Slashdot Mirror
Toyota Accelerator Data Skewed Toward Elderly
An anonymous reader passes along this discussion on the data for the Toyota accelerator problem, from a few weeks back. (Here's a Google spreadsheet of the data.) "Several things are striking. First, the age distribution really is extremely skewed. The overwhelming majority are over 55. Here's what else you notice: a slight majority of the incidents involved someone either parking, pulling out of a parking space, in stop and go traffic, at a light or stop sign... in other words, probably starting up from a complete stop."
Were little old ladies form Pasadena...
27 data points is not enough to draw a strong conclusion.
parking, pulling out of a parking space, in stop and go traffic, at a light or stop sign... in other words, probably starting up from a complete stop
Or in other words, they take their foot off the pedal and put it on the wrong one.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Old people can't use computers. Even if it involves lightly pressing on the accelerator.
Woz has already described the repro case.
Now, the iPad may not be the be all and end all of consumer devices, but I trust Woz when he talks.
If the vehicle has that much computer controlled functionality, why doesn't the black box tell which pedals were pressed at the time of impact and for the moments before impact? The black box system is arguably an invasion of privacy, but in this case it would go a long way toward fixing the problem(s) and perhaps saving lives.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
I suspect it's got something to do with the idle left foot getting involved as well. I drive manuals (stick shift for you Septics) and have a strong preference for them. Occasionally when I drive an automatic I get a brain fart and I am trying to de-assert (haha I am a programmer) the non-existent clutch I end up hitting the brake and wondering WTF is going on. Same goes when one wears thongs (jandles/flipflops) and driving one gets the brake being pressed at the same time as the accelerator. How many old people with low muscle tone are wearing broad soled shoes nowadays?
This assumes there is only 1 problem, not a half dozen different problems occuring in different situations. Yes, there are probably some that are putting their foot on the wrong pedal, that happens with every make and model of vehicle out there. Lets say statistically all cars have some percentage of elderly putting their foot on the wrong pedal, subtract them out and look at what's left. Serious electrical or mechanical issues can be lost in the noise.
I resemble that remark you young whipper-snapper!
Now get off my lawn before I accelerate uncontrollably and run you down!
God-damned kids!
Sig this!
If the cruise control on your car works that way, IT IS BROKEN.
Could this have anything to do with this recent slashdot story?
Time Flies By As You Get Older
TFA is actually quite convincing; however, might I suggest another possibility? It could be that short or elderly drivers are less easily able to react/respond to the unintended acceleration, and as a result are more likely to get in an accident as the result of the problem. Perhaps the author of this study could compare his data to the demographic/height distributions of various types of traffic accidents to test this hypothesis.
It sometimes does. From everything I can gather, the story reveals that the driver pressed the gas instead of the brake... revealed from the recorder box in the car.
my liberty and dodge stratus didn't. the cruise control only worked when already traveling over 30mph.
Also any tap on the brakes disables cruise control.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Any vehicle with cruise control will have the same issue.
Since you made such a total generalization, I can easily demonstrate that you are incorrect by only giving one example.
In the 1997 Nissan Sentra:
1) Any touch of the brake pedal cancels cruise.
2) If the vehicle goes under 30MPH for any reason, cruise is cancelled.
3) Once cruise is cancelled, it can only be started again by going over 30MPH; and even then, you can only set it to the speed you are currently going at; not at a higher or lower speed. (So you have to reach the desired speed manually, then hit the button).
Come back when you have facts, not fabrications.
The real explanation could be as simple as "Those 55 and older are the ones who can afford to buy the cars in question".
Jobs? Which jobs?
Actually most won't activate until you're pushing the pedal yourself to around 20 mph or so.
That may satisfy our biases, however drawing a conclusion from this data without first adjusting for the distribution of Toyota owner ages is just plain bad analysis. Drawing a conclusion from such a small sample, and the large number of cases in which no age is listed are both factors that weaken the point of the article. Aren't the number of Toyota cases close to 100? Don't other manufacturers have similar problems? Sound conclusions require rigorous analysis.
No shit.
In cars I've driven with the cruise control on, if I tap the brakes it shuts down the cruise control. I've had it set to 65 (speed of the road), and then had to stop. I'd be lazy and hit resume to get back up to speed. It served for very little more than to annoy drivers behind me, because the acceleration was so slow.
I've had it happen a couple times in my current car, where I've stepped on the clutch rather than the brake. It took the computer less than a second to realize what I did, but the engine would speed up momentarily, then idle down. It wasn't a problem, just a curious observation. It got me in the habit of tapping the brake before stepping on the clutch if I wanted to just roll to a stop.
I once drove my car with the cruise control for about 3 blocks, because the throttle cable let loose. The plastic clip at the engine broke, and I was about 3 blocks from where I was staying. That was probably the slowest 3 blocks I'd ever driven. :)
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
I wonder if the driver's foot well is particularly small on these cars. I've been driving an older E150 lately and it's got a foot-activated high-beam switch right where the clutch would be on a similar pickup. I've drained the battery twice so far by hitting that damn switch as I pull in to park and not realized it.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
What it means is that there's likely zero problem with Toyota's cars and there never was.
What's happening is that people are missing the brake pedal and hitting the gas pedal without realizing it. Their car then speeds up, shocking them, and since they think they're foot is on the brake they slam it all the way down, stomp on it, etc., and it just keeps going.
The elderly do this all the time.
Toyota's are just really popular cars, and some lawyer out there smelled blood.
And right now is a really good time to buy a Toyota. You'll get the deal of a lifetime :)
"I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist"
I think we've all done that at some point. :)
I was driving a borrowed car, that had a wide brake pedal. I was coming up to a turn, so I stepped on the "clutch" as I normally would, and it took a second for me to figure out why the car came to a hard stop. :)
I've had the inverse of the unintended acceleration in my car. If I'm wearing work boots, they're a bit wider than my regular shoes, and can catch on the brake pedal rather than the gas.
I posted a rant about this on the previous story (blaming cosmic radiation for it). Most of the unintended accelerations I know of were old people, and those weren't even electronic throttle vehicles. They couldn't understand why the car went faster, because they were pushing the brakes. There was a story about that happening in Santa Monica at a farmers market a few years ago. The driver killed a bunch of people and injured even more. Reading about his reaction and what he said at the accident scene, it sounded more like he did it on purpose. Well, his prize quote was "If they saw me coming, why didn't they get out of the way?" He got probation, because he was "too old to go to jail". Damn, I didn't know being old was an excuse for murder.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
It's been a while, but my '77 Oldsmobile had a button up in the right corner, not quite where the clutch would be, but there abouts. I don't think the high-beam selector did anything unless the headlamps were on, it just toggled between low and high. Strange that yours actually turns them on. And perhaps I just don't recall correctly. That car's been gone for more than 10 years now...
Yeah, no kidding, I drive a wrangler with a six speed, when I visit the parents they want me to drive their auto trans.
I actually once accidentally put the trans in drive instead of reverse. I cover the brake when I drive their pacifica, but wow - yeah, totally understand the brain fart thing.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
Starting and accelerating from a complete stop is something every single driver of every unit tested lots and lots of times, you can't drive a car at all in a city without doing that dozens of times. So the functionality and parts for that action have always been very thoroughly tested. It is indeed odd that a bunch of uninformed users have decided it doesn't work and no engineers can reproduce the problem. I wouldn't be surprised if the cause of the problem is found to be users who hate computers and decided to blame computers for their own poor driving mistakes. There is a possibility of a real problem existing of course, but the user bias against a solution has been known to cause problems too. I had a user who had lots of technical problems all the time, and the more attention I gave her, the more problems she caused. The solution was to stop helping, and she eventually stopped calling. I never did find out what a lot of the problems were, but decided it was mostly imaginary or sheer ignorance of the user.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
i used to own a 1988 full sized Bronco. it had that switch AND a clutch. not sure if i ever inadvertantly hit the switch but i do remember pressing against it on occasion.
seems to have misplaced his
he-he, you said you wear thongs... but on a more serious note, i doubt that someone who regularly drives automatics would have a problem like yours. if you're used to never using your left foot while driving, you wouldn't suddenly have the urge to do so. though accidentally pressing the wrong pedal i'm sure happens quite frequently, i'm more and more convinced that this whole toyota ordeal is nothing more than mass hysteria.
weinersmith
If you read the above article and thought, "gee, what convincing evidence," then you're a moron.
It's not a surprise that traffic fatalities were skewed towards the elderly. In any given accident, an elderly person is much more likely to die than a young person. They're not as sturdy.
Now that you're a little bit less of a moron, please go on with your day.
The data in question catagorizes fatalities. Elderly people are often
killed by accidents that would only injure a young person. This could explain
the data skew regardless of whether or there is an actual accelerator defect.
I have used a number of cruise control systems in GM, Ford, and Toyota vehicles of various vintages from the 70s on to brand new vehicles. I have NEVER ONCE seen a cruise control that would do what you describe. All of them refuse to activate below a minimum speed (over 25mph, over 30 in most cases.)
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Look how many have a name that starts with U indicating that U the customer are the problem.
In addition to the data on that spreadsheet suggesting that the majority of cases were "older" people, look at the racial breakdown. Not suggesting that it has anything to do with race, per se, but rather that it would be interesting to know how much experience operating a motor vehicle that these folks have. Did they migrate here? Were their licenses just carried over from their originating country or did they have to retrain to the applicable state requirements?
My '95 Explorer will not engage cruise control it reaches about 23 MPH. I've driven several Ford Tauruses, and same thing - cruise will not engage until about 23+MPH. I cannot get cruise to engage from a stop, or even slow speed.
Sorry to burst your bubble. Of course, some other vehicles could be programmed differently, but every other vehicle I've driven with cruise control has behaved the same way.
Oh, and please let us know if your vehicle does this. I would be suprised, but if it does, well, that's the fact.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
3) Once cruise is cancelled, it can only be started again by going over 30MPH; and even then, you can only set it to the speed you are currently going at; not at a higher or lower speed. (So you have to reach the desired speed manually, then hit the button).
Come back when you have facts, not fabrications.
Odd, my car (not a Nissan), cruise control has a "Resume" feature. If CC gets canceled for some reason (#1 and #2 above), I press the Resume button and the CC accelerates back up to the speed it was set at. Turning the car off or turning the CC OFF, would reset the CC, but other then that it remembers where it was set.
Visit the Arcade Restoration Workshop @ http://www.arcaderestoration.com
First thing you would need, if you really wanted to see if there was a correlation, would be the age distribution of Toyota drivers.
If, perhaps, the distribution looked just like this graph, it would mean nothing.
If, perhaps, the distribution of driver ages skewed to younger drivers, or showed a flat pattern, then you might have something.
Without that baseline, it isn't even worth coming up with theories.
Just out of curiosity, does your cruise control have an "accelerate" button that bumps you up a couple of mph on a tap? If so, what happens when you tap that button while underway? In most cruise control systems, that button is also the "resume" button, which will attempt to get you back up to the last set speed, flooring the accelerator if you're currently doing 45 and the last speed was 65 or something. That said, it still won't do anything if you're doing less than 30, but it can be surprising to hit what you think is the set button and have the cruise control suddenly floor it.
I read the internet for the articles.
These numbers are meaningless without the proper context.
First of all, what is the percentage of ownership, by driver age. In other words: Do a disproportionate amount of older people buy these cars?
Secondly, what is the comparable accident percentage, by car manufacturer and driver age. In other words: Do older people have a problem with all manufacturers or only Toyota?
Lastly, 24 incidents is way too few to make any kind of sane inference. Once you break it down by age category you have some categories that only have one to three members. At that low an amount they could simply represent random chance and not some sort of trend.
When you have such a low number you have two choices: ignore the problem or dig deeper beyond these simple statistics. Given that people's lives (and Toyota's reputation) are at stake I'd say that Toyota is doing the right thing by dissecting the cars and chasing every possible problem. If they find something then they can fix it, if they don't find anything then at least they gave it their best and can honestly say that these incidents seem to be user error.
Sapere aude!
On my 1993 Sentra (RIP), there was a resume button that would bring the vehicle back to its old set speed. Touching the brake or going below 30 (say you're going up a hill while you're trying to resume cruise speed) would knock out cruise again even if it hadn't yet gone back up to speed.
That said, it still won't do anything if you're doing less than 30, but it can be surprising to hit what you think is the set button and have the cruise control suddenly floor it.
I've never seen a cruise control "floor it". Acceleration is noticable, but nothing close to the maximum possible.
What vehicle ?
Claims of sudden acceleration happen across all makes. However incidence among Toyotas is significantly higher than other makes, and this trend goes back many years before all the widespread media attention. Thus either a) older people tend to buy Toyotas, or b) there really is something about Toyotas and sudden acceleration.
I started car shopping shortly after the bad press about Toyota broke. I always wanted a Corolla because of its great reputation.
I tried researching the issue, but nobody had hard numbers to firmly establish that the hype was hype. All I got were anecdotal accounts along the lines of "we've had Toyotas for years we love them". The only numbers I did get were that Toyotas got in more accidents per a given number of cars than Hondas, though it wasn't established if it was the car or the driver.
It occurred to me that the main reason I started thinking about the Corolla was reliability....in other words, not having to think about my car and here I was scouring the internet doing research.
Finally, the 2010 Car Buying Guide of The Consumer Reports came out. Everything that attracted me to the Corolla, reliability and safety seemed to rated slightly higher in the 2010 Civic.
If my current car was in better shape I probably would have waited 6 months for the smoke to clear before giving up on getting a Corolla.
My intuition is that a significant amount of bad hype is involved( though not the only issue going on ), but when it comes time to put down tens of thousands of dollars of your own money and take risks that could hurt you personally, your attitude changes.
I don't like spending more money for a Honda, but I can and given what is at risk it is not worth it to take a chance on a Corolla in the next few weeks.
I think getting their electronics analyzed by NASA is the smartest thing Toyota can do. They need a detached third party body with a stellar reputation to reassure people to clear their name.
Old people don't have enough experience with video games. Younger people encounter a stuck accelerator and shift into Pole Position mode, finding a safe way to slow the car or mashing buttons until something clicks. Old people switch into TV mode, watching the scenery whizz by as they wait for someone to rescue them.
My 97 Saturn SC2 has the same CC feature. If I was at a complete stop, I could press the Resume button and it would accelerate normally back to the pre-defined speed setting.
Life is not for the lazy.
According to TTAC, the number #1 vehicle for unintended acceleration is the Lincoln TownCar. The Ford Police cruiser is one of the lowest, however. Funny thing is that, mechanically-- they are the same car. The difference is the people who drive them-- one group being highly trained with fast reaction times, and the other group-- well not so much.
It is not just age distribution that they need to look at with Toyota, it is the complete demographic of the Toyota owner. Car enthusiasts do not usually buy Toyota's these days. Toyota's are incredibly boring in appearance and they handle like slugs. The are anti-exciting, right up there with a root canal. The average Toyota driver is the person in the fast lane doing 45mph and texting someone at the same time. For the average user, unintended acceleration happens everytime they touch that strange scary pedal on the right. When you add in that their brakes are likely shot because they drag them all the damn time while talking on their i-phone going down the road-- and never do routine maintenance on their vehicle: it is no wonder they can't stop.
Toyota's main problem is that they decided to make cars for idiots and got bit by that (granted that is a large market share, just ask Microsoft).
Make younger drivers cart the old folks around and then get off their lawn.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
1) Older people have slower reflexes. A thirty-year-old is more likely to regain control of a runaway without incident than a seventy-year-old regardless of the cause.
2) Older people are not as strong. A twenty-year-old may be able to stop a runaway by hitting the brakes where a seventy-year-old can't.
3) Regardless of whether or not Toyota has a computer problem, some of the Toyota runaways are probably due to "wrong pedal syndrome". What is the age distribution for "runaway" accidents for all makes?
4) As others have pointed out, the elderly are more likely to die in accidents.
5) As others have pointed out, the sample is too small to justify any conclusions about age.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Well, I didn't say that.
But since you're so kind to put words into my mouth, I'll say that the evidence does support what you're saying.
People tend to like to blame the object doing the work for their own errors, rather than admit they're having an error. I've seen people blame a hammer because it always bends nails. With anyone else using it, it's fine. Sometimes you can't look at the fact that the nail bent and eliminate the operator.
Or more of a computer analogy, to make you even happier. How many of us have been called because someone's computer isn't working. "The computer isn't working", just to find out that they're trying to browse the net on a 56k connection, or they have more malware than legitimate programs running? I even "fixed" a computer by turning the brightness back up on the screen. Never underestimate the stupidity of the operator.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Back to the original poster's point: all that was required was one data sample. He gave one. But while we are gathering statistics... I have a 1994 Nissan Sentra LE. It does not resume to the original speed it was set at. Nor does my wife's 2004 Toyota Matrix, with an aftermarket cruise control system.
The odds of this kind of skew are ridiculously low.
We have ages of 27 people. 13 of them are over 65. If you look here, you can compute that of all Americans over 15 years old, 16.5% are over 65. (14.4/(14.4+72.9)=16.5)
I'll be generous and assume that 20% of Toyota owners are over 65.
