8 ms·

The most under-hyped, but most important, technology since seat belts

115 points by MaysonL 17y ago

ErrantX 17y ago
It is so reliable I no longer impulsively reach for my brakes. Let’s say the car in front of me speeds up after slamming on its brakes. Hmm. That sounds pretty dangerous :(
- chaosmachine 17y ago
  Yeah, I could see this becoming a problem in the future. Imagine getting used to this, then for some reason, needing to drive an older car. "Oops, I didn't realize this car required manual braking".
  - sailormoon 17y ago
    There could be two classes of license, like in Japan where you can have a limited qualification to drive only automatics, or a full license including manuals too. In this case, however, the "automatic" would be the fully automated vehicle, and the "manual" would be the traditional human-controlled one.
    - borism 17y ago
      why would you need a license for a fully automated vehicle?
      - billswift 17y ago
        The real reason for drivers licenses is social control. My father's first driver's license was never supposed to expire, my State ID was never supposed to expire, in both they changed the rules, and forced stores and banks to no longer accept "expired" IDs as proof of identity. It's not like your identity or age or ability to drive or anything else changes when your ID expires, they just want to keep you on their chain.
        sailormoon 17y ago
        Don't ignore the departmental revenue from license renewals.
- pbhjpbhj 17y ago
  Taken out of context your quote does sound dangerous. If he were used to this and tried to drive another vehicle he may have slower reactions when braking is needed. The acceleration in your quote is because the road ahead is now clear and he can accelerate up to his cruise speed unless he gets too close again. THe full paras: >I pull onto a road, say freeway 280, and I set the cruise control. I set the top speed the car should ever go. Say 80 mph. But it doesn’t go 80 unless there’s no cars in front of me. Usually in Silicon Valley there’s traffic. So, the car in that case follows the car in front of me. >But they just slammed on their brakes to avoid something. What does my car do? It slams on its brakes too. It is so reliable I no longer impulsively reach for my brakes. Let’s say the car in front of me speeds up after slamming on its brakes. My car speeds up too. It’s like there is a rope between my car and theirs. It is like nothing you’ve ever experienced.
  - ErrantX 17y ago
    Yeh sorry the accel section got copied over by accident. I do think the first section highlights one of the big concerns though. Regardless of scobles excitment this tech is still in the infancy. There could be a dangerous transfer period.
- mschy 17y ago
  I have a car equipped with a similar system, and have a similar reaction (my car will slow down to a stop if I let it). I've had no issues thinking that rental cars were the same, because the driving experience with "standard" cruise control and radar/laser cruise control is very obviously different.
pclark 17y ago
> Just like it was criminal for car makers to drag their feet pushing out seat belts, air bags, and anti-lock brakes in previous safety fights Apparently Honda couldn't get consumers to pay for ABS and had to install it by default at no extra charge in order for people to have it.
- mike_organon 17y ago
  I agree that is part of the issue, many customers don't care. I think there is another relavent point. The video of the Ford guy illustrates how companies are competing on improving this tech. If it were mandated, might that be like forcing commoditization? Companies with inferior tech would push it out too soon. There would be less competition because customers would accept the minimal and it would be harder for companies to differentiate. As opposed to now: forward-looking customers with the money can look for the best system which pushes the tech forward.
- dschobel 17y ago
  And let's not forget that there are still laws on the books in most (all?) states to compel passengers to wear seat-belts. People are very peculiar about which safety features they wil like and use.
mjs 17y ago
"Ford’s version of radar prepares the brakes so that all you need to do is touch them to get full braking pressure if the car thinks it’s headed for a collision." That sounds like a really good way to get hit from behind. Does the system try to stop you as fast as possible, or as slow as possible while still avoiding the car in front? The second option is kinder to cars behind without such sophisticated safety systems.
- adamsmith 17y ago
  It'd be especially cool if it took both front and back radar into account. If nobody is behind you break more liberally but otherwise exercise more caution. (It does seem like there would be room for such an "aggressiveness" parameter, since you can't predict the future breaking behavior of the car in front of you and it might have stronger or weaker breaks.) Either way I hope all of this stuff works out to be a net win. We should know more in a year or two!
  - jacabado 17y ago
    I just saw a Top Gear episode where they tested the last Mercedes S which does just this. (talk about serendipity and having new ideas!)
  - electromagnetic 17y ago
    Wouldn't the ideal step be to harmonize the radar/lidar technology and have a system enabled that forces a safe driving zone. It's all too common on highways that vehicles can't stop within a safe distance if the vehicle in front of it stops, which leads to 5 vehicle pile ups. You'd only need a moderate percentage of vehicles with the radar/lidar technology to keep a highway reasonably spaced. EG if you're tailgating, your vehicle will brake, if someone is tailgating you it will speed you up (within the speed limit) to get you to a safe distance, or (when capable) shift you safely into a different lane when you're in cruise. Eventually you could simply have vehicles communicate, so when the guy in front of me brakes, my vehicle gets instructed that it's approaching a decelerating object. It'll be small 'safety' steps that will eventually remove human error from vehicle accidents.
WesleyJohnson 17y ago
