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Auto Safety Tech May Encourage Dangerous Driving
longacre writes "Modern highway planning schemes designed to make roads safer combined with the comfort and safety technology found in the modern automobile may actually be putting us in danger, according to a compelling piece in Popular Mechanics. Citing studies and anecdotal evidence, the article points out that a driver on a narrow mountain road will probably drive as if their life depends on it; but the same driver on an eight-lane freeway with gradual curves and little traffic may be lulled into speeding while chatting on his cellphone. Quoting: 'Modern cars are quiet, powerful and capable of astonishing grip in curves, even on wet pavement. That's swell, of course, until you suddenly lose traction at 75 mph. The sense of confidence bred by all this capability makes us feel safe, which causes us to drive faster than we probably should. We don't want to make cars with poor response, but perhaps we could design cues — steering-wheel vibration devices, as in video games? — that make us feel less safe at speed and encourage more care. ... In college I drove an Austin-Healey 3000 that somehow felt faster at 45 mph than my Mazda RX-8 (or even my Toyota Highlander Hybrid) feels at 75 mph. That was a good thing.'"
I drove an MG for several years and became a better driver for it. And "driver" is the word. People nowadays expect their automobiles to be living rooms on wheels so it is no wonder they don't have a sense of "road feel". This is the same psychology that attempts to hide from airline passengers the fact you're in an airplane. Compare riding in a small plane to an airliner. The modern airliner is as close to not flying as you can get. We spend an inordinate amount of time watching, using and living in machines.
That is the thing that encourages the reckless behaviour.
And make it a crime to wear pants while driving. Your ass and sex parts should be exposed to the potential danger as God intends.
And add a large spike between the legs of the driver.
And that is why you need a vehicle that gives you engagement with the world, without protective systems or even a windshield. When you've got wind blasting in your face, you don't want to go past 65 mph.
Remember, there were no nuclear weapons before women were allowed to vote.
Do you have stats to back this up, or are you handwaving?
I'd expect most accidents to be in urban centers simply because that's where most of the cars are.
Compulsory big spike in the middle of the steering wheel.
This is why I replaced the seatbelts with deadly snakes, and the airbags with big metal spikes.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
The problem isn't the safe car. It's the idiot driving it.
The Alabama region SCCA has a new driver car control clinic program that teaches kids around the age of 16 how to handle a car when it loses control. The courses look like regular autox courses and it truly makes a huge difference in their ability and confindence, without making them feel like they can drive dangerously. http://www.alscca.org/
Whale
Is that by number of miles driven?
Most accident stats are reported on the bases of number of miles driven, so a rarely used road would have a lower absolute number of accidents on it.
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
I'm racking my brains, but i just keep coming back to the car thing.
perhaps we could design cues -- steering-wheel vibration devices, as in video games?
You act like this would be an innovation, but my 1990 Geo Prizm had this feature, in a compact car no less! If ever I got above 75 mph, the entire vehicle would start to shudder.
Just drive on my local highways during moderate traffic. You'll never feel safe again.
Rush hour is actually safer since nobody is moving anyways.
Basic economics says that we we are endowed with something like safer cars, we will use:
1) Part of it to actually increase safety, and
2) part of it to trade-off against things like speed, convenience, etc.
The fallacy that the headline implies is that safer cars lead to less safety.
People will always behave at the lowest level of intellectual output that will keep them safe--if you perceive that the road is engineered to keep you safe (banked curves, wide lanes, etc.), you will put less effort into ensuring your safety.
The issue is that when everyone behaves as such, what you end up with is what we have: a bunch of idiots with rapidly moving large hunks of metal and plastic, most of whom are relatively oblivious to what is around them simply because they don't feel they need to pay attention.
The quote by Hans Monderman in the article rings true: "When you treat people like idiots, they'll behave like that."
Of course, with everything how it is, chances are good that things won't be changing anytime soon--people tend to want to be lazy, and a lot of attempts to change, say, intersections with traffic lights (or stop signs) to circles will be met with stiff opposition by drivers who, unfamiliar with circles, will balk at the lack of "safety" because there's no automatic indicator saying that they can step on the gas pedal now.