So in a sample of size 27, what are the odds of getting 13 or more people over 65, when the population you are looking at has only 20% of its people over 65?
The odds of getting that skewed of a sample are only about 1 in a thousand. (1-binomdist(12,27,.2,1)) So despite claims to the contrary, that is indeed statistically significant.
(Disclaimer: I know nothing about where this sample even came from, and am not claiming anything about its validity. I am merely disputing the posts dismissing this sample out of hand without doing some simple math.)
Not only that, but also it assumes that the only reason there's a correlation with age is that the likelihood of driver error increases with age.
Older drivers also tend to drive more slowly, accelerate more slowly and deliberately, and are more likely to give "noisy" inputs to the pedals, since their motor control isn't what it used to be. If there's a particular controller failure that's triggered by a "noisy" input (ie. lots of small variations at a fairly high frequency compared to the real desired control input), then it seems reasonable that the elderly might be over-represented.
In other words, let's all step away from the Jump To Conclusions mat.
Program Intellivision!
Tap, or push, the brake pedal and cruise control is turned off. Every car (and truck) I've driven works this way.
Gone!
Have you ever driven a manual transmission car ??
A statistician is going to tell you that that's too few data points to answer much of anything.
Spoken like a true AT fan. Have you ever even tried driving stick? It's hard for about 3 hours, but once you get a feel for it you simply have so much more control over how the car behaves that it is actually hard to deal with not doing it. I feel like I'm going to die every time I pull into busy traffic in an automatic... they always seem to upshift too early, sacrificing torque for smoothness, which would be great if I didn't have some whacko barreling up behind me at 50 and I need to be going fast enough that he won't smash into me 5 seconds ago.
Oh, and when they flub going up steep hills, that's just terrific.
But you just go ahead and keep knocking people who are better at driving than their cars, I'm sure you know better than they do.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
I mean WTF is wrong with you so-called techies when you think that cars with "drive by wire" throttles, brakes, and steering (yes, steering) are a good idea. You know how reliable computers are (not "can be") and I'm sure you would be quite nervous to trust your life to a computer controlled car. But in the same breath you jump to the defense of Toyota who build cars just like I've described - and apparently didn't even see the need to include some fail-safe routines into their systems.
I see this kind of stuff every day on Slashdot; people arguing both sides of an issue "just because". They never consider that one or both of those "sides" are nothing more than political or marketing spin. It makes me sad to see that this is the kind of discourse my fellow man is capable of.
Anyway, go on with your beating on people who claim to have been taken on a full throttle ride by their Toyota. You probably won't experience this kind of thrill yourself so you can feel safe and justified with your attacks. And if the worst happens and your Toyota freaks out and runs you full-throttle into a bridge abutment - well, we won't hear about what happened to you so it's all OK here in Slashdot land.
...for you Septics
In case anyone else is as puzzled as I am -- it turns out that's rhyming slang for yank. (Septic tank, got it?)
no, a typewriter does not give you greater control over your typing (much less actually) whereas manual transmissions can provide a great degree of control and comfort just not available in automatics.
Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
There is more of linkage of the driver with the car with a manual transmission which leads to better gas milage(5%-15%), and manual transmissions are FAR simpler(easier to fix and cheaper to buy). A better computer analogy would be coding in assembly or java. Java is easier to use, but you give up a lot of efficiency and add a bunch of complicated layers where problems can creep up. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manual_transmission#Benefits_and_drawbacks
Your counter example also applies to my 2000 nissan frontier, the 2007 nissan frontier, and several late model subarus I have seen. Just to bolster your counter-example, that's all. :)
Their may be a grammatical error, misspeling, or evn a typo in this post.
But you just go ahead and keep knocking people who are better at driving than their cars, I'm sure you know better than they do.
If you can't drive an auto, you're in no position to be criticising anyone else's driving. After all, your *worst case* scenario is having to change gears like you would in a manual, just without pushing in a clutch.
If you want to use that kind of analogy, I'd suggest comparing an IBM Model M to a cell phone on-screen keyboard. The Model M is tactile, precise, and communicative. The touchscreen is none of those things, and you just have to hope the software does a good job of guessing what you meant to press.
I'd much rather switch gears myself. The car can't see the hill coming up, or spot the hole in traffic I need to merge into. I can, and having the ability to select gears for power or economy as I please makes handling those scenarios that much easier. The only place I'd prefer an automatic is when there's a string of stop signs on a hill, and there are morons behind me pulling right up to my bumper. I do sometimes roll back a hair, you know...
no, a typewriter does not give you greater control over your typing (much less actually) whereas manual transmissions can provide a great degree of control and comfort just not available in automatics.
I don't have any trouble at all driving my automatic cars with as much "control and comfort" as I do my manual cars. Neither should anyone who wants to try and call themselves a good driver.
More efficient, more reliable, more control. None of these can be said of typewriters over computers.
Well, typewriters are more power efficient, but not time efficient.
Sent from my PDP-11
um, to pull out of a parking space you need to use the accelerator.
in my 3 incidents of rapid unexpected acceleration, i was at a stop in icy conditions. when i applied the gas gently, the car jerked forward much faster than anticipated. once was at a stoplight and no accident occurred. once was backing out of a parking space and i ended up hitting a lightpost hard enough to fuck up the bumper. the third (actually first) incident, i was at a red light behind a truck and whacked him pretty hard. after 120,000 miles driving this car, i know what to expect when i hit the accelerator. on these 3 incidents, it was quite a shock.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
Anyone remember that gem of litigation? The one where people won lawsuits claiming breast implants caused chronic fatigue syndrome despite the fact the rate of chronic fatigue among breast implant patients was the same as the general population.
The law isn't about the truth. It's about narrative.
Look at the Tylenol scare. There's only one way to respond as a company in that situation. Toyota's great sin is that they held back and waited for the truth.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
if you can drive your auto with as much control as your manual, then i don't think you actually HAVE much control over your car.
and i don't have any trouble driving an auto, actually its less taxing on the mind. but sometimes i like being in control of my car, especially on trips >100km.
Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
The beginning part of that thought had crossed my mind as well.
But then another thought crossed my mind... If the computer is malfunctioning, what makes you think the electronic switch used by the ignition control, or the electronic sensor for the gear indicator, will be working correctly?
For me, all this story is "a bunch of rumors not substantiated by an actual cause yet, so Ill wait to make my judgement"
if you can drive your auto with as much control as your manual, then i don't think you actually HAVE much control over your car.
What is it, exactly, I shouldn't be able to do ?
and i don't have any trouble driving an auto, actually its less taxing on the mind. but sometimes i like being in control of my car, especially on trips >100km.
Long trips are one of the best times to have an auto (along with cruise control). Probably beaten out only by city driving and commuting.
There's a saying from the old country I like for these situations.
"An ugly girl blames the mirror".
Sent from my PDP-11
It's about control and feel.
It's also about using a car as something more than a boring beige appliance to go from point A to point B. I think that's what's happening in the US. We no longer care about the vehicle - the feel, the fun, the visceral experience. We just want to get from here to there and not be involved in the process.
As more and more people get automatic transmissions, ABS, turn by turn navigation systems, air bags, etc the need to control the car diminishes. As fewer and fewer people are interested in driving, drivers are getting less and less attentive. More phone calls, more texting, more eating, more things that are not driving are happening behind the wheel, and we are paying the price.
Take a ride with somebody who is interested in cars and driving as a hobby. Or take a ride in a car with somebody who rides a motorcycle frequently. Those people are going to be more aware of their surroundings, and chances are good that they will be a better driver because of it.
Drive your automatic Camry all you want. Just don't be an ass when other people actually care about the experience of driving.
Guys. Just because the data is skewed towards the elderly, doesn't mean it's their fault.
Does anybody know what the age distribution for Toyotas really is?
If your car can't physically make it up a hill then you have more problems than your automatic transmission. What in the hell are you talking about with this ATs can't make it up a hill nonsense? Was the last time you drove one when they first came out?
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
if you can drive your auto with as much control as your manual, then i don't think you actually HAVE much control over your car.
What is it, exactly, I shouldn't be able to do ?
i can't say, never having seen you drive.
and i don't have any trouble driving an auto, actually its less taxing on the mind. but sometimes i like being in control of my car, especially on trips >100km.
Long trips are one of the best times to have an auto (along with cruise control). Probably beaten out only by city driving and commuting.
i think you've never driven for fun. automatic gears take the fun out of driving. inside the city it becomes a burden (not an advantage) to continually keep shifting. automatic gear shifting is really helpful there.
when, on the other hand, you don't need to shift so frequently, it becomes nice to have something to think about. here, automatics just take away the enjoyment of a long drive.
cruise control is usually liked by people who aren't bothered about driving and just want it to be as painless as possible. i find it quite boring.
Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
Oh my my. You have never driven a manual car I see.
Aside from the better fuel economy, the car is much nicer to drive.
i can't say, never having seen you drive.
You're the one arguing automatics can't be controlled properly. I want to know in what ways.
i think you've never driven for fun.
I drive quite frequently for fun, though not as often as I'm on a motorbike, these days.
when, on the other hand, you don't need to shift so frequently, it becomes nice to have something to think about. here, automatics just take away the enjoyment of a long drive.
Long drives are boring, regardless. Having to regularly row through the gearbox just makes the whole experience more fatiguing - and the last thing you want on a long trip is more fatigue.
cruise control is usually liked by people who aren't bothered about driving and just want it to be as painless as possible. i find it quite boring.
Cruise control is liked by people who are experienced at driving distances and realise that it makes monitoring your speed one less thing you have to worry about, again reducing fatigue.
It blows my mind that anyone would want to drive for any non-trivial distance without cruise control.
How can we talk about the statistics of people having accidents without talking about the statistics of people driving the car in the first place?
How many young people buy a Toyota vs old people? Toyota has typically been cheap and easy to maintain and repair. This is something typically elder people value much more than young people who rather go for something looking good instead. The article also mention the statistics are more skewed against immigrants than Americans, however Toyota is not an American car, and there are other American cars. Immigrants are thus far more likely to using a foreign car than someone born in the country of Ford and GM. The statistics may just as well be representative of the demographics buying Toyota rather than saying anything meaningful about the accidents.
- Beware of statistics; it can easily be abused to fool people to believe in lies
I've owned quite a few cars with that style of dip switch and none of them actually turned the lights on. However back in the 70's I had a Honda 750 motorbike. The headlight was controlled by a sliding thumb switch mounted on the RH side of the handlebar, it had three settings off(left), low(center) and high(right). Kinda scary when going around a bend and you flick it across to off instead of low.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Obviously, the old geezers are just trying to look for Country Kitchen Buffet. So, just shut down those buffet restaurants and those Toyota's will fix themselves (at the expense of the elderly).
I have a Prius. When dropping below the minimum speed the stored speed is zero'ed out. Resume does not work from a stop, even when going from freeway speed back to freeway speed. You must set a new speed to engauge the crusise control.
Stepping hard on the brakes while flooring the throttle will stop the car. I tried it.
The truth shall set you free!
i think we may have`to be satisfied with having different opinions in this subject, since you can't even CONTEMPLATE how someone can not-like cc. just amazing!
-perryizgr8
/. not letting me post >25 posts in a day!!?
wtf??
And my big soccer mom MPV gets better milage than your Prius, and your Saturn.
Not all cars are created equal, and in general, it is proven that equivalent vehicles that only differ by transmission type (ie, manual vs auto) the manual transmission is more economical. It's just the nature of the two systems.
An entire Slashdot story where the only analogies can be car analogies...
My kingdom for a donkey!
I'm gonna go with: my experience does not mirror yours. I spent a few years driving cars with "old fashioned" fully mechanical automatic transmissions, I got used to having all manner of control without needing to coordinate hand and feet. The newfangled electronically controlled automatic transmissions are a pain. The worst as far as shifting up to early was a Toyota Matrix which shifted into its top gear well before redline while I was trying to accelerate uphill on a freeway. Of the handful of other cars with 'modern automatics' I've driven, they've all been far more unpleasant and unpredictable than the older transmissions. The best, and most predictable by far, was a Nissan Sentra with a CVT. All in all I'd be hard pressed to come up with a situation in which modern autos are "better".
The revolution will be mocked
If the incidents (or many of them, or even just some or a few of them) are caused by human factors--mixing up the brake & accelerator pedals--then we aren't we looking at that as a problem and figuring out how to solve it?
I don't know what the solution might be--maybe having the accelerator pedal give you some feedback if you slam it into the ground as you would a brake pedal in an emergency situation?
But regardless, it is a problem, it is a known problem, it is definitely a real and very dangerous problem, and there are bound to be solutions out there. Why does no one seem to be looking?
BS. Aparentely you never use cruise control in you life.
If the speed on the cruise control is not reset it will try to accelerate to the selected speed as soon as you enable it. If you vehicle is in full stop and you enable a cruise control, it may not burn rubber, but it will accelerate as fast as it can to get to the set speed.
It sounds like you've only ever used broken cruise control implementations. All the cars I've ever driven with cruise control (lots - i was using hired cars twice a week for about a year) will not engage cruise control unless you are doing at least 40kph. I typically use cruise control all the time (except in my current car where I use the speed limiter instead) so I was well aware of what speed they engage at.
The reasons I prefer driving a manual are:
1)When starting from a stop in icy conditions you have the option of starting in 2nd reducing the chances of losing traction.
2)When accelerating up to freeway speeds from an on ramp (from 40-60/65) you can choose to shift down two gears to get more acceleration if you want, where with an automatic, it has a harder time deciding if you want to shift down one or two gears, and may shift one, then a couple seconds later another providing initially less acceleration than desired, then another pause with no acceleration then fine after that as long as its in time.
3) Engine braking.
4) They are more fun to drive.
I do usually drive the automatic I have more however, as it has more power to make it up hills and also more cargo room. I definitely agree on the cruise control count for long trips, that's why I have it in both my automatic and manual vehicles.
This is not the funny you're looking for.
This same "unintended acceleration" issue happened in the 80's and after much hullabaloo it was determined that the cause of this is people hotting the gas when they mean to break. People have the occasional brain misfire which causes them to hit the gas instead of the break (maybe while "breaking" just as they are about to shift into reverse), this causes them to push harder on what they believe is already the break (but actually the accelerator) and thus a certain lurch through a storefront window. Possibly also on the interstate where they mean to tap on their break in response to sudden stimulus (car in front breaks or swerves) and hit the gas and lurch, and lurch again when they try to hit the break harder. I would bet anyone $1 (im poor) that this will be found out to be the case and that the recalls were totally unnecessary.
Have you?
87 Tercel Hatchback
2007 Sciox xA
95 Nissan Pathfinder
All manuals.
YOU FEEL IT.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
have to disagree with you there chief.
having driven manuals, AT, AT w/clutchless shifting at the stick, AT w/paddles, on nearly the same model car (dealer loaners) i find automatics of any type more annoying, either for the reasons GP noted (poor shifting choices mostly), or because for 95% of driving time its not necessary to manage the gearing effectively. when I get to that 5%, I either pound frantically for a nonexistent clutch (and sometimes hit the brake...) or forget to shift entirely because im not in 'what gear should i be in' mode. its an annoying combination of a helping hand and pseudo-control. also shifting in an AT is nothing like shifting a manual. you dont get a clutch, so you cant control when you engage the gears. you push the stick/button and it goes. no feathering makes it not the same. i can start my car in 3rd gear if i really want to, do you know of an AT that can do that?
griping about crappy software is not the same as not being able to drive it. AT drives 'adequately'. im not used to 'adequately', im used to 'cylinders to the asphalt, so dont screw up'.
turn up the jukebox and tell me a lie
All in all I'd be hard pressed to come up with a situation in which modern autos are "better".
Teenage girls.
That being said, i agree with you 100%. Ive been driving manual since getting my license, and find AT to be very annoying.
turn up the jukebox and tell me a lie
"But you just go ahead and keep knocking automatic transmissions based on outdated information. I'm sure technology hasn't advanced at all in the past few decades."
Auto Transmissions don't do a thing when you're tossing it on top of an under-powered engine in a slightly heavier than usual vehicle with heavier than normal people, like I see quite often. Honda + four people weighing 350 each? That sucker's not going uphill in an AT unless it's got at least 6 cylinders AND manual. Don't believe me, feel free to drive my weekly drive. I'm stuck behind these kinds of people in SoCal traffic day in and day out.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
leave it to /. to use a coding analogy to explain cars...
turn up the jukebox and tell me a lie
can you imagine the bliss of dialing a phone number with a model M? or texting while on the go? i think id actually get a texting plan if that were available.
turn up the jukebox and tell me a lie
See this March 10th, 2010 New York Times piece by UCLA Prof. Richard A. Schmidt, who's one of the world's experts on the phenomenon of sudden unintended acceleration: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/11/opinion/11schmidt.html Converging lines of evidence indicated that, for a rash of cases in the 1980s, the cause was most likely driver error: your foot gets accidentally placed on the gas instead of the brakes ("noisy neuromuscular processes"). The good news is that if there are regularities to the human error, then designs can be updated to block or reduce that error (e.g., shift lock).
Unless it's a CVT. In which case, it's significantly better both from a economy perspective, and a power perspective. Too bad they stopped making them because they didn't make the shifting lugs that people are use to. FYI: I drive a 5 speed manual 2003 Civic EX.
