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Ford System Will Warn, Correct Lane-Drifting Drivers
PolygamousRanchKid writes "Ford says its new Fusion, which will debut at the North American International Auto Show in a couple weeks, will be the first mainstream midsize sedan in North America to offer a lane departure system. Lane departure systems are aimed at warning drivers, especially drowsy ones, if their vehicles wander out of their lane. A digital camera mounted on the windshield ahead of the rear-view mirror keeps a watch. The system not only causes the steering wheel to vibrate if it senses an unintentional lane departure, it will also steer the car back into the right lane. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that 100,000 police-reported crashes occur every year as a result of drowsy drivers, leading to 1,500 deaths, 71,000 injuries and $12.5 billion in monetary losses." I'd just like to know how hard the AI will fight if it misinterprets a driver's intentional lane change.
Personally, I'd guess that a turn signal will convince the AI to allow an intentional lane change.
cb
Oooh! What does this button do!?
What will it do in the winter when the clear tire tracks that are safe to follow aren't necessarily perfectly between the lines?
already has Lane Keep Assist. It doesn't steer me back into the lane, but it does give me an annoying beep when it senses me leaving the lane. Personally, I'd much rather have my car alert me about this stuff and let me control the vehicle rather than have the vehicle do the stuff on its own.
In works zones some times you see lines all over the place will the AI be smart and auto trun off when it sees that?
Also on new pavement you see the temp lines that may not be picked up the AI.
The idea that we should promote drowsy driving by making it (hypothetically) less fatal to do so is laughably absurd. Sometimes a driver needs to swerve to miss an accident occurring--no time to signal, so into the pileup we go? Hmm...
but none of the responsibility or liability.
sort of like, ohhh, I don't know - maybe posting as an AC ??
you'd be the expert on that, then.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
So if I get on the highway can I set my cruise control and take my hands off the wheel?
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
It's going to go hoarse here in Alabama.
When I first moved here and experienced my first traffic jam, I watched in amazement as the people drove over the median, onto sidewalks, around light poles and right on the edge of ditches.
Cogito, igitur comedam pizza.
You would think Buick would be the first to come out with this in the US, given their customer demographic.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
"Proper, US-sized engine blocks" aren't selling well, and when you consider the cost savings they'd forego if they didn't share parts between their US, European, and Asian lines, are even less cost-effective to sell.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
A "sedan" in US English is what UKians call a "saloon car".
I'm not sure the UK wins less ridiculous name on this one, unless your saloon car also has swinging wooden doors, serves alcohol, and has several cowboys as passengers.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
smart cars lead to dumb drivers. On good roads people drive faster, not better. In smart cars people will drive thinking they are safer and will take more risks. As nice as the idea is, the people that this system targets should not be driving.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
Does the Prius actually keep you in the lane, or just warn if the car's drifting? If so, how close is it to a self-driving car, assuming freeway travel and no intersections; can you just take your hands off the wheel and let it auto-follow the lane?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
If only... then they'd still be circling the drain like they were before they made the change.
A "proper US-sized engine block" is a selfish and environmentally damaging pointless excess. Thankfully the sales figures these days appear to corroborate that.
Just give me an engine, 4 tires and a steering wheel.
Thanks
This was an offer in an Audi Q5 we had built-to-order here in Switzerland. We put the order through three or four months ago for delivery in March. I put every safety feature possible in the car but the dealer told me not to keep this one because everyone ends up eventually turning it off.
How long will it be before someone dies because a bug in the software caused their car to steer unexpectedly into something, or causing the driver to overcompensate (telling the computer "NO!"), causing a crash?
This has disaster written all over it.
Maybe this kind of technology can save a few lives.
I once took an excursion to Reddit, and later HN. Unlimited up/down voting sucks when dealing with a hive-mind.
You mean proper sized engine blocks like the 2.0L twin turbo that makes more torque at lower engine speed, and more power than most of the other engines in the lineup, and providing better fuel economy to boot?
from wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lane_departure_warning_system
snippets:
In 2007 Infiniti offered a newer version of this feature, which it called the Lane Departure Prevention (LDP) system. This feature utilizes the vehicle stability control system to help assist the driver maintain lane position by applying gentle brake pressure on the appropriate wheels.
In 2004, Toyota added a Lane Keeping Assist feature to the Crown Majesta which can apply a small counter-steering force to aid in keeping the vehicle in its lane.
