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Volvo Introduces a Collision-Proof Car
carazoo.com sends along a story on Volvo's upcoming crash-proof car. The company will introduce a concept car based on the S60 this month at the Detroit Auto Show, looking ahead a few years to the goal that by 2020 "no one should be killed or injured in a Volvo car." The concept car will have forward-looking radar as a proximity sensor, and the ability to brake if a collision is imminent. When the car senses a collision, a light flashes on the windscreen display along with an audible warning. If the driver doesn't act, the car will brake automatically.
Up here in northern Canada the roads can get mighty icy. Your car can brake for you all it wants, but that won't change the laws of physics as you're sliding on a sheet of ice towards a thousand pound moose.
What if I crash into IT with my H2?
FOXTROT UNIFORM CHARLIE KILO
"When the car senses a collision, a light flashes on the windscreen display along with an audible warning. If the driver doesn't act, the car will brake automatically." ... and then you get rear-ended by the vehicle that was tailgating yours.
Yeah. What could possibly go wrong here?
Watch the Teaser Trailer for "The Lightning Thief" Her
Passing on a two-lane highway? I've had a couple close calls there, and if my car decided to brake for me when I needed it least, that would be a bad thing...
spill proof cup holder too? I've always wanted one of those.
No Sigs!
I bet that thing is a lot of fun in a demolition derby.
While everyone would laud the goal "that no one should be killed or injured in a Volvo car," it's a completely ridiculous objective. If a huge truck hits you from behind, you'll die. If you run out of gas on rail road tracks in front of a train, you will die. If you're going too fast in mountain passes and dive off a cliff, you will die.
Unless Volvo has invented anti-gravity or a General Products Hull, this is a ridiculous piece of marketing that only the most stupidly ignorant could believe. Maybe the goal here is to give attention to Volvo, but the goal is so absurd that it seems like it has to bite them in the butt in some unforeseen way.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
This summer I had to ask two passengers in my car to buckle their seat belts.
"Oh, you're that kind of driver?" one asked.
I told them I'm not the driver they should be worried about.
what about getting rear ended? I would guess half of all avoided collisions resulted from the gas pedal and steering wheel instead of the break. Will the car accelerate away from danger when required? Steering too, I was driving late at night in mist when about a half dozen deer just appeared in the road. It took some heavy steering in addition to the break to avoid them.
I came to the datacenter drunk with a fake ID, don't you want to be just like me?
It's no sillier than when Honda put airbags on the Gold Wing motorcycle. In an interview, one of the Honda engineers said that they learned from the methods used to build the space shuttle, and that the failure rate of the air bag accidentally deploying were like twenty million to one. I didn't believe it there, and don't believe they'll have this car any safer than what we have now. When you're sharing the road with tractor trailers one is not as safe as one might be fooled into thinking. And all this is assuming that Volvo is still making cars by then (don't believe that either).
I'm surprised it hasn't been implemented years ago.
I swear, cops waste so much time with speeders (where speed limits are artificially low) that they ignore those who don't use turn signals or damned tail-gaters all together. Often times, I see someone ride around 5 feet off my ass, in snow and ice @ 70mph.
Have Volvo engineers ever driven in ice and snow? If they haven't then they know that no vehicle is accident-proof. Accident-resistant maybe, but not accident-proof.
Accident-proof == No matter what conditions you drive in, and no matter how you drive, you will not get into an accident.
Accident-resistant == Depending on the conditions and driving patterns, there are extra features to help prevent an accident.
If this car is accident proof, then I would expect to go 70 mph down an icy road and expect to stop in the same about of time that I expect to stop in excellent conditions without hitting the stopped car in front of me or going into the ditch.
Before everyone here rushes to spout off edge-cases for which this may make things worse, I would like to remind you all that this is still a very good thing so long as it saves more lives than it kills.
Yes, a piece of automation that occasionally kills people is a good thing if it saves even more lives.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
I can't wait until the lawsuits start coming in for people whose cars abruptly braked of their own accord, spilling steaming hot coffee into their nether regions. I will need employment.
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that might do it for now. never mind the hell in a handbasket writing on the wall.
How will forward-looking radar and automatic braking help when someone on a perpendicular road runs a red light and T-bones the side of the car?
Why have the middleman? If the car senses a collision, it should break on it's own, and alert me it's doing so. If you're building robo-car brakes, do it properly.
This "display a warning and play a sound, then act if I don't" seems to have too long a turnaround time. If I'm maintaining a proper following distance of 2 seconds, it's at LEAST half a second for me to process the warning, and likely a full second before I step on the brake. And that's assuming I can still stop in time at that point. Or that the car can still brake in time without me at that point if it determines "too slow, puny human!"
By the way, "a light flashes on the windscreen display"? OK, even if this is essentially a HUD (so my eyes stay mostly on the road), the human eye senses motion. Flashing ANYTHING is going to pull my eye away from the car in front of me, at the moment when that's a very bad idea...
No amount of collision sensing radar will protect you from side impacts while stationary. However, there might be something to be said for exocet missiles!
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
I don't get why it would warn you and give you time to apply the brakes yourself if the car as decided that you must stop anyway.
...you can get a pair of Peril Sensitive Sunglasses(TM) to wear too.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
Having done some work on automated driving, I have some misgivings about semi-automated driving. ABS, which is a huge advance in vehicle control, hasn't reduced accidents as much as it should. Driver overconfidence seems to increase in ABS-equipped vehicles. Merely adding automated braking, which has been around for years, may not help with passenger cars. It would probably encourage tailgating. It's a big win for heavy trucks, but they have pro drivers. Those guys aren't aggressive drivers, mostly tired ones. Passenger car drivers aren't that consistent.