1) You do the same thing in automatics, automatics have gears that you can change just without the clutch. I lost traction in a brand new dealer loaner because the traction control would not let me accelerate when I was stuck in ice (I know how to drive in ice) Instead of just sitting there like an idiot, I downshifted, turned off the traction control and pulled out onto the street without causing an accident to people on the street I was turning into, or behind me on the hill watching as I slid backwards because of the nice traction control.
2) Same thing if you really want to....But I don't see the point. I did drive a car with OD for a bit (When I was a little younger) and it was nice to engage that and just watch the RPM's rip upwards and have some fun.
3) I had the brakes fail once on my car (That is auto) and I used the downshifting technique to slow myself down and gradual usage of the parking break to stop. I use engine breaking a lot just to practice in case something like that ever happens again.
4) That is up to debate, I rather enjoy being able to drive an auto like a manual and at the same time not have to worry about sliding backwards into someone because I am not paying attention at a stoplight. I have seen lots of people in manuals do this, and it just irks me that these people drive cars they don't know how to use.
In the end, you can do a lot of the same things in an automatic...I just prefer automatic because if I am out with friends and I want to get drunk and I was driving, I can ask someone else to DD and not worry about him not being able to drive my car and perhaps ruin the clutch... Also I can let others borrow my cars if they need to without worrying about the clutch or the car...
Lets face it, I do agree more people who drive manuals are better at driving, but that does not mean all of us automatic drivers are terrible at driving...
when, on the other hand, you don't need to shift so frequently, it becomes nice to have something to think about.
If you need to think about shifting, you need to get automatic transmission.
FWIW, I drive a Toyota Celica (2003, MT) for fun and a Honda Civic Hybrid (2009, AT) for work.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
My current car has a cruise control with resume functionality, but it clears the resume whenever it drops below a certain speed (somewhere around 10-30 mph, I really only notice it when stopping). So you can tap the brake pedal to take it off cruise, coast for a bit, then hit resume to get back to the previous speed, but if you go down to a stop or close to it it'll clear it and you have to get back to the desired speed manually.
Maybe the accelerator pedal should do nothing when floored.
You're the one arguing automatics can't be controlled properly. I want to know in what ways.
For one, manuals have a pedal that allows you to physically disconnect a runaway engine from the tires. Also read this.
Now, I'm no expert in statistical analysis, and the fine folk here on /. who have criticized this study on theoretical grounds may have a point, but I do know how to read a graph, and the one included in the fine article is pretty clear and simple. The trouble starts with the 50 year old group and gets progressively worse through to the 70 to 80 year olds who clearly must really suck at driving. BUT for the 80+ group the drop off is dramatic, with them dying less often than even than the teenagers. So the message to older drivers is that if you can just hold on until you're an octogenarian, you'll be driving safely well into your hundreds. Clearly that's when all those years of experience really pay off.
Loose lips lose spit.
I realize you're making fun of GP - but you're coming off looking a bit stupid.
Across the board, with all manufacturer's lineups, manual transmissions get roughly two mpg better fuel mileage than an automatic. Same model, same optional equipment, same size tires, everything else the same, the manual gets better fuel mileage. And, that's the point that g(x)parent was making. Most of the rest of the world can't AFFORD those wasteful automatic transmissions, or the myriad of optional equipment that wastes yet more fuel. They choose smaller, lighter cars with less optional equipment, and better engineering because wasting 100 gallons of fuel per year is not an option.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
I was driving AT only in the US for a while, then came over to the UK and had to learn (and pass a pretty strict test) to drive MT cars; and I come down firmly on the AT side. If you actually _care_ about what's going on inside your car, fine, probably manual is for you. All I care about is getting from A to B, and for that, the UI of manual transmission is perfect - press brake to go slower, press gas to go faster, change 'gears' to go back or go into park, and that's all folks.
I'm the first to admit my driving skills are about average, and I plan to keep them that way. On the other hand, my wife can drive really well, and while she prefers MT, she tells me that the recent AT cars she's driven behaved well enough that she can't find good objective arguments for using MT anymore.
I hated the idea of automatic transmission for a long time. Mostly because ATs tended to have less gears and therefore took longer to accelerate. The first couple of times I tried one I found the lack of control a little annoying too. But I have driven a couple of nice AT cars (Jag XJR [think it's a supercharged V6] and Audi A6 [3.0 TDI]) I have to say that I do get it now. It's very relaxing - especially around town.
For my own car I still currently prefer a manual, and I love driving my MR2 even around town. Manual is definitely preferable for spirited country road driving. You don't want to be unexpectedly changing gears halfway through a corner (I find cars wallow around a lot more in higher gears as you don't get the same level of control from acceleration and engine braking), though with some autos you can switch to a manual or at least semi-automatic shifting mode which helps a lot.
I don't really see what you're talking about with autos being better for "long drives" though. For most long drives you're probably going to be in your highest gear most of the time anyway, assuming you're driving through major roads/motorways/freeways rather than winding back roads (and your car's engine isn't completely gutless). Cruise control also is nice on especially long drives, though I do sometimes disable it from time to time to break the monotony (thinking of the time when I drove to and from France, I was driving for 13 hours on the way home with a couple of stops to eat, in a manual Honda Accord 1.8 VTEC with cruise control). I do love my driving but if it wasn't for cruise control I'd probably have been done for speeding loads on that journey. Passing the first speed camera coming back into the UK I was actually doing 90-100mph and didn't notice the camera until too late.. thankfully it must have had no film in it because we never heard anything about it. As it is I've only ever been caught once by a mobile patrol. I was doing 114mph on the motorway and got my license taken away for 3 months, so I've learned my lesson now. When it comes to boring-ass motorway driving, cruise control is a definite win as it helps to remove temptation - just turn on cruise control, some good music, and chill.
which is totally what she said
A good example for me is my dad driving up Remenham hill in a full car. This is a modern Mercedes automatic, and it shifts up too early, slowing the car down. Fortunately it also has manual paddles so you can correct this behaviour, but I'm glad my (tiny little 1.0l) VW Polo is manual. I can't imagine doing pulling out onto a dual carriage way in automatic.
Oh, to explain that last bit; here in England we have roads where traffic speed is 70mph that you can pull onto from a T-junction. No sliproad.
All intents and purposes. Not intensive purposes.
Again, someone making fun of GP.
Ever driven an 18 wheeler? Ever driven an 18 wheeler with an AUTOMATIC???? I did. Once. Never again.
As has been pointed out, the transmission cannot anticipate that I need a bit more torgue to climb a hill that it hasn't sensed yet. Nor can it see that I need to merge into traffic. It senses nothing, anticipates nothing - it only responds to certain stimuli, and everything is WRONG by the time those stimuli reach the brain controlling the transmission.
Worse, that damned transmission took a nice stab at killing me. Going downhill, a driver puts the truck into a lower gear and/or engages the Jake brake to govern his speed going down the hill. Try that with an idiot computer which decides that you are wasting fuel at high RPM's and upshifts the transmission, just before you get to the steepest grade on the hill. I had a hairy few minutes, believe me. 80,000 pounds of inertia falling into the gravity well is hard to overcome when the machine is fighting with you!
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
"keep knocking automatic transmissions based on outdated information"
The waste of fuel is most certainly not outdated information. I believe that was GP's primary complaint.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
I rather enjoy being able to drive an auto like a manual and at the same time not have to worry about sliding backwards into someone because I am not paying attention at a stoplight
What do you think the hand/parking brake is for..? I always put on the handbrake when I stop even in an automatic, rather than waiting with my foot on the brake. It's a good habit to get into.
which is totally what she said
What a sexist attitude. And, a sexist attitude that girls respond to. God knows why, but they choose to conform to this stereotype.
I've met little 80 pound women jockeying 40 ton trucks up and down the road, for God's sake. If they can drive those 9 speed, 13 speed, 19 speed, and sometimes even multi-plex transmissions, then ANY LITTLE GIRL can drive a standard.
I guess you'd like to see teenage girls riding horses on a side saddle too? That was the same sexist attitude, after all.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Typo above: replace 19 speed with 18 speed. I've never heard of a 19 speed, LMAO
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
3) I had the brakes fail once on my car (That is auto) and I used the downshifting technique to slow myself down and gradual usage of the parking break to stop. I use engine breaking a lot just to practice in case something like that ever happens again.
Either I'm reading that wrong, or you didn't have a real overdrive. Overdrive is basically an extra-high gear that (normally) causes in the output shaft of the transmission to be faster than the input shaft. This would cause the RPM's (of the motor) to be LOWER when OD is engaged.
Note: My family has a Buick with an "overdrive" that is actually the OPPOSITE of an overdrive (it bloody down-shifts). Who-ever at Buick that decided to call it an overdrive needs to be fired. Your vehicle may have had the same mis-labled feature.
They were all trying to get to Country Kitchen Buffet.
There was a consumer report issue on this (I think it was consumer report), they put all segment of age in a car , then induced circumstance where the brake had to be used. And overwhelmly , older people mistook the brake and accelerator much much more than younger people ! I can't find the report anymore because now google is FLOODED with toyota accelerator "problem", so it makes search for anything older difficult. And my own ancecdotal evidence, a lot of the accident you see in the news, people plowing into farmer market or into other kids, are old people either not having their sense, or mistaking accelerator and brake ! It is a KNOWN problem, and chief among why some of us would like to see people over 55 do a driving test on regular basis... Locally, that don't happen, and people have to do a test only when they were in accident, are known to have mental problem, or were fined above a ertain number of points. In other word, too late.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
"But one shouldn't believe the hype. We went through this a generation ago with the Audi 5000 and other autos accused of sudden acceleration, and, again, mysterious unknowable car components were supposedly at fault. In a North Carolina case I worked on, the plaintiff's expert theorized that electromagnetic transmissions from submarines might have set off the throttle via the cruise control, though, unsurprisingly, he was not able to duplicate the effect while driving around electrical towers with much greater electromagnetic interference. Back then, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) spent millions studying the issue. They found that sudden acceleration was several times more likely among elderly drivers than young drivers, and much more frequent among the very short or someone who had just gotten into a vehicle. Electromagnetic rays don't discriminate by age and height, which suggests very much that human factors were at play: in other words, pedal misapplication. A driver would step on the wrong pedal, panic when the car did not perform as expected, continue to mistake the accelerator for the brake, and press down on the accelerator even harder. This had disastrous consequences in a 1992 Washington Square Park incident that killed five and a 2003 Santa Monica Farmers' Market incident that killed ten the New York driver, Stella Maycheck, was 74 (and quite short); the California driver, George Russell Weller, 86. We're seeing the same pattern again today. Initial reports of a problem, followed by dozens of new reports coming to light as people seek to blame their earlier accidents on sudden acceleration."
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Spoken like a true AT fan. Have you ever even tried driving stick?
I'm not GP, but allow me to chime in. I initially learned to drive manual - there is no other option in my home country. So that's what I had to prepare for, and that's what the practice exam was with.
But, as soon as I could, I got an AT car - and never regretted it. GP's comment about manual typewriters is spot on. For the sake of a flamebait, I'll add an even more apt one - driving manual is like running OpenBSD. Sure, you're in control, but do you really need to waste so much time and effort for so little benefit? Maybe, but for most people the answer is definitely "no".
The waste of fuel is most certainly not outdated information. I believe that was GP's primary complaint.
Modern AT (especially of the variable kind) can easily yield better fuel economy with an average driver than stick with the same driver.
Yeah, you'd still get better if you know how to use stick to its full extent... but thing is, few people can (but, as usual, many people think they can).
I'm a young New Zealander who doesnt drive, can anyone explain why American cars historically have had/have "super sized" pedals please? What is the point? It sounds awful to me. In New Zealand, we used to have old banger "British Leyland" marques until we became an "elephants graveyard" for Japanese imports. New Zealand's car scene is populated mostly by 10+ year old Japanese imports that wouldnt be anywhere near the current Japanese standards.
In my mind, it would be far better to have smaller, although not *TINY* pedals close-ish together? Instead of slamming your left foot onto the thick slab over there, slamming your right foot at the thick slab way over there....
---
Don't mind GP. AT is just one thing that Europeans (and a few others) love to bait Americans with, because it's a good way to troll, especially when contrasted with a stereotypical American gung-ho redneck macho cowboy image. You know, "three pedals is one too many" etc. There isn't really much substance there apart from that.
Odd, my car (not a Nissan), cruise control has a "Resume" feature. If CC gets canceled for some reason (#1 and #2 above), I press the Resume button and the CC accelerates back up to the speed it was set
I can second GP's observation. My current car (2009 Nissan Versa, of the CVT variety) came with CC, and it behaves exactly as he describes, except that the drop-off speed is 40km/h. That is - braking immediately disables CC, going below 40km/h disables CC, and if you're going slower than that (including standing still), pressing "Resume" will not result in vehicle accelerating back to original speed
(It still remembers it, so if you manually control throttle until you get above that minimum speed, and then press "Resume", it will enable CC and accelerate to remembered speed at that point).
I don't know what the moral of the story is - if you want safe CC, buy Nissan?
That's the extra speed girls need, most of them suffer from TBS ("Tiny Bladder Syndrome") and they need it to get up to speed faster afterwards.
it can be surprising to hit what you think is the set button and have the cruise control suddenly floor it
It is surprising (I've had it happen once), but 1) there is a rather huge "Cancel" button right there, and 2) any tap on the brake immediately disables CC. The latter is probably more important, as that's the instinctive reaction to car accelerating... and it does what it should.
If you don't like it then I suggest you vote with your plates of meat.
Yep - they are the stuff of horror films - heavy traffic may be scary, but reversing into a loading bay with one wheel in a pothole makes Hitchcock look tame!
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
Uhhhh - read the mileage stickers on most vehicles. The manufacturers tell you in black and white that the same car will get better fuel mileage if it's equipped with a standard shift. Any rumors to the contrary are utter nonsense.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
So, let me see. Toyota is stating that elder people (that obviously have lower reflexes) or people in situations where it's difficult to manoeuvre the vehicle without without causing an accident (parking, etc), are more likely to have an accident when their cars acceleration control fails.
How, genius! Who would ever even reach this overwhelming conclusion? Guys, you deserve a Nobel for this.
Well, Toyota, here is a freebie thought for you. If those are the same guys you have programming and engineering the accelerators, well, perhaps it's time to hire other people, no?
Single screw tractor? That would really suck. I always drove dual axles, so I could have flipped the lock-out to get another wheel driving. Of course, that doesn't always work. A couple times, both wheels on the same side of the tractor engaged, and just shot gravel out from underneath . . .
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
You're the one arguing automatics can't be controlled properly. I want to know in what ways.
Not necessarily "properly", but there's things you just can't do with autos:
Changing from barely tickover to peak power output without changing speed. Especially useful on turbo cars when you want to be able to overtake without the burden of turbo lag
Being in the right gear to accelerate away from a corner
Being able to manage your speed at very low speeds or while going downhill (ok auto boxes have overrides to allow engine breaking, but who uses them?)
Long drives are boring, regardless. Having to regularly row through the gearbox just makes the whole experience more fatiguing - and the last thing you want on a long trip is more fatigue.
All the long (500+ miles in a day) trips I've been on have all been on motorways where you stick it in top gear and leave it there. For the last (urban) section of the drive I've never felt changing gear (something as thoughtless as breathing most of the time) to be particularly fatiguing
Cruise control is liked by people who are experienced at driving distances and realise that it makes monitoring your speed one less thing you have to worry about, again reducing fatigue.
Agreed on this one. Since getting my first car with cruise, I'm never driving long trips without it again.
It also helps massively on UK motorways where we've got roadworks all over the place and SPECS cameras (distance-time numberplate recognition cameras to enforce average speed limits). Putting cruise on once and not having to glance at the speedo again is a joy
it seems the whole 'unintended acceleration' phenomenon is to a large extent like a US version of this
I personally think people should either be tested annually or have their licence taken away once they retire. You shouldn't encourage people with apple sauce for brains to be driving.
It's also about using a car as something more than a boring beige appliance to go from point A to point B. I think that's what's happening in the US. We no longer care about the vehicle - the feel, the fun, the visceral experience. We just want to get from here to there and not be involved in the process.
If that were true, we would have one car company, and they would have models like "The Econobox", "The Sedan", "The Minivan", "The Pickup" and so on. However, there would be no "The Coupe", because people would just buy "The Econobox". Instead, Americans consistently purchase vehicles with features they don't need (like the ability to go over 100 mph) and which get poorer mileage than better-performing (e.g. more efficient) models from other marques, sometimes due simply to brand loyalty. You are a mile from the mark on this assumption.
As more and more people get automatic transmissions, ABS, turn by turn navigation systems, air bags, etc the need to control the car diminishes.