I suppose I would have to experience first hand to really weigh in on whether I would use it or not, but from an initial reaction standpoint, I would think I'd prefer an all or nothing approach. Meaning, either fully automated driving or don't help me at all. I just can't help but imagine that I'd never be able to get used to this type of selective assistance. Someone cutting you off doesn't necessarily mean you're headed for a crash and no cars in front of you doesn't necessarily mean you can drive 80 mph without caution. If you grow to rely on a system such as this, it only takes one incident where the vehicle doesn't believe it's about to be in a crash when you really are for it to ultimately fail. Or worse yet, for the car to sense you may be in a crash and apply counter measures which causes panic by the driver and ultimately leads to a crash anyway due to overcorrection or something similar.
vlad 17y ago
According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, electronic stability control is the most important technology since seat belts. Yet, as recently as a couple of years ago, the Volkswagen Rabbit (Golf) was the only car under $20,000 I could find with the option, other than Suzuki. As an example, the Honda Civic did not have it, and you had to buy an Accord or an SUV to get Honda's version of it. An electronic stability system "makes the vehicle go where you're pointing it by applying the (computer-assisted) brakes. I think this is definitely a milestone." This includes driving on ice, or making tight turns (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-hHWSQhKuc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-hHWSQhKuc) Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/06/13/MNG7UJD1451.DTL http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/06/...
- CamperBob 17y ago
  There are some really interesting risks associated with electronic stability control, though. One system used by GM on the Corvette works by comparing the input from an inertial yaw sensor to the current steering-wheel angle. Any disagreement results in selective application of braking at one or more wheels, as needed to make the two sensors agree. Now: what happens when one of those sensors fails? http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c6-tech-performance/2336065-service-active-handling-consumer-action.html http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c6-tech-performance/2336065-... I wish I could find the video I saw earlier, where a Z06 doing about 90 MPH did a hard right turn into the wall at a drag strip for no apparent reason. I don't know with any certainty that the active-handling system was at fault in that incident, but it was enough to turn me off of the technology in a 500+ HP car.
bmalicoat 17y ago
Interesting that it doesn't always perform in severe weather conditions as this seems like it could be when it was most useful, eg avoiding a pile-up in a whiteout. He mentions that you shouldn't be driving in such conditions but unfortunately Michigan is famous for rapid and surprising weather changes. Other than that it seems like very cool technology that hopefully becomes standard soon. It's nice to see that car manufacturers are willing to take things slow to avoid rejection because they think it is important as well.
jordanb 17y ago
The thing about ABS is that it operates on the principle of least surprise: It takes what the user expect brakes to do (slow the car down) and makes it work even when traditional brakes would fail to perform that task. So it took a technology that the user expected to work in a certain way, and made it work better in that way. It made brake behavior less surprising to the user. This technology seems to do the opposite (at least, the way Scoble described it). It massively changes the behavior of the car based on some sensors, and then expects the user of the car to deal with the different behavior of the systems, all in a high-stress situation with alarms going off.
- mschy 17y ago
  In practice what it means is that if you're about to crash into something, and you hit the brakes, that it hits them 100% right off the bat, instead of the 50% or 80% that most people would go for. I've not used the system in the Prius, but I've used a competing system and it's not at all surprising.
  - ams6110 17y ago
    In many cases you're better off trying to steer around the collision than (or in addition to) stopping short of it. I've seen a few crashes where people could have just steered onto the shoulder or median to avoid the crash but it seems that they just applied the brakes and hoped for the best. I don't think driver's education in the USA teaches emergency maneuvering much. How is it elsewhere?
    - TeHCrAzY 17y ago
      Nothing taught in Australia, at least conventionally. My driving instructor was a retired police driver trainer, I benefited greatly from his experience and understanding of vehicles. Never had an accident, but avoided several via quick thinking + knowledge of how the car will react and what options I have when driving.
    - deleted 17y ago
      [deleted]
teuobk 17y ago
There's a lot of interesting automobile safety research going on in Silicon Valley. For example, Mercedes-Benz has a building in the Stanford Research Park in Palo Alto where they design next-generation safety systems. My former roommate works there, and, though I probably shouldn't give details, I can say that there are some neat safety systems under development. One tidbit: a number of stoplights in Palo Alto and Redwood City broadcast information about when they are going to change. A properly equipped car can receive that information and decide whether to proceed as usual or begin braking, even before there is a visible change. As a corollary, if the red light is about to turn green, the car can decide not to slow down.
- weaksauce 17y ago
  The slowing down for a red is nice but the not slowing down because it is going to turn green is scary. My friend died in a car crash because he timed the light and saw that it was going to be green. A mild red light runner t-boned his car and that was that. I say mild red light runner because had he not timed the green perfectly he probably would still be alive. Don't get me wrong this is promising technology but I would be hesitant to rely on it to do too much.
  - vijayshankar 17y ago
    One more argument is that there is usually a time gap between one light turning red and the other turning green. This gap should allow most of mild red light runners to pass through safely. (At least in my city in India this is true, the time gap is as big as 5 to 8 seconds)
    - weaksauce 17y ago
      The systems here have a time gap too but it was not sufficient in this case. I think it's at most 1-2 seconds here. I understand that argument but I am of the school of thought that the machine should not make decisions that can impact my safety unless it is an emergency. shaving off a few seconds on my commute is not what I would call a much of a benefit when there is a substantial possible downside.