Tailgating may be acceptable if there's a comm link between the car ahead and the car behind. That's been demonstrated successfully; if anybody in the chain starts to brake, everybody behind them brakes too. It needs to be coupled with enough smarts that not too many vehicles become a tight group, and a vehicle can't close up behind something that can stop shorter than it can.
Studies of crashes by Mercedes indicate that 80% of accidents would have been avoided if braking started 500ms sooner. Those aren't the severe accidents, though.
Anyway, while radar-controlled automated braking has its uses, it's not an answer in itself.
someone turns in the cars path. no amount of braking can stop that.
I work for a civil engineering firm and we design roadways (often many miles long) and in doing so I often see accident reports spanning many years. The majority of highway accidents (especially at high speeds and especially fatal ones) could not have been prevented by one or both (or more depending on how many cars are involved) of the cars braking as soon as ANYONE or anything could tell an accident was imminent.
Usually someone didnâ(TM)t look in their rearview mirror and changed lanes right into a car or someone fell asleep at the wheel and drifted across traffic and because of a split second lapse of attention someone is dead.
Itâ(TM)s not a OH NOOOES THAT PERSON HAS BEEN STOPPED IN FRONT OF ME FOR 2 MINUTES BUT I DIDNâ(TM)T NOTICE AND NOW ITâ(TM)S TOO LATE TO BRAKE!!!
A car comes over a hill in the highway going 30 over the speed limit (we design those speed limits on purpose and itâ(TM)s because of things like this) and thereâ(TM)s a disabled car with a blowout or engine problem in the road ahead of you and braking simply slows you down. You still hit the car and the lady standing in front of it looking helplessly at her engine still dies because you wanted to cut 5 minutes out of your drive time.
There is also the question of allowing your car to decide when you should brake and ALL the potential hassles/problems/safety issues involved in that.
Anyway, back to the point, if Volvo thinks that by installing some sensor in the bumper that will trigger the brakes if thereâ(TM)s something in front of you will keep people from dying in their cars they are pouring a lot of money down the garbage.
This technology will solve 1 problem for all 50 it creates in a drivers experience.
What % of accidents are the result of front impact in optimum road conditions. Which seems to be the only scenario this tech will effect.
What if I decide not to brake for the dog in front of me because of the 18-wheeler behind me?
If anything prevents this idea from becoming reality, it's the issue of liability . Does any company want to take on the added liability that this concept entails. For example, if a car equipped with this crashes (and it will happen) who will be liable? Even if the company is found not to be at fault, there is the cost of proving it in court.
... once got in the way of my sister's "crash-proof" Volvo.
Mind you, moose crashes can be pretty nasti...
If Volvo wants to try it, let them do it (what your problem with it?). It's a noble goal and even if it only makes traffic a few percent safer it's another little step forward.
All car manufacturers should have this on their agenda.
I think I might have dated the same woman. She hated wearing a seatbelt, but for some reason would accept it if *I* buckled it for her. She also tried to bring her open beer into my car, insisting that if I really cared about her I wouldn't worry about a silly thing like roadside checks and fines, etc.
I've met the type a few times since. Some women like to request unreasonable things in order to have men "prove" how much they value them over common sense. I've seen guys do similar things though in different ways (acting unreasonable and demanding acceptance)...
Good call in ditching her.
So where does that leave us? We now have cars that will follow other cars to the point of stopping entirely, can park themselves, will stay in the lane on their own (to a point)...the obvious goal here is to remove more & more of human input from driving.
So can we just skip all of this crap and go right to the computer-driven car, so we never have to worry about insurance premiums, speeding tickets, drink-driving, falling asleep at the wheel, and all of the rest of the nonsense that goes along with cars?
On the flip side, if you're a sports-car enthusiast, this is likely to be the last generation where one can purchase a raw, loud, driver's car. We're going to wind up like the character in Rush's Red Barchetta before we know it.
I enjoy a challenge.
In TFA, Thomas Broberg was directly quoted saying this:
"Our aim for 2020 is that no one should be killed or injured in a Volvo car"
The article then proceeds like this:
So how can such a worthy goal be achieved? Broberg's reply would be that Volvo is working on the world's first accident-proof car.
100% injury free and accident proof are two different things. A car can't be accident proof, there are too many environmental factors outside of the car that you can't control, most importantly the other driver and their car. However, I can see within the realm of reality that you could build a safe shell around the passenger compartment in order to save the passengers and driver from injury. A bit tough and no doubt expensive, but possible.
It seems like the accident proof statement was the article putting words into Broberg's mouth. Am I too far off base?
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
They would if installed in the other person's car...
Titanic
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
It would be cool to have something like demolition man where the car fills with foam. I'm not sure if it would work in real life but someone should try it.
I can't *wait* for this. Can you imagine how much fun it will be playing chicken?
So the only way to make sure that people in a Volvo ALMOST never get killed is to make it a tank. It better be a huge one too, in case a train hits it. Still, probably won't do good against another Volvo tank.
It should weigh 80 tons and go no faster than 120km/h. At that point the survivability for Volvo drivers will be almost completely assured. I am not that positive about drivers of other cars, pedestrians, houses, bridges and even roads though.
You can't handle the truth.
by 2020 "no one should be killed or injured in a Volvo car."
If it wasn't for those meddling taxpayer kids, GM and Chrysler could have achieved that no one would be killed in a GM or Chrysler car, as well.
Well, at least until the last ones get off the road.
