbering to 60 mph. The Jaguar brand has always been more attuned to style and grace, not the Italian Stallions or German Schnellbots. And I'm sorry, there's nothing graceful about punching the gas to jump out in front of the herd, just to be passed on the uptake.
I have a '98 Jaguar XK8 VDP that I bought last year. It has the same 4.2L engine in it - though not the same one, obviously. She's got so much in the way of nuts, yer damned right I've scared myself a few times. 'Twill be even worse in a month when I get the transmission replaced. I do have the ability to disengage the traction control *and* the ABS from buttons on the dash, as well as to engage Sport mode if I really feel like burning some dinos up. And then there's the J-Gate transmission box.
Jaguar's have the ability to run in both manual and automatic mode. Very nice feature indeed, if you know how to drive a stick. Mine has a CVT transmission in it, the first time I'd ever owned a car with that. The gas mileage in mine runs about 24mph with normal weekly driving. NOT BAD! It's the CVT, babeh. But for one small thing. IT'S A DAMNED BMW TRANSMISSION!!!!!!!! It's the same tranny that runs the BMW Z4's (I just saw a 2005 model for sale, with the same 4.2L engine yesterday.... *snicker* $28k). You would think that a German engineered transmission would be dang near flawless? WRONG. The front clutch pack was designed so poorly that there is a plastic ring in Drum A that can bust. And has in just about every single freakin' Z4 transmission built. And of course, it goes right after 100k miles. Which is what happened to me. $3500 bucks later, and I'll be back on the road. And buying a 2nd runabout.... But with that ability that the power of the J-Gate transmission gives you - YES, you can hit 60 in way under 6 seconds. I've done it in 5 flat. But again, it's not recommended. These cars are not for penis envy on the starting line.... but for running long and strong to the end, outpowering everyone else. Hence, the racing heritage of Jaguar going back to 1936.
Now... if ya'll want to spend all that time and money investing into electronics and software, can't you just FIX THE RELIABILITY ISSUES?!?!
Sorry man... the Internet pooped on me.
So does the dollar conscious friend drive a Jag?
My point was that if you're buying a Jaguar you're probably more like your status conscious friend and don't care as much about how much maintenance is going to cost. At least not when you buy the car.
Next time don't speak out loud. : Here are some controversial regulations for pedestrian safety ...
http://europa.eu.int/comm/enterprise/automotive/di rectives/vehicles/dir2003_102_ce.htm
http://66.249.93.104/search?q=cache:AjOjPniOPhsJ:w ww.unece.org/trans/doc/2003/wp29grsp/ps-33.doc+ped estrian+safety+regulation&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2
And of course :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedestrian_Safety_Thr ough_Vehicle_Design
You could be correct, and I agree we need to think long term. But I'm very suspicious of value-based policy. Often people make the "rational" argument, eg "The bottom line is", when really they're saying "Suck it up, we're in charge, and we're going to continue to reap the benefits of our economic advantage over you." Things that are hard to assign a value to, eg security, clean water, etc, are down played, while thing easy to analyze economically, eg the price of commodities, are given priority.
I said you could beat the ABS. I'll say it again. You can beat the ABS. Now go and read my previous post and pay some fucking attention.
Couldn't agree more.
Things that are hard to assign a value to, eg security, clean water, etc, are down played, while thing easy to analyze economically, eg the price of commodities, are given priority.
Well, sometimes it works the opposite way - "how can you put a price on a person's life?" and all that. I don't think we're ever going to get our priorities perfectly straightened out.
It's no more a red herring than your question.
I'm not taking anything away from anyone.
In a free country, you're allowed to do anything that isn't specifically prohibited. Currently I can do X. Your're saying I shouldn't be allowed to do X. That's taking away a right to do something.
But since you're willing to reply, what makes the post you origionally responded to so stupid? Isn't that how it usually works, we make things as safe as we can without making them too expensive to afford?
Isn't that how it usually works, we make things as safe as we can without making them too expensive to afford?
Right. And what the OP said was that the context of "too expensive to afford" was poor people. I think that's ludicrous. Sacrificing safety so that poor people can afford cars is misguided. I'm pretty left, but having a car simply isn't something that should be subsidized by the state in any way. That includes setting sub-standard safety levels to allow for a cheaper product.
In a free country, you're allowed to do anything that isn't specifically prohibited. Currently I can do X. Your're saying I shouldn't be allowed to do X. That's taking away a right to do something.
More or less, but you don't currently have the right to drive a shitty car on a public road. The 'rights' you're asserting do not exist.
Malcolm Gladwell has covered this - long but interesting:
t m
http://www.gladwell.com/2001/2001_06_11_a_crash.h
Wow, that's a great link! 20 comments later and by an AC... not much chance for an upmod, but here's hoping.
(Can you believe how many of those 20 comments were from people who thought I had *plans* to step out in front of the next Jaguar I see? Guess I should have used the [sarcasm] tag after all.)
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Then you're using the word 'shitty' in a different way than I would.
Sacrificing safety so that poor people can afford cars is misguided ... That includes setting sub-standard safety levels
The question is "Where do we set the standard?". Zero safety is scary, perfect safety would mean that we can't afford anything.