mschy 17y ago
I've had the radar-assist cruise control for two years (complete with braking) and everything, and I view it as a first step towards automated driving. People aren't likely to accept automated driving (even if it's statistically safer than the average driver) but they will pretty readily accept driving aids that watch the car in front of you, and watch if you're in your lane, and what not. I expect those "aids" to continue to advance and expand with them being "aids" for a long time, until liability problems are solved. And FWIW, I've had no issue when driving rental cars that don't have the radar/laser based cruise control. The experience of regular cruise control and radar/laser cruise control is sufficiently different that there's really no way to mix them up.
- elblanco 17y ago
  On long stretches of Highway in the American West, there really isn't a whole lot of driving to do except keep the car in the lane. It's pretty clear that we're getting painfully close to fully automated highway driving.
  - mschy 17y ago
    I wouldn't describe fully automated highway driving as painful in the least. I'd be quite happy about it. After all, highway driving isn't remotely interesting from a "driving" viewpoint, so I'd hardly miss it.
    - tree_of_item 17y ago
      "Painfully" close as in very close. I don't think he meant to say that automated highway driving was painful.
      - elblanco 17y ago
        Right, that's what I meant, apologies for lack of clarity.
ricree 17y ago
"Think about that. If we could cut down on car crashes by even 5% we could save more than 2,000 lives!" I don't know whether or not this is true, but the argument is fallacious. Without further evidence, it is a bit premature to assume that the fatal:nonfatal ratio in crashes prevented will be the same as that of crashes in general. It is possible, though unlikely, that a chance might only prevent nonfatal crashes.
- Retric 17y ago
  They used could save not will save for that vary same reason. Most likely the net effect would be much like seat belts which transform many fatal accidents into non fatal accidents and many non fatal accidents into non accidents. PS: Unlike airbags seat belts do help avoid accidents. But, it's rare to see people talk about that outside of drivers education.
- ams6110 17y ago
  Seems that I've read about studies that show that people have a certain, nearly unconscious risk tolerance. For example, ABS and all-wheel-drive made driving in the snow and ice easier, so people drive a bit faster or more aggressively until they reach their previous risk tolerance level. Thus the potential safety benefit is not realized in actuality. In fact, if people overestimate the added safety of the new technology, they may be more likely to have an accident than without it. Witness the common sight of four-wheel-drive vehicles spun off the road in a snowstorm.
  - michaelbuckbee 17y ago
    Agreed, my dad always described 4 Wheel Drive as a way for people to get stranded farther from help than they otherwise would have.
  - epochwolf 17y ago
    I agree with this. I am far more comfortable driving faster with 4 wheel drive on, so I disable it as soon as I don't need it.
  - Retric 17y ago
Devilboy 17y ago
BMW has a system in their top-end saloons that will safely pull your car over to the side of the road without crashing if the driver is suddenly incapacitated (e.g. a heart attack). These system are great and I hope we can overcome the social barriers eventually. Car accidents are still the #1 cause of preventable death worldwide. EDIT: Here's another great system expected to start trials in 2011: http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/11/road-trains-and-modular-vehicles.html http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/11/road-trains-and-modular-veh... If you have a vehicle fitted with this system you'll be able to join 'road trains' where the front vehicle is driven by a professional driver (e.g. truck or bus driver) and the rest of the cars follow behind it - driven automatically.
- mhartl 17y ago
  N.B. saloon == sedan. (As with many of the Britishisms in my brain, I learned 'saloon' from The Economist.)
  - sjs 17y ago
    And here I was searching Google Maps for a classy place to drink and brawl.
  - slyn 17y ago
    What, you don't watch Top Gear? Though more entertaining than educational, I know the difference between my boot from my bonnet thanks to that show, as well as what a saloon, spanner, pillock and many other british-english mannerisms mean.
- nazgulnarsil 17y ago
  how does that work if you're not right next to the shoulder?
  - vaksel 17y ago
    my guess is lasers, they already check to alert you when you have cars in your blind spot, so it most likely checks those before moving you over.
jacabado 17y ago
Just to put in context, a link that was here last week or so about the Automation Paradox: http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/automated-to-death http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/automated-to-dea... Will there be a compromise between traditional crash deaths and safety systems induced deaths ? Not to dismiss the new systems, I'm an optimistic by nature.
- lincolnq 17y ago
  How is it not still a net win? The automated systems fail a lot less often than humans. Even if they can't get the failure rate to 0%, it is still making things safer to replace humans by robots.
axod 17y ago
I don't buy it. If you need a radar to tell you you're about to crash, you're probably not paying attention properly. We should tighten up driving tests. Driving shouldn't be a right, it should be something only competent attentive people can do. It'd be interesting to know stats on Manual vs Automatic car accident rates. I'd guess that Automatics are involved in more accidents since the drivers are probably paying less attention. Similarly cruise control.
- mattmaroon 17y ago
  It's not that you need it to tell you that, it's that the human brain, even when focused, is relatively slow to respond. Not to mention many people have a panic impulse that causes them to yell first and then step on the brakes. In certain situations where a half second can mean the difference between death and a bruised knee, it's pretty impressive stuff.
  - axod 17y ago
    Sure but that's why you pay attention and drive properly, and look out for any dangers/issues. The best way to cut down the number of accidents is to get rid of all the crazy bad drivers, rather than any sort of technology IMHO.
    - mattmaroon 17y ago