Note: Volvo belongs to Ford ... coincidence, I think not!
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Collision Proof suggests the care will never collide. ,but eventually someones gonna get their Volvo sucker-punched by a semi-truck when it stops for a squirrel and need some new fillings.
Collision Resistant will keep the Ambulance chasing shysters off Volvos doorstep.
Letting the car make navagational decisions is akin to CNC dentistry. It may look good on paper,it may bring accolades around the coffee pot
Are you gonna open your mouth for the machine?
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
that if the car senses a collision is imminent, regardless of its attempts to prevent it, that it just explodes so it can maintain it's "collision proof" claim.
Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain
I tell everyone I know (in wintery climates anyway) to buy a good set (4, NOT 2) of snow tires. They all tell me to get stuffed because they have new "all season" tires (all season in Alabama, maybe) or they have a 4WD SUV or whatever. 4WD only helps you get going, not stop, and antilock brakes are only as good as the tires and the surface the tires are on. I do use snow tires in winter, and trust me, there is a world of difference! The only accident I was at fault in was an ice storm that caught me by surprise the day before I had intended to put on the ol' blizzaks. I left work at late at 8PM hoping to be the only person on the road. Began stopping what seemed like a reasonable distance for conditions, ABS kicked in as soon as I put my foot on the brake pedal and I slid all the way (under 25 MPH) into the back of the only other car on the road. New "all season" tires.
With blizzaks, when ABS kicks in you actually stop. Been using them for eight years.
GET SNOW TIRES. (I'm sure everyone in Canada already knows that. Few people around here seem to know or care.)
More music, fewer hits
I think this car is neat-o burrito in concept, but in reality...all that's going to happen is that Volvo is going to get sued all to hell when the system fails and a collision occurs. Calling the car "collision proof" is just a bad idea since we live in a society that tries to avoid accountability at all costs (excluding lawyer fees).
No matter how hot a girl is - some guy somewhere is sick of her shit.
And, ummm, it's also able to monitor the reaction of the following vehicles and keep them from smashing into the backside of the vehicle? The driver and passengers had better pray that everyone behind them is also driving a Volvo, I guess....
All cars should be ramp-shaped (front, back, and both sides) and made of nerf.
I consider myself relatively competent behind the wheel. I also consider a lot of people not-quite-so-competent. But while I have a healthy distrust for other drivers, I'll trust them over a computer any day. Either I'm driving, or the radar is. Perhaps there's a reason I'm not stopping before I hit that car. Perhaps it's a maneuver that I decide "You know what, rear-ending the guy in front of me is a lot better than [fill in the blank with something the computer doesn't know about]".
"If you keep doing what you've always done, you'll keep getting the results you've always gotten."
...because its so ugly no one is going to drive it.
What about the car behind you that can't brake as fast?
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
it may come from side, rear, and even top! And collision is not always active. There are lots of passive collision. Can the car dodge a potential collision by automatically starting the engine and run away if drunk driver is heading toward me while I just sit in a parked car?
Hadn't they tried this a year or two ago? I swore there was a Top Gear episode about it.
Really, Volvo has made safety their marketing gimmick for years. Are they safer? I don't know, but they sell on it. For many reasons as people have already started to point out, there are flaws in this plan. The biggest flaw to me, seeing this as a marketing tactic, is outrageous claims are usually the end of the line for a gimmick. They need a new twist. And also, as for braking to avoid a collision, sometimes the answer is to speed around the hazard.
If you can dump chaff on the road in front of the car and trick the radar into thinking its a large obstruction, you could have an effective method for ending a police chase.
Of course, by 2020, the police will be able to remote control all cars, anyhow.
IDDQD!!! God Mode!!!
IDKFA!!! All Weapons!!
You feel sleepy. Close your eyes. The opinions stated above are yours. You cannot imagine why you ever felt otherwise.
...before they kill the entire action film genre
It even protects drivers from hitchhikers!
Incredible.
Goal: No one should be killed or injured in a Volvo car
Solution: Do not put doors on Volvos.
That took about five minutes. If anyone needs me, I'll be on break until 2020.
That everyone else is driving Volvos too. What they describe won't protect from side or rear-end collisions.
That is great that it stops you from hitting someone else, but what about a car that protects you from the other idiots on the road not willing to shell out for a volvo?
this is my sig, there are many like it, but this one is mine.
What about "no one should be killed or injured by a Volvo car"?
The summary doesn't mention the cool thing: This is partially a product of research done by showing Star Wars to a locust. There's a chip in the car that's emulating their behavior to determine impending collisions.
Just recently, there was a show about it on the Science Channel.
Would someone more knowledgeable please explain this for me. Maybe a simple automotive analogy would help.
Scenario: You are waiting to turn left at a controlled intersection light. Too much traffic is oncoming so you have to wait for the light to turn orange and then go. When it changes, you check that the cars you can see are slowing down and then you start to go forward. However, some idiot in the left lane that was too far back for you to have seen at the time that you started to move forward (obscured by other vehicles) decides to race through the orange (now red) light and careens into the right side of your car at high velocity (even though he probably _could_ have stopped in time if he hadn't decided to gun the light). So the collision happens, and his airbag goes off in his car. Although he is heavily injured, he will probably live. You, on the other side of the car, are sufficiently protected by the crumple-zones in your vehicle and are actually able to get out of the remains of your now totalled car. The person in the passenger seat, however, is quite another story. He is quite dead. The other driver, once his injuries have been treated, will have some serious legal issues facing him, but none of that will bring back your now dead passenger.