I don't know about you, but having an airbag doesn't make me want to get in an accident. It makes me more likely to be able to survive to have a second accident, but this doesn't really support your point. Nor does navigation; navigation tells me where to go, but it doesn't drive for me. I still control my car, even when I use it. You're just being a luddite. ABS also does something the driver cannot do, which is to say steer on snow and ice. It kept me out of an accident when the person in front of me did something extremely, amazingly stupid in the snow and I couldn't have stopped my car anyway. I'll miss it when I don't have it any more (my only car with ABS is now sold and smogged and soon to go away, I have too many cars.) Automatics are probably a good thing for most people to have; most people shift way too early, and a few shift way too late. I enjoy having one in my pickup; you do have to stand on the brake when you shift into gear in mud to avoid digging, but the torque converter really adds an element of forgiveness to towing and even just all-around driving that makes a 7.3 liter diesel a lot easier to handle. Shifting a truck clutch all day is bullshit.
More phone calls, more texting, more eating, more things that are not driving are happening behind the wheel, and we are paying the price.
I agree with that, but it's not really a solvable problem, except by eliminating the driver, by using trains.
Take a ride with somebody who is interested in cars and driving as a hobby. Or take a ride in a car with somebody who rides a motorcycle frequently. Those people are going to be more aware of their surroundings, and chances are good that they will be a better driver because of it.
In Panama the center line is a suggestion. Most of the time you want to ride it anyway because pedestrians have the right of way and they are numerous. Hit them and you're automatically at fault. Consequently you have to pay attention at all times, and drivers are indeed more aware. Unfortunately, there's also enough people who drive like dumbshits to have plenty of accidents anyway. These are [some of] the people who are interested in cars and think it's fun...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Auto Transmissions don't do a thing when you're tossing it on top of an under-powered engine in a slightly heavier than usual vehicle with heavier than normal people, like I see quite often. Honda + four people weighing 350 each? That sucker's not going uphill in an AT unless it's got at least 6 cylinders AND manual.
That sucker's going to lose speed up a hill no matter what transmission if it has a four banger. That load will definitely put you over the GAWR for the car; most vehicles are designed to hold four 200lb adults and a little cargo, whether they have four or five seats. You've come up with the most extreme corner case you could imagine for the purpose of badmouthing transmissions. But you know what? Some F250s with automatic transmissions have a higher towing weight allowance than manuals... probably because Ford assumes that a certain percentage of people will try to pull a load in overdrive on their five speed. In any case, they both have the same final ratio, so the automatic only has less gears. That means that in slightly more cases, you will need to run at a non-optimal RPM. Whoop dee doo. Many buses which use the same engine (International-Navistar 7.3 IDI diesel) have a three speed without overdrive, and they seem to do okay. That's a torque monster, but if I tried to pull too much weight, I'd have trouble up a hill, too. Meanwhile, automatics lock up the torque converter when cruising, and will downshift themselves until they are in a gear where they can do this. Otherwise, automatics wouldn't make it up any steep hills.
The cars you're stuck behind in your commute are failing due to driver incompetence, not automatic transmission. Besides, those little econoboxes are more likely to have a manual transmission than anything else on the road.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
That button is to switch OD off, not on. Overdrive is on by default, though some cars turn it on till the engine is warm.
I use it all the time traveling long distances on the Freeway.
Driving along a 2 lane (2 lanes in each direction) freeway in the left lane cruising at a little over the Speed Limit, and some jack ass decides to pull out in front of me so they can pass the person in front of them. I hit the breaks and slow down to 5 under the speed limit while they pass the guy while only driving 0.5 MPH faster then the person they are passing.... After they pull back over to the right, I press RESUME, the CC goes back to the correct speed and I repeat that about 1,000,000 more times on my trip....
Visit the Arcade Restoration Workshop @ http://www.arcaderestoration.com
I've driven recent model cars in both the US and Germany. When comparing things like fuel economy and performance, here's a short list of things people tend to forget:
Driving in the US means much more driving very long distances compared to Europe. So many of my European colleagues just don't grok this until I describe a few things. For example, an 8 hour drive from Phoenix to LA at 70+ miles per hour, then show them on a map how little of the US that actually covers. I do that, then ask them how far away they'd be if they drove for 8 hours from their house at that speed (as if it were possible).
Distances impact the relative "feel" of fuel costs. I live in a rural part of the country (as do 42% of McMericans). It's several miles drive for me to get to groceries. It can be a 45 minute commute at highway speeds just to get to work (not for me, but it's common enough). You just use a lot more fuel. This is also why public transportation is so much more difficult to make practical here. The distribution of population is radically different. Much of the US was settled after the advent of personal transportation that you didn't have to feed and water.
To my German friends -- don't feel bad about not quite fully understanding that sheer size and scope of the U.S. You aren't the first from Germany (well, technically Austria I suppose) to make that mistake. (poke).
P.S. - On the whole Automatic vs. Manual transmission thing -- I've certainly driven both. People claiming better turns on sweeping mountain roads and are driving front wheel drive cars are pretty much full of crap. Sure, a manual will give you a real edge with a rear wheel drive car. Otherwise, get over yourself and quit pretending your an F1 driver in your silly little consumer box.
When I drive in Europe, I make an effort to rent a small automatic. It costs more. Why? Because I don't know the roads well and my attention is full enough paying attention to the different road etiquette and the GPS combined with signs in different shapes than I'm used to and frequently in languages I don't speak.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
I've even done 4th. On an old 1.6 liter diesel with, well, little power.
I wouldn't know of any that'll let you start in 3rd, but most will allow 2nd. It's advertised as a feature to help you drive in snowy conditions, usually a button with a snowflake or something similar on it.
Why would you want to start in 3rd anyways?
Because putting my VW into 6th gear and hitting the cruize is really hard? Manuals have cruise control, and if you need to be shifting while using cruise control then you are doing it wrong.
My addiction: Arguing with idiots. AKA Slashdot!
You are plain ignorant.
Driving stick is better in every way.
Its a better driving experience and gives you more control.
Only reason I see, not to drive stick is if your a lazy bastard or you have a left leg injury or problem.
I do admit, clutching in and out can be painful or difficult if you have a left leg injury.
Maybe you should get a machine that walks for you. An "Automatic Walking Machine".
Because you obviously do not see the benefits of doing things yourself.
Comparing manual shifting to OpenBSD is like comparing cooking your own food to using OpenBSD.
WTF is wrong with you lazy ass people.
Because Toyota hasn't pointed it out. Don't you think that if these incidents occured across all cars, the Toyota would have pointed it out by now?
Usually the best indication that something is not a defense is that the defense ain't using it.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Four cylinder engines with automatics do suck almost universally (I drove a Toyota Corrolla once that was actually pretty decent about it, but most of the rest...ugh). A 6 or 8 cylinder engine with an automatic is usually far, far better.
Looking at the stats graph on the website listed in the article, I did not see a corresponding ownership distribution stat among the different age groups. Without knowing the ownership distribution, the "skewed" incident stats we see are close to useless.
I'm not willing to guess about the ownership distribution among the class of cars seen to have this acceleration problem. As usual, reporters fall down on the details.
Toyota may be off the hook, but we still can't know for sure.
Ruby Neural Evolution of Augmenting Topologies
I wonder if this isn't possibly a case of a paranoia meme carrying across society? Either that, or the fact that most America cars have automatic transmission and most cars in other countries have manual transmission?
My father used to be facilities supervisor for a large banking chain, and he told me about the incidents where elderly customers did damage to bank branches because of unintended acceleration. One woman hit the wrong pedal as she was attempting to park in front of the bank, floored her large american-made car through the front of the building, through the teller counter, through the wall behind the teller counter into the employee break room, pushing the refrigerator through the back wall of the building...she kept the tires spinning, melting through the tile floor, until a bank employee opened the driver door, reached in and turned off the engine.
She then hopped out and, since she was at her desired destination, tried to make her deposit.
My dad had quite a laugh over the mess he had to get fixed. He was glad no one was hurt, of course.
I have to ask - was that 80,000 pounds... of bananas?
and I mean really shit, every 50 miles you had to open the hood/bonnet and tinker with it, and even when it was running nothing worked anything like it should have done when new.
I learnt to drive a car that had, at one time or another...
a/ no clutch
b/ no starter
c/ no brakes
d/ no hand/parking brake
e/ dodgy steering
f/ throttle / carb problems, inc throttle cable breaking or jamming open
g/ carbs that iced up at whatever throttle position you happened to be on.
h/ dodgy tyres
i/ no syncromesh on the gearbox
j/ now power assist on the brakes or steering
j/ etc etc
compared to the kids now who start out with relatively new cars, basically I learned to drive and control a car, by having to cope with cars that pushed the envelope, whereas everything a driver encounters now is within a very very small performance envelope.
The old Series II Land Rover had 3 gear sticks, one high-neutral-low range, one two-none-four wheel drive, and one reverse-first-second-third-fourth, which also had false neutrals, no power steering, no power brakes, and frankly, even in a country where the vast majority of drivers are stick shift, probably less than 1% of drivers can just get in it and drive it, and this is with a (worn, but working) synchro main gearbox.
I've also driven auto trans, from RE Olds through Merc to press button selectronic "drag strip" shifters, also floor stick, column stick.
I've driven vehicles that you had to adjust ignition timing and mixture manually as you went along, and even some you had to manually pump the lube oil.
So basically, if you have ever been taught to drive PROPERLY, you can remain in control of the car, no matter what happens, short of the wheels literally falling off.
The problem always comes back to driver ed, particularly given the fact that one car model is sold worldwide, but there are VAST differences in driver ability, attitudes, roads, traffic, etc etc.
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal
Started a little early-80s Omni hatchback off in 4th (of 5) once. The smell of scorched electrics or something filled my nostrils.
I was a stupid teen.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
the steering gets locked only when you REMOVE the key.
Only on a few cars, like Mercedes Benz which uses an electronic key and motorized steering lock. On most cars with a conventional ignition key, the steering is locked when the key is turned back to the Off position.
Putting moderation advice in your
Er, don't you mean 70kmph? 'cause that's only about 45mph. That's not so much a big deal at all, we've got plenty of roads with 55mph speed limits that don't have any.. well, they're called on ramps or merging lanes. Slip is not a word we like to use in reference to driving except in accidents..
... still waiting for this free-as-in-beer free beer I keep hearing about.
This is not true for most cars. On many cars the power steering boost is reduced at higher engine speeds but this is done for fuel economy reasons and it's actually just part of the mechanical pump design. It's much simpler (and therefore more reliable and cheaper) to do this in the pump itself than to use an electronic control system.
On most cars, the only electronic connection to the steering system is a pressure sensor that tells the engine computer how much load the power steering pump is placing on the engine. Cars with electronic stability control systems also have a steering angle sensor, but electronically modulated steering assist is only on a minority of cars as it adds to the cost over just having the power steering pump produce less pressure above a certain engine RPM.
It helps to be a member of the SAE and read their published papers on this stuff.
Putting moderation advice in your
There's very little enjoyment to be had in a 12-hour drive. Manual, automatic or otherwise.
... still waiting for this free-as-in-beer free beer I keep hearing about.
It's not that women can't because they're women and they're small, stupid, whatever reason anyone may argue. Teenage girls, in particular, may also be 80 pounds (though probably not, especially in the US) but they aren't experienced truck drivers, and they *don't care* about controlling the car safely. They care about getting where they want to go... the most technical thing they care about is hooking up their ipod to the stereo.
Teenage girls are the least likely of all demographics to care enough to learn to understand technical things, and driving an 18-speed transmission sounds rather technical. Even a regular five-speed manual takes quite a bit of understanding and practice to learn, and to a teenage girl that time is 100% wasted if they can just drive an automatic instead. It's not that they *can't* learn, but they don't care and they don't want to learn.
There's nothing sexist about the argument you're responding to. It has nothing to do with whether women are capable of driving with manual gearboxes or not - obviously they are. And girls aren't conforming to any stereotype when they choose an automatic over a standard... just like the majority of guys (in the US), who also choose automatics! They've just got more important things to care about, and automatic transmissions are "good enough" for most - obviously not for truckers.
Actually, come to think of it, as a young guy in the US if I think about all the people I know well enough to know this about them, I think I know more girls who can drive a manual than guys.
and you can just shift an automatic into neutral.
which is why the whole "runaway toyota" story is so sad. those people who called emergency numbers because their car was barrelling down the road at high rates of speed? None of them thought to just shift their car into neutral. Sad. :\
... still waiting for this free-as-in-beer free beer I keep hearing about.
Oh my my. You have never driven a manual car I see.
Aside from the better fuel economy, the car is much nicer to drive.
It's a also a great theft deterrent - most car thieves in the US don't know how to drive stick.
Ah yes, the smell of burnt clutch material. It does smell of burnt resistors/circuit boards, doesn't it?
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
There you go. That's actually a really great idea and would solve this entire problem instantly.
What a sexist attitude. And, a sexist attitude that girls respond to. God knows why, but they choose to conform to this stereotype.
I'd say it's a feedback loop, really. Girls tend to have lower self esteem and self-expectations (part of why we see fewer women in science and engineering). So many expect that driving a MT is difficult and drive AT. Car manufacturers see this and increase AT production to meet demand. ATs get normalized, and (many) young girls no longer have a need or desire to push themselves to learn to drive an MT. This further fuels their self-image and expectations that they can only drive AT.
So, the issue isn't particularly that women are worse drivers (as you seem to have assumed). Rather, (many) women are less confident in their abilities and believe MT is too hard, and because they believe MT is too hard they are less confident in their driving abilities.
All that said, my sister is equally skilled with an MT as I ever was, easily out driving many boys her age. Of course, we're talking averages, here.
Write your representatives! Repeal the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics!
This is Audi 5000 all over again. From P.J. O'Rourke's 2003 book (Parliament of Whores) account of the mid-1980s Audi "sudden acceleration" scare: "These sudden-acceleration incidents, or SAIs, closely resemble those sudden-intelligence incidents, or SUIs, that many of us have experimented with our automobiles....we'd be driving down a country road at a reasonable and prudent 115 miles an hour and--all of a sudden, for no apparent reason--the car would suffer an SUI and roll over five times in a cornfield." "It's worth noting...that the Honda Civic's pedal placement is nearly identical with the Audi 5000's [a car that was blamed for a lot of the SAIs], yet the Civic got few SAI complaints. On the other hand, the Mercury Marquis--where, on a clear day, you can almost see the accelerator from the brake--was in the SAI top ten. We don't need a "60 Minutes" investigative team to tell us what kind of person buys a little Honda rice rocket and what kind of person buys a huge Mercury Medicare sled."
To refine this a bit, what you could do is make 'zone' near the extreme of the accelerator pedal travel which will provide full acceleration. But then another zone right at the end of the travel where the acceleration would cut out (and perhaps not just completely cut out instantly, but gradually ramp down as it gets very near the end of travel down to nothing at the very end of travel).
What that would do is make it easy enough to get completely full acceleration out of your vehicle, but you would have to do so intentionally by finding that sweet spot--which is what we want here. You make the sweet spot plenty wide & easy to find.
But if you panic & slam the accelerator to the floor, you get no acceleration at all--which is also what you want.
Once people are used to this system (which would only take a couple minutes driving I would guess) the only times you'd be pressing the accelerator to the floor would be when you were #1 panicking for some reason #2 actually trying to apply full brakes.
In neither instance do you want to give that person full acceleration (the last thing you want is a panicky person at the helm of a motor vehicle with full acceleration, and the person trying to apply the brakes obviously doesn't want full acceleration either).
To be fair, AT cars are not as significantly less efficient as they used to be. Five-gear automatic transmissions are now commonplace, and the difference in mileage has become so small as to become negligible.
I wouldn't drive an AT by choice, but my family is approaching "minivan" territory, and according to the research I've done, they don't sell MT minivans at all in this country.
(OT: How do they refer to what we in the US call 'mileage' in other countries? Kilometerage?)
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
Perhaps this whole accelerator business is simply a mass delusion like the Seattle Windshield Pitting Epidemic. Cosmic rays got blamed then also.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Windshield_Pitting_Epidemic
Dear mods, can we stop modding different opinions as flamebait please? Thanks.
Modern DSG transmissions, or "automatic manual" transmissions yes. But the modern hydraulic automatic transmission is significantly heavier and suffers from significant drive train power loss. DSG trannies get around these issues by using a manual transmission with 2 sets of clutches and 2 input shafts. They gain the efficiency and light weight of a manual transmission with the computer controlled ease of a traditional auto.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Long trips are one of the best times to have an auto (along with cruise control). Probably beaten out only by city driving and commuting.
Let me correct a misconception: you don't need to have an automatic transmission in order to use cruise control. My 5 speed manual has cruise control. The manual transmission is perfect for quickly accelerating onto a US Interstate highway. Once I reach my cruising speed, I simply click on the cruise control.
That said, automatic transmissions are a godsend for typical city driving in the US. Since we don't have roundabouts, most city driving is stop and go.
Sounds like neither one of you is a particularly good driver. He can't drive a standard and you lack the skill to properly judge when it is safe to turn onto a street and rely on your car's performance to save you.
More importantly, how many old people are wearing thongs (gstrings, t-backs)?
Damping absorbs vibrations. Dampening is caused by moisture.
All of your assertions there assume no failure in the cruise control controller and the solenoid (usually vacuum controlled) which actually pulls on the throttle cable.
Come back when you understand how vehicle control systems actually work, and you're not just stylin'. :-)
This one depends on the car. My 1987 BMW 635 had a separate switch on the clutch pedal to cancel cruise, which was calibrated to trip *before* you got any appreciable amount of slip on the clutch; I understand that's somewhere between "fairly common" and "an FMVSS requirement".
