NHTSA Toughens Crash Test Rating Standards

mrspoonsi sends word that the U.S. government wants to toughen crash tests to measure pedestrian impact and evaluate driver assisting technology. USA Today reports: "U.S. regulators are overhauling the process of assigning safety ratings to new vehicles by proposing requiring more crash-avoidance technologies to achieve a perfect score and adopting new crash-test dummies to assess performance. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) on Tuesday proposed revising the current ratings system from a single overall score of 1 to 5 into a multifaceted scorecard that would include the score on crash-avoidance systems and a mark for pedestrian safety. Currently, NHTSA ranks cars simply based on crash-worthiness. Five stars is a perfect rating. The number of deaths on U.S. roadways fell to a record-low, based on incidents per miles driven, of 32,675 fatalities in 2014. But an 8% uptick in deaths in the first half of 2015 fueled concern that progress on vehicle safety may have stalled. Under the current system, which hasn't been updated in several years, more than 90% of vehicles earn a rating of at least 4 stars."

Comments

Safety devices

[Anonymous Coward]

Safety devices are a double edged sword. People rely on them to get them out of trouble because they just drive faster and more recklessly.

Re:Safety devices

[leftover]

Maybe to some extent but I appreciate more protection from what some other texting moron might do. You can only control yourself and your own actions. Have you looked around yourself on the road lately?

Re:Safety devices

[sunderland56]

Safety devices like reinforced doors and crumple zones give more protection against other morons. So do better brakes and sticky tyres, although they aren't usually considered as safety devices.

Things like blind spot monitoring and automatic braking are crutches for bad drivers, as the OP said.

In the end, though, people are much more likely to buy a new car because of the infotainment system than any safety device.

Re:Safety devices

[hey!]

Things like blind spot monitoring and automatic braking are crutches for bad drivers, as the OP said.

I dunno; I think I can do better than automatic braking on a good day, probably even a typical day, but when it comes to safety I should consider the kind of driver I am at my worst; when I'm angry, tired, and distracted for example.

When we think of ourselves as drivers we imagine ourselves at our best, which is why everyone thinks he's a better than average driver. Most people probably are better than average half of the time. But people aren't consistent like machines; we aren't always at our best. Even good drivers are bad drivers occasionally. If you're honest with yourself you'd probably admit to yourself that from time to time you make a stupid mistake that you normally wouldn't.

Re:Safety devices

[Harlequin80]

I think this depends on where you are in your stage of life. With young kids safety of the vehicle came first, second and third on our priority list.

Re:Safety devices

[godel_56]

Safety devices like reinforced doors and crumple zones give more protection against other morons. So do better brakes and sticky tyres, although they aren't usually considered as safety devices.

Things like blind spot monitoring and automatic braking are crutches for bad drivers, as the OP said.

Yes but they benefit us all in reduced costs in car insurance, public hospital and rehabilitation costs, and a generally reduced likelihood of someone running into us, regardless of how good a driver we imagine we are.

Re:Safety devices

[RicktheBrick]

There is enough computer power that we could know where every vehicle is located and its speed and direction of travel at all times. Computers in every cell phone tower with communications with all vehicles should do it. Every vehicle would have to have a gps system, cruise control and a cell phone technology to communicate with the tower. With mass production that would probably be cheaper than anti-lock brake technology. In a given area all vehicle would travel at the same speed. Weather would be constantly updated to ensure that the road condition could support the speed. I am hoping that there could be at least a 90% reduction in deaths, injuries and property loss. It might even pay for itself in savings.

Re:Safety devices

[nospam007]

"In the end, though, people are much more likely to buy a new car because of the infotainment system than any safety device."

Not me. I would prefer if the car would just mirror my phone, it has all the infotainment I need, GPS included.

Re: Safety devices

[Anonymous Coward]

-- Have you looked around yourself on the road lately?

"Wow, there are a lot of idiots out there!"

Re: Safety devices

[Anonymous Coward]

[GD comment system elided most of my post because I put it in angle brackets (I was trying to be cute). And it provides no post-post time window to edit your comment.]

Re:Safety devices

[BLKMGK]

Citation? Or is this simply a gut feeling akin to "raising the speed limits means people will simply drive ever faster" - which is crap.

Re:Safety devices

[BLKMGK]

Automatic braking or ABS braking? Automatic braking is supposed to be a last ditch save your ass kind of thing and is pretty new. Volvo and some high end luxury stuff pioneered this and it's supposed to be pretty good but can be conservative.

ABS? Most if not nearly all drivers aren't going to out brake that particularly in a panic situation or in a traction compromised situation. Some cars have crappy 3 channel ABS that's less than optimal but then the brakes aren't all that either on such a vehicle. But if you've got 4 channel you aren't braking better manually short of being a pro-driver.

Most folks seriously overestimate their abilities and underestimate their vehicle. You can see this with folks either being over aggressive or so timid they can barely make it down the road. Neither is terrific!

I think I might like automatic braking, blind spot monitoring maybe (I turn my head!), I will always want ABS, and I really want tire pressure monitoring silly as that may seem. Rear view cameras I'm iffy on, I have one and I don't use it too much. Sensors for obstructions behind me I can't see could be good, perhaps paired with auto-braking?

Re:Safety devices

[BLKMGK]

AGREE! The OEMs build truly crappy systems in this regard and their GPS NAV blows. I've even got an aftermarket GPS in my stereo in one car and I prefer Waze 100% more. I, once again, kick myself for having purchased a GPS when my phone is much more versatile. Likewise for music, my phone does indeed do better. sadly to get some options on some cars you have to swallow the nasty "infotainment" POS pill. GRR!

Re:Safety devices

[BLKMGK]

I think you seriously underestimate what that would take unless each vehicle was acting independently using it's own sensors - which is what companies like Google are striving for. I'm not sure that GPS would be accurate enough for this at speed and there are sometimes areas where GPS flat out isn't working and neither is a cell tower. Not to mention who funds this? I own several vehicles and I like them, are you going to give me what I feel they're worth? Doubtful. Some of us actually enjoy driving. Eventually we'll be able to have cars that get us from place to place without input but that time isn't yet here. You really want to be tracked like that?

Oh, ABS is a pretty well known thing now and doesn't require oodles of compute power. This isn't going to be cheaper than an ABS system nor will your idea work in traction limiting situations where ABS shines.

Re:Safety devices

[bondsbw]

Rear view cameras I'm iffy on, I have one and I don't use it too much.

Most or all only work in reverse, when you're going slowly enough that the risk of a fatal accident is already near zero. The "near" part is mostly about backing over kids or others who don't see your or can't get out of the way in time, where the cameras can help.

I also have a rear view camera, but mine is tiny compared to some I've seen. Combined with the large field of view, it takes a second to adjust your eyes to. Still, I've made an effort to use it whenever I back up just to make sure.

Re:Safety devices

[edtice1559]

Rear view cameras are specifically about kids who are *too small* for you to see when looking out the rear window. If there is a kid behind you they don't have to get out of the way, you have to yield. But you can't yield if you don't know that they are there. That's why the camera is important.

Re:Safety devices

[bondsbw]

If there is a kid behind you they don't have to get out of the way, you have to yield.

I don't believe I suggested otherwise, did I?

Re:Safety devices

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to disagree on ABS. Lots of non-pro drivers can achieve shorter stopping distances than ABS. ABS has longer stopping distance than good humans in certain low-speed ice conditions, and can be downright terrible on loose gravel. I am not a pro-drive, but I hold braking skill as the most important active safety aspect of a vehicle.

My 2015 Passat's ABS is so bad on loose gravel that it can easily double the stopping distance - it is just totally lost. I disable it on long gravel treks.

Re:Safety devices

[Ol Olsoc]

Things like blind spot monitoring and automatic braking are crutches for bad drivers, as the OP said.

I dunno; I think I can do better than automatic braking on a good day, probably even a typical day, but when it comes to safety I should consider the kind of driver I am at my worst; when I'm angry, tired, and distracted for example.

Me too. Problem is that that guy who won't pass me but has to ride so far up my ass that he should at least buy me dinner and a movie also thinks he has the refelxes better than anyone else.

And since they won't stop, I for one will welcome our new anti-tailgating overlords that force these asshats to follow at a safer distance.

Re:Safety devices

[Ol Olsoc]

Rear view cameras I'm iffy on, I have one and I don't use it too much.

Most or all only work in reverse, when you're going slowly enough that the risk of a fatal accident is already near zero. The "near" part is mostly about backing over kids or others who don't see your or can't get out of the way in time, where the cameras can help.

Yes, it's mainly the kid behind the car thing. We always joke about th e"think of thje children thing, but I know personally two guys who backed over their children - killing them. That's a hellava thing to carry with you the rest of your life. Two other uses that aren't so mainstream. I use mine full time in my RV, which is a big help. I have a fresnel lens in the faraway rear window, and sideview mirrors, but the more to osee the merrier.

The third help is when I'm 4 wheeling, at night, and backing up. Helps to protect the jeep back end a bit. And if it's all black behind me, I know I better stop, cuz I'm at the edge of a cliff.

Re:Safety devices

[KGIII]

As one of the resident automobile enthusiasts and someone who has not only driven professionally but has taken many, many advanced driving courses, let me inject that ABS is a wonderful thing for the vast majority of folks out there - like you stated. There are some contrived situations where I can demonstrably prove that I am capable of doing better than the ABS but those are rare and, frankly, irrelevant.

An example might be, I'm *very* familiar with driving on snow and ice. Assuming a familiarity with the braking and handling characteristics, I can usually bring the vehicle to a stop much more quickly than the ABS can. What I can't do faster or better is known as "straight line braking" and that's generally the best choice. It is not, however, always the best choice.

To continue with the above, one of the issues I see with autonomous vehicles is them not knowing when such is the best choice and when it is not. Those situations are relatively rare but they do occur. Road conditions are not static and are subject to change at a moment's notice. Add to that a list of priorities, which may also not be static, and you end up with some compute heavy complexity which may be problematic to overcome no matter how eager the zealots are.

That said, there's a lot of safety devices that are fantastic. There are others that I think attempt to mask a problem more than solve it. There are merits to both side of that argument. The solution isn't, entirely, to try to make an automobile as safe as possible. The solution is to stop letting stupid people pilot a giant chunk of metal down the road at death-defying speeds. Nothing will ever be entirely safe. I do suspect that we'll certainly not be doing much to increase driver education requirements so the increased safety devices are probably a requirement.

Also, no - I don't want stability or traction control on all the time. There are times and places where I really enjoy having control and allowing the vehicle to break traction. There are places where I do not want maximum stability. I usually avoid any vehicle that disallows me the choice. If that changes to become mandatory then, well, I've ample options already owned that will satiate my desires to throw the ass-end out sideways.

Re: Safety devices

[KGIII]

Which is why there is a preview option. Depending on how you use Slashdot, it may even be mandatory.

Re:Safety devices

[Anonymous Coward]

You implied that the cameras were useless due to the slow speed, yet several hundred people are year are killed by being backed over. So they do serve a purpose and save lives. And given the trivial cost of a backup camera system (thanks to ubiquitous cell phones with cameras), the cost of adding a backup camera is so low it's in the noise.

Re:Safety devices

[Anonymous Coward]

They aren't crutches, they are performance enhancers. Aviation safety is so much higher now than it used to be thanks in part to onboard systems being there to compensate for when the pilot makes a mistake. Pilots are incredibly well trained and rarely make mistakes, but they do make mistakes (two Air Asia crashes in recent years were both pilot errors). Having a system there to mitigate a mistake enhances safety even for great pilots. You try to sit in a chair for 8 hours straight and do your job without making one single mistake. Then try to do that for 30 years straight. It ain't gonna happen.

Blind spot intervention makes driving easier for me. I still look to see if a car is coming before I change lanes, but when I'm thinking of starting a lane change the little orange light lets me know someone is right there. A better thing than blind spot intervention would be to have a monitor that displays a wide angle camera view that totally eliminates the blind spot Some cars have this, and I think it's going to be more and more prevalent.

As to auto-braking, the computer can react faster than you can. Human reaction times are well known. If you are on-point and paying attention, your foot can probably reach the brake in 300 milliseconds and then another few dozen milliseconds for your foot to actually push the brake down. Auto-braking can have the brakes actuated in 50 milliseconds. If the computer can start your car slowing down 1/4 of a second sooner, you'll stop nearly 20 feet sooner at 55 mph than the best case human reaction time. If you're slightly tired, slightly distracted by something like turn by turn nav, talking your wife or changing the radio station. It could take you more like a half second to full second to react and brake. So auto-braking makes even the best drivers safer. My car doesn't have it, but my next car will.