2003: Honda launched its Lane Keep Assist System (LKAS) on the Inspire.[13][14] It provides up to 80% of steering torque to keep the car in its lane on the highway.
The Prius Lane Keep Assist feature does steer a bit, gently - the wheel tends to drift toward it's best guess of the center of the lane. It won't drive for you, though: if you take your hands off the wheel it notices (I think it notices the absence of any applied torque over some reasonably short interval), sounds an alarm and turns off the feature.
Versus Europe and Asia, you get more car in the US, and it is built for the wide open spaces that frustrate golfcarts.
What is it with Europe and their hate on ordinary people having Detroit-like power under the hood, up to the point where people let V8 behemoths rot in garages for fear of taxes?
US cars are hardly inelegant or antiquated - they just weren't built with austerity, but built with pride. You don't see General Motors/Chrysler/Ford cars being blown up by terrorists; you see them use cheap-as-shit Toyotas, Hyundais, Mitsubishis, Peugeots, and other non-US cars that are made with no attention to quality or design.
The US made the mistake of allowing transplants in the door during the days of import quotas in the 1980's. That, and we haven't protected our manufacturers enough to keep US cars that are truly built with only a US audience in mind.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
How about after say 3 times the car has to enable this feature, it removes all control from the driver, keeps their belt buckled, and drives them to the nearest 12-hr Driving Course for a re-upper.
At oil change time when you go to turn into the Mr. Lube the steering wheel resists, the doors and windows lock, the radio turns to a Ford oil change commercial and you're driven to the nearest Ford dealership
Been there, done that, paid for the T-shirt
and didn't get it
They aren't the first company to implement this.... its a fairly tested setup outside of the US
it's not difficult to change lanes, nor to stay in one lane. that's, quite frankly, the easiest part of driving. I don't need help. And keeping me between lines when the road ignores the lines -- construction zones, test paint strips, icons, etc. -- is a terrible idea.
but more than anything else, why should I avoid driving drowsy when my car can help me out? you'll get more drowsy drivers, and more drunk drivers, than ever before.
you'll also have a whole host of drivers blaming a crash on this feature, whether or not it's true.
you've just taken both responsibilty and accountability away from the driver, and put it into something that can't be held accountable, and doesn't have a drivers licence. congrats.
but hey, here's the truth. this is EXACTLY like letting your 8-year old child steer from the passenger seat, while on a long highway drive. it's very dangerous and very illegal. not because your child can't stay between the lines. because the driver is the driver.
Also I'd like to request a 'snooze bar' feature, sometimes I like to get a few more minutes sleep before getting off the highway.
If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
It's a nice feature and all, but it seems to be more of a distraction from the lack of a proper, US-sized engine block under the hood than anything else.
What, sheer mass makes an engine "better"? I'll put my EcoBoost V6 up against the old 385 V8 Big Block, just because it's about 2/3 the weight for the same HP. And that thing just purrs like a happy kitten. A finely tuned happy kitten.
Of course the car it's wrapped in still comes in at over 2 tons. :-( Still, it gets better than twice the mileage of the old land whales that used to have the 385 (when I'm not driving it like I stole it.) Yes, I'd rather have it in a Mustang than a Taurus, but that wasn't an option for us.
John
US automakers, set to their own devices, produced SUVs and muscle cars, and pretty much crap otherwise.
When oil was suddenly $100 per barrell, they couldn't sell them. Not very far sighted.
Your "Everything's bigger in Texas" attitude is just a bunch of "rah rah rah" and very little pragmatism or business sense (nor general empathy or social awareness).
While I do enjoy my sporty car, it's 2.0L flat-4 and the new models produce almost 240hp. It's not exactly a gas hog, and can accelerate at almost uncomfortable speed. I just don't understand why your average commuter even wants 300-500hp under the hood. That seems both dangerous and wasteful.
It's not that I don't agree that it's your right to be both dangerous and wasteful, but I believe you should pay dearly for doing so, so that the rest of us who are sensible don't have to clean up after you.
Might be grating for your ears to hear that, Anonymous Coward, but if someone is willing to rig a car to blow up, the car isn't something that has any value to it. This usually means you have cars like those made from Japanese, Korean and austerity-minded European designs. Who's going to miss that golfcart when there are tons of others just as bad?