Makes you wonder where the hell situational awareness and the general sense of self-preservation up and went, doesn't it?
~EI
We could put all the cars on the same one lane road (in each direction), and they could link up to each other. This would allow less wind resistance and only one car would pull (or push) all the rest. We could call this a "train"
They say, "Evil prevails when good men fail to act." What they ought to say is, "Evil prevails."
This is a well known effect known as "Risk Compensation" (Wikipedia). The most famous study showing the effect was on a fleet of taxis in Munich equipped with Anti-Lock Brake System (ABS).
The rest of the drivers can use feedback mechanisms such as "the speedometer" and "vision" to realize they are driving fast.
The speedometer only tells you how fast you are moving, it tells you nothing about whether that is too fast for current conditions.
The feel of the car provides the best clues about whether you're going too fast, but modern cars do their best to mask that as much as possible, because it interferes with your other distractions.
Edward Burr
Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
The problem here isn't improvements in technology but rather user expectations. This should be a familiar problem to almost everyone here. What's amazing about this is that there are so many drivers on the road with little or no formal training, there aren't more accidents. These are people who are routinely lulled into a sense of security because they repeatedly engage in dangerous behavior without consequences. Well, what's the natural, human, thing to do when you do something a hundred times without ill-effect? You assume it's safe. You've driven with that 64 oz big gulp between your legs, a cheeseburger propped up on your leg, fries in the cup holder, while talking to a friend in the next seat doing the same thing how many times? Too many to count. And you haven't been in an accident. It's precisely this erosion of standards that leads to accidents, and the ONLY -- and I repeat ONLY -- way to safeguard against it is routine training.
Which is the one thing nobody will ever agree to, because they think driving is a right, not a priviledge. Afterall, it's all those other jerks that are causing problems, not me, right? Just like how something like 90% of drivers think they're "above average", huh. If you want to solve the accident rate problem, the solution is training and certification by a competent authority and stiff punishments for non-compliance with those standards. Hard pill to swallow though, as entrenched as the automobile is in our culture and the sense of entitlement -- even repeat DUI offenders insist they should have their license.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
In particular, how SUVs separate the driver's experience from the road in a dangerous way. And on the shopping habits of American car buyers in general. It's a favorite article of mine.
Big and Bad: How the S.U.V. ran over automotive safety
"In the Jetta, the engine is clearly audible. The steering is light and precise. The brakes are crisp. The wheelbase is short enough that the car picks up the undulations of the road. The car is so small and close to the ground, and so dwarfed by other cars on the road, that an intelligent driver is constantly reminded of the necessity of driving safely and defensively. An S.U.V. embodies the opposite logic. The driver is seated as high and far from the road as possible. The vehicle is designed to overcome its environment, not to respond to it. Even four-wheel drive, seemingly the most beneficial feature of the S.U.V., serves to reinforce this isolation. Having the engine provide power to all four wheels, safety experts point out, does nothing to improve braking, although many S.U.V. owners erroneously believe this to be the case. Nor does the feature necessarily make it safer to turn across a slippery surface: that is largely a function of how much friction is generated by the vehicle's tires. All it really does is improve what engineers call trackingâ"that is, the ability to accelerate without slipping in perilous conditions or in deep snow or mud. Champion says that one of the occasions when he came closest to death was a snowy day, many years ago, just after he had bought a new Range Rover. "Everyone around me was slipping, and I was thinking, Yeahhh. And I came to a stop sign on a major road, and I was driving probably twice as fast as I should have been, because I could. I had traction. But I also weighed probably twice as much as most cars. And I still had only four brakes and four tires on the road. I slid right across a four-lane road. " Four-wheel drive robs the driver of feedback. "The car driver whose wheels spin once or twice while backing out of the driveway knows that the road is slippery," Bradsher writes. "The SUV driver who navigates the driveway and street without difficulty until she tries to brake may not find out that the road is slippery until it is too late. " Jettas are safe because they make their drivers feel unsafe. S.U.V.s are unsafe because they make their drivers feel safe. That feeling of safety isn't the solution; it's the problem."