Re:Safety devices

[bws111]

ABS has NEVER been about stopping distance. ABS is about keeping control of the vehicle while stopping, ie not getting into a skid or slide.

When I learned to drive (long before ABS was popular), a whole lot of the training was on how to stop in slick conditions. Step 1: do not stomp on the brakes. Step 2: PUMP the brakes quickly so the wheels don't lock up and send you into a skid. Step 3: When step 2 fails, get off the brakes and steer into the direction of the skid to try and recover from it.

Note that if step 1 and 2 are properly followed your stopping DISTANCE is increased.

For the first 20 years or so of driving I used those three steps, including step 3 way more often than I would like (never had an accident though). Since I have a car with ABS, never had to use those steps, because the ABS is taking care of steps 1 and 2, and since it does it far better than I did step 3 hasn't been required.

Yes, there are contrived situations where a person could do better than ABS, but on the whole ABS is much better.

Re:Safety devices

[danbert8]

Step 2 is a horrible idea. Instead of braking, you end up repeatedly not braking and skidding which is worse. Pumping the brakes is about the stupidest thing you can do in a car.

If you don't have ABS (which is very rare now) you should threshold brake where you apply pressure until you feel the tires start to skid and then let off the pressure again. You feel your way to maximum braking pressure without locking up.

Re:Safety devices

[bws111]

'Apply pressure then let off...'. Hmm, seems like a heard that somewhere else with a different name. Now what was it? Oh, yeah, PUMPING THE BRAKES.

Pumping the brakes has never meant 'stomp on then completely release the brakes'. It means to modulate the pressure so as to prevent lockup.

Here is what the NHTSA says ABS is:

What ABS does is similar to a person pumping the brakes. It automatically changes the pressure in your car's brake lines to maintain maximum brake performance just short of locking up the wheels. ABS does this very rapidly with electronics.

Emphasis mine.

Re:Safety devices

[Grishnakh]

-1 Dumb. The statistics speak for themselves: the number of deaths per mile driven have fallen greatly over the past few decades. Obviously people aren't driving that much more recklessly than before. Maybe you're just getting old and have turned into one of those people who loves to drive 10mph under the speed limit at all times, and gets pissed anyone passes you because you're causing a traffic jam.

Re:Safety devices

[Grishnakh]

I don't think any cars still use 3-channel ABS; that was a thing back in the 90s. As for pro drivers, I'm sorry, they can't out-brake ABS either. There's only one pedal for braking on any car (except tractors which have 2): ABS controls the brakes individually. It isn't physically possible to do that as a human. Nor is it possible to sense a wheel has locked up, even if you had a way to release brake pressure on that one wheel.

Blind spot monitoring should be mandatory. Lots of people suck at checking their blind spots, and can't even figure out how to adjust their mirrors properly to minimize them. Also importantly, modern car designs, because of aerodynamic requirements and crash safety, have absolutely terrible visibility to the rear and sides. BSM mitigates this greatly, and better than turning your head ever could. Also, BSM is frequently used also for RCTA: rear cross-traffic alerts. That's where you're backing out of a parking space in a parking lot and someone is driving by too quickly. There's no way for you to see that vehicle because you're parked next to some giant van or something, but the BSM sensors in the rear bumpers *can* see the oncoming traffic or pedestrians and alert you.

Tire pressure monitoring is necessary (and mandated now) because it's very hard to see if a modern tire has low air pressure, and basically impossible if it's a run-flat tire. Underinflated tires waste a lot of fuel in aggregate.

Rear-view cameras are mandated in new cars starting 2018 IIRC, and for good reason: lots of kids are run over by people backing out of their driveways. This is partly aggravated by the terrible rear-view visibility I mentioned above, but even on a shitty little 80s car is easy to do because a small kid simply isn't visible from the driver's seat when he's directly behind the car. If you don't use yours much, it sounds like you're an old person who's likely to back into a pole even though it showed up clearly on your backup cam, because you're too lazy or unable to learn new things to get used to it. My car has one and I use it exclusively; turning around to look backwards is just dumb when I have a fisheye-lens camera showing me everything including lines to indicate exactly how much room I have. I've never been able to back up as accurately and safely as I can now, or to parallel park as well as I do now. I read an article about a long-term review for my car, in Car & Driver IIRC, and of course one of their long-term drivers managed to back into a pole with the car, causing $1500 in damage. Who was it? It was the old guy, of course, who thought he didn't need the backup camera. Maybe we should have mandatory driver testing of older people, where we stick them in a new car and see how fast they adapt. If they can't adapt to newer driving aids, they lose their license. Plenty of older people are great at adapting to new technologies, but a bunch of them are stupid curmudgeons who refuse, and have no business driving.

Re:Safety devices

[Grishnakh]

but I know personally two guys who backed over their children - killing them.

I wonder if, before they backed over their own kids, if you were ask them if backup cameras were a good idea, they would have scoffed at the notion like a bunch of moronic "technologists" here do. Honestly, I feel like this place is full of the nursing-home crowd sometimes.

Re:Safety devices

[Immerman]

>The solution is to stop letting stupid people pilot a giant chunk of metal down the road at death-defying speeds.

And *that* is why I think autonomous vehicles have great promise. Outside of a few cities with good public transportation, cars are pretty much a necessity in the US, so we can't reasonably ban idiots from driving. Yes, there will undoubtedly be corner cases where autonomous driving systems make bad choices - but even good drivers sometimes make bad choices in those situations, and the autonomous system doesn't have to be better than a good driver, just better than the idiot actually sitting in the driver's seat. I suspect that the number of deaths and injuries avoided by avoiding "normal" accidents will far outweigh the number caused by bad choices in unusual situations.

Re:Safety devices

[KGIII]

Maybe. So long as it is not mandatory, I do not mind - personally. It might suck to be you, on the other hand. By aiming to ensure the lowest common denominator is safe we're opening up those who are skilled to risk should this becomes mandatory. I can come up with piles of reasons why autonomous vehicles are bad but that's not the subject at hand.

So, well, as long as I can choose to not have to rely on this then I'm okay with it. It may make it more expensive for me but I can afford it. It may, of course, suck to be you if you can't. I don't get to pick society's rules, I just have to live by them.

Re:Safety devices

[Immerman]

ABS does offer super-human abilities for straight-line braking. In a crisis situation, especially on deep slippery surfaces (gravel or snow), or sometimes even just in a curve, a *good* human driver can potentially outperform it though. Extreme example: you can often shed speed a lot faster in snow or gravel using your wheels as rudders in a controlled sideways slide than you can braking properly. The trick of course is maintaining control in a slide, and being willing to pay for the `damage you do to the car in the process. Which is why it's really something that shouldn't be attempted by most people.

Re:Safety devices

[Immerman]

Until the first half of this year at least, when there was an 8% uptick according to the summary.. Could just be noise in the data, could be that the improvement in safety systems is beginning to lag behind the corresponding increase in recklessness. We'd need more information to tell.

Re:Safety devices

[Immerman]

Agreed, this should absolutely remain optional, at *least* until it gets better than a good driver and cheap enough to not significantly increase the cost of the vehicle, and preferably longer than that. Though I could see them getting preferential treatment - for example dedicated autonomous vehicle express lanes on crowded highways that can take advantage of the superhuman reflexes to allow for much faster, denser traffic.

  Heck, as long as it offers an off-switch I imagine it will be quite popular. I love driving for pleasure, and my attention is completely focused on the road when I do, but most of my driving doesn't qualify. Probably 90% of the time I'd prefer to just hop in the car and tell the virtual chauffeur "take me home/to work/the store" and then read a book or something. Especially if the laws were updated so I could do so legally even while intoxicated. Though honestly I'd probably do so anyway - I refrain from drunk driving because I know exactly how badly it impairs my driving (countless hours on high-fidelity racing simulators), not because I'm afraid of getting pulled over.

Re:Safety devices

[Grishnakh]

Sounds like noise in the data or something else. Considering how long people are keeping their cars now (someone else here posted the average age of a car in the US is 11 years), how strong the used-car market is now, and how soft the economy is now (esp. regarding new-car purchases), I think the idea that at least 8% of drivers have suddenly bought brand-new cars, within 6 months or so, with these safety devices is pretty silly.

Re:Safety devices

[KGIII]

That leads me to question this... Some of us seem inclined (I am not one) to think that this should become mandatory yet they don't seem aware of the privacy indications. There's simply no way that this is going to work in aggregate without a lot of compute power to control the grid, not for the foreseeable future. (Model traffic, you'll understand.) There's a minimal mesh network required if not something more capable as an offloaded compute source if we want this to be viable.

That said, I wonder how many would champion computer that came with mandatory approved software and only that software? As the IoT becomes a thing then we can project that disruptions will cause true physical harm and so, for safety sake, having automated computing or controlled computing, as it were, as a mandatory step is a similar enough analogy.

So, with privacy implications and the reduction in freedoms as quite probable outcomes, I wonder why there are so many advocates here?

Re:Safety devices

[Immerman]

I made no such claim. The normal process is
- person buys vehicle with new safety feature X, which (usually) immediately increases safety
- person begins (over the course of years) to rely on X, becoming more reckless and at least partially neutralizes the effectiveness
- person buys new car with added safety feature Y...
- repeat

The result being that if you graphed safety over time you get something like an inclined sawtooth wave - at any given moment the safety of an individual driver is gradually decreasing as they acclimate and become more reckless, except for the sawtooth leaps when they get a new car with more safety features. And for the last many years those leaps have been large and frequent enough to maintain an overall upward trend. Stop (or slow down) adding new safety features to the majority of cars though and the decline due to increasing recklessness dominates - at least until it reaches some plateau. It will (presumably) be safer than it was before the safety features were added, but there will always be a decline in overall safety to be expected when you stop adding new safety features, at least until that plateau is reached. How long does that take for an individual driver? I would guess several years at least, maybe as long as a decade. And it would average out to about half that for the overall population (assuming that the "average" driver is currently halfway through their current "tooth" of decline)

Re:Safety devices

[Ol Olsoc]

but I know personally two guys who backed over their children - killing them.

I wonder if, before they backed over their own kids, if you were ask them if backup cameras were a good idea, they would have scoffed at the notion like a bunch of moronic "technologists" here do. Honestly, I feel like this place is full of the nursing-home crowd sometimes.

Its a good point that a lot of the slashdotters seem a little lacking in empathy. Some sort of weird inability to think of other people aside from themselves. And yup - until it happens to them.

I remember one of our proud Slashdot libertarians who was aghast that backup cameras were being made standard equipment, because "the evulz guvmint is just making another intrusion into my freedoms!"

I don't even like safety culture, but a backup camera is such a cheap and simple, yet lifesaving addition to a car that opposing them is like being opposed to oxygen.

As for those two guys, and running over their kids, it was eating them alive.

Re:Safety devices

[Immerman]

Why do you say that? Yes, you do need a lot of horsepower to keep city-wide traffic flowing smoothly, but there's no reason it needs to be centralized. Humans have been doing a not-completely-terrible job of it for a long time with no more communication than blinkers and an occasional hand-signal. So long as each vehicle does its part in maintaining the smooth flow of traffic in it's immediate surroundings, traffic will (mostly) travel smoothly. It's just that humans are provably really bad at doing that - we just don't have the right instincts. For example, ever notice how traffic tends to "bunch up"? You'll get dense packs of dense cars going down the road with only a few stragglers in between? That's something humans do naturally (probably related to pack instincts), and is absolutely terrible when it comes for maintaining smooth traffic flow . Hive animals like ants don't do that - they'll string themselves out into a nice evenly-spaced flow, and if any individual has trouble they can probably get things sorted out before more than one or two followers are inconvenienced.

Cars can do the same thing - choosing to promote good flow may occasionally cost you a few seconds immediately, but if many/most people are doing it we all come out ahead. And an autonomous car has no instincts or impatience to cloud its judgment, and the passengers will generally be doing their own thing and not mind a 30-60 second cumulative delay in their trip in the interest of good flow.

Now, there are certainly further improvements to be had via mesh networking, centralized traffic analysis and planning, etc., but even most of those those don't *require* particularly invasive technology (though it does make things a little easier, and plenty of people have a vested interest in promoting it for less-than-altruistic reasons). Traffic analysis doesn't need to concern itself with individual cars, and traffic updates for routing purposes could easily be acquired relatively anonymously (regional radio transmissions?). Mesh networking is a little bit dicier, but even most of the benefits of that should be manageable with very little identifying information - using throwaway IDs when joining a pack, or even just direct line-of-sight identification. For managing flow within a pack you don't really need much more identification than "hey you, to the front-left of me" or "you behind me, there's trouble ahead prepare to X"

As for your computer - I would say that's an appliance, not a general computer. And there are indeed applications where that might be advisable, medical equipment that can kill you with out-of-spec operation is another case that springs to mind. There's obviously an alternative though - whoever provides the software accepts all liability. Stick to the factory-installed v-chauffeur on your car and they accept liability, and you get cheaper insurance depending on how much manual driving you do. Install custom software and *you* take full liability, with your insurance skyrocketing accordingly. Throw in a little black box that indelibly records system updates to avoid cheaters and you're golden.