On the other hand, US cars don't have such affliction for having some actual quality and attention to detail not given to cars for developing nation markets.
Japan had its chance in the 1980's to overtake the US in large-car production. Once it went in the keicar/speed-limiter-by-gentleman's-agreement direction, it was forever lost.
Korea just chops up whatever designs are trendy and puts them in a legally-friendly-but-blatant copy of a package.
China just takes your designs.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
We're sorry that the average American can't afford a 350hp V8 penis compensator under the hood any more. Complaints can be filed with OPEC to your right.
I hope they mean "correct" (or "current") lane.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Legal CYA. In nominal conditions, it's been possible to build a lane-feedback PID steer-er for a long time. But if it did continue to steer you under automatic control, any accident you're involved in someone will try to sue Ford claiming it's their fault their system steered you into an accident. Because true or not Ford has much deeper pockets than your insurance policy...
US cars are hardly inelegant or antiquated - they just weren't built with austerity, but built with pride.
Aye, I suppose it's a matter of taste: some people value their lives, others like driving around in four-wheeled coffins and call that pride.. ;)
It's going to have a more important function: Keeping drivers that are Texting (or otherwise distracted with their hand-held electronic devices) from wandering too much.
The use of hand-held devices by a driver has been made illegal in so many states already, and yet, people will simply keep their device in their lap, or lower than the dash, so as to keep it out of sight of the police.The thinking is: so long as the cops don't see the device in use, they can still get away with it.
Lane-wandering, and erratic driving are what universally alerts police to such use. The call logs and text history is more than enough to issue a ticket for the device usage in such cases. If the logs and history are blank, they can still issue a 'careless driving' ticket.
All in all, the lane departure warning system is aimed more at distracted drivers than drowsy ones. Just another crutch to allow already unsafe drivers to think they are more in control, and open a margin even wider for them to abuse their Privilege of sharing the highways with the rest of us ;)
Normally a drunk or drowsy person would run off the road and either be jolted awake by the rumble strips or hit a tree/guardrail/ditch/etc. It sounds morbid, but they are the only ones injured or killed.
This new system defeats the purpose of the rumble strips by preventing your from getting to them and keeps you on the road until you hit someone else. It turns a dangerous, incapacitated driver's vehicle into a guided missile. This is a very bad thing. I'm not at all convinced the a vibrating steering wheel will wake them up... Rumble strips violently rock the whole car and make a loud, disturbing noise.
Nah, it will just encourage people to perform non-driving tasks while behind the wheel, such as apply eye makeup, shave, eat breakfast, text, look at other people in car while talking, sleep, and so forth.
I would like to see the car makers install a mechanical arm that, when drifting across lanes, would snatch the cell phone from the drivers hands and shove it up their asses.
is to force people to always leave at least 3 car lengths between themselves and the car in front of them on the freeway, including onramps and exits. (metering lights effectively create this situation, and they do work). This way, people could always merge, change lanes, etc. Once a merge or lane change was accomplished, another merge or lane change by the same car should not be allowed until proper distance is established from the car in front again. If the police would simply enforce this one law ruthlessly, road conditions would improve dramatically. The preponderant reason for traffic jams is people not letting others merge or execute needed maneuvers, and people making sudden lane changes, both of which cause sudden braking, which is amplified backwards through traffic. Smooth driving, even under severely packed conditions, would alleviate almost all traffic jams.
Currently hooked on AMP
Despite this, planes have crashed in classic stall / spin accidents.
It's quite possible that AF447 crashed _because_ of such a system, as the stall warning apparently turns off when the airspeed is too low, so when the pilot stalled and then pushed the stick forward, airspeed increased until the stall warning came on and he then pulled the stick back again so it went off, ensuring that they were going to die. Any pilot in such a situation without a stall warning should have figured out that the plane was stalled and pushed forward until it recovered.
Automation has made 'easy' flying safer at the risk of making complex flying more dangerous.
If the system malfunctions I can't sue anybody, because it was provided "AS-IS" and "WITHOUT WARRANTY" or "FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE".
I have to assume that the sue-happy culture of the USA is probably part of the reason why this system isn't already being sold on a mainstream vehicle in North America. (I own a 1.5-year-old vehicle with a very similar system)
Slightly off-topic: After growing up in the USA, then spending some time living in Europe, I've often been shocked by some of the seemingly dangerous things that are allowed here, compared to the USA. I guess they expect people to exhibit some common sense here, rather than go crying to the courts when didn't make it all-but-impossible for them to injure themselves...