Now what I'd like to ask Volvo is if they really intend to make a car that can accurately account for the actions of people who do stupid stunts like the guy who decided to race through a red light in the preceding scenario. Near as I can figure, it would require the car to be either telepathic or precognitive, because the only reason that accident probably occurred was because the other driver was too inattentive to pay attention to the fact that he was approaching an intersection that he might actually have to slow down and stop at.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Over 80% of accidents are caused by human error. There's only so much else the engineers can do to make them safer while a human is in total control. One thing I've noticed is that the people who think they're the best drivers typically exceed the speed limit the most and tend to cause more accidents.
Unfortunately the safer the driver of a car FEELS the more danger the rest of the road using public are in. The best road safety innovation would be a large spike in the middle of the steering wheel which spears the driver on impact... then cars wouldn't crash!
Don't they have that already on the XC60? On sale in Europe for the last couple of months.
You can take a road test and try and crash it into another car (actually a balloon the size and shape of a car) and it will warn you then brake if it has to.
"An H2 commands plenty of respect on the road (and off the road)"
Over here in the UK you're more likely to get laughed at if you drive one of them round the streets and have people shout "tosser" at you.
Anybody who feels the need to drive an oversized military-style vehicle half a mile down (sub)urban roads to buy a pint of milk or a new pair of socks is looked on with a degree of suspicion and pity. People are a bit wary that the driver isn't too concerned about the well being of other road users and pedestrians.
Hey. Didn't they make a ship a few years back that was sink-proof? (Unsinkable.)
How's that working out for them?
Buttons aren't toys.
Fantastic. Yet another pseudo-automation that will likely translate into yet one more reason idiots think they don't need to pay attention while driving, and instead finish their phone call or text message.
Titanic = Unsinkable
Volvo = Uncrashable
Possible solution to tailgaters? Just brake when they get too close and THEY have their brakes activated automatically! YES!!!!
If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?
There were two parts, a presumably obvious warning, then braking. Presumably if attempting a lane change and a loud warning goes off, you stop changing lanes. Ditto for drowsy drifting.
And in your disabled car scenario, braking may reduce it from fatality to serious injury.
I think more sophisticated sensors that give off really annoying alerts to demand driver attention and action are required. Annoying so that people don't start banking on them too much. That is the chief danger, people stop bothering to check because a nice beep will let them know most of the time. If it is a grating alarm, they may be more reluctant..
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Here in the US I believe the simplest way to auto safety is this.
1). Require a breathalizer before allowing the vehicle ignition to start, could be bypassed of course but I speculate dui's and dui related deaths will decline sharply.
2). Limit the speed of the car to 75mph, there are no roads that are 80mph here to my knowledge. Cars meant to be track/race driven can have this disabled at the track for 24 hours or permanently with a change in the car registration (off-road only).
3). Require proper tire inflation (via sensor) or vehicle will not go higher then a certain speed (40mph). This will save gas and reduce certain types of accidents.
Since we by law require seat belts and can no longer use the phone/text in California, I see no reason not to pile on some more invasive safety features that limit driver liberties. If we were really serious about safety we'd all be required to have roll cages, five point harnesses and wear helmets.
The next version from Volvo should have rear facing radar too, with the ability to calculate the mass of objects for and aft, the crush zone capabilities of all objects involved, then generate a braking pattern to minimize the impact forces.
It will take until 2020 to be developed and be called the "HindSight Option".
I think the most interesting thing about this, is that Volvo (like any car maker) is currently getting a lot of revenue by selling parts for broken and/or crashed cars. So apparently they think that selling a car that doesn't crash will still benefit their income, even though they wont be fixing as many broken Volvo's anymore.
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
I predict that by the year 2020, no one will be killed or injured in a GM, Chrysler, or Ford car either.
Youtube clip of Volvo XC60 - Test drive - Elk test
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtWQPf59iJ4
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIQ2VI7pJ1o
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-moose-test.htm
the goal that by 2020 "no one should be killed or injured in a Volvo car."
Yeah, cause by then Ford will be bankrupt and no one will be driving Volvos.
The ability of your tires to "penetrate the slush" is going to depend on your speed (faster you're going, the more slush you have to move out of the way in a given time), weight of your car (the heavier it is, the faster slush is moved), width of your tires (wider the tire, more slush you have to move), tread on your tire (better tread design, more slush moved), and whether your tire is turning - if it *IS* turning, then the tread does a better job of moving the slush, as slush-filled tread rolls up and slush-empty tread rolls down.
Locking your wheels so they don't turn makes it harder to get through the slush to the pavement, not easier.
More importantly, if you were not able to stop in time, the biggest problem is that you were following to closely.
paintball
The Acura RL has had collision sensing and avoidance as an option for several years, called the Collision Mitigation Braking System.
http://www.acura.com/index.aspx?initPath=RL_Learn_FeaturesOptions_SafetySecurity_Braking_CollisionMitigationBraking
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
what happens if you get stuck on the tracks with a car in front and behind and a train screaming at you and the Bleeping car 'brakes' for you? then what Volvo Then WHAT
They're making it safer to talk on my cellphone!
The percentage has GOT to be higher than 80%. I'd say more like "over 98%" personally.
Some police departments have stopped classifying collisions as "accidents" - because the word has a connotation that it was unavoidable. I'm not sure I've ever seen an unavoidable collision.
I've seen plenty of people do things like lose control on icy patches. I assume they're very much like the idiots that were passing me when I was doing 20 MPH on a 50 MPH limit road the other day; freezing rain, the road already so icy that the barest touch of the brakes kicked on the ABS, and these idiots still wanted to do 50.