Re:Safety devices

[KGIII]

I encourage you to look into vehicular traffic modeling. One thing computers can't do is interpret intent (this is but one small example) for which you'll at least need mesh networking. But, for that to work, you're going to have to prioritize. In order to prioritize you'll need centralization. In short, no - it's not going to work on a large scale without this. Everything does *not* go as planned. Traffic modeling is very close to modeling chaos and for a bunch of very complex reasons.

As for the computer then, I submit again, that we'd be talking *mandatory* compliance and single use for the sake of the analogy. The topic isn't/wasn't appliances but mandatory use or something one can not control to the exclusion of a device that would be in ones control. Those are (mostly) valid points you made but I don't see them as being pertinent. The key issue raised was that it would be mandatory to the exclusion of all else.

I dunno if we've actually babbled about it but, well, I sort of, kind of, was one of the people who got traffic modeling *on a computer* going. This is not an appeal to authority. I'm simply suggesting that you might want to look at the complexity. The last time I saw a bunch of autonomous robots on wheels was a not-too-long-ago (they were "intelligently" selecting their own path) in a large box. They did alright with a few of them and then they added more to the mix and those gridlocked and kept banging into each other.

You can solve that. It's going to need, for the foreseeable future, a lot of horsepower and that's not going to work as well as people seem to be hoping without centralized authority. What we can do is have some limited subset and run with that, for the time being. But, without a centralized authority and a mesh network, I don't see it being possible for quite some time or, perhaps, ever.

Commonsense would suggest that autonomous cars would do well in a high-traffic situation. I submit that this is unlikely to be true without some rather intrusive tech being used. It would be awesome if I were wrong but I kind of doubt it. I wouldn't want it but I'd find the tech absolutely fascinating. A one-trick pony from Google does not make an autonomous system. This, of course, doesn't mean that they don't have a place nor does it mean that they won't ever get here - regardless of privacy implications.

Re:Safety devices

[Grishnakh]

It's not just the wacky-libertarianism and complete lack of empathy (and worship of Objectivism) that gets me here on Slashdot, it's the old-fart-ism. You'd think that a place that's supposed to be full of self-professed "nerds" ("News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters") / technologists would be full of people who like technology, but no, it's really full of people who hate change and want to stick with old shit, whether it's some shitty old 70s car that they refuse to give up and claim is far better than any modern car, or the insane belief that they're a race-car-skill-level driver and can outperform ABS systems; I'm sure I could find a bunch more examples if I looked. I'm pretty sure I've seen posts bitching about surface-mount electronics at some point. And I'm someone who sticks with tried-and-true a lot, but the people here take it to a ridiculous extreme. It's not just here; I've seen it with a lot of other engineers too, it's a weird trait for people who are supposed to be creating new technologies.

Re:Safety devices

[Immerman]

With respect I would suggest that autonomous systems would have a *much* easier time of navigating streets than of navigating around each other in a big box, for the simple reason that the acceptable behaviors are far more constrained (i.e. most of the possible decisions have been pre-made by the road designers) - your options are really only continue in this lane, change lanes, turn at an intersection or driveway, or parallel park. All of which have simple and well established methods of communicating immediate intent (blinkers).

Traffic is indeed a very complicated system, even chaotic. And that's exactly why modeling every individual component as accurately as possible is absolutely necessary before you can even begin to expect reasonable results out of it. Unless you have software capable of making one single vehicle operate reasonably in the presence of human-controlled chaos, you can't hope to realistically model the overall flow. There's no doubt plenty of heuristics you can employ to streamline the process into something useful, but at that point you've completely changed the nature of the problem - you're no longer simulating traffic, you're simulating an inherently flawed heuristic-based model.

I also suspect you weren't throwing nearly as much hardware nor nearly as sophisticated software at the problem: a dedicated CPU for every vehicle, and software designed to continuously analyze the immediate surroundings with the assumption that the surrounding vehicles and pedestrians are under the control of far more chaotic drivers. The car doesn't have to worry about "traffic management" any more than a human driver does - traffic is an emergent phenomena, drivers just have to deal with whatever they find themselves in within the limit of acceptable behaviors. If we can make a vehicle that handles the immediate situation roughly as well as a human driver, then we can (potentially) dramatically improve traffic flow almost for free, simply by avoiding those common human behaviors that we know cause problems. We still won't be managing traffic, we'll just get better traffic as a side-effect of more "conscientious" drivers.

As an aside - I would suspect that Google has in fact done virtual traffic tests involving thousands if not millions of virtual cars navigating virtual city streets together. Presumably stripped of the CPU-hungry vision systems which aren't necessary in a simulated environment. I mean the idea is just too cool not to try. And such simulation might have much to offer traffic planners, offering a much more realistic simulation than currently available, especially if cars were all given their own individual "personality", which is well within the scope of what the current software already does.

Re:Safety devices

[Ol Olsoc]

It's not just the wacky-libertarianism and complete lack of empathy (and worship of Objectivism) that gets me here on Slashdot, it's the old-fart-ism. You'd think that a place that's supposed to be full of self-professed "nerds" ("News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters") / technologists would be full of people who like technology, but no, it's really full of people who hate change and want to stick with old shit, whether it's some shitty old 70s car that they refuse to give up and claim is far better than any modern car, or the insane belief that they're a race-car-skill-level driver and can outperform ABS systems; I'm sure I could find a bunch more examples if I looked. I'm pretty sure I've seen posts bitching about surface-mount electronics at some point. And I'm someone who sticks with tried-and-true a lot, but the people here take it to a ridiculous extreme. It's not just here; I've seen it with a lot of other engineers too, it's a weird trait for people who are supposed to be creating new technologies.

Posts that should be a plus 5, but betchya they won't be modded up.

And I couldn't agree with you more, so I'll go down your list.

Old cars. Those wonderful old cars have some cool, but that's about it. My first real car was a 1965 Buick Skylark. It was pretty nice, but at 100,000 miles, it was done. TIres were doing well if you could get 15 K out of them. As I heard 100 K, it was a litany of replacing water pumps shock absorbers twice radiator, rebuilt carbs. And rust. Well, my last 2 vehicles I put well over 200 K on each of them, and I had a freaky good set of tires on one that ended up dry rotting at 80 thousand miles, but the tread was still good.

Anti lock brakes. I'd love to set up some tests on some of the roads I go on in the winter. Get one of these experts stopping on glare ice faster than my ABS system. I've tried the brake pump and on glare ice, it takes longer, and there's more chance of flying off the road.

Oh, while we're at it, My Jeep's traction control is astoundingly good. I've stopped it on a ~30 degree incline on roads covered with thick glare ice, and it somply walks up the hill, which I wouldn't even be able to walk up.

Surface mount electronics. Yes, I've seen the bitching. There's one problem - they must never have tried it. I've been hand building and teaching others how to work with SMT devices. I even work with some stuff so small you need a Binoscope to work with it. Its actually fun, and I've taught maybe a dozen or more. And some were pretty old. Certainly if someone had Parkinsonism it could be problem, but the activity actually calms me down, just like target shooting does.

Getting old and cranky is not inevitable, nor is thinking everything in the rear view mirror is better.

I recently had a radio text conversation with a fellow who was in his mid 90's who thought some of the new digital modes for amateur radio were interesting, so he went out and bought himself a new laptop, interface, and attached iit to his radio, and there he was typing with me across the country with no infrastructure, just radio waves. But I fear many slashdotters are far beyond his age already.

I've seen the results of ole fart-ism, and the younger you get it, the worse it gets as you age. I hope I never do. Then again my wife says I'm way too immature to ever turn into an old asshat.

Re:Safety devices

[Grishnakh]

Yeah, same here on SMT. It's a lot easier than thru-hole crap, unless of course you get to BGAs. With a good fine-tip soldering station and a hot-air rework station, you can work on all kinds of things, and a lot faster and easier than with PTH components.

The old fart-ism does seem to only afflict some people, and frequently at rather young ages. I think a lot of it does correlate with extreme political conservatism though.

Re:Safety devices

[KGIII]

I'll give you a realistic situation. Roads are built at a similar aim as the speed limit. In other words, they aim for a throughput (number of cars per hour) in the 85th percentile range. For some portion of the time, a higher percentage in congested or poorly designed areas, they are at maximum capacity. This is often known as rush hour and not all roads or highways are designed as well as they should/could be for a variety of reasons but the largest one being that they simply lack room as that capacity was not something thought about when the city was built.

Imagine, if you will, that there is some sort of crisis where you have EMTs, police, and firetrucks all needing to get to one location and that this occurs during peak times. With human drivers, they can indicate to others drivers that they'll be pulling off to the side. They can opt to split lanes. They can zipper merge to create room on an on-ramp. They can stop and allow an on-ramp to empty. They can indicate intent and make individual choices and, for the most part, this actually works pretty well.

In computer terms, think of it like bandwidth. Not only do you need to know where the packets are going but you also need to be able to have prioritized traffic or QOS traffic. Now, using bandwidth, you can't have collisions like you do with TCP/IP, that kills people. Not only that, you're trying to periodically trying to stuff 1 Gbps traffic through a 10 Mbsec hole and if this fails, people die.

You can virtual test all you want and that virtual testing would just indicate my point more strongly. Those are not people. Those are not disparate locations. Those are contrived (if any) emergencies. And, more importantly, they all are likely relying on centralized control. You're not going to see this for a very long time, or ever, without centralized control. You're not going to be able to do this without communications between the vehicles that share the same space. We've neither the compute power nor the infrastructure to enable such.

So, I respectfully disagree. That's just one of many examples that I can come up with. A few is fine but it really is a lot like chaos and not entirely predictable. It is generally those unpredictable times when things matter most. Also, what a strange turn this conversation has taken. ;-) I enjoy a good debate. I might even learn something new. However, I still respectfully disagree.

Re:Safety devices

[BLKMGK]

Yes exactly, the guy claiming he can outperform his car's electronics is full of it and he has never tested in any scientific fashion at all. As I said previously, lot's of folks think they're better drivers than they are and he's a prime example.

Re:Safety devices

[BLKMGK]

Well aware of what they are and why they are - mine was added to a vehicle that wasn't equipped with one and it wasn't cheap junk. However as someone who has experience driving I know not to just jump in the car and take off. I turn in my seat to look and before I get in the car I look around the car. I have no small children running around but if I did they would be nowhere near a vehicle if at all possible when it was about to move. Pets are also a problem and I've had many many of those - again you have to be careful and taking the extra few minutes to take them in the house or have another watch them is the wise thing to do.

But people are always in a hurry and in parking lots you have inattentive parents. Cameras aren't a bad thing but I seldom need mine because I actually take some care and pay attention. I'm also not likely to be moving at more than a crawl in reverse as that's when you're also most likely to be hit by an asshat zooming down a parking lot aisle. The exhaust tone is likely to scare small kids away too :D

Oh, I also don't drive a behemoth that requires a team to guide in and out of a parking spot and has reasonable visibility. I do wish it had those nice little sensors for objects behind me but the previous owner skipped them. Hence the camera, no worries if I back into the garage...

Re:Safety devices

[danbert8]

He may not be full of it, and "pumping" is a horrible term to use for threshold braking even if you do mean the same thing. The reality is that braking is not something that gives you no feedback until you lock the wheels. You can progressively feel grip especially with a car that has good steering feedback, a stiff suspension, and good tires. Even without those things, most street tires make noise which give you information about the available grip of the tires. An experienced driver can and most certain does stop shorter in a straight line using threshold braking than ABS on dry pavement because the ABS system can't detect lockup until it occurs even if the response to the lockup is faster. A human driver can use the feel of the steering wheel, suspension, and sound to reliably predict and avoid the lockup threshold, maximizing available grip.

This is why ABS DOES pump the brakes. It just does it at a very fast rate. But the wheels are still skidding for fractions of a second before the system can respond. The major advantage of ABS over threshold braking is in low traction situations because in those instances it is more likely for a single wheel to skid while the others are still rolling. The ABS system can release braking pressure on that single wheel but a driver can only reduce braking pressure globally. This gives ABS a huge advantage in wet and snowy conditions, especially when steering is needed while braking.

Re:Safety devices

[bws111]

The post you responded to with your claim that pumping the brakes was a horrible idea was about how ordinary drivers driving ordinary cars were taught to stop in SLICK conditions. Why is your response about a performance car (good steering feedback, stiff suspension) with an experienced driver stopping in DRY conditions?

