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The Car That Knows When You'll Get In an Accident Before You Do
aurtherdent2000 sends word about a system designed to monitor drivers to determine when they're about to do something wrong. "I'm behind the wheel of the car of the future. It's a gray Toyota Camry, but it has a camera pointed at me from the corner of the windshield recording my every eye movement, a GPS tracker, an outside-facing camera and a speed logger. It sees everything I'm doing so it can predict what I'm going to do behind the wheel seconds before I do it. So when my eyes glance to the left, it could warn me there's a car between me and the exit I want to take. A future version of the software will know even more about me; the grad students developing what they’ve dubbed Brains4Cars plan to let drivers connect their fitness trackers to the car. If your health tracker 'knows' you haven’t gotten enough sleep, the car will be more alert to your nodding off."
I will never use a product that monitors me with a camera.
(Yes I put tape over my laptop's camera, and no I don't own a smart phone.)
Good for you. However, if at some point in the future all new cars will be equipped with these systems, and they're really helping to reduce accidents, a few things might happen to people who actively manipulate the cameras and sensors:
1. Insurances will require you to pay significantly more, because you're now a road risk.
2. Car manufacturers will make their systems more tamper-resistant, so that the car will either refuse to start when the sensors are obstructed or will somehow emit a "tampered" signal to your insurance when obstruction occurs for some time while driving. Continue at point 1.
3. Cops will look at the system as part of a routine check and will fine you.
3a. Worse: cops will actively pull you over when they detect the "tampered" signal that your car is emitting while driving by.
etc
3. Cops will look at the system as part of a routine check and will fine you.
Last week at approximately 11AM, there was a road block on this side road by Georgia State troopers. They were stopping everyone.
When I rolled my window down, I asked what is going on?
They told me that they were checking to see if people were wearing their seat belts and their licenses were not expired. He took my license looked at it and walked around the car. And then handed it back.
Now, electronic safety devices are not given away by manufacturers. That backup camera system and this will cost way more to the consumer than necessary. For an example, compare the OEM GPS systems with what you can buy on your own - this whole integrated in dash stuff making it cost more is bullshit. And having to take it to the dealer ($$$$) to update it?!
And we all know that when the warranty runs out on the electronics (cars are only 1 -3 years) they are going to break. And that means a trip to the dealer ($$$$) to fix a mandatory safety device.
The price of cars is getting ridiculous compared to wages as it is. My wife is shopping for a car and you know what the standard financing is now? 60 months! And some people go out to 72 and even 92months! All to keep the payments affordable. In the meantime, the finance companies are raking it in at the expense of us.
Not have a car? In the USA without having to live in an obscenely expensive part of town?
This country is set up to put us into debt - one way or another. And in the meantime, jobs are going overseas and are not being created fast enough here.
all new cars will be equipped with these systems IF we all just shut up about it.
Let's not do that, and see what happens!
It is bad enough the car manufacturers intend to eliminate manual transmission as an option because the poor, coddled generation cannot handle the "complexity' of using the clutch, brake, accelerator, and gear shift. I hate automatic transmission vehicles because I loose fine-grain control over the speed of the vehicle especially on slippery surfaces and in emergency deceleration situations.
lol, in America this is modded down, but in Europe there is such consensus that most people drive manual.
It's like genital mutilation being considered a religious throwback everywhere except the USA, where it's performed routinely.
The price of cars is getting ridiculous compared to wages as it is. My wife is shopping for a car and you know what the standard financing is now? 60 months! And some people go out to 72 and even 92months! All to keep the payments affordable. In the meantime, the finance companies are raking it in at the expense of us.
That mostly means that people are buying high priced cars that they cannot actually afford and probably don't actually need. There is seldom any reason for most people to actually buy a new car. They depreciate like milk and mostly what you get for a new car is pride of new ownership. 60 months financing? That means you should be buying something else. Personally I haven't financed a car purchase in the last 15 years and baring economic catastrophe I don't plan to start. Financing a car (new or used) should be a last resort. It's a terrible use of money. Anyone who finances a car with 60+ month terms is almost certainly making a dumb financial decision.
That backup camera system and this will cost way more to the consumer than necessary. For an example, compare the OEM GPS systems with what you can buy on your own - this whole integrated in dash stuff making it cost more is bullshit.
The reason car electronics cost so much is that they don't sell very many of them, relatively speaking. Even cars that sell very well will only sell a few hundred thousand units per year and the design cycles are at least for a 4-8 year production run minimum. Electronics advances WAY faster than car companies can keep up with. The GPS in my truck (a 2009 model) is laughably obsolete albeit still useful. My company makes a part for a backup camera for one of the big US auto makers and the volumes simply aren't enough to get huge economies of scale even at a few hundred thousand a year. Plus they often do stupid stuff like design the parts to use custom connectors instead of off the shelf ones that would cost far less.
Frankly the auto makers should let the consumer electronics firms integrate their stuff into cars to handle the GPS, entertainment, telephony, etc. The car should provide the screen and an interface but let people bring their own electronics to the party. The auto makers just aren't good at it and don't do enough of it to ever realize economies of scale AND their design/production cycles are far too long. What should happen is that I should be able to take my phone into any car and have to car and the phone work together seamlessly.
This country is set up to put us into debt - one way or another.
Debt is a bit like nuclear power. It can be a powerful force for good or evil and you don't want to get any on you if you can avoid it. Some debt is fine and potentially very useful but that doesn't mean one should use debt financing just because one can. I could go out and finance a Tesla Model S tomorrow but that doesn't make it a good idea. Debt is a powerful tool and like most powerful tools if you don't know how to handle it then you are likely to get yourself in trouble.
And in the meantime, jobs are going overseas and are not being created fast enough here.
The data isn't backing you up on a macro-economic level. Unemployment right now is around 5-6% in most of the US which is historically a pretty normal amount. While there is some nuance to that number the facts don't bear out your assertion that "jobs are going oversease" any more than they ever have. As for jobs not being created fast enough here, that's a reasonable assertion to a degree but how fast is "fast enough" for you?