If they got in a collision, I'm sure they would say they couldn't avoid it, they slipped on the ice. Well DUH, but the ice didn't sneak up on you. When there are conditions where ice is forming, you slow the heck down.
It's interesting to see who gets in the most accidents - almost every vehicle I see off the road in the ditch anymore is an SUV or pickup. They think somehow that 4WD makes them immune to physics.
I've seen SUV drivers going way too fast on ice, start fishtailing, slow down, and within a mile they're back up to the same speed again.
I'm MORE than happy to let these idiots past me. I'd rather have their shenanigans in front of me and getting farther away all the time than behind me approaching fast.
How long has it been since a military air craft could detect another nearby aircraft without aid of the pilot? Or even a missle bound for impact moving at 200MPH?
That's Vietnam era tech, no? Word is that the computing power in Vietnam era jets was equivalent to a leprous gerbil on a rusty wheel. Our automotive computer systems have tons more computing power... so why don't we have similar radar systems yet?
Yes, I know the S-Class always have the best toys and we'll likely see similar toys on more cars in the future, but why hasn't it happened yet? Why don't all year 2002+ cars have a general "impact alert" radar? /Danger: approaching mandatory-stop intersection at high speed. Break!/
or /Danger: Destination lane occupied. Cancel merge!/
Why not just have a radar "blip" screen to show where major objects are. This would save many bicyclists, I'm sure, let alone drop the cost of insurance greatly.
Would that be too many pings on the freeway? Is there "radar" pollution I don't know about? How expensive can Vietnam-era radar tech be?
...is it going to detect the truck jumping the bridge onto the highway and stop everyone (equipped with it) safely as well?
And yes, that did happen, except 2 trucks and 4 to 6 cars plowed into the gasoline tanker that jumps from a bridge (195? 295?) onto I-95 in Maryland (north of the 495 Capital Beltway) a few years back, at the start of the evening rush-hour nonetheless. (Surprising so _few_ vehicles hit the exploding truck though, given the traffic levels.)
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
The last thing I want is for the car to assume control in cases like this!
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
There's an easy solution if you don't want anyone to be killed in your car. Just don't put an engine in it. That still doesn't rule out a few things, but you'll definitely notice a severe decline in the number of deaths that occur in your car.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
This obviously only prevents head-on collisions, automatic braking will not help the car if it is hit from the side. Also: It only reduces the reaction time to (close to) 0ms but that is only around half of the time it takes to stop a car at average speeds. It's some nice marketing but Mercedes already basicly implemented this on their always-innovative luxury E-class.
"Only Volvos drivers cause accidents" is a premise of the article.
Therefore, there is no danger of a side-swipe if all the other Volvos automatically brake.
What if you deliberately want to crash into that bridge abutment and kill yourself?
Dave Barnes 9 breweries within walking distance of my house
One thing I've noticed is that the people who think they're the best drivers typically exceed the speed limit the most and tend to cause more accidents.
This reminds me of when I was on vacation in Greece in 1998, and rented a motorcycle for a day. The rental service representative told me that I'm not a good driver, since all good drivers are dead.
Some police departments have stopped classifying collisions as "accidents" - because the word has a connotation that it was unavoidable. I'm not sure I've ever seen an unavoidable collision.
I've seen plenty of people do things like lose control on icy patches. I assume they're very much like the idiots that were passing me when I was doing 20 MPH on a 50 MPH limit road the other day; freezing rain, the road already so icy that the barest touch of the brakes kicked on the ABS, and these idiots still wanted to do 50."
Well, there is nothing inherently wrong/unsafe with driving fast. You just have to moderate your speed according to what is safe for your particular environment (road conditions, traffic, and level of performance your car and you are capable of).
Like you, on snow or rain slick roads....when poor conditions are present, I slow way the hell down. But on good days, on a good road...I go as fast as I can without endangering myself or others....posted 'speed limit' be damned.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
So if someone kicks a huge beachball in front of it, will it slam on the brakes and get rear-ended?
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
I've used an Mercedes M-Class that has very similar technology (they're brand name is Distronic). It does the flashing light, and will auto-brake down to idle speeds. Moderate technical teardown: http://www.whnet.com/4x4/distronic.html Youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFOh-jvjRI8 (no affiliation with either site)
Didn't White Star try something similar a number of years ago.
IIRC they were built by Harlan and Wolff in Northern Ireland.
Nothing wrong with driving fast; in fact "fast" is totally relative. There IS something wrong with driving too fast for conditions.
This is DEFINED as how fast your vehicle can stop, given its weight, brakes, tires, and the road surface and current conditions, versus how many meters it travels per second, and what the sight line and current visibility is, AND your reaction time.
If you come up to a corner where the sight line is 100 feet, it takes you 1/2 second to respond to something in the road, then "too fast for conditions" is defined as any speed at which your stopping distance plus the distance your car travels in that 1/2 second reaction time is greater than or equal to 100 feet.
You are EXPECTED, as a safe and licensed driver, to ANTICIPATE road conditions - if it's wet and around 0*C or colder, you should be driving as if you will hit ice at any time. "Black ice" should never take you by surprise, you should EXPECT it in conditions where it can occur.
A lot of people make the mistake of thinking that if they can make it around a corner at 50 MPH without losing traction, then that should be the speed limit there. Being able to control the car is NOT the reason for the speed limit on most corners, it's sight distance.