And the reality is, contrary to your assertion, is that braking on a slick surface gives you almost no feedback until you notice the car is starting to change directions, by which point it may be too late. You certainly can not tell that a single wheel has locked up. This is why, in slick conditions, pumping the brakes is the CORRECT thing to do. You can not tell if one or two wheels have locked until it is too late, so rapidly pump the brakes so even if they have locked up they get rolling again.

Again, the point of pumping the brakes and ABS is not to shorten stopping distance, it is to enable you to maintain control of the vehicle. Increased stopping distance is easily compensated for by leaving more room and driving slower in slick conditions.

Re:Safety devices

[Immerman]

I agree traffic is chaotic, and trying to simulate or control it is an incredibly difficult problem. I just don't see how that's an issue for autonomous vehicles, any more than it's an issue for human drivers. So long as they behave no more chaotically than a human driver the problem doesn't change significantly. Now if we were talking about autonomous street lights, well then yeah - THAT becomes a traffic management problem. No doubt there is a lot of potential for improving traffic flow further with central tracking and planning of autonomous vehicles, but that's an optional add-on with some huge privacy implications (or not - if the trend towards ubiquitous automated license plate tracking continues then there really won't be much further loss of privacy by tracking vehicles by other means)

Yes, there are unavoidable congestion issues related to streets loaded over their designed capacity - I don't see how that's an issue with autonomous vehicles though. They might even increase throughput somewhat by reducing counterproductive human behaviors. They could also route around problem areas just as humans with traffic-aware GPS devices do now. None of that requires centralized monitoring of individual vehicles.

I agree emergency vehicles should probably remain human controlled for considerably longer, precisely because they are free to take far more liberties on the road, and thus need far better judgment, if that's the point you're trying to make - but I really don't see the issue for autonomous civilian vehicles interacting with them. Autonomous cars detect approaching sirens/lights and pull over just like human drivers should (and by "pull over" it seems "away from the lane/shoulder the emergency vehicle is in" is probably best). For more contrived but not impossible situations, yes, they should be capable of either taking standard directions from a "traffic cop", or required to have a human driver present who can take manual control in those situations.

As for zipper merges, etc, where's the problem? That's a pretty common and straightforward traffic maneuver, I would assume any autonomous vehicle worth its salt would be capable of recognizing and participating in it. It's not like drivers are using a lot of hand signals or even eye contact to indicate intent - it's pretty much just blinkers, and AI should be able to handle that.

Your network analogy falls down for me though - there is no "QOS" analog in traffic. There's normal flow, and there's the uncommon situation of "emergency vehicle coming through, everyone else get out of the way." And cars aren't bits that must travel a complete link and be buffered or "die" - they always have the option of stopping right where they are (usually with the option to pull over to allow other traffic through) and waiting for things ahead to get sorted out. It's called a traffic jam, and they aren't known for their fatality rates.

As for a simulation, why would you put in centralized control? That would completely defeat the point. Just take a digitized city map, put a million AI "cars" in it, each with it's own simulated "owner" with a semi-chaotic set of objectives and timings to fulfill. Then set it loose and see what happens. See what if any sorts of characteristic problems you encounter with millions of AI cars interacting with each other.

Re:Safety devices

[KGIII]

Humans can signal to one another, even with just unnoticed things like your noticing a driver didn't look before they merged. Humans can, in the emergency situation, break the rules with *their* cars to allow the EMT, Police, and Firetruck through - all in disparate locations and all taking into account the surroundings. You're not gonna get that without mesh networking and, quite likely, centralized control. They're going to need to be able to tell the vehicles to clear the highway. They're going to need to send a signal to these autonomous cars to tall them there's a crisis ahead or you'll get gridlock because there's no egress. You'll get gridlock because there's no ingress at the merge points. This will prevent things like additional emergency vehicles coming through. They can set people up to navigate you around things like that - and they do.

Also, QOS was not the best analogy but it was the closest tech thing that I could think of without trying to make it about memory use which would have been much too long to type. The zip merge is just one thing we can do - we can even have a human there to direct traffic. Traffic is still going to need to be directed. That's going to need a centralized process.

That said, done well - it could be highly efficient, it could be great. I've pondered this at great length and if done well it would actually speed things up and make things safer. I'd be able to get awesome throughput!

As for the sim... Err... You do realize that I wrote the greatest automobile sim game on the planet, right? (I am a wee bit biased.) Well, it didn't have any graphics or anything until after it was taken over by much more competent programmers and then it only had some small segments animated. You can't just toss a bunch of cars into a sim and say drive randomly and expect to have meaningful data come out. You *have* to have some centralized control because people don't (normally) drive randomly. You give them patterns that match real world data. I you give them behavioral characteristics that match real world data. They have to be *fed* that info.

You can then let 'em loose and have some fun if you've got some compute cycles to burn. We even had disaster modes where we had real-world, localized, data to indicate some probables and would throw those into the mix. Oh, it'd be awesome if you could control them from a centralized location. I dare say, again, that I don't think it's gonna work without it.

Let's see if we're saying similar things. When do you predict fully autonomous vehicular traffic will make up the majority of private vehicles on the road in North and South America? When do you think we'll have a nearly complete use of fully autonomous vehicles?

*With* centralized control, I'd give a rough estimate of 15 years for them to be the majority of private vehicles in North America. Without it? I'd not expect to see it for many years to come and I'd not expect to see it within this century as a near complete use. I expect partial autonomy, greater than what we have now, on a march larger scale within 5 years and the average vehicle on the road, in the US, is 11 years old. Full autonomy is a long ways out, I suspect. Well, sooner if we go with centralize processing.

That is, of course, my humble opinion. Also, yes, I am a wee bit biased about my traffic sim game. ;-) I kind of miss playing with it. I am no longer privy to the information and, if I was, I'm pretty much covered by an NDA and non-compete for life (the latter won't hold up in court, I'm told, but I've no interest in returning to the field or even working at all) so I couldn't tell you even if I knew but I'd not be surprised if Google were licensing our work *if* they're modeling traffic for their autonomous vehicles and it's fairly safe to assume they are.

At any rate, sorry for the novella but I really don't seem to be able to be as optimistic as you. I do keep up with the trends and news and I'm reasonably aware of current availability for to purchase compute cycles and at what cost those cycles come at. On the other hand, I have been retired for nearly eight years so you could be right - I just don't find your arguments compelling. There is a good chance that I'm missing something but I can't think of it.

Re:Safety devices

[danbert8]

My response was about a performance car with an experienced driver was an entirely on topic response to a comment claiming that a guy CAN outperform a car's electronics.

For the average driver in a non-ABS car you might be correct. But today, it is a small percentage of drivers that don't have ABS. Most of those drivers are car enthusiasts, not average. Being a car enthusiast that regularly drives a car without ABS, I most certainly can feel which wheel locks up, especially in the wet. Nothing about my response is rapid or should be. Rapidly applying pressure to the brake pedal will horribly transfer weight in the car and more than likely make you lose control. Maintaining control of a vehicle in slick conditions requires experience to know which pedals to use and smooth application of inputs. Making rapid adjustments of just one pedal was a crutch for inexperienced drivers before ABS was available for them. That may have been the way you were taught, but most people are taught to do head checks when changing lanes, and to stop at yield signs too. That doesn't make them the ideal or even correct action.

"record low"...maybe the current ratings work

[turkeydance]

if it ain't broke....

Re:"record low"...maybe the current ratings work

[newcastlejon]

if it ain't broke....

...you carry on making it better.

Re:"record low"...maybe the current ratings work

[BLKMGK]

Perhaps we could up our game in driver's ed? While we're at it begin doing something about dumbass pedestrians?

The other day at late dusk I was driving through a neighborhood and had something move up ahead of me, I hit the brakes thinking it could be a deer. Nope, some schmuck in full desert cammo to include a backpack and hat had decided to stroll across the street in front of me. I was coming up on a T intersection where I had to turn and what was behind this moron was dead brown grass on a hill. He crossed about 25foot closer to me than the stop sign so NOT at the f'ing corner. Had I not noticed the movement this schmuck would've been a speed bump! I was within the speed limit but kripes this jerk gave me a heart attack.

Driver's education and testing these days needs to get better too. When I see someone lazing like they're in a lounger in front of their big screen, head propped up an elbow on the door peering into their side mirror trying to merge I cannot help but want to scream.Don't get me started on passengers with their feet on the dash asking to wear them as earrings in an accident. Vehicles so big they can barely look over a steering wheel or see what's behind them staring into a screen to reverse. Yapping on a cell phone call waving their hands doing 5 under the speed limit in the left lane weaving side to side. Staring at their lap texting moving at 70MPH in traffic, face lit by the glow of FaceBook (and yeah I've sometimes recognized the site they're on!). Technology isn't needed to solve these problems, people aware of what they're doing and some understanding of their responsibility would solve this. Heaven forbid we prevent one of these fools from their God Given Right!!!11! to get down the road to little boy's soccer match! I've watched some of these idiots try to parallel park and it's a comedy. Shame we can't take these folks out on a slick track to learn how to correct a skid, or parallel park in a tight space, maybe brake and avoid an obstacle. We could have an object run out in front of them forcing them to react. I recently had one of these distracted morons rear-end a car 4 behind me, the chain reaction was bad enough I was shoved into an SUV stopped to turn (3 of us stopped BTW) and I actually moved the damn thing I hit it so hard. The car he hit was sitting on his hood when I walked back, it's driver had to visit an ambulance. The guy who caused this all said he dropped something and when he tried to retrieve it he didn't see the string of cars stopped. Naturally his insurance was unable to cover anything other than the first car Do we still show kids in school videos of bloody bodies? Maybe we need to show adults this again at license renewal?

Re:"record low"...maybe the current ratings work

[BLKMGK]

At what point do you declare diminishing returns?

Re:"record low"...maybe the current ratings work

[Ol Olsoc]

At what point do you declare diminishing returns?

When someone that thinks that driving 3 feet behind me at 70 miles per hour is acceptable cannot do that any more.

Re:"record low"...maybe the current ratings work

[Ol Olsoc]

Perhaps we could up our game in driver's ed? While we're at it begin doing something about dumbass pedestrians?

Drivers Ed is going the way of the dinosaurs. Costs too much. No one wants to pay for it.

Re:"record low"...maybe the current ratings work

[skam240]

" (and yeah I've sometimes recognized the site they're on!)"

I have a big problem with drivers spending too much looking at other drivers rather than paying attention to traffic conditions. When I pull out a bit from a driveway and I get some idiot staring at me individually I often wonder what would happen should the person in front of them stop suddenly. If you can honestly tell someone is using Facebook on their phone you are NOT AT ALL paying attention to road conditions and have no place talking about others driving habits. You're as much a hazard as they are.

Re:"record low"...maybe the current ratings work

[iris-n]

There's only so much that you can get out of better driver's education and stricter testing; here in Vienna the testing is becoming stricter and stricter all the time, to the point that they have covered every possible bad driving behaviour, and are moving into the terrain of pure bullshit.

Here it is considered an error, for example, to grab the steering wheel in anything position other than the 9:15 one; even the 10:10 position is considered an error, even though it was the mandatory position two years ago. Here you can fail the driving test if you change your driving lane while making a turn; I have a friend who failed her test because she was less than one meter way from the next car during a traffic jam.

I think the result from these overly strict regulations is that it simply gets more expensive to get a driver's license, without actually improving traffic safety. It can even be detrimental to safety, if the kids are learning this stuff instead of focusing on paying attention to pedestrians and other cars.

Re:"record low"...maybe the current ratings work

[Anonymous Coward]

Get off your phone and people wont like at you like that ahole you appear to be.

Re:"record low"...maybe the current ratings work

[Anonymous Coward]

Sweden has set a goal to bring vehicle deaths to ZERO. Some of those improvements come from improving the roads themselves to make them safer, but some it is from making cars safer.

They likely won't achieve that goal, but they will come close. The US should set a similar goal. Perhaps not zero, but a goal to cut road fatalities in half by 2025 would be a pretty good start.

Re:"record low"...maybe the current ratings work

[Immerman]

Changing lanes in a turn? They deserved to fail, that's fucking STUPID. Sure, there's situations where you can do it safely, assuming you've fully cataloged the surrounding traffic conditions before attempting it, but it's generally illegal and a dangerous habit to get into - and if you do it during a driving test then it's definitely become a habit.