When you can't reproduce the problem, you have to start brainstorming. "Hey, one time my mat got rolled up at the front. Maybe that happened here, and blocked the pedal?" "Well, the pedals sometimes tighten up when the hinge is worn. Maybe it gets really bad some time? Of course, after some point it becomes "OK, try a software cutoff - maybe that'll shut 'em up." Of course, announcing each mod as THE fix can come back to bite you, but what could Toyota have done? "We have no idea what's happening but maybe this will help?"
What is something that old people expect from a car when they hit the gas? Noise. A hybrid pulling away from a stop is highly likely to be running on electricity, and making close to zero noise, especially to someone hard of hearing. No audio feedback = less aware their car was moving = lawsuit, I mean accident.
I come here for the love
And Audi had a higher incident rate as well, and that was confirmed to be driver error.
The confirmation was incorrect. I owned an Audi Turbo 5000 and while going down a highway at 70mph on cruse control it began to accelerate. My feet were not touching the pedals.
A flaw in the check valve prevented the brakes from working while boost was positive. Turning off the dashboard switch cleared the fault.
My experience is the car had an issue. I suspect a hopped-up CB radio used by a passing truck triggered the event. Do they use CB radios in Japan or Europe?
Place nail here >+
I've read the sticker on mine when buying it, and it said CVT > MT > AT. Now what?
Nope, he means 70 mph (113 km/h), and yes, you just gotta pull out of a T junction and go; no merging lane, no on-ramp. That's a dual carriageway, characterised by two lanes and a central barrier (single carriageways are usually national speed limit, i.e. 60 mph). Bear in mind that as with everywhere else, most people are travelling 10 - 20 mph over the indicated speed limit (and thus probably travelling around 75-80 real mph). Underpowered automatics are death traps. That said I drive a BMW 330D (straight 6 3L diesel) manual, which probably would be fine as an automatic.
Is that a Model M in your pocket, or you happy to see me?
Yes, typing on a Model M is better. Also, driving a manual can offer more control. However, I can't exactly fit a Model M in my pocket, and operating a manual transmission distracts from the main task of driving the car, particularly in scenarios like you describe.
Plus, the old advantages of the manual gearbox are slowly fading away, thanks to things like CVTs, computer-controlled ATs, and (my favorite), the dual-clutch gearbox, which can change gears faster than a F1 driver. They pretty much offer the best of both worlds to drivers, and are even gaining market traction in Europe.
I drive a tiptronic, and there's no reason in hell why you'd operate it in manual mode. However, I've also driven a DSG, and had a blast driving it as a manual when the situation called for it, and later as an automatic in frequent stop-and-go traffic. Fantastic bit of technology -- can't wait until the rich folk have had them for a few years, and they start trickling into the used market.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Yes I did. And I hate the thing with a passion. If you are a teenage kid all about "speed" and "drifting" and stuff, or some professional 18 wheeler driver, stick is just a general nuissance in backed up, bumper to bumper city traffic. Every doofus out there with a stick in front of me or behind me is always late shifting (cause they always just have to go to neutral at every stop) into gear (usually followed by jerky, panicky jump forward) when the traffic gets moving.
Furthermore, stick requires you to have one hand pretty much reserved for shifting and therefore for all practical purposes, in the city where slowing down and starting up is constant, you end up effectively driving with one hand (which in the US is the left hand).
I could go on, but whining about people (a vast majority in North America) using something that is useful and convenient just because your "sporty" (and much cheaper and simpler to make - and that is the true reason why a lot of the world uses it) manual transmission tickles your "speed demon" sense is just plain stupid.
Mine has one too. You can't start the engine without stepping on the clutch. It usually does it immediately, but there have been a couple times where it didn't. Even still, it didn't cause any adverse change in the vehicle's motion, nor damage to any components.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
If you think an AT can be controlled properly, would you ride a motorcycle with one (outside of CVT scooters)?
Er, don't you mean 70kmph? 'cause that's only about 45mph. That's not so much a big deal at all, we've got plenty of roads with 55mph speed limits that don't have any.. well, they're called on ramps or merging lanes. Slip is not a word we like to use in reference to driving except in accidents..
No, that would definitely be 70 mph; miles per hour is still the unit of choice in the UK.
You're the one arguing automatics can't be controlled properly. I want to know in what ways.
As the driver of an AT car, my biggest gripe is that the damn thing never downshifts until *after* I start accelerating (thus going off the throttle), instead of before.
Instead of: Approach corner, decelerate & downshift into appropriate gear, turn, then accellerate..
you have: Approach corner, decelerate & the transmission shifts into one gear above what you really need. Turn corner, acceller-- wait-- shift -- ok now go.
Basically the difference is proactive control (with MT) vs. being limited to reactive control (with AT).
I think most decent automatics have a "wet" or "snow" modes, where they will do exactly that: start in 3rd gear. So what's your point?
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
It blows my mind that anyone would want to drive for any non-trivial distance without cruise control.
Let me guess: American, Canadian or Australian?
At least in Germany, cruise control _can_ be helpful when you go with the flow. But if all lanes have different speeds and you actually want to go as fast as traffic permits, cruise control sucks.
Then you either need to know your car and thus the pedal positions very well or you need to use the hand-brake to start driving uphill. Personally, I prefer to not use hte hand-brake and see it as free practice lessons.
No... Automatic spend 30% more fuel on average than manuels. Only the worst 10% of drivers are better with an automatic gears. The rest get better performance and effienciency from manuel.
See CVT (which e.g. Nissan is sticking pretty much everywhere these days).
Seriously... This is not hard, if you don't drive manuel, one leg and one hand is just doing nothing while driving (best case) or is used for speaking on a fucking phone and the foot is just increasing the risk of pedal misuse.
I haven't ever seen anyone suffer the risk of pedal misuse because of an unused leg while driving AT, except for the unfortunate victims of a life-long MT experience.
Maybe you should get a machine that walks for you. An "Automatic Walking Machine".
Yeah, we call that a "car", Uncle Grumpy.
Because you obviously do not see the benefits of doing things yourself.
Unlike you, I see both the benefits and the downsides, and I decide whether the former outweigh the latter. In this case, they clearly don't.
Comparing manual shifting to OpenBSD is like comparing cooking your own food to using OpenBSD.
Given how many people are crappy cooks (while blissfully believing the opposite), this might not be far off. It all depends on where you dine otherwise (and whether you even have a decent place available).
WTF is wrong with you lazy ass people.
Nothing or everything, depending on your viewpoint. In short, we are the ones who serve as a catalyst for progress in the area of mundane, everyday things.
I wonder, do you also feel the same about dishwashers and automatic washing machines? Do you hate Roomba with a passion (my lazy ass has one, by the way)?
Anyway, it's okay, I guess. Your great-grand-uncle Grumpy Sr must have similarly complained about the warm, fuzzy gas light, and how those new-fangled ugly electric lights are for lazy people who can't be bothered to do proper maintenance, and want the light to come on at a flick of a finger, just like that - the fools!
Thanks for an enlightening post. It clear up some confusion in my mind about AT vs Manual transmission.
I've never driven a truck of the sort you are talking about, but I can see how human intelligence can make the difference in alot of situations as you pointed out.
I got my license on an AT, and when I bought a car with a Manual transmission, I thought, hmm, I guess it's going to be harder to eat that Whopper now while I'm driving, other than that I didn't see any real advantages or disadvantages to it. Vaguely, I half remembered that race car drivers and car afficionados preferred manual transmissions, because they had more control over the car. I guess I agreed since starting off can be a little sluggish in an AT but then those times when you forget you are still in third and try to take off in third, and don't go anywhere that happen to me sometimes even after driving nothing but manual transmission vehicles for six years, sort of compensate for that.
Anyway, a couple of days ago on wired I read that all the new Ferrarris are coming out with AT. I don't know a damn thing about cars, but I was thinking HMM... I guess the afficionados have changed their collective minds.. I wonder why... I still don't know, supposedly the automatic transmissions were faster on some track tests, but I guess if you have a huge enough engine you'll take off just fine no matter what gear the transmission's electronics are in...
Then again, watching dang, I wonder the name of that show is where the celebrities try for the best time, Top Gear?, whatever, I always see them farting around with the electronics on even very expensive cars like ones that cost twice what my house does, and I'm thinking - WHAT A PIECE OF CRAP!
Electronics that you see, are a big minus. Note to electronic interface designers designing interfaces to computerized crap on cars - When accessed through the electronic interface, your car should respond like Mario does on SNES games. INSTANTLY, and without any thought. NOTHING of importance should require looking down at any controls. When controlling mario, you don't have ANY menus, you don't take your eyes off the screen. DRIVERS whose lives may depend on their cars responding to their input, and being able to see the road, DON'T want to be fracking around with electronics. Even stuff that ought to not be time sensitive ought not to take much time or thought. There should be no digital displays on a car. The radio's display can be digital and show the time, the station and the current mp3 track. AM/FM, Seek, favorites buttons, should be BIG. The volume and tuner should be the only two knobs. The tuner can double to select MP3 tracks read from a keyfob.
You are going to have your car for at least 5 years, and maybe 10. Any electronics you have are going to be obsolete after a two or at most three years. Any menus necessary to access features effectively subtract the feature as a selling point. Your car should be a car first and foremost, with electronics added only where absolutely necessary to make your car do it's car thing.
The only other exception to the no display except the clock radio rule is that the check engine light should have a display that is blank unless there is a problem. In that case it should display a human readable/understandable description of the problem with an error code. It might be too tempting for designers to use that display for something other than displaying error codes though. You DON'T want any displays you have to read to access funtionality of your car. accessing your car's functionality is otherwise known as driving, and that is dangerous when texting.
...
As far as three-pedal manual transmissions go, they are more efficient but potentially a whole lot less safe.
The lowest reaction times in dense traffic can be achieved when the number of pedals equals the number of feet.
Manual transmission would be fine and dandy if it had an automatic clutch, like in some race cars. Otherwise, I'm a two-foot automatic driver, and I'd feel really unsafe in highway traffic it the clutch was there. I can drive a manual just fine, but not always having a foot dedicated to accelerator and brake makes me feel rather insecure.
It's handy to be able to just slam the accelerator and have the transmission downshift.
Assuming that you're accelerating in dense traffic, where for safety you have your left foot on the brake and not on the clutch, it takes 2-3x as long to restore torque output at the wheel when downshifting with a manual car, than with a decent automatic. I have measured it, arguably only on two cars, but they were same model late 90s vintage Volvos, only thing that differed was the transmission. And I tried my darnest to do it quickly.
So I think that the "feeling in control" with a manual transmission is exaggerated: you arguably have less control in certain common situations, like lane-shifting on a congested highway.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
i can start my car in 3rd gear if i really want to, do you know of an AT that can do that?
My Volvo 960 can do that (in winter mode it only uses gears 3 and 4). Not that I disagree with you, I do like the control a manual transmission gives you. I just prefer the comfort of an automatic (been driving manuals for ~7 years, switched last year to automatic).
Different strokes for different folks. My pockets aren't nearly deep enough to afford the kinds of cars that come with decent semi-autos, and I find that for me, a stick shift is far more help than harm. After a few months of driving one, operation becomes pretty much automatic, and the only time I ever find myself being distracted by the transmission is the rare occasion when I miss a shift ("Whoops, that's not third gear!").
The big thing for me, though, is driver involvement. I like to be engaged and in control when I'm driving; if I wanted a nice and easy cruise I'd take the bus. Three pedals and a stick is just that much more fun.
1. On most automatics AFAIK, winter mode starts are from 3rd gear. Torque converter adds another layer of "softening" to the whole experience, so I believe any pro-manual argument there is entirely made up, unless you like to keep replacing your clutch every season -- admittedly, maybe it rocks someone's boat. Wouldn't rock mine.
2. LOL. You're anthropomorphizing a control algorithm. It has no "harder time" deciding anything. Floor the throttle quickly, and it will downshift two gears. Floor the throttle less quickly, it will downshift one gear. End of story. Maybe it's just my luck, but all automatics I ever drove would do that. Alas, I know that many people are scared of flooring their accelerator. Supposedly it hurts the car or some such nonsense. I put it into the same bin with people who believe that flooring an engine in neutral will somehow damage it.
3. The automatic on my car has D,2,1 positions, and it will happily downshift from engine braking, even keeping my engine just below redline while doing so. If I'm driving and move the shifter to "1" and keep the foot off the accelerator, the engine will be kept as close to redline as possible; in fact in "1" position it will be kept ~1500rpm closer to redline than in "2" position -- that way I can select the intensity of engine braking. Maybe it's not common in most automatics??
4. Fun is a personal thing. To me driving is not fun and I'd rather not do it at all. It's a necessity of living in a city with no functional public transportation, and with suburban sprawl.
Automatics require a different kind of control actions than manuals. If you have no experience or understanding of it, then surely it'll feel very crappy to you. Once you learn, you should have no problems.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
When I was just learning, there was a guy who pulled up very close behind me on a very steep hill, and I freaked out so much that I accidentally stalled the car and almost rolled into him. He then proceeded to do the same thing again, even after he nearly got hit the first time. It's not really a problem anymore, but I still resent it when people do that.
The transmissions Ferrari is using along with other manufacturers can be better thought of as auto-shifting manuals as opposed to the manual-shifting autos you're probably familiar with. The Ferrari transmissions have a computer controlled clutch to handle engagement/disengagement of the tranny rather than a torque converter used by auto transmissions.
Also, most automatics will engage the torque converter lockout around 45mph or so, so the fuel efficiency discourse is out of the window if you're driving on the freeway. Most of the relative inefficiency of the automatic transmission is in the torque converter, the core transmission itself is less efficient only because it runs an internal hydraulic pump to energize the valves. Such a pump is not present in a manual. That's all the efficiency difference there is between a manual and an automatic at highway speeds. A puny hydraulic pump.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
I prefer manual transmissions... except I have a bum knee that makes the clutch very hard to operate... and a couple years ago I took a job in the 'burbs so now I need to deal with heavy traffic.
So I've switched to automatic transmissions, I had all the complaints you did until I figured out something very basic.
Cars with automatic transmissions have multiple gear settings. If you need to accelerate into traffic, or are having trouble maintaining speed up a hill, put it in "2nd gear", or even "1st gear". You'll get the acceleration you want unless the car is seriously underpowered. Just remember to put it back into the "Drive" settig or you'll find your gas tank emptying quickly.
Manuals are still more responsive than automatics... but your failure to drive an automatic properly should not condemn automatic transmissions. But just go ahead and keep knocking automatic transmissions, I'm sure you know better than people who actually know how to make use of them.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
I don't know about you, but my automatic transmissions still have multiple gears, and I can downshift with them. I routinely put my AT Toyota Corolla in a lower gear going downhill, and it won't shift up any higher than that. Being as that has been a feature in automatic transmissions for many, many years, I'm VERY surprised that an AT rig wouldn't have been able to do that. Seems more like driver error, like all of these Toyota "unintended acceleration" stories
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Indeed.
My cruise won't reenable at speeds below 35mph.
It also won't gun it above 4.5k RPM to accelerate on cruise, and my redline is at 5.8.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
My car's control lever is in just the right spot. When I'm cruising, my middle finger likes to rest right on the lever. Just a quick pull to me to pause, up to resume or speed up, down to slow or set.
No need to tap my brake :)
(that said, I don't have a clutch, but yea.)
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Mine does. It is very gentle. A quick tap bucks the RPM about 50-100 netting in MAYBE 2-3 mph of change.
If you hold it down, it gets a bit more dramatic - about 2 or 3 mph/s acceleration.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
GP isn't saying you cannot make it up a hill.
Consider it like this. You see a hill coming up. In a manual, you can judge for yourself if you think you should downshift for additional torque to maintain your speed. In an automatic, the computer cannot know how steep the hill you are about to climb is, or even that there is a hill coming up. So when you reach the hill, you're either decelerating or accelerating more slowly.
While I do not know the exact years, all the automatics I've driven have been 2000+ models, and in such situations would not downshift unless I floored it, at which point I get way more torque than I needed.
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
Idle left foot? It's perfectly allowed to drive with both feet with an automatic. The driver's instructors tell you not to because it is easy to get confused, but if you take the time to practice it's actually pretty easy (and yes, I can still drive a manual, too). If you're trying to drive fast, it removes a lot of work from your right foot and allows you to switch between gas and brake much faster, not to mention hitting both the gas and the brake at the same time (which is warranted in some cases. Just not when you see morons taking off from a stoplight with their top-center brake light still lit).
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
These are the Same people that had the Audi 5000 series sedans in the mid 1980’s that also suffered “sudden unintended acceleration”. They would have been in there early 30’s back then.
Fair enough. And, I've been told that today's auto transmissions can be "locked" into your chosen gear. Whatever - Freightliner got it wrong in the early days, as I say, they took a nice stab at getting me killed, and I never gave them another chance. I DID downshift, and the gear selector was in 9th gear, I believe (can't remember for certain after all these years, that was in 1999) and the computer over rode my choice of gears when the tach reached whatever speed it was designed to shift at. 2500 rpm? I really don't remember now. I brought the truck back to the yard, and told the boss I was NOT driving the damned thing again.