A couple of years ago, I came around a corner after a storm, and there was a 16 inch diameter hunk of dead tree, about 3 feet long, lying in the road. I was doing about 20 MPH because of the short sight distance and general sticks lying around on the road. I pulled off about 100 feet past it, and got out and went back to push the thing out of the road. Before I got to it, some moron in an SUV came around the corner at about 40 MPH, couldn't stop in time, hit the log, wrecked his front suspension and tore the muffler off his car when he came down again. He's damn lucky he didn't roll the thing, or kill anyone.
How do you prevent an accident? By abstaining from driving.
If Volvo would sell the car without an engine, even more accidents could be avoided.
It was a Porsche 914, that didn't run and was parked in my friend's basement.
I suppose it would have been possible to run the lawnmower into it, but that's about the extent of the problem.
But finally I got it running and sold it to another friend. He hasn't crashed it yet, but I'm waiting.
A crash-proof car is the automotive equivalent to a secure computer - unplugged from the net. It's all relative.
Nevertheless, it's an intriguing idea, and certainly there will be some benefits of the development.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
get my ass out of the way of the truck that was barreling at my car because I had got off an exit ramp and slowed down properly only to find my ears filled with honking and my rear-view mirror filled with some trucker's headlights.
Its an unfortunate combination of my innate caution and their innate self-assurance that led to a few seconds of terror on both our parts.
I have also spent many an evening on the Blue Ridge Parkway tailgating Bamby (white-tailed deer aren't really,) and running over "Thumper" (an accurate rendition of the sound made, [minus the squooshy squeak,]) in that Disney-esque scenery.
I doubt that the Volvo people are going to engineer their cars to speed UP.
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Worse, robbers might be able to fool the sensors and stop a car so that they could rob it.
What could possibly go wrong?
the subway.
Works for me and about 8 million other people in New York City. :)
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I remember talking to a guy who was involved in the early onset research in this field for Volvo; (this was 5 years ago)
Apparently they had a pretty good prototype that braked if the car in front suddenly stopped; but the radar was unable to pick up on already stationary cars, so if you came to an intersection and the car in front of you was waiting for a green light, the car would plow right into it.
They also had some concerns that people would rely too much on it, and simply floor the accelerator on the highway, and cease paying attention to the trafic, because the car would save them.
this does nothing from side impact crashes (which i would guess are more common)
Call me when collision insurance on it is about $20 a month. Until then these yupster "because my kids have to be safe" fads will continue to nauseate me.
Back in college (only 3 years ago), I had an AI professor who was doing consulting work on exactly this kind of system. It made for an interesting class discussion on the pros/cons of such a system and how care must be taken to only have the car take over when human reaction time is insufficient to prevent a collision.
Of course, preventing it from "taking over" on a false positive is a whole other issue.
Please excuse my ignorance, but what's Black Ice? I'm a native Floridian so have no experience with winter driving. Is it ice that's invisible to the eye and just appears as normal road?
Thanks to the internet, we can now all die alone together! -SomeWoman
Well, this is one of the big reasons. We lug hundreds, or even thousands of pounds of safety equipment around. To the point where we need esoteric "hybrid" drive trains to obtain a fraction of the distance per unit fuel that small cars three decades ago got with crappy, inefficient, four-bangers manufactured to oil-guzzling tolerances.
Safe, powerful, efficient. Pick one.
...and they'll just build a better idiot behind the wheel. Stop making cars safer and start making the people driving them smarter!
When you're in the air, very little gets in the way of your radar. You can load up a big plane with all sorts of mobile air traffic control equipment, and feed data to all your planes to keep them from getting in each other's way. Once you start flying "under the radar", all bets are off in terms of automated collision detection.
Imagine "ground traffic control". Every tree, hill, truck, building... All getting in the way of the dirt simple positioning systems that your "leprous gerbil" could run.
Getting the picture?
So you put the radar in each vehicle instead of in a single central control location.... Suddenly it's not as simple as the one unified radar signal. It's a huge pain in the ass instead.
This isn't a technological problem. It's a social problem. We allow bad drivers on the road. Bad drivers make poor decisions (holding extended conversations on their phones, tailgating, driving faster than their vehicle and conditions can safely support, weaving, etc...) or fail to execute in crucial moments (slamming the breaks in a skid, etc..). Instead of spending fuel to lug around a technological solution, we should remove the bad drivers from the road. Make the road test have some meat to it. Make the written test about more than what you can get fined for. Make drivers re-take the test every time their license expires instead of making renewal about a government cash-cow.
He's damn lucky he didn't roll the thing, or kill anyone.
The anyone he would have killed would have been you, outside of your car in a low visibility situation.
I understand the desire to be a good Samaritan and clear the road for others who are not cautious. unfortunately, no good comes from putting ourself at risk in such a situation, since you are simultaneously putting others at the risk of killing you, when if everyone remained in cars it was far more likely to lead to injury and no death.
There are people with flares paid to clean up the road, and if you die doing their job inadequately equipped I pay the price in higher insurance premiums, so please be more thoughtful.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
I've seen this advertised on TV in the UK for a production car, I think it was the V70; and it's mentioned in the first sentence of the Safety section of the S80's website: http://www.volvocars.com/UK/ALL-CARS-MY09/VOLVO-S80/Pages/default.aspx... they call it Collision Warning with Auto Brake. Really, this is old --- the current model of the S80 is a couple of years old at least.
I can't wait for the car that detects a catastrophic collision and instantly fills the interior with an oxygenated gel that infiltrates the lungs and all orifices so there's no pressure differential between your body and the surrounding gel. And the interior walls and windows of the car would have nanotubes that repel or lessen the effect of sharp objects.
Would be a bitch if it accidentally went off in a minor fender-bender, you'd be pooping gel for days.
Maybe we can just replace all those dumbass drivers out there with driving androids, might actually help lower traffic fatalities.
Though since we are saving more non-genetically viable people today with medicine we still need a force for natural selection, traffic seems to be good mechanism for weeding out the dumbasses.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
I fear that this will negatively effect my enjoyment of "Grand Theft Auto V"
What about the case that all cars have radars? wouldn't it be best? we would have very few accidents then.
Remember the good old days when excess babies were stacked like logs in the bed of the pickup? If you arrived with approximately as many as you left with, things were good.
There is a good chance the car of 2025 will have a working black ice detector, and a working white out detector. You'll have to press your thumb print against a display on the dashboard to unlock the ability to travel at more than 20 kph, if the car allows you to drive at all.
At 20 kph, when the infrared detects the moose, the car will lower the head-lights, sound the horn, and apply the brakes. Most likely it will be the moose that has the common sense to get out of the way in time. Moose are pretty good at evading lumbering objects moving slower than a wolf pack or a cranky bear.
It's only when your bumper sticker reads "God, guns, guts: let's keep all three" that a moose turns into an unavoidable pylon.
The Volvo XC60 (flash-needed) has optional:
Whereas City Sense automatically brakes to avoid a collision, collision warning with automatic braking does not avoid collision but reduces the severity of the collision.
Anytime I hear the words "collision-proof" it boils my blood. There has never been an iota of evidence that collisions are hard to produce in general, for anything. In fact, there's very good evidence for thinking that collisions are easy to produce in all cases. It's called the pigeon principle. ~
Volvo first needs to do something about their quality control. About 50% of all V50 models sold last year had to go back to the shop for major repairs. If you read Swedish or know how to ask someone (Google, Altavista, ...) to translate it for you have a look at Dagens Nyheter or Göteborgs Posten. Roughly translated the salient bit goes like 'The worst car is the Volvo V50, every other car needs to be repaired in the first year in traffic' (Värsta bilen är Volvo V50, varannan tvingades akut till verkstaden under första året i trafik) and
'worst in these statistics is the Volvo V50 which spends on average 4.45 days per year in the workshop. Second worst is stablemate S60 with 4.26 days in the shop' (Värstingen i denna statistik är Volvo V50 som i genomsnitt har 4,45 verkstadsdagar. På andra plats kommer märkeskollegan S60 med 4,26 dagar på verkstaden).
--frank[at]unternet.org
Ignoring the wishful thinking even for the occupants, there is still quite a risk being killed *by* that Volvo. Cars are quite a brutal way of travelling; tons of speeding steel that can make any object or person on the outsite flat by merely a moment of distracted driver.
Keeping human-guided vehicles at a speed safe for everyone (30 km/h perhaps?) and leaving high-speed to rail would be far better (also, the vehicles could be *far* lighter, cheaper and non-energi-guzzling). Yes, current society is quite car-centric, but that doesn't mean motor-cars everywhere is the most optimal choice. Compare this to a microsoft-centric computer market, and what it ought to be ...
Even though Volvos aren't considered "cheap", at some $40k they're still a wee bit cheaper than your everyday military aircraft (I couldn't find any figures for the models used in Vietnam, but the Huey's successor, the UH-60 Black Hawk went for about $6m per piece.)
Having lived almost all my life in Canada, I always thought it was the sane thing to do here in winter (getting winter tires). Then, the first time I drove in winter in Toronto, it seemed as if those people didn't live in the same part of the world as the rest of the country. Pratically nobody I talked to had winter tires and all rental cars had all-seasons tires.
The real question is, will it blend?
(See: http://www.willitblend.com/)
Verning verning, collision de bork bork.
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Yay for Volvo. Generally speaking, they are decent cars anyway. But I want to know how is this different from any Mercedes S-class (in particular) made in the last 3 years - they're all RADAR guided with automatic braking, and are even programmed even to keep the car at a reasonable distance (I think 150m) during highway driving. All in all, we do need more intelligent cars on the road, though, and it's good that Volvo is joining the game.
Founder & COO, Hayai India (hayai.in) / USA (hayaibroadband.com)
Why do I hope this isn't going to be another Airbus disaster? Check out the movie on YouTube about the airbus computer which took over control when the plane overshot the runway and tried to continue landing regardless on instruction otherwise. It went something like this: Pilots: "Pull up! Pull up!" Computer: "Cannot comply, landing in progress..." *crash* (into the trees at the end of the runway)
A video of the research for the accident free car.
http://news.preownedcar.com/2009/01/03/volvos-drive-towards-accident-free-car-part-i/
"Please explain to me which law of physics would cause an ABS engaged car to stay afloat on top of slush. "
By keeping the tyre rolling, preventing it from locking and digging down into the slush causing a lot of drag and slowing the car down?
Simple.
I do a lot of 4wding, the ABS equiped 4wds ALWAYS have a tougher time slowing down when we get off the tar. In fact I've been in a Suzuki with ABS where we desperately needed to lock the wheels to stop on an extremely greasy and steep descent and the ABS kept kicking off preventing it. We ended up accelerating out of control down the hill foot jammed solid on the brakes, but thank god the wheels weren't in danger of locking! Cars aren't supposed to accelerate when being told to stop. And it would have stopped except for the ABS blindly deciding that it knew better. The two old beater 4wds that came down straight after without ABS didn't have a problem at all. When they got a bit out of control a jab on the brakes would lock the wheels then they'd start to dig in and bring themselves under control.