It's one of the things that really pisses me off having moved back to my hometown after living in Denver for a few years. In Denver everyone gets it - don't change lanes while turning, and then the guy turning left and the oncoming guy turning right onto the same road can turn at the same time and traffic flows smoothly. Throw in someone changing lanes while turning and you've either got an accident on your hands, or if it's common enough that nobody trusts other drivers not to do it (as it is here) then you've cut the "bandwidth" of the corner in half since only one person can make the turn at a time. What exactly is so difficult about waiting until you've finished turning before changing lanes? Intersections are dangerous enough without people willfully ignoring driving rules.

Re:"record low"...maybe the current ratings work

[Khashishi]

The problem with a harder driving test is that people are going to be more careful and attentive during the test than in real life. I don't see how education is supposed to stop the stupid things you've listed. There isn't a person who doesn't know that texting and driving is stupid and they do it anyway. Engineering guards are more effective than protective policies because people don't and won't follow policies even if they know what they are.

Re:"record low"...maybe the current ratings work

[Khashishi]

Technology is improving, so it becomes practical to address safety measures which were too difficult to approach before. Computers and sensors are smaller and faster, so we don't have to rely on meatbags to prevent every accident.

Re:"record low"...maybe the current ratings work

[bws111]

Completely wrong on both. Paying attention to other drivers is an important part of paying attention to traffic conditions, as any defensive driving course will tell you. To use your example, if you pull out of a driveway 'a bit', YOU are my most immediate threat. Until I make eye contact with you I have no idea what the hell you are going to do or even if you have seen me. This is one of the reasons why playing with your damn phone is stupid even at a stop - you are unnecessarily distracting other drivers.

As for being able to tell if someone is playing with their phone, that is also extremely easy to detect by anyone who is actually paying attention to driving. Two of the biggest giveaways are: unable to hold a steady speed, and unable to maintain lane without drifting and correcting. You see either of those, you know you either have a drunk or phone idiot. And in either case, YOUR safety involves noticing that fact.

Re:"record low"...maybe the current ratings work

[BLKMGK]

LOL! It takes but a glance at night to recognize a sea of white and the distinctive blue banner on top. Some of us also follow properly and don't drive tanks that require a football field to stop. Get over yourself.

Re:"record low"...maybe the current ratings work

[skam240]

Yeah, I won't even use hands free in the car. It's great you're making thing up about me though

Re:"record low"...maybe the current ratings work

[BLKMGK]

Ding Ding! Winner! The vehicle entering the road is a threat to be watched! It used to be easy to detect a DWI, these days the kids on cell phones either talking or texting are just as bad. Some adults can't talk on the phone without waving their hands either :-O

My all time fave was coming across a guy who had nodded off at the wheel early one morning while traffic was light. Straight away with a slight jog to the right up ahead, we were doing a good 65MPH in the clear. He was tracking straight but I noticed his chin on his chest as I glanced at him passing. I let off the gas to stay beside him, confirmed he wasn't awake, and lightly beeped the horn as I knew he wouldn't make the turn ahead - I was prepared for a possible swerve. He woke right up and thankfully didn't steer towards me. When he realized what had happened he gave me a sheepish grin, mouthed thanks, and waved. No biggie I went on my way and hope he made it to his destination safely.

I've seen folks shaving in the car (electric), reading a newspaper on the wheel, and once someone was eating a bowl of cereal with a spoon - bowl balanced on the airbag. Yeah, I pay attention to what's around me and I'm happy not to have to travel that nightmare of a highway in the mornings anymore. I still sit in traffic though :(

Re:"record low"...maybe the current ratings work

[skam240]

I was refering to being able to tell what web page they're on. If you can tell that you are spending way too much time people watching

Re:"record low"...maybe the current ratings work

[skam240]

Sorry, I just really think if you're spending that much time visually inspecting the individuals driving the vehicles around you then you are a hazard on the road. I've ridden with people who like to people watch while they drive and sure, they spot people doing all sorts of stuff but at the same time they are most certainly bot paying enough attention on the road. One of my bosses from work drives like this and I hate being in the car with him because of how his people watching effects his driving.

Re:"record low"...maybe the current ratings work

[skam240]

And i also wasnt talking about brief eye contact. I'm talking about head turning a total of 90 degrees watching me as they pass. It's not all the time at all but every now and then I get people completely unfocused from the road looking at me.

Re:"record low"...maybe the current ratings work

[BLKMGK]

Ha, pay attention to people crossing an intersection making a turn. One lane coming towards you turning their left onto a road with two lanes. You will see almost all of them switch lanes even when the dashed lines have been placed in the intersection. In theory you facing them should be able to safely make a right on red but in my area you risk your life and will surely be honked at if not worse. Actually, rereading your post - that is EXACTLY what I'm talking about. You get it! People who swap lanes like that kill capacity and in my area have the nerve to get upset at YOU for daring to pull out. Argh!

Here's a peeve - I have crosswalks with signs all over my commute and I drive through them daily. I see pedestrians stranded at the curb all the time and I stop for them - they usually look shocked! Doing this I've been yelled at, honked at, cursed, passed on the right, and in one case the car behind me was rear-ended. I'm not panic stopping and the speed limits around many of these is just 25mph. It's courtesy! Many of these folks are going to a grocery store or walking to work when I see them. The flip side is that at night they are often wearing black and are near invisible if not under a streetlight. They often tend to skip crossing at the corner where it's lit and there's a crosswalk. I knew a guy growing up who thought he could "make it across" a road and didn't - he spent a good bit of time in the hospital as a result. He tried to cross a 4 lane road, no median, outside of a crosswalk - it was his fault for sure.

Stop signs.At a friend's house out walking their dog I see people literally drive through their 4 way and I see the same at the end of my street albeit with less traffic flow. Some of them barely slow. I was taught to look all ways and there's no way you can do that at 20 or more MPH and if someone else is coming doing the same on the cross you've got a problem. On my street it used to be a 2way until one too many cars ran it and ended up in a neighbor's yard up against their house.

Here's one education could fix - school bus coming towards you stops to let kids out, red lights flashing. It's a road with a median strip in the middle dividing it. In my state you don't stop, morons do usually by slamming on their brakes unexpectedly and then wondering why they're being passed and what all the noise behind them is about. That occurs about once a month, I try to miss school bus time...

Re:"record low"...maybe the current ratings work

[iris-n]

What you say makes sense if the streets are laid out in a nice orderly grid, or if at least there are some dashed lines connecting lanes between the intersecting roads. But this is not the case in Vienna; it grew out of a medieval city, so the intersections are pretty much a random number of streets with a random number of lanes meeting in random angles. I would never trust drivers here to even know which lane they are supposed to go to, so yeah, the bandwidth is rather small in these intersections.

This is, as a matter of fact, what happened to me. I was in the middle lane of a three-lane street, turned left onto a two-lane street, and ended up if the leftmost lane. Blam, failed, because they decided that "not changing lane" meant taking the rightmost lane.

Re:"record low"...maybe the current ratings work

[bws111]

If someone is looking at you like that, I can think of two reasons. Either you are trying to call attention to yourself, or anger. Since people who try to call attention to themselves seldom complain when attention is paid, I am going with anger. So what is it about your driving that is causing multiple people to be angry? Do you approach the intersection too fast, giving the impression you are not going to stop? Do you appear that you are going to pull out in front of someone whether it is safe or not? Do you appear to be doing something unrelated to driving? Have you missed a signal that they are letting you out? Are you stopped too far into the roadway?

Re:"record low"...maybe the current ratings work

[Immerman]

I don't see the confusion. Just pretend there's always cars next to you on both sides. If you are turning left, and there is another lane to the left of you, then obviously that car needs to be turning left as well to avoid a collision. And it needs to end up somewhere, so there'd better still be a free lane to your left when you leave the intersection. On the other hand the car to your right has the option of continuing straight or turning right, so you don't need to worry about them as much, though obviously if there's a third lane on the destination street so that they could be making a left turn too, then you'd better not take their lane either. Basically, if turning left the number of lanes to your left shouldn't change. Ditto if turning right the number of lanes to your right shouldn't change.

Now yes, if you have two or more streets that would count as a left turn, and you're turning onto the last of them, then things obviously get more complicated since the guy to your left may well be taking one of the earlier lefts, in which case he doesn't necessarily need a lane on your destination street. But still, as a rule of thumb, just make sure you never cut off the imaginary guy paralleling you. If there's an indicator that the leftmost lane MUST take an earlier left, then you can consider that lane to end at the intersection, and should discount it when deciding your lane position on exit. Otherwise, keep room for that car! And of course if things just get totally messy to the point of requiring seat-of-the-pants lane negotiation with other drivers... well then I'd hope the driving examiner would be understanding about that. But you should always maintain the number of "inside lanes" in a turn unless you have a good reason not too.

Re:"record low"...maybe the current ratings work

[iris-n]

I don't think there is a confusion about what the rule is, there is disagreement about the usefulness of the rule.

In my situation, there was a car to my right that was also turning left, and no car to my left, which is why I ended up in the leftmost lane in the first place. To follow this rule of "constant number of inside lanes" I would have had to wait -- in the middle of an intersection -- until I could get behind the car to my right, or he should wait for me to get in front of him (which he didn't). Both solutions would disturb the traffic flow more than what actually happened. And this is the rule I always follow: minimize disturbance to traffic flow.

But even leaving aside issues of traffic flow, I don't see how the existence of the rule here would be of benefit to anyone. Imagine that you are the car in the oncoming traffic, that also wants to turn right. In a nice orderly intersection the rule can be useful: you can see where each car comes from and where they (should) go to, so its easy to mix within the flow without creating a mess. But if you cannot clearly see the path each car is taking (because the intersection is complex), then it doesn't matter whether they follow the lane-rule: you should wait anyway for them to clear the intersection before turning right.

Re:"record low"...maybe the current ratings work

[iris-n]

And the examiner is not allowed to "be understanding". He has to apply the rules, even if he disagrees with them. That's why we shouldn't have stupid rules in the first place. I think this comment of yours clearly implies that you are not Austrian =)

Re:"record low"...maybe the current ratings work

[BLKMGK]

Well, I'm sorry you feel that way - can't be helped and doesn't effect me. Except for being hit by others a time or two I get down the road just fine and likely pay better attention than most of the folks around me. It's amazing what you can see (and avoid) when you pay attention!

After all 30,000 American lives don't matter

[Bruce66423]

They're mainly pedestrians, who by definition must be people who can't afford cars to drive everywhere, so DON''T MATTER.

Re:After all 30,000 American lives don't matter

[Anonymous Coward]

Contrary opinion; they're priced out of the car market by the mandatory safety features. We could easily sell a car for $8K that would be reasonably safe under 50 MPH which would be just perfect for poor people. However, we must price poor people out of the car market to keep them poor to keep them voting for our lizards.

Re:After all 30,000 American lives don't matter

[Grishnakh]

-1 Stupid. You can easily buy a very nice used car for $8 these days. You don't *need* to buy new; as long as everyone is continuously moving to something *newer*, things get better. 10 year old cars these days are still very safe, far better than 20-year-old cars.

That's 30,000 deaths people!!!

[Bruce66423]

Compare and contrast the response of the government to a few terrorist deaths compared with this, and realise that we have a problem.

[Full disclosure - I'm a cyclist; I'm very careful around over large chunks of metal hurtling at excessive speed...]

Re:That's 30,000 deaths people!!!

[turbidostato]

Yes. A lot of people.

There were 32,675 fatalities in 2014 due to cars.

And no less than 33,169 deaths related to firearms in 2013.

Given the pervasive use of cars one would consider that having more people killed by guns than by cars should be quite a concern.

Re:That's 30,000 deaths people!!!

[rubycodez]

60% were suicides. There were 11,000 homicides. two-thirds of those are in big cities. I guess paying people to have babies by random sperm donors as a social experiment has been a failure.

Meanwhile, I'll be keeping my guns to deal with their uncivilized spawn should they come my way, thank you very much.

Re:That's 30,000 deaths people!!!

[russotto]

Given the pervasive use of cars one would consider that having more people killed by guns than by cars should be quite a concern.

Apples and oranges.

21,175 of the Y2013 firearm deaths were suicide. 11,208 were homicide. Only 505 were accidental.

There probably were a few motor vehicle homicides included in the figures, but not a statistically significant number. More suicides, it's hard to say how many... but certainly the vast majority were accidental.

So, completely different concerns. Easiest way to reduce your risk of death-by-firearm is not to deliberately shoot yourself with one. There isn't any similarly easy way of reducing your chance of death by motor vehicle; staying off the roads is rather limiting.

Re:That's 30,000 deaths people!!!

[edtice1559]

At the risk of getting modded into oblivion, we could remove guns tomorrow and life would hum on. So removing them is an easy thing to do to improve safety. I'd like to get rid of those 11,208 homocides. We could also, of course, get rid of cars. But that's no so easy to do as we tend to be very dependent on them. It's very rare that a car gets stolen and you don't know. OTOH it seems to happen all the time that firearms are stolen and the owners don't notice until they get used in a crime. The *practical* implications of removing guns is much less than cars. The philosophical situation is of course much different.

