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Government Recommends Cars With Smarter Brakes
mrspoonsi writes The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is adding crash imminent braking and dynamic braking support to its list of recommended advanced safety features for new cars. The former uses sensors to activate the brakes if a crash is imminent and the driver already hasn't. Dynamic braking support, on the other hand, increases stopping power if you haven't put enough pressure on the brake pedal. Like lane-departure and front collision warning systems, these features are available on some models already — this move gives them high-profile attention, though. And for good reason: As the NHSTA tells it, a third of 2013's police-reported car accidents were the rear-end crashes and a "large number" of the drivers either didn't apply the brakes at all (what?!) or fully before impact.
Interesting you should say that, since the number of automobile accidents of all kinds has been declining steadily for the last 30 years, at least.
As has the number of fatal accidents.
And all this while the number of vehicles on the road has been increasing.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Bought a car with early warning collision detection. Was grumbling that I spent $1500 above sticker for the car. Thought the purchase was stupid and I just had a fancy piece of tech that I would never use (i'm a good driver remember?). Then the day came when my girlfriend at the time rushed into the front door panting for air telling me she was trying to adjust the stereo (i will call this a huge influencing factor, we have a touch screen display) and didn't see a car nearly stopped on an onramp to the highway (we had traffic reports, there was no traffic, the car just was afraid to pull out to the highway). The radio mutes, a loud bell starts ringing and a bright red light flashes on the windshield. She said she looked up in time to feel the car start slowing down and so she mashed the brakes. She didn't think she did anything and the car stopped for her. I praised that $1500 add-on and will now recommend it to anyone. I would not say she is an inattentive driver, but just like other humans out there accidents happen. In this case the accident did not happen and my $40k car was saved (come on this is Slashdot, I care about my tech more than my gfs ;)
Caveats are large metallic objects on the side of a curving road tend to throw the system off. Not enough to apply the brakes but enough for it to start audibly warning you. This is resolved by adjusting the sensitivity, which I don't trust my fellow drivers to set correctly.. so to a point I think this system is not yet ready for prime time, but maybe that is still needed to finish advancing the technology (remember when airbags deployed too fast for the first 7 years of their requirement and were replaced with 2, 3 and even 5 stage deployment airbags?)
Also, I am all for mandatory backup cameras. No excuse that you didn't see me walking my child behind your car :\
I have an even better idea: let's find a way to fix human beings so that they're perfectly consistent in their behavior.
While certainly taking demonstrably bad drivers off the road is a no-brainer, even good drivers have lapses. My teenaged son is learning to drive, and whenever someone does something like cut us off I make a point of saying we can't assume the driver did it on purpose, or did it because he was an inconsiderate or bad person. Even conscientious and courteous drivers make mistakes or have lapses of attention.
It's the law of large numbers. If you spend a few hours on the road, you'll encounter thousands of drivers. A few of them will be really horrible drivers who shouldn't be on the road. But a few will be conscientious drivers having a bad day, or even a bad 1500 milliseconds.
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No, it's not. Like the parent said, it's a necessity. Banning people from doing whatever they must to survive is neither effective nor reasonable.
So no-one can ever be stopped from driving where you live? In the UK there are quite a few classes of people not allowed to drive. Children, people banned for the more serious traffic offences, the blind and poor sighted, and older people who fail the driving re-test they must take periodically. How they get around is their own problem. One solution is not to live somewhere they can only reach by driving a car. I live in a remote area and I accept that one day, when I get old, I might have to move into a city.