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
"If you want people to drive safer, take out the airbag and attach a machete pointed at their neck."
...are the bane of my existence. I used to have a '94 Grand Am, and the ABS control chip failed in it-- a failure which manifested itself in a particularly terrifying way: Occasionally when I would attempt to apply the brake, the pedal would go straight to the floor and not actually activate the brakes. At all. I'd have to quickly take my foot off and reapply. Luckily it never happened in a situation where I would have had to slam on the brakes to avoid a collision. You can bet your ass I got that little problem fixed in a hurry, because there's no feeling like stepping on the pedal and finding that the brakes aren't fucking there.
Now, I drive a Scion Xa with what can only be called an overzealous ABS. If I'm braking and happen to hit a pothole or bump hard enough, the ABS is triggered and suddenly my stopping distance is not going to be less than the distance to the bumper of the car in front of me. Once again, the solution is to quickly take my foot off and then reapply. I have had to learn where the trouble spots are on the roads I frequent and brake very carefully when approaching them, always ready to lift my foot and then brake again if necessary.
I kinda wish ABS was something that could be toggled by the driver... it has its uses, but IME it's been more of a pain in the ass than a lifesaver.
~Philly
Unless you arrive at your destination exhausted because the car was nagging at you the whole way. Back in my college days, I drove from Northern Calif to Southern in a noisy, rattletrap. I pulled into Pasadena around 5 hours after starting and was bone tired from the drive. So tired in fact, I didn't notice a kid crossing in front of a stopped car in the next lane. The stopped car driver realized I wasn't slowing down, saw that the kid was in jeopardy and so he leaned on his horn. Had that driver not blasted his horn, I could well have hit the kid. As it was, I'm sure the kid never realized how close he came to being hit because he stopped and glared at the horn blower.
Quieter, smoother cars just don't fatigue you as much as cars used to. I think that's a good thing. Being in an accident because you're tired, not so much.
When he wrote "Unsafe At Any Speed" people were still getting impaled by their steering wheels which didn't collapse and crumple out of the drivers way.
I remember as a kid driving by an accident where most of the car was torn away except for the engine and the steering column which we sticking up and through the young woman who'd been driving the car.
The other car that had slammed into her from the back and propelled her into traffic in the intersection was also dead from the impact with his steering column.
I'll never be able to wipe that image from my mind so ... joke away but realize that the idiots behind the wheels were sometimes innocent victims.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
According to all of the statistics I have seen, injury and fatality rates continue to steadily decrease (latest US statistics). I understand the point the article is trying to make - and in specific cases it is probably true - but on the whole, making vehicles and roads safer does in fact translate into an increase in overall safety in spite of the idiotic driving habits of the general public.
I tend to think that having a more extensive driver training program where drivers are exposed to poor conditions and limits of vehicle handling are a much better idea than purposely making roads and vehicles worse. Maybe even have rigorous enough testing that the incompetent are actually weeded out and not allowed to possess driver's licenses.
Maybe people drive faster because it's such a frustrating situation, at least in the US. I drive to work every morning, and drive home every afternoon, in rush hour traffic. I really have no choice in the matter. My employer says I will be at work at 9 am, and I can leave at 5 pm. There is no public transit that would get me where I want to go and the apartments near where I work are way out of my price range. It takes me half an hour and two toll roads that cost over $2 a day. If I don't take the toll roads it's even longer in the car.
It really grinds my nerves that voters continue shoot down competent public transportation, but I can't drive anywhere without seeing miles of road covered in orange cones, snarling traffic for miles because the already congested highway system is in need of expansion (half the reason it takes so long to drive anywhere in the first place). And by the time they finish the work (five years from now) they'll just have to start again. I really just hate driving. Even without all the traffic, I'd rather just get on a train and have someone else do the driving. You can drive and eat breakfast, listen to music, and basically turn your car into a living room, but you need only see rush hour once to see that everyone does it poorly. Traffic would probably move faster if people didn't try. Or if they had another option for eating that breakfast while commuting.