Re:That's 30,000 deaths people!!!

[L. J. Beauregard]

60% were suicides. There were 11,000 homicides. two-thirds of those are in big cities. I guess paying people to have babies by random sperm donors as a social experiment has been a failure.

Oh, but abstinence-only edumakashun and defunding Planned Parenthood as a social experiment has been such a success.

Meanwhile, I'll be keeping my guns to deal with their uncivilized spawn should they come my way, thank you very much.

That's a roight good plan you got there, guv. Ship the decent-paying jobs overseas, deny people a living wage because Job Creators, keep 'em barefoot and pregnant because Shameless Hussies and then wonder why their "uncivilized spawn" are resorting to violence.

Re:That's 30,000 deaths people!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you aught to volunteer for the confiscation brigade? You can go around and knock all these doors, and kindly ask them to hand over their weapons. Easy-peasy, right? We'll just be behind you, downrange a bit, you know, like a few hundred yards...but never-mind that, we've got your back buddy.

It's easy to speak so lightly, when you're not the one who's facing down someone that doesn't quite share the same opinion, and you know...has guns and stuff; unless you're advocating for the magic wand solution, in which case, you aught to be down-modded for having a mind numbing, and quite frankly, utterly useless point of view.

Re:That's 30,000 deaths people!!!

[Solandri]

Yup. This is long overdue, not all the hand-wringing we're doing over silly code red terrorist crap. After disease, the most likely ways an American will die are:

1 in 100 = suicide
1 in 109 = unintentional poisoning
1 in 112 = motor vehicle accident
1 in 144 = falls (mostly elderly)
1 in 358 = assault by firearm
...
1 in 164,968 = struck by lightning
1 in 598,009 = terrorist attack (though the latest attack probably dropped this significantly because it's so rare)

Those annoying commercials telling you not to text while driving are thousands of times more important than our response to terrorism.

Re: That's 30,000 deaths people!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear God, it's OUGHT

Re:That's 30,000 deaths people!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

60% were suicides. There were 11,000 homicides. two-thirds of those are in big cities. I guess paying people to have babies by random sperm donors as a social experiment has been a failure.

Oh, but abstinence-only edumakashun and defunding Planned Parenthood as a social experiment has been such a success.

Someone doesn't like the inconvenient truth about gun deaths and disastrous liberal policies. That aside, I don't see how government telling kids how to have sex and how they get pregnant, which they already know, and how allowing parents to kill their kids would help solve our festering inner-city problems. Nice try though. :-)

Meanwhile, I'll be keeping my guns to deal with their uncivilized spawn should they come my way, thank you very much.

Ship the decent-paying jobs overseas, deny people a living wage because Job Creators, keep 'em barefoot and pregnant because Shameless Hussies and then wonder why their "uncivilized spawn" are resorting to violence.

Jobs only go overseas when we can no longer compete with our overseas competitors. And, we can't compete with our overseas competitors because the cost of doing business here is much higher than there, even when you factor in shipping costs.

We have the highest corporate tax among industrialized nations and have a much higher minimum wage than countries where jobs are moving to. Not to mention investment, sales, income, and property taxes, endless fees, licenses, and registrations, and the myriad over-burdensome and job crushing regulations that we have that many of our competitors don't. We've taxed and regulated the jobs right out of the country and people like you demand yet more of the same failed policies. It's as sad as it is stupid.

There's no excuse for violence, least of which are political policies you disagree with. Try voting in better politicians instead of the ones that give you $5 for a vote only to steal $25 from you when you aren't looking. Funny, one thief steeling from another. There truly is no honor among thieves. :-)

Re:That's 30,000 deaths people!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

. . . we could remove guns tomorrow and life would hum on.

No, we couldn't. Name one illegal thing that people want that we've successfully banished from existence. You can't because as long as people want something, legal or not, there will be incentive for others to provide it.

I'd like to get rid of those 11,208 homocides.

So, people only kill themselves with guns? Not quite. They will likely just use other less effective methods potentially injuring themselves or others in the process.

The *practical* implications of removing guns is much less than cars.

I wonder if you would say that as your family is getting robbed and raped by thugs. Even if you would, that's not a choice many others would make or should be forced to make.

So removing them is an easy thing to do to improve safety.

This is a classic liberal fallacy. Guns are a net positive in society. They allow the weak to defend themselves from the strong, which is why the founding fathers saw fit to make it the 2nd amendment to our constitution only superseded by free speech.

Re:That's 30,000 deaths people!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to get rid of those 11,208 homocides.

So, people only kill themselves with guns? Not quite. They will likely just use other less effective methods potentially injuring themselves or others in the process.

I apologize. I misread your statement. I thought you meant suicides.

To your point, though, there would be many more homicides and other injustices without the protection guns provide. Not to mention many of those homicides are going to be justified, so that homicide stat is pretty much useless for citing criminal homicide.

Re:That's 30,000 deaths people!!!

[rubycodez]

"Oh, but abstinence-only edumakashun and defunding Planned Parenthood as a social experiment has been such a success" -- Irrelevant, I didn't say those were good nor did I say I endorsed anyone who held those views

I have a decent paying job because studied, worked hard, and I've collected skills my whole life, what's the problem? Someone who doesn't do those things finds themselves out of work and needing a handout and that's my fault? guess again

Re:That's 30,000 deaths people!!!

[Immerman]

Tax rates are almost irrelevant - yes, our highest corporate marginal tax rate is almost half again the average, but the real cost is in our environmental and working-condition regulations. The only way we can compete with China and other developing economies without invoking some sort of trade barriers (tariffs, etc) is to lower our own standards accordingly. So, are you volunteering to work for 1/10th your current wage and let factories dump toxic waste into your drinking water and the air you breathe? Because that's what we're trying to compete against.

Re:That's 30,000 deaths people!!!

[Immerman]

That's wonderful for you, and good advice in general. The problem is we only need so many engineers, professors, lawyers, etc. The vast majority of the labor *demand* is for low-skill workers - clerks, janitors, factory workers, etc. Society *needs* most people to work the "lousy" jobs - there aren't anywhere near enough "good" jobs to go around, and society will collapse if those "lousy" jobs don't get done.

And in the US today, if you're working a lousy job it's basically impossible to get ahead, no matter how hard you work you're doing good just to avoid sliding into debt. Throw in a medical problem, poorly-timed layoff, or other major setback and yes, you pretty much need "handouts" to survive. Are you really advocating that we should allow half the population to live just one piece of bad luck away from destitution?

Re:That's 30,000 deaths people!!!

[turbidostato]

"Guns are a net positive in society."

So much in fact that USA is, on average, a much better place to live than Norway or France because guns are not easily obtained there.

Re:That's 30,000 deaths people!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Tax rates are almost irrelevant . . .

What are you talking about? Tax rates are absolutely relevant. The price of every product you buy has the cost of those taxes built in to them. Companies are leaving the US right now specifically because of our high taxes. They either leave or close up shop completely, so they leave. This has been going on for decades now.

. . . the real cost is in our environmental and working-condition regulations.

I absolutely agree that regulations can't be overlooked and contribute just as much, if not more, to the artificially high cost of products made in the US. However, the vast majority of those costly regulations are completely unnecessary and over-burdensome.

. . . are you volunteering to work for 1/10th your current wage . . .

Yes, because the cost of everything would go down in parity with my wage as the cost of taxes and regulations are eliminated from the price of the final product. As an added bonus, we could actually compete with our foreign counterparts and spend more money on product rather than the useless and wasteful government protection we pay for now.

. . . let factories dump toxic waste into your drinking water and the air you breathe? Because that's what we're trying to compete against.

Yes, our government only burdens business in the realm of the environment and working conditions. If that were only true, maybe we could compete. Unfortunately, the government's reach is far and wide. We are taxed and regulated coming and going and coming again many times over with not nearly enough to show for it, and our poor economy reflects this. Not to mention the government-induced economic collapse we just experienced in 2008.

In any case, the idea that we need government regulation to stop companies from poisoning the drinking water and for healthy working conditions is just wrong. Don't you think people would have a problem with any of that. Do you think people would continue to buy their products or live near their facilities? Who could work for them if they couldn't drink or bathe in the water? If someone didn't like the working conditions, they could always work somewhere else or for themselves.

This idea that we need government to control everything is just wrong. Much of what government does is either unnecessary or could be done much cheaper and more efficiently, but that doesn't buy votes or favor one business or industry over another, which is the real reason many politicians favor these regulations. It's called regulatory capture. Check it out sometime.

Re:That's 30,000 deaths people!!!

[Immerman]

I absolutely agree that regulatory capture is a major problem, but I think you need to do a little research on just how terrible environmental conditions were before government regulation stepped in. The problem is that, just like buying stuff made in China today, people buy mostly on price, somewhat on quality, and to hell with the people being poisoned at the manufacturing site. Sure, if GM is dumping toxic waste into your city's water supply you might boycott them, but they still have the rest of the country and world to sell to - a local boycott doesn't really matter. to their sales numbers. A labor boycott might work, but people need to eat, and every major company in the world faces the same reality, so it's not like you can move somewhere less poisoned and get a similar job. Either you work for the people poisoning you, or you don't work.

The only way the free market can solve the problem is with widespread awareness and *empathy* among consumers - a huge fraction of the customer base has to unite and say "We won't buy your products until you clean up your act, even though that will mean higher prices and there's no benefit for me personally". But if people were willing to do that, then we wouldn't be having to worry about imported Chinese goods undercutting domestic production because nobody would be willing to buy them.

Re:That's 30,000 deaths people!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Using "on average" to evaluate living in the US and France borders on being disingenuous, probably for Norway also. I would say that Baltimore, MD, US is much worse than living almost anywhere in France, and I could use any number of similar US cities to make the same statement. In contrast, the state of Vermont is quite nice. Did you know that concealed carry is legal without permit/license in Vermont, and that, perhaps coincidentally, in the entire list of mass shootings since 1982, as compiled by Mother Jones magazine (no supporter of private gun ownership by a long shot), exactly zero of them happened there? El Paso, TX, US is frequently cited as one of the safest cities in the nation, and it also just happens to have exceptionally lax gun laws. For murders committed using just fists and feet (no weapons at all), we in the US kill more people per capita than Brits by a good margin. Do you suppose that Brits have less access to fists and feet?

The focus on firearms is a red herring. The US has, on average (heh), a violent culture problem, to put it in a nutshell. The guns just make it readily apparent.

- T

Re:That's 30,000 deaths people!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

. . . how terrible environmental conditions were before government regulation stepped in.

I think much of what you might cite probably comes down to never having been industrialized and not being able to predict the future. Humans aren't perfect and need to make mistakes before they can learn from them. I think as people have become educated on the negative effects of various manufacturing processes, we've become more respectful of the environment regardless of government regulation.

Sure, if GM is dumping toxic waste into your city's water supply you might boycott them, but they still have the rest of the country and world to sell to . . .

That misses the point, which is if you poison the environment your workers live in, you will soon have no workers, as they will be ill, dead, or working somewhere else. Further, the infrastructure necessary to support the workers would also have moved on.

Also, I have no problem with using the courts to seek financial restitution for damages to people and property as a result of such poisoning. All of this should serve as deterrent enough for most to not destroy our shared environment. No need for the EPA and it's over-burdsome and costly regulations.

A labor boycott might work, but people need to eat, and every major company in the world faces the same reality, so it's not like you can move somewhere less poisoned and get a similar job.

That works both ways. Are people in one place less susceptible to poison than people in another place? No, which is why labor and consumer boycotts would be effective.

Either you work for the people poisoning you, or you don't work.

Or, you get ahead of the curve and work for yourself, like I said before.

The only way the free market can solve the problem is with widespread awareness and *empathy* among consumers . . .

I think manufacturers poisoning people worldwide fits that prescription.

But if people were willing to do that, then we wouldn't be having to worry about imported Chinese goods undercutting domestic production because nobody would be willing to buy them.

Except what China is doing is unsustainable. The quality of their air is becoming very counterproductive and they will need to continue to work on that. This is a normal part of becoming industrialized.

Some are willing to resort to boycott. Many try to avoid their products because they think it helps the US economy to buy US made goods. Others boycott for environmental or political reasons. It doesn't seem to take much these days.

While pollution is bad in China, it's not worse than starving to death, which is why they are in the situation they are in. It's also why I think most don't feel the need to boycott their products.

If environmentalists were truly concerned with pollution in China, they should be doing everything they can to make the US and other countries who, generally, respect the environment as hospitable to business as possible. Instead it's the other way around, unfortunately.