      It's not even remotely economical to eliminate bad drivers, not to mention good drivers who driver badly at times. My sense is that during any test, people will appear much better drivers than they are on average, since they won't be drunk or shooting off an SMS message or whatever else. It is economical to save a lot of lives with technology. This is a good tech. I don't know if I'd go with most important since seat belts, but it could save lives.
      - Imprecate 17y ago
        Agreed. Even assuming people do the right thing all the time and never get behind the wheel after drinking, when emotionally heated, without enough sleep, or while distracted by phones, etc., anyone can be distracted for a split-second and cause a major accident. That kind of "Superman" thinking that things would be great if only you tried harder is BS in a lot of cases. Most people do not want to get into road accidents, deliver code late, or build a shoddy product. Fixing the incentives or process works better.
elblanco 17y ago
Ford is really doing a phenomenal job recently, doing its homework and engineering to try and get the company back on track. 5 years ago, I would have said they were 10-15 years behind an equivalent Japanese car. Now I think they they are only 3-5 years. Their recent offerings are really very impressive. I'd love to see Ford be a benchmark for American car companies as well as imports. They aren't quite there yet, but their progress is amazing.
- ams6110 17y ago
  I'm sure they are getting a lot from Mazda. The Ford Fusion, for example, is basically a rebadged Mazda 6.
  - jodrellblank 17y ago
    I wonder how it works - Ford own Volvo, who are pretty good with safety features (e.g. the 3 point seatbelt) and who have been building blind-spot awareness systems, brake-priming systems, etc. and their concept for the next S60 had distance-to-car-in-front cruise control and pedestrian detection and so on. ( http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/carbycar/index.htm?md=1468 http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/carbycar/index.htm?md=1468 ) Maybe Ford are getting it from Volvo?
    - ams6110 17y ago
      Maybe. Technology sharing is a big reason for a lot of these deals. For example the Chrysler 300/Dodge Charger uses a lot of Mercedes-Benz suspension components (though Daimler has since sold off their interest in Chrysler). Incidentally, Ford has recently entered an agreement to sell Volvo to a Chinese manufacturer. http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/dec/23/volvo-sale-chinese-ford http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/dec/23/volvo-sale-ch...
kyro 17y ago
The assisted braking 'feature' where the system moves your calipers closer to your rotors sounds really stupid and dangerous. When I press the brakes, I am expecting a buffer period between initial contact with my pedal and the actual deceleration of the vehicle. Because of that buffer, I tend to push my pedal down further to initiate braking. Eliminating that buffer with drivers who have come to expect it will make for very sudden braking, which would probably increase the chance of being hit from behind.
- dkokelley 17y ago
  Presumably the ABS still works, meaning you won't lose control of the car while slamming on the breaks. As far as being hit from behind, I suppose this is (and always has been) an issue in accidents and other emergency situations. Still, the car behind you should allow appropriate spacing to prevent rear-ending you. I don't see how emergency breaking systems change really change the basic rules of the roads.
dgallagher 17y ago
GPS-enabled Governors should be put in all cars too, limiting your speed to that of the speed limit, adjusted for weather conditions. If you're in a 35 MPH zone, you car will stop accelerating (and ideally auto-slow when going downhill or onto slower roads) once you hit the limit for that part of the road. Speed limits would likely have to be re-adjusted in some cases as they may be too low in some area's, but it would certainly cut down on accidents. An exception would be allowing people to speed in short bursts. While rare, sometimes you need to accelerate to avoid an accident. Not allowing for this would be unfair. Definitely wouldn't be popular with a lot of people, or police departments generating revenue from speeding tickets. But driving is simply a means of getting from A to B in a safe and efficient manner. So long as people are getting hurt or killed in between A and B, something is very broken.
- portman 17y ago
  This proposal wouldn't increase safety until all cars on the road had the GPS-governor feature, which would take 15-20 years for old cars to be phased out. In the meantime, the new cars would have an annoyance (no speeding) without providing any measurable safety improvement.
  - dgallagher 17y ago
    You're correct on some points, though it may slow other cars by way of simply being in the way. It wouldn't work on highways with passing lanes until a high adoption rate, but a single slow car on one-lane side roads will "bottleneck" any speeders. This alone would most likely increase safety. Gradually as more people got the cars, things would get safer and safer. Once, say, 90% of cars on the road have governors, it'll be hard for a speeder to find the opportunity to speed. Economic reasons could speed up adoption too. For example, insurance carriers would likely charge less for those with the device, and more for those without it. Governments could give those with the device a break on their income taxes. But honestly, I don't think the idea has much traction. It's too emotionally charged which would make it difficult for politicians to implement it, and there are large switching costs from current cars. Self-driving cars will likely appear beforehand. Radar and governors and what-not are really all just bandaids for the real problem with cars; their human drivers.
aneesh 17y ago
What worries me about this technology are the corner cases. If it's 99.9% effective, eliminating the need for manual braking, the 0.1% of the time where it doesn't work, the user won't be ready to brake, which is dangerous.
- TeHCrAzY 17y ago
  I think the point is that rarely would a human succeed in such a corner case, let alone in 99% of all cases.
kiba 17y ago
Do ya think it will have the unintended consequences of making people take more risks then they would have if they know of safety features? Or maybe the increased safety outweigh the cost of false sense of safety?
tjmc 17y ago