Or when a nice new Nissan Patrol with ABS smashed into the back of an old POS Landcruiser without ABS on a highspeed loose gravel over hard base road, The Landcruiser hit the anchors hard ('roo jumped in front of them) locked up and stopped very very much quicker than the Patrol physically could thanks muchly to the ABS. We who were following the Patrol in an old Hilux (no ABS) didn't have a problem stopping in time and we were alot closer to the Patrol than the Patrol was to the Landcruiser.
So yes, there's many many situations where ABS is not just useless, but dangerous. But don't worry, that multi-million dollar techonology is *magical* and has no limits, drawbacks or negative affects in any conditions.
Keep telling yourself that and hope that thick blanket of smug protects you if you ever find yourself in one of the large number of edge cases where ABS is at best, useless.
Duck!
"Where? i don't see one.."
No, Duck! We're gonna hit that Moose!
Seriously,
a campy 1950's education program in all our schools that teaches the youngn's of Canada DUCK DUCK MOOSE. Some silly amusement for the kids,yyes, but that stuff becomes ingrained, and the end result is less moose and moose-like object related deaths.
An old guy in his Volvo is driving home from work when his wife rings him on his carphone,
"honey", she says in a worried voice, "Be careful! There was a bit on the news just now, some lunitic is driving the wrong way down the motorway",
"It's worse than that!", he replies, "There are hundreds of them!"
Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated up.
It may be collision proof when it comes to other vehicles and such, but there's nothing to stop you from driving off a cliff.
And if you're sliding across an icy bridge, you're going to be screwed.
Bottom line is that you STILL have to know how to freaking DRIVE!
On several of the current Volvo models, a feature called "collision warning and auto-brake" is an available option, and the new Volvo XC60 comes with a standard feature called "City Safety" which completely avoids collisions for speeds up to 16km/h and reduces impact for speeds up to 30km/h. You can play a flash demonstration of city safety here: http://www.volvocars.com/intl/campaigns/MY09/XC60/Pages/XC60.aspx The active safety features on the S60 concept are not new, but maybe they will be standard, not optional.
Quote from the wiki page:
"Black ice, also known as "glare ice" or "clear ice," typically refers to a thin coating of glazed ice on a surface, often a roadway. While not truly black, it is transparent, allowing the usually-black asphalt/macadam roadway to be seen through it, hence the term. It is unusually slick compared to other forms of roadway ice."
Wicked stuff!
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
"H2 isn't a military vehicle"
Indeed - you'll note I wrote "military-style".
I'm sorry, I don't quite understand what your response is about.
I'm looking forward to the rainy days when the mud splashes over the collision detecter and slams on the brakes.
Here in Norway authorities are trying to limit the use of studded tires,since they do chew up the asphalt pretty badly, particularly when the roads are wet from salting.
This is a problem both from the extra road maintenance it requires, and from the fact that in major cities it can lead to significant amounts of asphalt dust in the air on cold dry days. The latter is a big problem for people with asthma.
On our car we do have studded winter tires, to make trips to our cabin in the mountains of Telemark safer and more comfortable, but that means that we have to pay an additional road tax of NOK 1200 (about $200) per winter.
Terje
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"
Many people seem to think that it's great to have a car stop automatically (stopping is always safe, right?) and that people who think otherwise are just mad control freaks. I beg to differ. What could possibly go wrong?
- You are in the right hand lane, a car pulls up in front of you way too close for you to stop for it, you know there's a gap coming up in the faster left hand lane and you'll be able to smoothly move into it before you reach the stopped car. Only your car has decided to perform an emergency stop for you so you can't even change into the faster lane anymore. Kaboom.
- You are overtaking a car, misjudged the speed of an opposite direction car (or it just drove onto the road), you'll only just make it except... your car has decided to brake for you. Kaboom, no way to avoid the collision.
- You are crossing a street, your car decides to stop because it measured some irrelevant obstacle as being too close, traffic on the street hits you on the side.
- etc, etc, etc...
I have had countless occasions on the road where I intentionally did not brake because there was a much safer alternative to avoid an obstacle, and I would hate to have a car slamming on the brakes for me on every one of those. You just can't compare this kind of "feature" to any other safety devices like ABS, seat belts, etc... which are rarely ever counterproductive.
I recently took a skidding course, which had a prevention side attached to it as well, and they showed us many examples of crashes where stopping was exactly the wrong thing to do.
The bit I'm worried about is cascade effect. If one of those automatics hits the brakes the next one will have to throw out it's anchor as well, and so on.. That's how you get motorway bunching.
However, until there is a car that tasers and then parks a driver who goes lane hopping in peak hour traffic to gain those precious 5 secs/hour at great risk to others I fear the risk is reduced, not eradicated.
And don't forget the ABS effect. When that was introduced (and AFAIK even now) it has been found that drivers take more risks, a bit like those with nano windshield coating forgetting that seeing better in rainy weather still does not mean improve tyre adhesion..
Enfin, it's a good idea, let's hope it goes the way of ABS and makes it into all cars. Otherwise I'd make sure the headrests are at the right height first..
Insert
Don't get T-boned, sideswiped, or rear-ended in a 2020 Volvo. The brilliant "forward looking radar" for some reason doesn't help in those scenarios. Apparently Volvo designers are very puzzled.
Seriously, how can they jump from "car with radar and time-sensitive auto-braking" to "crash-proof"? Not all car crashes are caused by a lack of applying brakes or undetected objects in front of the car. This is so simple to explain that I'm becoming redundant. I've never owned a Volvo, and now I'm certain that I never will... Bye!