"I do a grep for shit, bollocks, and tits before checking in code. I'm professional..." -RECURSIVE_META_JOKE, reddit.com
The obvious answer is to buy an Austin-Healey for every man, woman, and child.
The speedometer tells you how fast you are moving. Your vision tells you what the current conditions are. We expect your brain to connect the two -- if it can't there's no amount of steering wheel shaking, noises or other "clues" that will be of any use in making the same determination.
Re-instate the national 55 limit.
This message brought to you by the airline industry and Greyhound.
You miss my point. The feel of a modern car is different than the feel of an older car. The problem is that people who have driven older cars (myself included), need to get used to the feedback of newer cars.
Rather than adapting the cars with tech to make them mimic old cars, why don't we focus on people getting used to the new feedback model?
Seriously, this is nothing new in cars... for a hundred years, the feeling of 'danger' at high speeds has been decreasing... often because the danger has actually been reduced (shock absorbers, better tires, etc). Let's not step in the way of the natural progession just because there is a learning curve for people to get used to the feedback of newer cars.
Instead of artificially inducing steering wheel vibration, etc, why not disable all car radios and keep people from closing their windows fully? Or how about just a dashboard light that lights up when some algorith determines that there is too much slippage, or something?
Personally, I know the limits of my car because I'm an experienced driver. I know what speed is safe in different conditions, for my tires, since I bothered to read the specs and have bothered to push the limits of my car on a closed course, and for sake of caution, keep my speed well below what I would consider to be the safe threshold.
I think this idea of adding in fake feedback mechanisms is yet another way we encourage people to be intellectually lazy, and I don't like it.
YMMV.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
...people will drive as fast and with as much care as they feel safe getting away with. Some think we should come up with ways to make people feel less safe than they actually are.
Of course, then people learn to distrust feedback and cues, knowing that they are designed to fool them. End result, people start driving fast again, only now they have no cues that they trust, including the real ones.
Ignorance is the root of all evil.
No, not at all. The lesson that if you hide the risks from people, they tend to make more risky decisions.
Rather than simply cushioning people from the risks in their environment, they need to be made aware of them and their consequences.
Anyway, geeks? Football? Going outside to play? That's crazy talk! :-)
I've been aware of this effect for two decades, and it's all about an absence of feedback from car to driver. Think about the feedback that you get as a "driver" when you ride a bicycle: the faster you want to move, the harder you have to work physically and the greater the feedback you get from both the bicycle and your own muscles.
That is precisely what is missing in modern cars. Not only is there no physical work involved - we now even have power steering, power windows, power everything - but the engine is largely silent at all speeds, the tires don't hum, the shocks are quiet; the interior is like a virtual womb.
The last vehicle I drove, for 14 years, was a 1989 Mercury Tracer (which had the same engine as a Mazda 323). I miss that little vehicle for the degree of feedback that it gave me as the driver: the engine actually made noise and vibration that increased as I drive faster, etc. Even though I still don't drive a "luxury car" by any means, I don't get that so much since then. Fortunately I still have what you might call muscle memory of the Tracer.
If we REALLY want to make cars safer, AND teach people to use fuel more wisely, then vehicles should be made much more an extension of our physical bodies; there should be some tangible or physical consequence and feedback from driving faster or driving recklessly.
If we 'teach' people to ignore warnings that their car is losing tractions, such as wheel vibration, we are taking an active role killing people.
Wheel vibration isn't a useful signal that the car is about to lose traction. It's already "taken" by other problems: It's a signal that a tire has blown out, or you have a wheel out of balance, a misaligned front suspension, a severe engine misfire, or a very cheap car.
Making the wheel vibrate artificially to signal the edge of available traction only makes sense if the rest of the car is in ideal condition (including design).