Sounds good to me.

[blankinthefill]

Sounds good to me. Part of the point (maybe the biggest part) of these evaluations is so that consumers are equipped to make good, educated decisions when it comes to the cars they purchase. Another is to provide incentive to car manufacturers to actually improve tech. That means evolving standards to always get better. It's very similar to the fleet MPG standards... the best outcome is complete protection for passengers and pedestrians. We know that's not possible, but we know we can do better than we are, so we can evolve our standards to always be improving the status quo. At some point you do hit diminishing returns, but I don't think we're even close to there yet. Imo, they should rank a current average '4' at the equivalent of a 2 in the new scale, and then make the equivalent of a 5 basically impossible to get now, but attainable in 5-10 years with heavy focus on the development of safety systems. And in 15~20 years when most cars are again getting towards the top of the scale... reset again.

Re:Sounds good to me.

[Firethorn]

I agree that they need to toughen and expand the standards to reach any given score occasionally, but I think that more than a 1 star move is perhaps too much, because it can lead to confusion over why a 2017 model 2 star model is safer than a 2016 4 star model. It's better that the 2017 stays a 4 star if it adequately improves it's safety, or drops to a 3 if it doesn't.

On the other hand, this can lead to either widening the scale or doing updates more often.

That being said, I don't know if it'd be fair to set the standards so that only the Tesla Model S gets a 4 start and everybody else is stuck at 3 or less. From everything I've read, that car is insanely protective of it's passengers. We're talking about passengers walking away from accidents that would have been fatal in most other vehicles.

Re:Sounds good to me.

[blankinthefill]

For the first point, I see what you're saying and agree, but at the same time, it sounds like it's not actually going to be a 'star' based system (which is why I was saying 'star equivalent), and I think that gives them the ability rate older models in the new system alongside newer models, without the confusion, since the rating system isn't going to be just the one measurement, if that makes sense. For the second part, I think it's totally fair. I mean, if Tesla is the only company that has put in the work to make their car that safe, right out of the gate, then that's how it it. Tesla, as far as I know, hasn't been doing anything that any other high end car manufacturer couldn't do if they had prioritized it. If they designed their car so that it's already so far ahead of the pack that even under stringent new standards it STILL performs amazingly, I think that's great. AND it provides a very hard incentive to other companies. Unlike with the newer MPG regulations, they won't be able to whine about something being impossible... because it's clearly already been done. Personally, I actually kind of like that even better. :D

Re:Sounds good to me.

[Firethorn]

Having reread the article, it seems a pretty standard coverage of a draft proposal set. Sure, they propose a 'multi-faceted' rating, but later they mention one of the approved things is allowing half-star ratings. So the stars will still be around.

As for Tesla's safety, well, they actually ARE doing something that the other manufacturers can't effectively do - not have an engine in their vehicle.

Conventional auto manufacturers spend a lot of work on controlling where the engine goes in a crash. With a Tesla, they have a huge 'ideal' area available as a crush zone compared to the conventional in the form of their 'frunk'. Then add in where the weight of the vehicle is (abnormally low and centered).

That being said, Musk still didn't skimp on the safety measures. In the fatal accident I remember, it involved a car thief stealing the vehicle from a dealership and hitting speeds over 100mph downtown. He clipped something, lost control, and the resulting ping-pong balling ended up with the car ripped in half with the back half of the vehicle wedged a story and a half or so UP between a church and another building. Even then, he was still intact enough to resuscitate, only dying in surgery in the hospital.

An earlier accident had the driver colliding with two concrete barriers, busting through one, hitting a tree(still estimated at ~70 mph), and walking away.

The only other cars really designed to keep the driver alive in such scenarios are race cars, and they do that by things like not actually having doors(weak spots) while being equipped with 5 point harnesses, helmets, and roll cages.

Re:Sounds good to me.

[mrspoonsi]

Euro NCap do not rate the Tesla as you do (82% score):

http://www.euroncap.com/en/res...

Compared to say a similar size Jag XF (92%): http://www.euroncap.com/en/res...

Re:Sounds good to me.

[Anonymous Coward]

The euroncap report also dings Tesla for things that were repaired with software updates. The report even said that the dummy had not sustained any injuries even without the update.

So no injuries, and a update to ensure it stays that way, yet they get dinged for it.

They also dinged Tesla because it was not the easiest to put a child seat in?

Report looks biased.

Re:Sounds good to me.

[matfud]

They won't retest it unless it is a new model. A software update is not a new model. And what did the update actually change?

Re:Sounds good to me.

[Anonymous Coward]

Another is to provide incentive to car manufacturers to actually improve tech.

No need. Customers will demand the features they want, safety related or otherwise. You act as if government regulation would be the only factor in motivating manufacturers to implement new features and technology in vehicles. That's silly.

You must be amazed at how the new vehicle detection and crash avoidance features out there were develop without government regulation forcing manufacturers to do so.

the best outcome is complete protection for passengers and pedestrians.

The guaranteed outcome of government mandates like these is much more expensive cars, whether you want and can benefit from so-called "safety" features or not.

Government has no business forcing vehicle safety regulations on consumers for their own protection. We can decide for ourselves which features we need and prefer.

Re:Sounds good to me.

[Grishnakh]

Yes, a software update IS a new model. Teslas don't have "model years", they make changes on-the-fly, whether they're hardware or software. (SW changes usually get rolled out to everyone that has the compatible hardware, HW changes are normally only done on the assembly line.)

Re:Sounds good to me.

[Immerman]

And what exactly is stopping other auto manufacturers from not having an engine in their vehicle? If they choose to keep investing in legacy technology instead, well it's only fitting that their rolling bombs be rated as such.

Re:Sounds good to me.

[Immerman]

Because that's worked so well in the past - just look how automakers rushed to put seatbelts in their cars after it was shown how much safety they added. Oh, wait, no, they remained very rare until the government began mandating them.

Re:Sounds good to me.

[Anonymous Coward]

Because that's worked so well in the past . . .

Actually, it did.

. . . just look how automakers rushed to put seatbelts in their cars after it was shown how much safety they added. Oh, wait, no, they remained very rare until the government began mandating them.

What are you talking about? Seat belts weren't mandated in the US until 1968 yet Nash offered them as an option as early 1949, as did Ford in 1955. They were very unpopular, which is why they weren't standard. However, they did become standard in most cars in the early to mid 60s well before they were mandated.

The bottom line is if customers demand extra options for any product, the manufacturer is only too pleased to oblige, as it's extra profit for them they would have never seen otherwise. What business doesn't want to sell you more stuff? That's why these kinds of safety regulations are completely unnecessary.

If I want a safety feature in my car, I'll request it from the dealer and/or have it installed after-market. No need for government to make every car more expensive regardless of the need or desire for the safety feature of the day. Thanks, but no thanks!

Re:Sounds good to me.

[Immerman]

Hmm, I must have misremembered. Retracted.

I agree with your general objection to "for your own good" regulations, with one major caveat: You must accept full responsibility for the consequences. You don't want to install seat belts in your car, fine - but if I cause an accident with you I should be absolved of any responsibility for injuries you sustain that would likely have been avoided if you had been wearing a seatbelt. Same goes for other safety features. As for bystander-protection features - well, so long as you're willing to carry enough insurance to cover your increased threat level, I'm mostly fine with that too.

Re:Sounds good to me.

[matfud]

That may be what you think.
It does not alter the fact that the test was for the car as sold at the time of the test. They can pay for a retest for an updated year/revision if they want to

Was anybody else...

[gwolf]

More startled than any other part of the summary by how close the number of fatalities was to a 16 bit signed integer? Maybe God does not play dice with the universe, but he does use ancient hardware.

Re:Was anybody else...

[SeaFox]

More startled than any other part of the summary by how close the number of fatalities was to a 16 bit signed integer? Maybe God does not play dice with the universe, but he does use ancient hardware.

Yeah, like some old early-90's Pentium, for example.

Don't trust motivation to change...

[Anonymous Coward]

...as safety takes back seat to raising insurance rates for existing cars. Just another way to sell more infotainment cars..

Yeah that's not going to matter.

[Charcharodon]

Natural selection works, quit fighting it.

I wonder what the pedestrian safety rating for my new all steel armored off-road bumper will be?

Seriously idiots that walk in front of cars should not be encouraged to survive much less breed.

The first jail break on self driving cars will be the software that decides to sacrifice the car and passengers over plowing through a bunch of idiots in the street...."cough Black Lives Matters/student protesters, cough, cough....shit heads who are on their phone and don't look up cough..cough"

Re:Yeah that's not going to matter.

[PPH]

I wonder what the pedestrian safety rating is for mandating that a sharp, sheet metal blade be affixed to one's front bumper (a license plate).

Re:Yeah that's not going to matter.

[BLKMGK]

Heh, I got pulled over for not having one bolted on. The officer suggested I could use double stick tape to put it on my bumper since I refused to drill it or put it on my dashboard. I told him the dashboard sucked since I didn't want a blade flying in my car in the event of an accident and the double stick tape was as likely to get a motorcyclist killed as anything else. I told him I'd take the ticket thanks! He also dinged me on tint that was too dark thanks to the previous owner. It was and I stripped it off but I'm not going to get stupid with tape and my plate - I couldn't believe he was serious lol.

Re:Yeah that's not going to matter.

[Charcharodon]

I like that idea too. You wouldn't need anything other than that to get people to drive safely. I like the idea better of just simply making everyone having a mandatory period where the only thing they can ride is a motorcycle before they are allowed to drive something bigger, and then if they break laws are forced back to small bikes. That way they only hurt themselves when they are retarded.

Roads, in just about any modern country, we actually made for cars. Sure there are those foot paths that have been in use for literally thousands of years in places like England, always thought those were pretty cool to use, but the roads these days were bought and paid for by people with vehicles, and that includes most of the foot and bike paths too since the gov'ts tend to lump that all under transportation infrastructure.

My bumpers wouldn't pass

[Anonymous Coward]

Four wheel drive lifted Quadravan with pipe bumpers filled with concrete.

Harmonizing with Europe

[John.Banister]

I think I remember a story that said that collisions with pedestrians is one of the places where EU vehicle safety standards are different from the USA standards in a beneficial way. I wonder if USA vehicles complying with this change makes it one step easier to sell the same cars in both places.

Dammit, just stop

[russotto]

At some point it makes sense to say cars are safe enough that, barring an order-of-magnitude improvement, we should stop adding ever more expensive measures for ever diminishing returns in safety.

Of course there was an increase in deaths in 2015; miles driven are trending up again, having dropped in 2008-9 and then leveled off for a while. It's the raw rate that's up 8%; the per-mile-driven rate is up ~5% ... after being down 5% the year before, and another 5% the year before that, which was up 6% from the year before that.

Re:Dammit, just stop

[turbidostato]

"At some point it makes sense to say cars are safe enough that, barring an order-of-magnitude improvement, we should stop adding ever more expensive measures for ever diminishing returns in safety."

We? I assure you *I* don't add any safety measure to *any* car.

And why do you think you are more clever than the whole market? As long as they are not mandatory (you can reserve that for those "order-of-magnitude" improvements), market will decide. The important part would be to properly signal the advantages: what's the problem in having a 17-star system instead of the current five-based where 17 stars means "capable to stand a 10Mt blast" or something like that and then make 4-star (or whatever make sense) mandatory? As the article say, now most cars aggregate on the 4-star rating which means competition between them on security a non-concern: while legislation probably shouldn't mandate any more than needed, it surely can incentivice a desired behaviour.

Re:Dammit, just stop

[BLKMGK]

Hrm, I think your 17 star rated vehicle would probably weigh ten tons, have tracks, and sacrifice anything around it in order to keep the precious inside safe. Want to stop tailgating? Put a spike on the center of the steering wheel! :D

I believe better educated people might be better money spent at some point. I'm not sure we've hit that point yet though. Troubleshooting those various system 5 years or more from now is sure going to suck. Getting the ABS working right and continuing to work on one of my vehicles sure seems to take an act of God. My super duper uber scanner can't touch it :(

Re:Dammit, just stop

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a reason why a modern compact masses more than a '80s W124 sedan.
Hint: Steel. Lots of it.
To comply with *mandatory* ever stricter crash safety standards.

Re:Dammit, just stop

[Khashishi]

Any person who hasn't grown up in a hippie commune can tell you that people are selfish assholes and will not pay for measures to improve safety for other people, so the market won't come up with a nice solution. We have drivers who run over people and back up and run over them again to make sure they're dead. A free market solution will be to put spikes on the cars to make it easier to kill pedestrians. Any safety options will be geared towards protecting the occupants of the vehicle.

Why is the fatality rate so high?

[Harlequin80]

Is it just me or does that fatality rate seem really high?