I much prefer manually putting that tranny in my chosen gear, and KNOWING that no one, and no thing, can possibly over ride my judgement. You realize at least as well as I do that sometimes there is simply no time to second guess that computer and/or another driver, and put things back the way you want them.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
They will likely be a "manual" as in has a clutch, and that gear shifting will be almost entirely in your control. I would expect that the only time it shifts is to keep the engine from stalling, and will likely let you bang the car off the red line in 3rd all day if thats what you want to do. The issue is more that the automatics make poor shifting choices, down shifting 2 gears when you press down the peddle lightly while going up one of those clover leaf ramps, and it's snowy out so all of a sudden your front wheels start spinning and you get to play catch the car.
All of the above was encrypted with a Quad ROT-13 method. Unauthorized decryption is in violation of the DMCA.
I used to drive a 5000 lb truck (IH Scout Traveler) that would regularly have the power steering go out. If you were traveling over 20 mph it was easy to turn at any rate that you'd want to turn at speed. The only thing that made it even minorly dangerous was if you were making a 90 degree turn at an intersection with one hand (which is poor technique anyway). If it went out and you didn't have your other hand ready, you could drift into the next lane as the steering wheel jerked against your hand.
If I remember right, the car in question is die-by-wire. It also interprets you dropping it into neutral while applying acceleration as an accident... and doesn't do what you would expect it to.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
If you can't drive an auto, you're in no position to be criticising anyone else's driving. After all, your *worst case* scenario is having to change gears like you would in a manual, just without pushing in a clutch.
Steady on, he didn't say he can't drive an auto. He said he feels like he's going to die every time he's in busy traffic in an auto. I know what he means - for a yawning commute to work in the morning, you can't beat an auto, but the moment anything remotely interesting happens, automatic transmissions are terrifying. Best case, you know your transmission perfectly and you can predict what it'll do, so you can drive around its quirks. Worst case, you're unfamiliar with the car and it kicks down in the middle of a corner, sending you ass backwards through a hedge (or concrete barrier, or oncoming traffic).
Unlike the GP, though, I've usually had over-revvy automatics than ones that lug the engine. Nothing like going up a slight incline and the car deciding it needs to be at 5000rpm when it could easily do the hill at 2000rpm if it'd just say in goddamn 4th.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
My automatic has two fancy buttons.
(mind you I enjoy my stick too).
First button retards the gear shifts to be near the higher end of the RPM range (awesome for uphill driving and for tow/haul/race(ish) driving).
The second button turns off all the "fuel saving options" which is helpful for downhill as it keeps the trans out of over-drive, and lets me downshift as needed.
To soft start on Ice I drop the gearbox to "2" and is starts in 2nd.
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
(OT: How do they refer to what we in the US call 'mileage' in other countries? Kilometerage?)
In most European countries, they call it "fuel consumption" in their native language, and calculate it as the number of liters of fuel consumed per 100 km driven. Automobile advertising includes CO2 emissions in grams CO2/100km as well as fuel consumption in liters[petrol|diesel|ethanol|LPG]/100km.
I've just wasted my time trying to figure out how to convert between miles/gallons and litres/100km. This should be pretty straightforward, but my basic algebra is so rusty from disuse... Can the guy refreshing his math post how to do the conversion?
... now that I think of it, it would be smarter to obey the neutral command and just apply a governor to the RPM so you don't blow the engine.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
I feel like I'm going to die every time I pull into busy traffic in an automatic
Then it sounds like you are doing it wrong (maybe you might want to avoid pulling out in front of people going 50). I've been driving for almost 20 years, and never once used a manual transmission. Yet I can't recall a single time where I felt like I was going to die pulling into traffic. In fact, the only time in my life that I've ever been the least bit annoyed with an automatic was pulling a trailer, and my problem there was that it would shift back and forth between 3rd/4th gear too easily. I can lock it into 3rd gear, though that does reduce gas mileage, so I'd prefer to make the choice for when to shift. Yet, I only tow a trailer about a half dozen times a year, and most of those trips aren't very long at all, so it really comes down to about 1 trip each year that's about 2.5 hours each way. So, for the little bit of usage I do, I see no reason to deal with a manual transmission year round.
For people that do towing a lot more often (especially truckers), I can easily see how manual would be quite preferable. For a typically driver, though, if you like manual than that is fine, but I cannot see how an automatic would be in any way inadequate, especially to the point of "I feel like I'm going to die".
Have you ever been a passenger in a car being driven by a teenage girl? Stereotypes exist because despite there being exceptions, IN GENERAL, that's what it's like. Thank god my wife grew up on a farm and understands machinery, she's one of the few women whose driving doesn't scare me. (It scares everyone else, but that's probably because she drives like me. :D I had to train her out of left foot braking for her driving test though. :P )
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
Sure, you're in control, but do you really need to waste so much time and effort for so little benefit? Maybe, but for most people the answer is definitely "no".
When you're in control of half a ton of tempered steel traveling at roughly 60mph or more, then the answer is a definitive "yes." When we are talking about operating systems on home computers where a crash causes some headaches and a few days worth of inconvenience, you're right, you don't need that extra control. When we are talking about what is, essentially, a very powerful weapon that is supposed to be used for peaceful transport purposes (yes, that much directed energy is a weapon, like it or not) then that control is absolutely essential. Those folk who are too damned incompetent to deal with that level of control should stay the hell off the roads, just like those folk who are so old they can no longer tell the brake from the gas pedal.
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
http://www.mazdausa.com/MusaWeb/musa2/pdf/specs/specs_MX5.pdf
PDF on the most up to date version of the car I drive. Apparently, the 6 speed gets the same mileage, whether it's AT or MT. The 5 speed manual gets slightly better mileage than the 6 speed.
It's *possible* that the most modern AT's now rival the MT's - but it's also possible that they've rigged the numbers. I just don't know enough to say.
I'm also aware that many newer vehicles have a selector that tells the computer to adjust the engine and transmission for fuel economy, or to adjust everything for power/performance/towing/hauling. Again, it's quite possible that flipping that selector really optimizes things for fuel economy, and it drives as well as I can.
But, I'm still mindful that while I drive, I'm watching traffic conditions as well as road conditions around and ahead of me. The computer can't do that. If I see a bridge half a mile or more ahead of me that is obviously iced over, I want to slow down, and approach that bridge with just the slightest bit of power driving me forward, whether it is rear or front wheel drive. The computer is completely unable to anticipate that I want maximum tration, and minimum power. If the damned thing downshifts and lurches ahead, I'm in serious trouble with rear wheel drive, and I could be in trouble with front wheel drive.
A mind is a terrible thing to waste, I've heard. I certainly don't want a computer wasting me AND my mind!
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Honda + four people weighing 350 each?
Dear GOD! 350 pounds? Nearly 160kg? I'm a big bastard at ~230 pounds, the idea of someone half again my size is fucking terrifying.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
I don't think that's much of a valid argument. Driving a truck is very much a special case, and I suspect few people would argue that a manual transmission would not be highly preferable there.
By the way...was your automatic truck experience in 1956? It would explain your username :-)
.... not always having a foot dedicated to accelerator and brake makes me feel rather insecure.
Er, wait - you're braking with your left foot?
So I think that the "feeling in control" with a manual transmission is exaggerated: you arguably have less control in certain common situations, like lane-shifting on a congested highway.
I have seen drivers who are remarkably good with a stick, and are faster than most others on AT. My father is such one. I can certainly believe him that he has more control.
(Ironically, while he doesn't like driving my AT car much (he keeps trying to step on the clutch all the time!), he does understand and appreciate the convenience it offers for other folk.)
That said, overall, I see a lot more people who jut parrot the phrase as a justification for their choice, without it actually applying to them. In Europe, it is probably the majority of stick drivers.
Thing is, for vast majority of people, the choice of stick vs auto isn't really a truly conscious choice - they just do "what everyone else does". For Americans, this means that people go with AT by default - without even thinking about it - because everyone around drives AT. In Europe, it means that people go with stick by default, for the same reason. No actual reasoning enters it in either case, it's purely herd mentality.
The problem with "everyone does it" rationalizing is that it breaks down as soon as someone doesn't do it. At that point, people who do need to come up with a reason for why they do. And the easiest way to do so is to reduce it to "everyone does it" by disparging those who don't - surely, if they're morons, not in control, not manly enough, or, God forbid, are Americans, then normal people would do well to do the exact opposite thing, right?
The reason why Americans don't need to do that kind of rationalizing with respect to the stick is because the benefit of driving AT is readily obvious to anyone who is confronted with a car without one. You don't need to think for long to figure out why less controls and simpler driving is a good thing, all considered.
You're the one arguing automatics can't be controlled properly. I want to know in what ways.
An automatic transmission removes the fine-grained control you have over the torque applied to the rear wheels while driving, and especially to the torque split between front and rear wheels while braking. Modern road cars are pre-set with the brake bias too far twoards the front for competitive driving, for safety reasons regarding unskilled drivers and general commuting. Engine braking (in a rear wheel drive car) or left foot braking (in a front wheel drive) allows you to dynamically shift the brake bias for superior turn-in and better control of weight shift.
I drive quite frequently for fun, though not as often as I'm on a motorbike, these days.
How the fuck do you drive a motorbike "not for fun"? I've never managed such a thing! :D
It blows my mind that anyone would want to drive for any non-trivial distance without cruise control.
Well said. Cruise control is awesome. A manual transmission does give you an added protection against misjudging speed after a couple of hours sitting at 115km/h. You see a corner, you know it's a second-gear corner, you work your way down into second gear - if you're doing 5k RPM then you know your judgement is screwed and you need to slow down more. In an automatic it's easy to just slow down to 80 for that 40km/h corner and end up in a hedge. Only a trap for new players, but still worth mentioning.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
When you're in control of half a ton of tempered steel traveling at roughly 60mph or more, then the answer is a definitive "yes."
Only if the people who claim "more control" with the stick are actually better at it, and not worse. Which, in my experience, is simply not true for the majority of drivers.
Those folk who are too damned incompetent to deal with that level of control should stay the hell off the roads
You'd probably need to take over half of all drivers off the roads - stick or AT, doesn't matter - with a bar thus set.
Date of birth was 1956, thank you. This particular runaway truck episode happened in 1999. But, I was a runaway several times in the latter '60's through 1974. Hence, my online nick.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Done. CVT transmissions don't have shift lag, all automatics can be shifted down for torque control, going downhill you can keep the brakes applied lightly in hybrids without wearing brakes and engine braking still available and while dealt applying the momentum and battery build-up to go uphill.
I appreciate manual's control but cvts offer a good alternative, and be fair even F1 is mostly automatic at this point for all your nits.
You don't sound like a hacker whom can maximize any equipment he uses.
Broke my leg on vacation, but didn't know it. Thought it was a sprain. Ended up driving back home 500 miles with my manual transmission car. Not fun at all.
Along with that time, getting stuck in a traffic jam, and traffic in an ice storm, those were the only times I did not like driving a manual shift car.
"He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
But, I'm still mindful that while I drive, I'm watching traffic conditions as well as road conditions around and ahead of me. The computer can't do that. If I see a bridge half a mile or more ahead of me that is obviously iced over, I want to slow down, and approach that bridge with just the slightest bit of power driving me forward, whether it is rear or front wheel drive. The computer is completely unable to anticipate that I want maximum tration, and minimum power. If the damned thing downshifts and lurches ahead, I'm in serious trouble with rear wheel drive, and I could be in trouble with front wheel drive.
The problem you describe is best solved by AT transmission with the ability to up/down-shift manually, which is increasingly popular these days. It will let you define the desired traction, while still avoiding the need to mess with that extra pedal.
Of course, it may not even be an issue in many locations, where iced roads are not exactly common in the first place. It might even partially explain relative popularity of the stick in Europe compared to U.S.
Then again, I drove AT in Moscow for two years, including heavy snow, ice beneath snow, and black ice, and never had any troubles doing so. Of course, this is with a proper choice of tires (studded ones in this case).
Whether it's a complex interaction fo systems that can't be reproduced in QA, the uncovering of a hardware of software bug; or if something as simple as the user consistently clicking the wrong button -- or pressing the wrong pedal, if that is what happened.
On the surface, yes - in some of those cases, the user does the "wrong" thing. But what that really means is "the user did not do what I said they should do". So is that user error, or interface design error? Why would they do it wrong in *this* case, but not in other cases? WHy did the same user never have this problem with any other car?
A bug doesn't mean only that code is broken. It can occur in any number of steps in the process -- code, interface, expectations we have set for the users, design, assumptions, hardware, etc.
the author states that prius owners who get in accelerator accidents are old. But, since he doesn't tell us what the avg age of a prius owner is, this is meaningless in my town, newton MA, the avg age of prius owners looks to be >40, and possibly >50 so, that would mean his main conclusion is simply wrong
What do you think the hand/parking brake is for..?
Locking the back wheels up? As you do in a handbrake turn? And parking, I guess.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
Unless it's a CVT [...] Too bad they stopped making them because they didn't make the shifting lugs that people are use to.
That reminds me of a hideous quote in the Wired article on the GM Volt. The original model either ran the generator at the most efficient RPM, or switched it off, but they changed that because it "didn't sound like people expected" when the car was taking off. Eeeew.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
My MT 2009 Camry has cruise control, no big deal to put it in as there is just an extra sensor. The additional control is in the ability to prevent upshifting, which is what you cannot easily do in an AT. also, then you floor the gas, you ever notice that time lag? I don't have that with my MT.
I however do not like my car for long drives, but that is more about the suspension.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Actually, the fuel efficiency depends on the car. I drive a Camry SE 4 cyl with a MT, it gets the exact same gas mileage as the AT version. Both have 5 gears, which is usually where you get the extra mileage on a MT.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
CVTs are the way to go in automatic transmissions. The throttle becomes the "power request pedal" and the transmission keeps the engine in the correct RPM range for the requested level of power. Slightly push the pedal? Engine sedately hovers at 2500 RPM while you gently accelerate. Floor the pedal? Engine immediately climbs to 6000 RPM and stays there as you accelerate like a bat out of hell. Initially it's a bizarre feeling to have the engine pitch remain constant while you accelerate.
I learned to drive a manual on a 1946 Ford heavy duty with no synchros, double clutching FTW. Manual transmissions are great for racetracks or farm equipment, but I'm sold now. For daily driving I'll take a CVT any day.
Coding with assembly is like playing with Legos. Coding an application in assembly is like building a car with Legos.
And yet.. I kind of like my climate control, my sat nav, my textual warnings that I'm running low on windscreen washer fluid.
I can choose an MP3 playlist while paused at a red light. I can turn on the heated seat without looking away from the road (and in no more time than taking my hand from the wheel for a gear change). I can retune the radio without letting go of the steering wheel.
Why is this a bad thing? My car isn't just a tool to take me from A to B, it's a place I spend much of my time in. Being comfortable while going from A to B makes that time less irritating, and doesn't detract from the driving experience itself.
My auto has a six gear speedbox. 4 people? It can tow a twin-axle caravan up a hill, while also seating four adults.
Still only 4 cylinders, and a 1.9l engine. But I guess the hills must be bigger in 'SoCal'.
Cruise control is for speed cameras. Especially average speed ones.
It blows my mind that anyone would want to drive for any non-trivial distance without cruise control.
If I'm going a non-trivial distance, I'm going to be driving pretty fast. Far too fast to let my attention wander by letting something else control the flow of fuel into the engine.
Cruise control is wonderful and I'm glad I have it, but when driving fast I want to be forced to pay attention to the road.
Steady on, he didn't say he can't drive an auto. He said he feels like he's going to die every time he's in busy traffic in an auto.
Ie: he can't drive an auto.
Seriously. If you're in any mechanically sound, remotely modern vehicle, and you feel like you're "going to die" driving it in normal conditions, then you shouldn't be on the road.
I know what he means - for a yawning commute to work in the morning, you can't beat an auto, but the moment anything remotely interesting happens, automatic transmissions are terrifying. Best case, you know your transmission perfectly and you can predict what it'll do, so you can drive around its quirks. Worst case, you're unfamiliar with the car and it kicks down in the middle of a corner, sending you ass backwards through a hedge (or concrete barrier, or oncoming traffic).
If you're driving around a corner in a way that causes a kickdown, in a car you're unfamiliar with, then you don't know how to drive properly.
Seriously. If you're in any mechanically sound, remotely modern vehicle - automatic or otherwise - and you feel like you're "going to die" driving it in normal conditions, then you shouldn't be on the road.
Again, someone making fun of GP.
Yes, because he deserves it.
Ever driven an 18 wheeler? Ever driven an 18 wheeler with an AUTOMATIC???? I did. Once. Never again.
Wow. How the hell is driving a semi trailer relevant to driving a normal passenger vehicle ?
As has been pointed out, the transmission cannot anticipate that I need a bit more torgue to climb a hill that it hasn't sensed yet. Nor can it see that I need to merge into traffic. It senses nothing, anticipates nothing - it only responds to certain stimuli, and everything is WRONG by the time those stimuli reach the brain controlling the transmission.
Bullshit. Stop trying to blame incompetence and ignorance on hardware.
[...] rhyming slang for yank. (Septic tank, got it?)
I get it, but I don't have to like it.
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
having driven manuals, AT, AT w/clutchless shifting at the stick, AT w/paddles, on nearly the same model car (dealer loaners) i find automatics of any type more annoying, either for the reasons GP noted (poor shifting choices mostly), or because for 95% of driving time its not necessary to manage the gearing effectively. when I get to that 5%, I either pound frantically for a nonexistent clutch (and sometimes hit the brake...) or forget to shift entirely because im not in 'what gear should i be in' mode.
You're not doing yourself any favours as someone worth listening to on the topic of safe driving.
its an annoying combination of a helping hand and pseudo-control. also shifting in an AT is nothing like shifting a manual. you dont get a clutch, so you cant control when you engage the gears. you push the stick/button and it goes. no feathering makes it not the same. i can start my car in 3rd gear if i really want to, do you know of an AT that can do that?
Most autos will start in at least 2nd, some will let you lock in specific gears.
You control when you engage the gears by when you shift the lever or push the button. This is not a difficult concept.
griping about crappy software is not the same as not being able to drive it. AT drives 'adequately'. im not used to 'adequately', im used to 'cylinders to the asphalt, so dont screw up'.
So you drive like a maniac on public roads, and try to blame the hardware for your poor judgement ?
Handbrake turns indeed, and for when your car is stationary (ie parked) at lights. It's almost essential when moving off from an incline with a manual transmission too.
In this country you're legally meant to apply the handbrake when you get to a stop sign too.
which is totally what she said
For one, manuals have a pedal that allows you to physically disconnect a runaway engine from the tires.
Automatics have that too. It's called Neutral.
i think we may have`to be satisfied with having different opinions in this subject, since you can't even CONTEMPLATE how someone can not-like cc.
Yes. Just like I wouldn't be able to understand someone who preferred a crank starter instead of electric.
If you think an AT can be controlled properly, would you ride a motorcycle with one (outside of CVT scooters)?
Sure - I've ridden bikes with autos a few tmes. However, since my bikes are pretty much solely for enjoyment, an auto certainly wouldn't be my first choice (though darting around European cities on a scooter is awesome fun).
50 years ago an American car with a big V8 had a splendid automatic transmission, no hunting going up hills. Modern ATs on smaller cars with much smaller, more efficient engines are prone to shift too often for comfort rather than relying on the fluid torque converter to take up the slack. The slight improvement in efficiency is more than overwhelmed by the feeling that the car is misbehaving and the increased wear on the transmission.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Basically the difference is proactive control (with MT) vs. being limited to reactive control (with AT).
Perhaps you shouldn't try racing around like you're on a track, so constantly being in the powerband is less important ?
Greetings, dick. I see that you're also illiterate. I explained further down, in other posts, that I drove that automagic tranny in 1999. Another poster suggests that today's trannies are better, and I conceded that maybe they are. Incompetence? Gee, thanks a lot. I lived through the computer's blunder, so maybe I'm not all that fucking incompetent?
And, oh yes. What they do with BIG equipment is often applicable to small equipment, and vice versa. Perhaps you're familiar with the term "scale", as it pertains to both computers and hardware?
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
People don't (generally) choose Automatic because it's *easier*, people choose it because Manuals are a complete pain in the ass when you're stuck in traffic.
Comment of the year
Let me guess: American, Canadian or Australian?
Australian, but I've spent plenty of time driving in Europe and the US.
At least in Germany, cruise control _can_ be helpful when you go with the flow. But if all lanes have different speeds and you actually want to go as fast as traffic permits, cruise control sucks.
In which case it's probably an inappropriate time to use it. However, I covered probably 5,000km in Germany while I was living in Europe, and the cruise controls in the cars I rented were all used extensively.
Things may be different now from when I lived in Japan (1994 - 2002) but there were definitely cars older than seven years around at that time. Keeping them on the road becomes a lot more expensive, of course, do to the Auto Mechanics and Car Dealers Welfare Act - uh, I mean, the strict but fair vehicle inspection fees and regulations, but they were around. I even saw quite a few American muscle cars from the 1960s and early seventies, including a 1970 Challenger R/T in a parking lot near Mizonokuchi (where the Nambu-sen and the Denentoshi-sen intersect). I used to have a '70 Challenger myself, so that was a pretty cool thing to see there.
Oh, to explain that last bit; here in England we have roads where traffic speed is 70mph that you can pull onto from a T-junction. No sliproad.
Wow. Has the concept of "ramps" occurred to you Brits yet? It might save lives.
The worst I've seen in Washington State is the awful left turn from Bickford onto U.S. 2 north of Snohomish, that's basically what you're describing, except it's a wider turn and the speed limit's 60. Everything else in the state has ramps.
Comment of the year
Let me correct a misconception: you don't need to have an automatic transmission in order to use cruise control. My 5 speed manual has cruise control.
I'm well aware you don't need an automatic to have cruise control. Which is why I didn't write anything to the contrary.
The manual transmission is perfect for quickly accelerating onto a US Interstate highway. Once I reach my cruising speed, I simply click on the cruise control.
So is an auto. Even a gutless 1.6L 4 cylinder Corolla with an automatic transmission can get up to speed on the typical on ramp (particularly true in the US, where motorways are typically well designed and built).
Changing from barely tickover to peak power output without changing speed.
Yes, you can. I've never seen an auto yet that won't let you select specific gears.
Especially useful on turbo cars when you want to be able to overtake without the burden of turbo lag
Maybe you should try planning your overtaking maneuvers better.
Being in the right gear to accelerate away from a corner
Maybe you should try not treating the street like your personal racetrack.
Being able to manage your speed at very low speeds or while going downhill (ok auto boxes have overrides to allow engine breaking, but who uses them?)
Anyone who feels they need to, just like people who do it in manuals.
I'm a two-foot automatic driver
Didn't they tell you not to do that in Driver's Ed? People tend to jam both feet out in emergencies. If you stomp with your left foot on the brake, your right foot is probably stomping on the gas.
Your '77 had a foot toggle? Huh. My '78 Olds (Delta 88) didn't. I miss that car; it was quite a luxury.
And yes, this van is a bit of an oddity. It's been rewired and whoever did it didn't do this right; there are two independent circuits for lights.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Climate control doesn't need a digital display, and it's something that can be safely postponed until an opportune time. But it should have it's own display if it needs a display at all ( what ever happened to a knob, the control that is it's own display? ). If it has a digital display, odds are it's shared with umpteen other things that you'll have to scroll though so that the display is displaying the information you want it to. If there's a digital display, you'll be fiddling with it because it will be shared with umpteen other things.
The radio/music player is a non-safety device that can be safely ignored. But ease of use is very important even so because people will want to use it even when they maybe ought not to. Also, the ease of use of the device will factor into the decision about whether it is safe to use at any particular moment. Ease of use translates into availability even of the radio.
Sat navs -- eek - I've never owned a real one, but I do have one on my phone, and I guess they do take the stress level down about 3 notches since if you miss your turn you aren't hopelessly lost, so they do cut down on last minute swerving across three lanes of traffic because the exit was unexpectedly on the left, or across two lanes because you don't know what side of the road the exit is going to be on having been tricked before so you travel in the middle lane until you see the exit visually. But they REALLY need to be designed well to be safe to use by a driver without a human navigator using the device. Still, they are an electronic gizmo, that if it be part of your car, it will start to look sucky compared to the new ones just out after a couple of years. I'd rather get a commodity one that I can bring with me for now rather than having it integrated into the car.
The integration would have to be very well done. Car radios that play MP3s beat the heck out of plugging in a portable MP3 player because the buttons are big on the radio, and the little MP3 player is useless to someone trying to drive. Do integrated sat navs have such potential for big button improvements? I haven't used enough sat navs to comment on that... But drivers shouldn't be mousing around. If the destination is preset while parked, there should be a easy to hit 'Update directions from here' button. That's one big button. All sat navs for use in cars should have it, big and prominant. Even better, don't have it. Have the device just automatically do it without a button being pressed.
...
Sat nav built in is much better than via a separate device. You never forget it, it's designed to get a good signal, if you turn the voice on it'll interrupt the radio/music (although that's one reason I turn the voice off) and it does work on a 'how do I get from the current location to the destination' basis with no interrupts.
However, the biggest benefit is that by being integrated with the radio, it's able to use the traffic signals sent via the radio and update itself to avoid jams.
Since the sat-nav needs a decent sized screen, why not display other information on it too: time, temperature (internal and external), radio station, tire pressure warning..
My car has multiple buttons, but only one screen for its electronic goodness. This is fine, I only ever change one thing at a time.
It has an entirely separate dashboard with driver aids such as speed, rev counter, current gear (I drive an automatic), serious warning lights, etc. So when driving I glance at that, when adjusting settings I look at the sat-nav/settings screen.
Most of the time I look at the road, my mirrors and the world around me.
I certainly don't disagree, but I think the biggest problem in this thread is that we're not pointing how thoroughly wrong about statistics the people who are crying "small sample size" are.
People who complain about the small sample sizes of studies whose conclusions they don't like are operating under the false assumption that the thing that primarily determines the accuracy of an unbiased sample is its relative size, i.e., the proportion of the population that was sampled. But in fact, the accuracy of the sample is primarily determined by the absolute size, and the frequency of the outcome we're trying to estimate.
As a simple thought experiment, imagine a big, opaque black bag with a million marbles, half of them red, the other half blue, randomly scattered. If you put your hand into the bag and draw a marble without looking, you have a 500,000/1,000,000 chance of drawing red. If you drew red on the first one and now draw a second one, you have a 499,999/1,000,000 chance of drawing red; then in your third draw, the chance of drawing red again is 499,998/1,000,000, and so on. So each draw is has a roughly 50/50 chance of getting red, except that drawing red in one turn makes red slightly less likely in the next one.
So, what's your chance of drawing 27 reds on a row? It's easy to see that it's something in the order of 1/2^27, i.e. 1/134,217,728, except that that's actually an overestimate, given that earlier reds make later ones less likely. The formula that calculates the probability of drawing only red marbles from the 50%/50% red/blue bag is looks like an exponential function over the number of marbles you draw, with a relatively minor correction for sample size.
This is a crude version of statistical error estimates, but it applies pretty directly to the Prius driver age situation, because getting all 27 drivers to fall in a narrow age range is very much like drawing 27 red marbles in a row. Even if 66% of Prius drivers were in that age group, the chance of drawing 27 of them in a random draw is something like 1 in 56,800 (1/(2/3)^27).
So, repeat the mantra: Sampling error depends on absolute sample size, not relative sample size.
Are you adequate?
Ahh... so it wasn't supposed to be like that. That makes more sense.
Yeah, it looks like '77 was the last of the fourth generation Cutlass and the Delta 88 went into 9th generation in '77, so maybe those "new generation" cars lost the foot switch.
This is true, they're a lot more fuel efficient than the used to be. They still cost more to make, repair, and they break more often... so in terms of economic efficiency they still lag.
Sent from my PDP-11
(62/MPG)*4.54 = litres per 100km.
(assuming we're using the queen's gallon, yankee gallons use 3.79 instead of 4.5).
I use a simpler system for off the head conversion though.
62 miles is 100km. So the following is true:
62 MPG = 1gal/100km = 4.5L/100km
31 MPG = 2gal = 9L
20 MPG = 3gal = 13.5L
15 MPG = 4gal = 18L
So I kind of remember those, cause you can do the math in your head for them... and if it's somewhere in between I just extrapolate.
So.. 25MPG should be between 9 and 13.5L/100km, say 11L/100km. Of course in real life it works out to (62/25)*4.5 = 11.16L/100km, but 11 is close enough for an off the head thing.
simple right!? :-)
Sent from my PDP-11
You'd probably need to take over half of all drivers off the roads - stick or AT, doesn't matter - with a bar thus set.
That was my exact point. There is a reason your driver's license is called a license. Driving is a task which requires skill and continued honing of reflexes to be good at. Licensing requirements for operating a vehicle, in my opinion, should be significantly higher to the point where they are restrictive (and no, I am not talking about doing so financially, I mean making it difficult to qualify for a license). Driving a personal vehicle is not a right no matter how much we want it to be. This is true in the case of all other vehicles (there is a reason it is so difficult to get your trucker's license or your motorcycle license). I openly advocate a system which is significantly more difficult to get licensed to drive in. Frankly, I think it would have the benefit of reducing annual casualties as well as encouraging public transportation. So yes, I am all for removing more than half the current drivers on the road.
And before anyone sets in with an ad hominem, no, I cannot be certain that I would qualify for such licensing standards myself. However, I certainly would be willing to invest the time, money, and materials into training myself to meet such standards because I highly value the freedom of personal transportation. It's the same reason I spent extra time, money, and materials to get licensed to operate a motorcycle in the first place. Driving any type of motor vehicle is a responsibility that needs to be earned. Driving a personal vehicle should not be viewed as a matter of convenience or simplicity.
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
That was my exact point. There is a reason your driver's license is called a license. Driving is a task which requires skill and continued honing of reflexes to be good at. Licensing requirements for operating a vehicle, in my opinion, should be significantly higher to the point where they are restrictive (and no, I am not talking about doing so financially, I mean making it difficult to qualify for a license).
This is all well and good, but has no relevance to the whole stick-vs-AT issue. A well-trained driver would handle either one well in an emergency situation.
As for the proposal itself, it's hardly realistic at this point - at least not in countries where public transport is significantly underdeveloped (such as U.S.).
An automatic transmission removes the fine-grained control you have over the torque applied to the rear wheels while driving, and especially to the torque split between front and rear wheels while braking. Modern road cars are pre-set with the brake bias too far twoards the front for competitive driving, for safety reasons regarding unskilled drivers and general commuting. Engine braking (in a rear wheel drive car) or left foot braking (in a front wheel drive) allows you to dynamically shift the brake bias for superior turn-in and better control of weight shift.
We're not talking about a track, we're talking about the street. If you're driving around on the street such that you're doing this sort of thing, then you're a bad driver.
Actually, that display nicely could double up as the odometer under normal driving.
Greetings, dick. I see that you're also illiterate. I explained further down, in other posts, that I drove that automagic tranny in 1999. Another poster suggests that today's trannies are better, and I conceded that maybe they are.
Whether the autos in 18-wheeler trucks are good, bad, or indifferent is utterly irrelevant in a discussion about driving *passenger vehicles*.
Incompetence? Gee, thanks a lot. I lived through the computer's blunder, so maybe I'm not all that fucking incompetent?
If someone can't drive an automatic *CAR* smoothly and safely, and tries to blame it on the transmission, they're incompetent. If someone is driving an 18-wheeler truck without being intimately familiar as to how it works, then they're just being foolish.
And, oh yes. What they do with BIG equipment is often applicable to small equipment, and vice versa. Perhaps you're familiar with the term "scale", as it pertains to both computers and hardware?
Yes, I am, which is why I know that what works at one end of the scale is frequently inappropriate for the other.
My MT 2009 Camry has cruise control, no big deal to put it in as there is just an extra sensor. The additional control is in the ability to prevent upshifting, which is what you cannot easily do in an AT.
Sure you can. Just move the lever (or hit the button on the steering wheel, as the case may be).
also, then you floor the gas, you ever notice that time lag? I don't have that with my MT.
Sure you do. You have it when you change gears.
Uh, what? I can drive an auto just fine... i prefer not to, because I am better at shifting than an automatic transmission.
I also find that human players tend to be better than bots at video games... mostly because they're smarter and better at planning.
So remind me again, why are you suggesting that somebody who prefers something that you don't like (I'm guessing that you tried driving a manual once, stalled, cried, and decided they are for idiots... correct me if I'm wrong), and is capable of operating far more vehicles than, is somehow wrong and you're right?
Would you also say that people who use CLIs are doing it wrong, because GUIs work just fine? Or that using a CLI is an archaic and outdated skill that is no longer of any value? I'll tell you now that I don't really care for CLIs, don't have much patience for them, and fully admit that I'm a less able tech because of it... it's one of the primary reasons I'm a hobbiest/enthusiast rather than a pro.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
Please read and at least attempt to understand comment before replying, kthxbye.
Your sig is the most ironic thing I've read in a long time, as you obviously didn't understand what I was saying.
kthxbye
Why, yes, I'm right next to big bear mountain, dead center of a valley. we're talking 35 degree grade roads.
BIG FUCKING MOUNTAINS.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
There are a few reasons why the analysis presented in the article is meaningless:
1 - Without knowing the age distribution of all drivers it's pointless to look at the age distribution of the drivers who had accidents. The age distribution could just be the same as the age distribution of all drivers.
2 - The same applies to the situations where accidents occurred. Without a comparison with data on all accidents you can't infer anything. The pie chart in the article could just be the same for accidents with other brands.
Wow, you mean a manual has a pedal for that and I have is a lousy Neutral gear?
Uh, what? I can drive an auto just fine... i prefer not to, because I am better at shifting than an automatic transmission.