The big yellow triangle with exclamation point that flashes in the middle of my Mercedes' speedometer is a much better indicator. You really can't miss it, and it can't be mistaken for some other minor problem.
Putting moderation advice in your
I'm blowing my mod points here, and hoping that I'm redundant to other, earlier and wiser comments, but you are clearly too young to know a simple truth.
Greater Speed=More Energy=More Lethal Crashes
It's just this simple, peeps. There is literally no case you can postulate (including "being chased by tyrannosaurs") in which ADDING energy is the best escape strategy. Don't bother: Asteroids? Tanker truck explosion >just starting in the tunnel behind you? There isn't. Simply because the costs of your GUESS ("oh, hockey-mask-clad killer coming up behind me!") if you prove to be wrong, are fatal. Risk requires understanding probabilities and humans do not have a facility for that. We see the hero survive, we envision how it'll work, we "just know" it was the right thing to do, and it simply never is.
And so, we have this public health problem: too many people, driving too fast, making preventable crashes into fatal ones.
Don't get it? Note all the appropriate agencies no longer call them "accidents" they're crashes, and they all have the same root-cause: someone was going too fast for the conditions. The investigators' jobs are reduced to finding out who and how much.
So let's be done with this "speeding is safe" meme. It's crap. I, for one, cannot wait for our automated-car overlords to take over.
Less throttle, more tunes.
18-25yo males are the most likely group of drivers to have a serious accident due to speed, reading the comments here demonstrates the self-delusions they suffer from.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Just look at fatal accident rates for 100,000,000 vehicle miles: it's been steadily decreasing since 1920, by at least an order of magnitude.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b6/UsFatalAutoAccidentRates.png
Furthermore, if you look at the German statistics, accident rates have been decreasing despite steadily increasing speeds (85th percentile speed is 95mph):
http://www.abd.org.uk/images/mway_sl3~.gif
So: new technologies are making us safer and let us travel at higher speeds. Sorry, but this isn't even a glass-half-empty situation.
You've obviously not been exposed to a lot of blue-collar type work...it's much easier than that.
Carry a/an [insert choice here] extension cord, welding leads, or air hose in your carry on.
If something happens to the plane, just throw one end out and try coiling it back up in a neat coil...It will get caught on something, thus saving the whole plane FTW! Instant Hero!
For those of you that have dealt with these items, you know I'm right!
Can you even recount the number of times that you have had to walk/climb to the other end to manually untangle/untie it so you could coil it back up? I thought not!
My all time favorite were the oxy-acetylene torch hoses! Good Times!
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
An idea; I have one too:
Automated Rail Synchronized Envoirment, or ARSE for short.
Develop a 'powered rail' system that not only guides, but also powers and recharges the electric car's batteries. As you use your ARSE, it recharges your car batteries so when you get off of your ARSE, you can actually move around in those areas.[1]
While on your ARSE, your car and ARSE would be talking to each other. Your ARSE knows where it is(whether you do or not), and when you punch in your destination, your ARSE guides your car there after having selected the 'best' route, according to road conditions, traffic, construction, accidents/breakdowns, etc....
When you encounter conditions that need you to get off your ARSE, then you take over manually in your electric car. But, and I say but, if you're one of those that can't find their ARSE with both hands, GPS, and a guide, well...just stay on your ARSE. It's for the best.
Get everyone's ARSE on the electrical 'grid'.
Add in annual state (following federal guidelines and standards?) diagnostic inspections of your on-board ARSE gear.[2]
I'm sure I have overlooked some details the ARSEs here, but I think you can get a picture of my ARSE if you try hard enough.
[1] Start with requiring an ARSE be included with all new/future road construction, then upgrade existing roads.
[2] Collect mileage reading(# of miles you were on your ARSE) to be used to determine your annual cost for being on your ARSE. Maybe incorporate the fee into your tax forms, or something.
A lot of detail work goes into making a good ARSE!
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti