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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.
Let's just enforce existing laws and get dangerous drivers off the road. THERE IS NO RIGHT TO DRIVE. If you are a dangerous driver you can and should be taken off the road.
A coworker of mine was hit a couple of weeks ago by a woman who, after fleeing the scene, was discovered to have had caused FOUR injury accidents in the trailing 12 months, had been dropped from her insurance two months prior, and who, despite all of that, had not had her license suspended, and was not even ticketed for leaving the scene of the accident she caused with my coworker.
It's our complete unwillingness to hold people accountable for their actions that has created the need for EVAN M0AR government regulation to "protect us from ourselves."
People who are incapable of driving shouldn't be driving. Period.
During icy conditions, when I'd rather kill that deer instead of my family, or when a piece of black plastic blows across the roadway, are three that come to mind.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Don't text and drive - texters have worse reaction times than drunks!
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
I recommend cars with smarter drivers.
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?!)
That is because they didn't hit send yet. They were still staring at their phone and not concerned whatsoever with the innocents in the car with them, or the innocents in the car in front of them.
Another poster said that texters have worse response time than drunks. That is probably not true, because drunks at least have a response time. You can't respond to something when all of your sensory input is focused on something else. For texters, the response comes after the crash.
I have noticed a trend for years that rear end collisions have been getting more prevalent and the damage more severe. It was like people weren't even hitting the brakes. I blamed it on texting while driving. Now the statistics are saying the same thing.
However, I am NOT in favor of the new devices to apply the brakes when the driver doesn't. Automation in the cockpit will only lead to stupid people becoming MORE complacent in the car and will increase their irresponsible behaviors. Instead of looking up every other character to see what is going on, they will just stare continuously at their phone until they have finished their message.
Perhaps I could see having such a braking system if, after a single auto-braking incident, the car disabled itself except for low speed travel so it could pull over to the shoulder, and then, travel over 10 mph was disabled until the car was reset by a qualified driving instructor.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Can find the data for death only
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...
They have dropped by about a third.
Bert
If I had bought my car new and was looking at features to add or avoid, I would have put the collision avoidance system on my "meh" list and would not have paid extra for it.
As it turns out, I really like it. I have the control setup for maximum distance, which means more false alerts. But although most alerts seem "false" they're only false because I'm really paying attention and have anticipated the traffic in front of me. About 25% of the time I think it's actually valuable and there was some risk of either a really quick stop or maybe even a fender bender.
The feature that goes along with it (they share the same radar system), distance sensing cruise control, I REALLY like. I wish it would beep or something when you get behind a vehicle driving 3+ MPH slower than your set point. On the Interstate its kind of easy to get in traffic going slower than I want to by small amounts and not noticing it because the car just matches pace with the vehicle in front.
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 :\
"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?!) "
It's frickin tailgaters. Even if you're being very attentive, there's a delay between the time you see brake lights on the car in front of you, and the time you hit the brakes. Throw in texting and other distractions, and if you're traveling too close you're eating bumper before you can hit the brake pedal. And half the drivers on the road are following too close. I say bring on the auto-braking systems to protect me from these idiots.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Reaction time isn't a problem if you drive at a speed and keep a following distance appropriate for your reaction time. This is why elderly people drive slowly.
Drunks are still (at least sometimes) looking at the road. Texters, not so much. When you're not looking at the road, doesn't matter what your reaction time is, because you just won't see the accident about to happen.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
" A vehicle changed to my lane on the highway, then had to do a panic stop from 70mph to stopped."
Why weren't you looking well ahead and slowing down already for the obstacle which caused the panic stop?
Far too many drivers only look 2-3 seconds ahead. You need to be looking and planning based on what's happening AT LEAST 12 seconds ahead, preferably 18-20
There's zero excuse for distracted driving. Your first task is to drive, everything else is secondary. I've gone as far as to tell passengers to shut the fuck up because I'm dealing with a difficult section of road on more than one occasion
(non-driver passengers often have no road sense. driver passengers usually know to shut up if things are getting complicated outside)
_Everyone_ thinks they're a good driver, regardless of actual ability, but even the best drivers have bad days and far too many people tailgate, lanechange without warning/looking or pay more attention to the inside of the cabin than the outside.
The sooner automated vehicles come along the better - it will enable driving tests to become substantially tougher without substantially increasing illegal driving.
On this side of the Atlantic driving tests are already tough (most people fail their first test), but the result has been that people drive around on learner plates for _years_ or simply don't bother at all.