Last year Australia had 1100 deaths or 5 per 100,000
UK had 1713 in 2013 or 2.85 per 100,000 population
France had 3250 in 2014 or 4.9 per 100,000 population
US at 32,675 is 11 per 100,000

And having a look at average mileage per year Australia is about the same as the US, but double the UK (so call them 5.7) and about 50% more than France (so again call them 7.5).

But speed limits are slower in the US than all of those examples. So where is it going wrong?

Re:Why is the fatality rate so high?

[Anonymous Coward]

testing basically.. Australia, UK, and France have more stringent licensing standards, it also cost more money and they often have higher age requirements to get a drivers license.

Re:Why is the fatality rate so high?

[Bartles]

Really, deaths per unit of passenger miles should be the standard. After a cursory examination of statistics it seems it's difficult to find this data.

Re:Why is the fatality rate so high?

[Bartles]

or vehicle miles traveled.

Re:Why is the fatality rate so high?

[Anonymous Coward]

The UK has 213,700 miles of road.

Round trip from AK to FL is 10,000 miles.

One could, quite literally, drive along every single road in the UK by just simply doing a road trip around the US once a year during retirement.

In fact, a single round trip from one extreme in the US to the other would allow you to travel across the entire UK well over 10 times.

Now that you know this, do you think the average British person uses their car anywhere near as long, per day, as compared to someone from the US?

I'm willing to bet electrocution by 240 volts is far more common in the UK than it is in the US. But, just like the car stat, it's a rather unfair comparison.

Re:Why is the fatality rate so high?

[Anonymous Coward]

Really, deaths per unit of passenger miles should be the standard. After a cursory examination of statistics it seems it's difficult to find this data.

That's not so obvious, cars go faster or slower due to traffic etc. Slower cars mean lower forces and less injury. You must factor speeds and forces into your calculation or it's not very useful.

Re:Why is the fatality rate so high?

[WindBourne]

How odd. Speed limits in America highways is 85 max. Other than Germany, What is it in the other nations that are faster?

Re:Why is the fatality rate so high?

[Harlequin80]

Ah ok. I thought the speed limits were 65 or 70mph for highways. That is what google told me anyway in which case all of Europe is faster. If it is 85mph then no they aren't faster.

Re:Why is the fatality rate so high?

[Harlequin80]

But I did correct for average mileage of passenger vehicles per year. So yes UK drivers travel on average half the distance of US drivers, so I doubled their rate of fatalities to 5.7 per 100,000 population.. Australian average annual travel is almost identical to the US....

Re:Why is the fatality rate so high?

[Harlequin80]

Do you commute to the otherside of America for your job? Most people will commute about the same distance to and from work irrespective of country.

UK annual average mileage is about half of American average mileage. But even correcting for that, by doubling their fatality rate it is half the US rate.

Re:Why is the fatality rate so high?

[AmiMoJo]

Lower standards to get a driving licence, cheap powerful cars with poor handling, vehicles that are more likely to cause pedestrian deaths in an accident.

For example, EU rules require there to be a certain gap between the top of the engine block and the bonnet (hood in US English). When a pedestrian is hit they tend to rotate, slamming their head into the bonnet. The gap gives it room to flex, instead of bringing their skull to a hard stop against the engine, and thus such accidents are much more survivable. Obviously this doesn't work so well with larger, taller vehicles like SUVs and light trucks. Bullbars are also banned here for the same reason.

Re:Why is the fatality rate so high?

[Anonymous Coward]

A few off the top of my head.

Less strict enforcement of drink driving regulations.

More stop sign or light controlled junctions and less roundabouts. Therefore more side on "t-bone" collisions.

More trucks and SUVs with a higher centre of gravity. Therefore more roll-overs.

Re:Why is the fatality rate so high?

[Anonymous Coward]

State and Federal highways are typically 55-65 mph
Interstate Highways are typically 65 - 85 mph (65 in cities, and 85 is a rarity in some of the western states)

If you are thinking interstate the safe assumption is 75 mph.

Note: ALL speed limits are locally set, so while some states cap it at 70, others allow up to 85. Usually the states that cap it are the ones that have cops under every bridge trying to catch people on cruise control just passing through.

Re:Why is the fatality rate so high?

[Anonymous Coward]

On top of that *everyone* seems to think they are a 'good above average' driver. I personally am an average driver. I make mistakes here and there. I get distracted easily. etc,etc,etc...

In my area I very rarely see people following the proper distance back. They think 1/2 car length is enough. When if anyone who even slightly paid attention in drivers ed would know is wrong. I see people changing lanes with no signals and it is rare to see otherwise. I see people speeding up or slowing down to block people from properly merging. I see people texting/using the phone while driving. I see people speeding or going too slow for the flow (both are equally dangerous).

When I told my wife about the two second rule she looked at me as if I had just said something in latin. It is not an uncommon reaction around here.

Driving is treated as a competition. It is not.

The only people I talk to about self driving cars that get upset about it are the same ones I see doing bad things while driving. I personally think it will be amazing.

Re:Why is the fatality rate so high?

[Anonymous Coward]

nope, just low standards to get a driving license and our continued unwillingness to crush cars when driven maliciously. If you're convicted of driving without insurance or a license, the car should be confiscated.

Re:Why is the fatality rate so high?

[Solandri]

Wikipedia has it listed per vehicle mile (sort the middle column). As you suspect, it levels the death rate out substantially (indicating Americans drive a lot more), with the U.S. clustered with Japan, New Zealand, Belgium, Spain, and Austria. France and Canada very close.

I would also hypothesize that the poor long-distance rail system in the U.S. also contributes. Most long-haul freight transport in the U.S. is by large trucks. The trucks I saw while driving in Europe were much smaller (and fewer). The severity of a collision depends partly on the difference in mass between the two vehicles. If one vehicle is significantly heavier, the lighter vehicle effectively bounces off the heavier vehicle, and the occupants experience up to 2x the force.

Re:Why is the fatality rate so high?

[WindBourne]

Federal makes it 85 MPH max with a max of 75 MPH in city limits.
States have the right to put their own limits on. Here in the west, we typically do 80 or 85 max, though nobody pays attention to it.
Instead, most will run at 90-95. And in Texas, Idaho, and Montana, it is common to do 100+ with a $5 ticket for speeding up to 20 MPH over if there is light traffic.

Re:Why is the fatality rate so high?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about that. I've seen claims roundabouts are more safe but the only roundabout I know of around here is listed as the most dangerous intersection in the US. I actively avoid it as it seems like there are constant accidents there http://www.roadsbridges.com/ne...

Re:Why is the fatality rate so high?

[Grishnakh]

On top of that *everyone* seems to think they are a 'good above average' driver. I personally am an average driver. I make mistakes here and there. I get distracted easily. etc,etc,etc...

Oh bullshit. I'd be willing to bet good money that you're a well-above-average driver. The fact that you recognize your deficiencies and know and practice all the driving rules you listed (2-second rule, signaling lane changes, etc.) proves it. It's the people who think they're great drivers who are usually the bad ones.

"Average" drivers are the ones like you describe: tailgating, not signaling, texting while driving, etc.

Re:Why is the fatality rate so high?

[Anonymous Coward]

On average, Americans drive bigger cars longer distances at higher speeds more frequently with more lax training requirements than the rest of the western world.

Also, while the expressway speed limit might be slower (though speed limits don't stop most from going much faster, myself included), that's not where most of those deaths occur. They're pedestrian impacts in cities, where speed limits are 25-45mph (and these are also frequently ignored). They mostly stem from people not paying attention and not adhering to traffic signals and rules (on all sides, drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians). That's why TFA, NHTSA, and manufacturers are all focused on avoiding pedestrian impacts - it's the most realistic angle for any significant improvement. The rest of the common crash scenarios are already accounted for and current standards are working well.

Vehicle safety has improved drastically over time, and these low numbers reflect that. Today, you can go buy just about any vehicle less than 10 years old, and expect that if you have a rollover accident on the freeway or smash into a truck or a barrier, that you'll not only live, but probably even walk away with only minor injuries. That's incredible. It would have been unthinkable just 30 years ago. My parents and grandparents were lucky to even survive most vehicle crashes.

Re:Why is the fatality rate so high?

[Grishnakh]

Long-distance rail isn't that bad in the US; we haul a huge amount of freight by rail. Trucks are used a lot because they're more flexible and can haul to the final point-of-use (like a big Walmart store), but there's a lot of freight that comes by container on a ship from Asia and then gets put on a train. Also, a lot of bulk cargo (like coal) is shipped exclusively by train.

As for trucks, how often do you see an accident between a semi and a car? They just aren't that frequent; it's stupid car drivers hitting each other where people get killed. The big difference is training and professionalism: truck drivers have lots of training, difficult driving tests to get a class-A license, and they're all professional drivers who do it almost every day for a living. They also have rules to follow like how many hours per day they're allowed to drive (which sometimes they fudge, but it's nothing like the way "normal" people drive when they might be very tired, drunk, etc.). Usually, the only time I see or even hear of truck accidents is in very bad weather.

Re:Why is the fatality rate so high?

[Grishnakh]

Why on earth would you want to crush a car unless it's too old or damaged to be usable? If you want to confiscate someone's car, that's fine, you can just resell it. If you want to crush cars, you need to do some kind of "cash for clunkers" program where you buy up shitty old cars and crush them, and I don't mean 10-year-old cars either like that last poorly-run program, I mean 70s-80s junkers which have terrible crash safety, poor fuel economy, and very high emissions. For poor people who rely on those junkers, give them one of the newer confiscated cars from the people driving without a license.

Re:Why is the fatality rate so high?

[Harlequin80]

I think you might have accidentally identified another reason for the difference. 30kph over the limit here in Australia would get you an instant $549 and 6 point fine. Two of those and you lose your license.....

Pretty soon cars will be completely safe...

[Bartles]

...because no one will be able to afford to drive them.

Mandating such tech is leading to disturbing priva

[Anonymous Coward]

Cars after a certain date are already required by law to include black boxes of a sort. In a crash police can get at these boxes and find out some information about the crash. I don't know enough about theses systems, but given the proprietary nature of the systems in our vehicles there is all sorts of information that the government could already be gaining access to. When I get my car inspected that is an invasion of my privacy. We need to undo these laws. Not pass more bad laws. No amount of privacy invasion can make us safer nor justify itself.

“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” - Ben Franklin .

I Am So Relieved

[Anonymous Coward]

When I first saw the acronym I immediately thought that the Transportation Security Agency had devised Nematic Hypersonic devices for insertion into the human throat, rectum and penis to vacuum out any hiding Muslim or Extremist Islamic or KKK or Jehovah's Witness or Black Panthers etc etc from my body.

How relieved I am now. I can go and sit on the toilet and be relieved!

Ha ha

Re:Mandating such tech is leading to disturbing pr

[BLKMGK]

You might want to learn a bit more about the ECUs in your car before you think plugging in an OBD-II scanner is some sort of an invasion. You're right, you don't know enough about these systems but you could certainly learn if you tried.

90% get at least a 4 star rating, and yet ...

[WindBourne]

large numbers of ppl die in cars. Why? Because they are not as safe as advertised.

bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

...because no one will be able to afford to drive them.

1947 average price: $2680 (2015 dollars: $28583)
  2008 average price: $27,704 (2015 dollars: $30603)
2015 average price: $33560

car prices in real terms have increased 20% in a 70 year period or far less than 1% per year.

in the meantime they have gotten so much better in quality and safety!

you are so full of shit

Re:bullshit

[Bartles]

Unfortunately for you, you have not looked at income and purchasing power over the same time period.

How old is your car?

[Wise Raptor]

Average age of a car is something like 11 years old. If you assume that this trend continues then if it takes them 1-2 years to finish this standard and 2-3 years to design a car to pass with full marks then this won't be in the average car for something like 14-16 years. Source on average age of cars. http://press.ihs.com/press-rel...

get rid of the stupid assists

[louden obscure]

BMWs that slam into park when in reverse and the door is ajar, damaged or missing...yeah, nice feature when one is attempting to back the vehicle in or out of a repair stall (took me awhile to figure out I needed to fasten the seat belt for such low speed maneuvering

Cars that move the damn outside mirrors down when shifted into reverse...WTF

Who the fuck thought putting a tiny rear camera screen in the rear view mirror was a good idea?

 

Re:get rid of the stupid assists

[Anonymous Coward]

The point of owning a BMW is to have a bunch of stupid features no one else has (or wants). I know a BMW owner who bragged to me about how many different switches he had to turn on and off different lights and how he and another BMW waiting at a light used them all. If you're not proud of these things, you clearly bought the wrong car.

BTW, you just need to put your foot on the break when backing with the door open, which is where it should have been anyway.