Adaptive cruise control has been on high end cars for over a decade - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_cruise_control_system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_cruise_control_syste.... It would be good to see it standardized as it can significantly reduce traffic congestion that's caused by over braking. I think BMW claimed that this would be happen if more than 30% of cars had the feature.
deleted 17y ago
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dnsworks 17y ago
As usual, Scoble misses the boat by several magnitudes in his aim to over-sensationalize something he read on techmeme. I would personally put safety glass, airbags, anti-lock brakes, traction control, and crumple zones ahead of radar. Those are technologies that improve safety for everybody, whereas radar is for people who don't pay attention and should not be driving in the first place.
- jsz0 17y ago
  Those careless people do drive and radar might stop them from causing an accident that kills your friends or family one day. Radar also has a huge potential to improve the safety of pedestrians who otherwise might briefly admire the traction control system of a careless driver's car before they are crushed to death.
- randallsquared 17y ago
  whereas radar is for people who don't pay attention and should not be driving in the first place. So, "for people", then. I'm confident that there is no driver who is fully paying attention to driving at every moment while driving.
- anigbrowl 17y ago
  Radar is not for the people who don't pay attention. It's for the people who are driving in front of them who are going to get rear-ended otherwise. The less control idiots have over cars, the better. I would feel far more comfortable dealing with a bunch of automated vehicles than a similar number of typical drivers, to be frank.
  - dnsworks 17y ago
    Radar will just be another crutch for a bad driver. Good drivers make sure that they always have an out, check their mirrors and blind spots as often as possible, stay safely away from other drivers, and do their best to control the situation. Adept use of brakes and speed can control how far people stay from you, as well as your position within a lane. These are skills every motorcyclist learns very, very quickly.
dghughes 17y ago
"Another place the radar is invaluable? In fog. I drive over the Santa Cruz mountains every day to get home and there often is fog. One day there was a car in front of me that had no back taillights." I bet the driver of that car was just using parking lights. I hate that! People who drive with parking lights on don't seem to realize the rear running lights are not on, parking lights are not meant to be used when driving that's what headlights are for.
- mmastrac 17y ago
  Daytime running lights are mandatory in Canada. Not sure why they aren't in the USA. If the car is out of park, the headlights turn on automatically. It solves a handful of issues like this that are potentially dangerous.
  - sokoloff 17y ago
    It specifically does not solve the "no rear lamps" issue. In fact, it exacerbates it.
    - mmastrac 17y ago
      Not true. Every car in Canada engages headlights and rear tail lights when the car is out of park, regardless of the headlight settings. The only thing effectively controlled by the headlight knob outside of park is the dashboard lights.
      - sokoloff 17y ago
        Interesting; I did not know that. In the US, every DRL that I've seen lights only one pair of front lamps (usually the headlamps at partial power, but some models light other front lamps).
- sokoloff 17y ago
  I've never seen a car where the "first click" of lights (what I presume you're calling parking lights) doesn't turn on the taillights. In most cars, they're even on the same fuse. (Yes, there are cars with true one-sided parking lamps that will only illuminate one side front-and-rear to mark the edge of the car parked closest to the road.) I suspect what you're actually seeing is drivers using only the daytime running lights. Those do not turn the rear lamps on.
jsz0 17y ago
Besides radar I think there's a lot of potential for automated systems to help drivers cope with snow & ice. For example a sensor scanning the road able to warn the driver of black ice, or at least inform the driver that they may be seeing rain on their windshield but it's freezing on the ground. Maybe speed controls based on real time weather conditions. No one should be going over 40MPH on any road in the snow. How about using cars as a way to measure road safety? Monitor the road conditions and the cars traction and report this information to the DOT so a plow/sander can be dispatched to particularly bad areas.
blahedo 17y ago
Here's the reason I expect to hate this "feature": I already hate the way my seat belts work and they have nearly gotten me into multiple accidents. Specifically, if I see a hazard coming from the sides/rear and slow down and try to avoid them, I need to be able to turn my head quickly and sharply to see them. And the GODDAMN SEATBELT IS PREVENTING THIS because the slowdown and my quick sitting-up-straight has caused it to lock me tight against the seat. I am now PARTIALLY BLIND with respect to whatever threat is incoming and I have to hope for the best. This is terrifying and it is not a safety improvement. Based on the descriptions in this article, the situation in these cars of the future will be even worse, because the seatbelts will lock down more often and the brakes will become hypersensitive and work differently than your muscle memory has been trained to expect. No matter how much training and experience you have with your car, as soon as you get in a situation that requires precision handling you are suddenly transported into a car that behaves and handles completely differently, that you've never driven in before. Put me down in the "no" column.
- rglullis 17y ago
  Humm... turning your head? Something wrong with your rear-view mirror?
- anigbrowl 17y ago
  Sure, buddy. And not wearing a helmet would doubtless make you a better motorcyclist, too. Fortunately, in the case of motorcyclists, people who actually believe this tend to kill themselves earlier, sparing the rest of us from having to listen to their bullshit. Edit: I suggest not slouching to start with.
  - blahedo 17y ago
    Note that I'm still wearing the seatbelt, and I'm not pushing for the repeal of seatbelt laws. If you'll read a little more carefully, you'll see that my objection is to the mechanical change in handling, visibility, etc, just at the moment when you need it the most, not to the presence of safety measures in general.
- maigret 17y ago

115 points by MaysonL 17y ago

It is so reliable I no longer impulsively reach for my brakes. Let’s say the car in front of me speeds up after slamming on its brakes. Hmm. That sounds pretty dangerous :(

chaosmachine 17y ago
Yeah, I could see this becoming a problem in the future. Imagine getting used to this, then for some reason, needing to drive an older car. "Oops, I didn't realize this car required manual braking".
- sailormoon 17y ago
  There could be two classes of license, like in Japan where you can have a limited qualification to drive only automatics, or a full license including manuals too. In this case, however, the "automatic" would be the fully automated vehicle, and the "manual" would be the traditional human-controlled one.
  - borism 17y ago
    why would you need a license for a fully automated vehicle?
    - billswift 17y ago
      The real reason for drivers licenses is social control. My father's first driver's license was never supposed to expire, my State ID was never supposed to expire, in both they changed the rules, and forced stores and banks to no longer accept "expired" IDs as proof of identity. It's not like your identity or age or ability to drive or anything else changes when your ID expires, they just want to keep you on their chain.
      - sailormoon 17y ago
        Don't ignore the departmental revenue from license renewals.
pbhjpbhj 17y ago
Taken out of context your quote does sound dangerous. If he were used to this and tried to drive another vehicle he may have slower reactions when braking is needed. The acceleration in your quote is because the road ahead is now clear and he can accelerate up to his cruise speed unless he gets too close again. THe full paras: >I pull onto a road, say freeway 280, and I set the cruise control. I set the top speed the car should ever go. Say 80 mph. But it doesn’t go 80 unless there’s no cars in front of me. Usually in Silicon Valley there’s traffic. So, the car in that case follows the car in front of me. >But they just slammed on their brakes to avoid something. What does my car do? It slams on its brakes too. It is so reliable I no longer impulsively reach for my brakes. Let’s say the car in front of me speeds up after slamming on its brakes. My car speeds up too. It’s like there is a rope between my car and theirs. It is like nothing you’ve ever experienced.
- ErrantX 17y ago
  Yeh sorry the accel section got copied over by accident. I do think the first section highlights one of the big concerns though. Regardless of scobles excitment this tech is still in the infancy. There could be a dangerous transfer period.
mschy 17y ago
I have a car equipped with a similar system, and have a similar reaction (my car will slow down to a stop if I let it). I've had no issues thinking that rental cars were the same, because the driving experience with "standard" cruise control and radar/laser cruise control is very obviously different.

pclark 17y ago

> Just like it was criminal for car makers to drag their feet pushing out seat belts, air bags, and anti-lock brakes in previous safety fights Apparently Honda couldn't get consumers to pay for ABS and had to install it by default at no extra charge in order for people to have it.

mike_organon 17y ago
I agree that is part of the issue, many customers don't care. I think there is another relavent point. The video of the Ford guy illustrates how companies are competing on improving this tech. If it were mandated, might that be like forcing commoditization? Companies with inferior tech would push it out too soon. There would be less competition because customers would accept the minimal and it would be harder for companies to differentiate. As opposed to now: forward-looking customers with the money can look for the best system which pushes the tech forward.
dschobel 17y ago
And let's not forget that there are still laws on the books in most (all?) states to compel passengers to wear seat-belts. People are very peculiar about which safety features they wil like and use.

mjs 17y ago

"Ford’s version of radar prepares the brakes so that all you need to do is touch them to get full braking pressure if the car thinks it’s headed for a collision." That sounds like a really good way to get hit from behind. Does the system try to stop you as fast as possible, or as slow as possible while still avoiding the car in front? The second option is kinder to cars behind without such sophisticated safety systems.

adamsmith 17y ago
It'd be especially cool if it took both front and back radar into account. If nobody is behind you break more liberally but otherwise exercise more caution. (It does seem like there would be room for such an "aggressiveness" parameter, since you can't predict the future breaking behavior of the car in front of you and it might have stronger or weaker breaks.) Either way I hope all of this stuff works out to be a net win. We should know more in a year or two!
- jacabado 17y ago
  I just saw a Top Gear episode where they tested the last Mercedes S which does just this. (talk about serendipity and having new ideas!)
- electromagnetic 17y ago
  Wouldn't the ideal step be to harmonize the radar/lidar technology and have a system enabled that forces a safe driving zone. It's all too common on highways that vehicles can't stop within a safe distance if the vehicle in front of it stops, which leads to 5 vehicle pile ups. You'd only need a moderate percentage of vehicles with the radar/lidar technology to keep a highway reasonably spaced. EG if you're tailgating, your vehicle will brake, if someone is tailgating you it will speed you up (within the speed limit) to get you to a safe distance, or (when capable) shift you safely into a different lane when you're in cruise. Eventually you could simply have vehicles communicate, so when the guy in front of me brakes, my vehicle gets instructed that it's approaching a decelerating object. It'll be small 'safety' steps that will eventually remove human error from vehicle accidents.

WesleyJohnson 17y ago

I suppose I would have to experience first hand to really weigh in on whether I would use it or not, but from an initial reaction standpoint, I would think I'd prefer an all or nothing approach. Meaning, either fully automated driving or don't help me at all. I just can't help but imagine that I'd never be able to get used to this type of selective assistance. Someone cutting you off doesn't necessarily mean you're headed for a crash and no cars in front of you doesn't necessarily mean you can drive 80 mph without caution. If you grow to rely on a system such as this, it only takes one incident where the vehicle doesn't believe it's about to be in a crash when you really are for it to ultimately fail. Or worse yet, for the car to sense you may be in a crash and apply counter measures which causes panic by the driver and ultimately leads to a crash anyway due to overcorrection or something similar.

vlad 17y ago

According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, electronic stability control is the most important technology since seat belts. Yet, as recently as a couple of years ago, the Volkswagen Rabbit (Golf) was the only car under $20,000 I could find with the option, other than Suzuki. As an example, the Honda Civic did not have it, and you had to buy an Accord or an SUV to get Honda's version of it. An electronic stability system "makes the vehicle go where you're pointing it by applying the (computer-assisted) brakes. I think this is definitely a milestone." This includes driving on ice, or making tight turns (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-hHWSQhKuc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-hHWSQhKuc) Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/06/13/MNG7UJD1451.DTL http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/06/...

CamperBob 17y ago
There are some really interesting risks associated with electronic stability control, though. One system used by GM on the Corvette works by comparing the input from an inertial yaw sensor to the current steering-wheel angle. Any disagreement results in selective application of braking at one or more wheels, as needed to make the two sensors agree. Now: what happens when one of those sensors fails? http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c6-tech-performance/2336065-service-active-handling-consumer-action.html http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c6-tech-performance/2336065-... I wish I could find the video I saw earlier, where a Z06 doing about 90 MPH did a hard right turn into the wall at a drag strip for no apparent reason. I don't know with any certainty that the active-handling system was at fault in that incident, but it was enough to turn me off of the technology in a 500+ HP car.

bmalicoat 17y ago

Interesting that it doesn't always perform in severe weather conditions as this seems like it could be when it was most useful, eg avoiding a pile-up in a whiteout. He mentions that you shouldn't be driving in such conditions but unfortunately Michigan is famous for rapid and surprising weather changes. Other than that it seems like very cool technology that hopefully becomes standard soon. It's nice to see that car manufacturers are willing to take things slow to avoid rejection because they think it is important as well.

jordanb 17y ago

The thing about ABS is that it operates on the principle of least surprise: It takes what the user expect brakes to do (slow the car down) and makes it work even when traditional brakes would fail to perform that task. So it took a technology that the user expected to work in a certain way, and made it work better in that way. It made brake behavior less surprising to the user. This technology seems to do the opposite (at least, the way Scoble described it). It massively changes the behavior of the car based on some sensors, and then expects the user of the car to deal with the different behavior of the systems, all in a high-stress situation with alarms going off.

mschy 17y ago
In practice what it means is that if you're about to crash into something, and you hit the brakes, that it hits them 100% right off the bat, instead of the 50% or 80% that most people would go for. I've not used the system in the Prius, but I've used a competing system and it's not at all surprising.
- ams6110 17y ago
  In many cases you're better off trying to steer around the collision than (or in addition to) stopping short of it. I've seen a few crashes where people could have just steered onto the shoulder or median to avoid the crash but it seems that they just applied the brakes and hoped for the best. I don't think driver's education in the USA teaches emergency maneuvering much. How is it elsewhere?
  - TeHCrAzY 17y ago
    Nothing taught in Australia, at least conventionally. My driving instructor was a retired police driver trainer, I benefited greatly from his experience and understanding of vehicles. Never had an accident, but avoided several via quick thinking + knowledge of how the car will react and what options I have when driving.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]

teuobk 17y ago

There's a lot of interesting automobile safety research going on in Silicon Valley. For example, Mercedes-Benz has a building in the Stanford Research Park in Palo Alto where they design next-generation safety systems. My former roommate works there, and, though I probably shouldn't give details, I can say that there are some neat safety systems under development. One tidbit: a number of stoplights in Palo Alto and Redwood City broadcast information about when they are going to change. A properly equipped car can receive that information and decide whether to proceed as usual or begin braking, even before there is a visible change. As a corollary, if the red light is about to turn green, the car can decide not to slow down.

weaksauce 17y ago
The slowing down for a red is nice but the not slowing down because it is going to turn green is scary. My friend died in a car crash because he timed the light and saw that it was going to be green. A mild red light runner t-boned his car and that was that. I say mild red light runner because had he not timed the green perfectly he probably would still be alive. Don't get me wrong this is promising technology but I would be hesitant to rely on it to do too much.
- vijayshankar 17y ago
  One more argument is that there is usually a time gap between one light turning red and the other turning green. This gap should allow most of mild red light runners to pass through safely. (At least in my city in India this is true, the time gap is as big as 5 to 8 seconds)
  - weaksauce 17y ago
    The systems here have a time gap too but it was not sufficient in this case. I think it's at most 1-2 seconds here. I understand that argument but I am of the school of thought that the machine should not make decisions that can impact my safety unless it is an emergency. shaving off a few seconds on my commute is not what I would call a much of a benefit when there is a substantial possible downside.

mschy 17y ago

I've had the radar-assist cruise control for two years (complete with braking) and everything, and I view it as a first step towards automated driving. People aren't likely to accept automated driving (even if it's statistically safer than the average driver) but they will pretty readily accept driving aids that watch the car in front of you, and watch if you're in your lane, and what not. I expect those "aids" to continue to advance and expand with them being "aids" for a long time, until liability problems are solved. And FWIW, I've had no issue when driving rental cars that don't have the radar/laser based cruise control. The experience of regular cruise control and radar/laser cruise control is sufficiently different that there's really no way to mix them up.

elblanco 17y ago
On long stretches of Highway in the American West, there really isn't a whole lot of driving to do except keep the car in the lane. It's pretty clear that we're getting painfully close to fully automated highway driving.
- mschy 17y ago
  I wouldn't describe fully automated highway driving as painful in the least. I'd be quite happy about it. After all, highway driving isn't remotely interesting from a "driving" viewpoint, so I'd hardly miss it.
  - tree_of_item 17y ago
    "Painfully" close as in very close. I don't think he meant to say that automated highway driving was painful.
    - elblanco 17y ago
      Right, that's what I meant, apologies for lack of clarity.

ricree 17y ago

"Think about that. If we could cut down on car crashes by even 5% we could save more than 2,000 lives!" I don't know whether or not this is true, but the argument is fallacious. Without further evidence, it is a bit premature to assume that the fatal:nonfatal ratio in crashes prevented will be the same as that of crashes in general. It is possible, though unlikely, that a chance might only prevent nonfatal crashes.