Sorry but I find all this computer controlled garbage kinda dangerous. One glitch and you die. It's gotten to the point where you no longer have to learn how to drive, you just learn how to point it.
Wuddooeyeno? IITYWYBMAD? Like nuts? eclecticallyincorrect.com
The guys that really know cars don't agree with you. When Motor Trend tested the 2011 Ford F-150 Pickups "the idea was to see whether it makes more sense for buyers to get the twin-turbo V-6 or the 5.0-liter V-8" (their quote). Continuing they said, "From the dyno and track results, the EcoBoost's performance data makes it a better rival for the 6.2 (liter V-8). The EcoBoost F-150 was fastest of the test..." The story is at http://www.motortrend.com/roadtests/trucks/1110_2011_ford_f_150_full_line_test/viewall.html. I've owned a variety of big block and factory turbocharged cars including the real good ones -- 427 'Vette, 6.6 Liter Trans Am, 455 Stage 1 Buick, 3.8 liter Buick Turbo-Regal, GMC Syclone 4.3 liter turbo V-6, Volvo 2.3 liter turbo I-5. The turbo cars were better all around performers than the big blocks -- just as fast and better in every other category. One reason is that with a small, lightweight engine the car can be lighter and better balanced. In a direct comparison, I had a hot-rodder friend who owned the following two cars -- '69 Camaro with a transplanted 427 (L88 427 -- the real factory race engine in the late 60's, 7 liters for the metric oriented reader) and an '86 Buick Regal T-Type with the turbocharged 3.8 liter V6. After some garage tweaks the Regal ran a faster 1/4 mile at the dragstrip than the Camaro, both in the 11's as I recall. And I remember guys breaking rods racing naturally aspirated V-8 cars all the time.
Don't worry I over heard one of my co workers complaining that they backed into something because their beeper wasn't working. By beeper they meant the reverse collision detector because they apparently thought that having one of those meant you didn't need to look behind you when going in reverse. You can try to make a better device but as a society we will create better idiots.
Time to offend someone
In the AF447 flight, the stall warning was going off for almost a minute. The correct thing to do in such a situation is to descend out of the stall, which is what an autopilot would have done if such system existed for emergency situations.
Come to think of it, why do we as a society have so much pressure on people that they even NEED to try doing this crap while driving?
Has the rat race of one upping our fellow citizens driven us to this extreme?
It's great that you're making such huge advances in automotive technology. Incidentally, have you seen the the Citroen C5 from seven years ago that had this as part of the standard base-level fit?
I wonder what amazing things Ford will introduce in 2012? Suspension that works? Engines that deliver enough power to pull you out of bed?
Reasonable answer -- I was a bit harsh in my original reply but still pretty much disagree. Two points -- philosophically I like some sort of intake charge compression (turbo or supercharging) because of a basic imbalance in the way a reciprocating engine works -- you have hundreds of psi of exhaust pressure (pushed by the piston) to empty the cylinder but only atmospheric pressure (15 psi) minus throttle losses to fill it on each stroke -- that's why intake valves are always bigger than exhaust valves. Also with a turbo you are able to capture some of the waste heat in the exhaust stream increasing the basic thermodynamic efficiency of the engine. On the whole environmentalism issue -- you have to admit that the engines of 2012 are more powerful and drivable than the best engines of the glory days of the 60's, while being almost infinitely cleaner and considerably more efficient. Of course this is all technology driven but a bunch of that technology was forced by environmental requirements. Since about 1992 (when the new Chevy 5.7 liter LT-1 came out) the car makers have shown we can have it all -- clean, efficient engines and more power than than you can use on the street. This drive to even smaller displacements is just along the same trend as technology gets even better.
The Prius already has "Lane Assist", and I know the 2011 model is a mid-sized car, because I'm 6'2" and there is plenty of headroom, it seats five, and I was able to fit an over 6 foot tall Christmas tree in it and close the back door(not the at same same time as seating five, obviously I had to fold the back seat down). Plus, the insurance company lists it as a mid-size car.
So, unless they are saying the Prius is a luxury car, the Fusion is not the first.