Not according to your own words you can't:
I feel like I'm going to die every time I pull into busy traffic in an automatic... I feel like I'm going to die every time I pull into busy traffic in an automatic... they always seem to upshift too early, sacrificing torque for smoothness, which would be great if I didn't have some whacko barreling up behind me at 50 and I need to be going fast enough that he won't smash into me 5 seconds ago.
So remind me again, why are you suggesting that somebody who prefers something that you don't like (I'm guessing that you tried driving a manual once, stalled, cried, and decided they are for idiots... correct me if I'm wrong), and is capable of operating far more vehicles than, is somehow wrong and you're right?
Firstly, I've been driving a reasonably wide variety of manual vehicles for 15-odd years now, so I have a rough idea of how to do it.
Secondly, I said nothing about preference, opinion, whether an AT is better than a MT, or made any judgement about people who prefer one over the other (unlike pretty much everyone else in this thread). I said that if someone can't drive an automatic car safely (and that inherently requires you to feel safe doing it), then they have zero authority to be criticising anyone else's driving.
I also agree that the proposal is not a realistic, overnight kind of proposal. Such standards would have to come over a long period of time while coming hand in hand with other changes, like a properly developed public transportation system. Nonetheless, I still stand by my idea that it would solve various issues.
However, to get back on topic, as for the MT vs. AT issue, I do feel that learning MT should be a requirement for vehicle operators in the US. Frankly, it is not that unreasonable of a thing to learn. IT only takes a few hours of driving to get the feel for it, and a week of steady driving to get completely comfortable with it. The benefit of more drivers having more fine-tuned control over their vehicles would be significant. As many folk have pointed out in this thread, having an MT helps you to properly accelerate in a tight highway situation, gives you more power for climbing hills, gives you more control for driving downhill without burning the brake pads, plus a whole host of other things.
If an MT were a required standard in the US, it would help with legitimate issues. For instance, when traffic on a freeway is tight, how often is that due to one car in the fast lane only going slightly faster than the slow lane? While an AT is not always the cause, I could see a legitimate argument being made that, often, that phenomenon may be caused by the driver in the fast lane having an AT and not really being able to, 'punch it,' the way an MT driver can.
Similarly, when navigating small, mountain roads, having a driver in front of you that goes through the cycle of speed up, brake hard, speed up, brake hard, ad infinitum is not only annoying to watch, but quite a concern as they do not appear to have control of their car. Having a manual transmission allows you to limit your speed in a more fluid manner, thus making you appear to be less of a potential hazard to other drivers.
I don't make these claims ignorantly. I have lived in both high-traffic cities and in the mountains. I have driven both MT's and AT's. While I don't claim to be a professional driver, I do put enough miles behind the wheel to know how to handle a vehicle. Driving an MT vehicle really does give you better, fine-grained control in extraordinary driving circumstances (which do arise, whether you plan for it on your daily commute or not). Requiring drivers, in the US and elsewhere, to be familiar with, and capable of, this kind of control is far from unreasonable. Frankly, I think it really would make the roads safer and it would force drivers to be more attentive.
A well-trained driver would handle either one well in an emergency situation.
I don't disagree, however, as I mentioned, we do not have well trained drivers homogeneously across the population. I figure that requiring knowledge and operation of an MT would be one step in getting our general driving population towards that goal. Also, even if a well trained driver could manage an emergency situation with an AT, they will still have more options, and, potentially, better options with an MT than an AT. Having a car make decisions for you regarding the power of your vehicle is, in my opinion, inherently dangerous.
Those are just my thoughts though.
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
If you have to "pound frantically for a nonexistent clutch (and sometimes hit the brake...)" I guess you're not as good a driver as you think you are. Speaking as someone who's driven stick construction equipment, military trucks, semis, little Toyotas in the Middle East, US, Brit and Canadian manuals, and automatic combat vehicles, construction equipment and American cars. There are a small number of advantages to sticks. Automatics are superior in all other regards. If you really think you need to change gears, you just adjust revs accordingly...and as to the previous poster, if he can't get an auto to accelerate fast enough to avoid being hit in traffic, he should probably let someone else drive, before he gets squashed.
cruise control is usually liked by people who aren't bothered about driving and just want it to be as painless as possible. i find it quite boring.
I just drove overnight from FL to MD (saw the shuttle launch!) and for long drives on the highway I think cruise control should be mandatory. People who speed up & slow down constantly are just making it difficult for everyone else. Pick a speed, stick with it, don't floor it to get past me and then ease off as soon as you're in front. Highway driving should be as painless as possible, if you want fun driving get out on fun roads.
Have you compared accident rates in the US to say, Germany? Might want to rethink that statement. I've seen as many, if not more, bad drivers with sticks than autos.
Interestingly, I heard some drivers complain that CVTs feel underpowered and slow. I don't know what to make of this discrepancy.
Sure you have more control with MT (I have regularly driven a number of MTs), but my AT '95 Tercel handles merging and hills just fine.
Climate Progress - Hell and High Water
You control when you engage the gears by when you shift the lever or push the button. This is not a difficult concept.
no, you tell the automatic when to shift. not how quickly or into what gear. just up or down, and as quickly as it can.
So you drive like a maniac on public roads, and try to blame the hardware for your poor judgement ?
and heres the assumption (which you alluded to earlier). you think that just because i like to be in control (and dislike giving that to the AT) i drive like a maniac. i used a bit of hyperbole and its been taken as the literal truth, my mistake.
i like being able to know when the car is going to behave in a certain way, so that i can plan my actions accordingly. with an AT you have a reasonable guess, but its a guess and sometimes they do screwy things like not shifting or shifting too quickly for the conditions. this toyota thing is case in point.
you simply dont have the same level of control over the car, and i find it uncomfortable. even given the choice of an AT with manual-like shifting.
turn up the jukebox and tell me a lie
How do modern DSGs compare to modern CVTs?
Sure. CVTs aren't used in automobiles. They can't handle the torque that most people put through there vehicles daily. That is even a problem for the DSG. I think the top I've heard of them handling is ~250 ft-lbs, anything over that and the computer thins out the mix to prevent the clutch from slipping. CVT's are awesome for drill presses and go-carts (~6 ft-lbs) where you're talking about exceptionally low torque. But systems for higher torque applications are significantly more expensive, harder to maintain, and bulky.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Huh?
Ahh well, I should have double checked before posting that ;)
Most of those cars (not all) though you'll find the CVT option were either short lived, exceptionally light on torque, or used design patterns that differed from the traditional CVT system. (Note that the Hybrids on that list don't actually use CVTs, they use a 2-input system that shares some design elements with CVTs, but are completely different in function.)
In anycase, they handle less torque, they are more expensive, and with out a specifically tuned engine, they aren't going to produce any better milage than a traditional hydrolic automatic.
If you are looking for a highly efficient transmission, a DSG is pretty much the creame of the crop right now. Beating out traditional manual transmissions in performance (up to their torque limit) and efficiency. New hydrolic automatics have improved a lot since the old days of slush boxes, but you still have to deal with the torque converter (until you are cruising) and parasitic power loss. All in all though, a standard manual transmission is probably going to be the cheapest option (not quite as efficient as a DSG, but cheaper to buy and replace/service) over the life of the car.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
no, you tell the automatic when to shift. not how quickly or into what gear. just up or down, and as quickly as it can.
If shift times of a modern automatic are a major concern, You're Doing It Wrong. The road is not a racetrack.
and heres the assumption (which you alluded to earlier). you think that just because i like to be in control (and dislike giving that to the AT) i drive like a maniac. i used a bit of hyperbole and its been taken as the literal truth, my mistake.
No, I think you're way too concerned about things you shouldn't be on a public road, and are hence probably driving around too fast and with too little foresight.
Thats the thing.
Dishwashers just make life easier.
There is nothing fun about washing dishes.
The is no reason not to use a dishwasher unless you think yours makes streaks or doesn't clean well.
But a stick shift isn't an old technology that needs to be gotten RID of.
There is no way an automatic transmission can give you the same control as a stick shift.
NONE.
Its better control and it isn't difficult. It doesn't even require constant thinking of, it become second nature after a few days.
As I mentioned elsewhere here though, if you have an injury or a problem with your left leg... I do understand where that can cause a problem.
actually i think overdrive would cause LOWER rpms than usual.
Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
Maybe with an underpowered car it would? With my current car I don't get that feel at all. In fact the first week I drove it, in town I had to be careful because of the lack of speed cues from shift points or engine noise I'd end up doing 50 in a 35 and not really notice.
Or maybe with some people the lack of jerk from a manual shift "off throttle-clutch in-shift-clutch out-back on throttle" makes it feel like there's more acceleration than there is?
Coding with assembly is like playing with Legos. Coding an application in assembly is like building a car with Legos.
That's what I thought at first. Trust me, I read those 2 paragraphs about 6 times (as did someone else I showed it to) and they have DEFINITELY gotten it backwards.
The "normal" drive (where the shifter stops when pulled straight) is the "OD", the non-OD (you have to push-pull to get there) is for trailers and prevents the downshifting-overdrive.
"I said that if someone can't drive an automatic car safely (and that inherently requires you to feel safe doing it), then they have zero authority to be criticising anyone else's driving.'
Oh, so, you're basing this on nothing... got it, you're an idiot.
Would you be happier if I rephrased it to "I dislike driving automatics because they frequently shift at inopportune times, and if I'm just going to do it myself I'd rather have a vehicle designed for it than one that merely allows it"? It doesn't have the same ring, or sense of urgency, but is perhaps more factually accurate.
I'm also not sure where I criticized anybody;s driving... I tend not to do that unless I've actually seen them drive, since it's a rather silly thing to do. Wouldn't you agree?
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
AT don't need a new clutch and they work fine if one changes the fluid regularly. I don't need to jack off my car to make it go and I can eat or play with my girlfriend when I drive. You manual drivers get such a thrill with playing with your stick
one car in the fast lane only going slightly faster than the slow lane? While an AT is not always the cause, I could see a legitimate argument being made that, often, that phenomenon may be caused by the driver in the fast lane having an AT and not really being able to, 'punch it,' the way an MT driver can.
Umm, no - have you ever driven an even vaguely modern AT car in the US? Every car I've driven from a 93 onwards can 'punch it' just fine with an AT. It's simple, push down the gas pedal.
The phenomenon you're referring to is most likely caused by cruise control, and people not wanting to obviously speed (they're going 75 in a 65 and the guy they're passing is doing 73. They don't want to 'punch it' to 85+ Mph to clear that other car) and risk a ticket.
Similarly, when navigating small, mountain roads, having a driver in front of you that goes through the cycle of speed up, brake hard, speed up, brake hard, ad infinitum is not only annoying to watch, but quite a concern as they do not appear to have control of their car.
I see this - they're stupid. AT doesn't cause this, I can downshift my AT to 3rd or 2nd just as well as an MT and the engine will hold the speed and I rarely have to brake. I'm sure you'd be amazed.
Having a car make decisions for you regarding the power of your vehicle is, in my opinion, inherently dangerous.
I see this case made, but good computer controls usually help correct for poor driving. They very rarely hurt good driving (see the amount of press this Toyota caused - because it *doesn't* happen every day.
Cruise Control helps people in every day situations avoid the 55,45,55,60,55 etc speed up slow down crap. That's HARD to do 'manually' for many people. ABS help everyone 'pump the brakes' better than any pro driver on ice/snow. And AT helps many drivers who would get the wrong gear, stall out, or otherwise damage their car, or just cause themselves an inconvenience shift as well as an average stick shifter...
This is like the people who think everyone should be in the top 10% of computer knowledge to be on the Internet. It's stupid. Not everyone can be a race car driver or enthusiast. Many people just want to get to work and back. This is also why everyone isn't buying sports cars for that fine control...
Opera, Proxomitron-Grypen,GPG 0x0A1C6EE3
Without wanting to sound predudiced against either elderly people or Toyota, it's probably reasonable to say that as a sample of the population of "all drivers", drivers of Toyotas will be skewed towards the older end of the age range. You certainly wouldn't conduct an estimate of the average age of the population based purely on the drivers of one particular make of car, whatever it was, due to the very high likelihood of such a bias.
Given that reaction time does increase with age, it's again not unreasonable to expect that the occurence of incidents in which reaction time is likely to be a factor would show some correlation with age.
I think it's also reasonable to expect that in the case of an accelerator being stuck 'on', any resulting accidents are more likely to happen at low speeds than at high speeds. On a typical motorway / highway if your car suddenly went to full throttle then you would generally have more time to react, and more space to bring the car to a safe stop. The effect of going full throttle at, say, 70mph in a high gear is also much less dramatic than at 5mph in 1st gear. When maneouvering or driving at low speed there is a very high likelihood of there being traffic, buildings, trees etc around - hence the low speed in the first place.
See, here's the thing, I'm from New England. The needs are very different.
Having driven in some other parts of the country (Southeast, Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and Pacific Northwest), I've found that our road conditions just don't match what other people experience. For one thing, our population density and distribution is completely whacked... we have rural areas directly abutting urban centers, commercial districts in the middle of residential neighborhoods, industrial parks in town centers, etc. Also, our roads were largely built on an entirely different design philosophy, which is to say none at all: they are narrow, arbitrarily windy, and tend to route the heaviest traffic loads through inconvenient (though entirely understandable, once you realize that these are essentially paved-over foot paths) places. The terrain is unpredictable, rocky, and very much not flat or unbroken, there are rivers and streams everywhere.
Basically, if you built this place in SimCity, you would lose. Badly.
If I were driving in straight lines on flat ground following logical traffic progressions, I would drive an automatic because doing so would make life a lot easier... but I don't, not even close. Just leaving my driveway requires that I pull onto a road with 40 mph traffic and no stop lights which is also a major commuter thruway; waiting for a safe time to pull into traffic can take several minutes as it is, if I had to wait for such a time that I could do so with only limited control over my vehicle's acceleration and other behaviors I wouldn't be able to go to work in the morning. I suppose that I could make the commute at dawn and wait around until I actually have to be there (and since I don't have keys to the building, or meaningful work that I can do elsewhere, I'd really just be killing time... lots of it), or adopt other "solutions" that are simply unrealistic, but I'd rather just suffer through having one extra pedal and having to do the incredibly difficult task of operating my own gearbox. I could also suffer through using a system in a way that it isn't intended by treating an AT like a manual for those times that I need it, but they just don't work as well, and once I start doing that it suddenly becomes no more convenient anyway.
I don't care if other people drive automatics, and I actually recommend that new drivers learn how drive on them first (learning the rules of the road and creating muscle memory of how to maneuver a car is challenging enough without worrying about the transmission), but people who insist that MT is somehow inferior on any metric other than ease of use, or that people who use them can't possibly be doing so for valid reasons are just foolish.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
So... they choose it because it is less hard, and that is not the same thing as easier?
That's some fine logic you've got going there.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
I'm cheap and of limited means, I will not purchase a car which anyone would consider "new", and consequently the transmissions in them are never the latest or greatest. That said, I have driven some newer AT cars and been less annoyed with them... but I still found that they had the same basic problem: I am better at driving the car than it is at driving itself. Even the best AT will make choices I don't like, and I am not about to go finding tricks to make it do what I want by doing things that might not be what I want just so that I can avoid doing something I don't mind doing at all.
As for pulling into traffic and needing to go fast, now... the traffic conditions in my area dictate that I either do it, or that I don't drive... walking to work isn't feasible any time of year, and biking to work could only work a couple of months of the year, but even then it would be a very long (time) ride and I'm not sure I would be able to be as presentable as I need to be once I get there. Public transit is theoretically possible, but the buses are far too infrequent and convoluted to be practical, even if taking them wouldn't actually cost me more in the long run (they are rather overpriced). If those conditions aren't applicable to you, then neither is your criticism applicable to me.
I've actually had the opportunity to drive a couple of recent CVTs, and they've been decent. They are also out of my price range. Maybe in a decade or so when the prices on such vehicles have come down I will consider one over a manual, but AT just doesn't do anything that I want or need. Manuals aren't better at all for general use, just for certain situations which happen to come up not infrequently enough for me that, personally, it is worth the very slight inconvenience they create.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
Lots of things are both easy, and a pain in the ass. For instance, mowing my lawn each week.
My logic is perfectly valid, you just have a weird idea of what "pain in the ass" means... it doesn't equate to "difficult," and it never has.
Comment of the year
Well, yes, it might be that there are cities in the US and Canada where my observation is not applicable as well as different commuting patterns where the stick has some conceivable advantage but by your own admission they are few and far between. In a typical North American city stick gets most of its users no performance advantage to speak of and it demands additional actions by the driver, which by any objective measure constitutes a net loss.
My personal experience is that under these conditions the use of manual transmission becomes a "style statement" rather then a decision predicated upon practicalities. And unfortunately this quickly leads to what one can only describe as "fanboyism" where all reason is left promptly behind to be replaced by emotions.
Manual transmissions have their place where the conditions either make them outperform automatics by a certain minimal margin (to offset the convenience factor) or in situations where they are outright required (racing etc). Having said so, even the most extreme users of manual transmissions, i.e. the racing crowd, long since abandoned pure manual transmissions and is now exclusively using electrically operated semi-automatics connected to wheel paddles (Formula 1 etc.) or up-down shifters (Rally etc.). This alone should give a hint to all of these desperate and rather belligerent manual transmission fashionistas.