Retric 17y ago
They used could save not will save for that vary same reason. Most likely the net effect would be much like seat belts which transform many fatal accidents into non fatal accidents and many non fatal accidents into non accidents. PS: Unlike airbags seat belts do help avoid accidents. But, it's rare to see people talk about that outside of drivers education.
ams6110 17y ago
Seems that I've read about studies that show that people have a certain, nearly unconscious risk tolerance. For example, ABS and all-wheel-drive made driving in the snow and ice easier, so people drive a bit faster or more aggressively until they reach their previous risk tolerance level. Thus the potential safety benefit is not realized in actuality. In fact, if people overestimate the added safety of the new technology, they may be more likely to have an accident than without it. Witness the common sight of four-wheel-drive vehicles spun off the road in a snowstorm.
- michaelbuckbee 17y ago
  Agreed, my dad always described 4 Wheel Drive as a way for people to get stranded farther from help than they otherwise would have.
- epochwolf 17y ago
  I agree with this. I am far more comfortable driving faster with 4 wheel drive on, so I disable it as soon as I don't need it.
- Retric 17y ago

Devilboy 17y ago

BMW has a system in their top-end saloons that will safely pull your car over to the side of the road without crashing if the driver is suddenly incapacitated (e.g. a heart attack). These system are great and I hope we can overcome the social barriers eventually. Car accidents are still the #1 cause of preventable death worldwide. EDIT: Here's another great system expected to start trials in 2011: http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/11/road-trains-and-modular-vehicles.html http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/11/road-trains-and-modular-veh... If you have a vehicle fitted with this system you'll be able to join 'road trains' where the front vehicle is driven by a professional driver (e.g. truck or bus driver) and the rest of the cars follow behind it - driven automatically.

mhartl 17y ago
N.B. saloon == sedan. (As with many of the Britishisms in my brain, I learned 'saloon' from The Economist.)
- sjs 17y ago
  And here I was searching Google Maps for a classy place to drink and brawl.
- slyn 17y ago
  What, you don't watch Top Gear? Though more entertaining than educational, I know the difference between my boot from my bonnet thanks to that show, as well as what a saloon, spanner, pillock and many other british-english mannerisms mean.
nazgulnarsil 17y ago
how does that work if you're not right next to the shoulder?
- vaksel 17y ago
  my guess is lasers, they already check to alert you when you have cars in your blind spot, so it most likely checks those before moving you over.

jacabado 17y ago

Just to put in context, a link that was here last week or so about the Automation Paradox: http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/automated-to-death http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/automated-to-dea... Will there be a compromise between traditional crash deaths and safety systems induced deaths ? Not to dismiss the new systems, I'm an optimistic by nature.

lincolnq 17y ago
How is it not still a net win? The automated systems fail a lot less often than humans. Even if they can't get the failure rate to 0%, it is still making things safer to replace humans by robots.

axod 17y ago

I don't buy it. If you need a radar to tell you you're about to crash, you're probably not paying attention properly. We should tighten up driving tests. Driving shouldn't be a right, it should be something only competent attentive people can do. It'd be interesting to know stats on Manual vs Automatic car accident rates. I'd guess that Automatics are involved in more accidents since the drivers are probably paying less attention. Similarly cruise control.

mattmaroon 17y ago
It's not that you need it to tell you that, it's that the human brain, even when focused, is relatively slow to respond. Not to mention many people have a panic impulse that causes them to yell first and then step on the brakes. In certain situations where a half second can mean the difference between death and a bruised knee, it's pretty impressive stuff.
- axod 17y ago
  Sure but that's why you pay attention and drive properly, and look out for any dangers/issues. The best way to cut down the number of accidents is to get rid of all the crazy bad drivers, rather than any sort of technology IMHO.
  - mattmaroon 17y ago
    It's not even remotely economical to eliminate bad drivers, not to mention good drivers who driver badly at times. My sense is that during any test, people will appear much better drivers than they are on average, since they won't be drunk or shooting off an SMS message or whatever else. It is economical to save a lot of lives with technology. This is a good tech. I don't know if I'd go with most important since seat belts, but it could save lives.
    - Imprecate 17y ago
      Agreed. Even assuming people do the right thing all the time and never get behind the wheel after drinking, when emotionally heated, without enough sleep, or while distracted by phones, etc., anyone can be distracted for a split-second and cause a major accident. That kind of "Superman" thinking that things would be great if only you tried harder is BS in a lot of cases. Most people do not want to get into road accidents, deliver code late, or build a shoddy product. Fixing the incentives or process works better.

elblanco 17y ago

Ford is really doing a phenomenal job recently, doing its homework and engineering to try and get the company back on track. 5 years ago, I would have said they were 10-15 years behind an equivalent Japanese car. Now I think they they are only 3-5 years. Their recent offerings are really very impressive. I'd love to see Ford be a benchmark for American car companies as well as imports. They aren't quite there yet, but their progress is amazing.

ams6110 17y ago
I'm sure they are getting a lot from Mazda. The Ford Fusion, for example, is basically a rebadged Mazda 6.
- jodrellblank 17y ago
  I wonder how it works - Ford own Volvo, who are pretty good with safety features (e.g. the 3 point seatbelt) and who have been building blind-spot awareness systems, brake-priming systems, etc. and their concept for the next S60 had distance-to-car-in-front cruise control and pedestrian detection and so on. ( http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/carbycar/index.htm?md=1468 http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/carbycar/index.htm?md=1468 ) Maybe Ford are getting it from Volvo?
  - ams6110 17y ago
    Maybe. Technology sharing is a big reason for a lot of these deals. For example the Chrysler 300/Dodge Charger uses a lot of Mercedes-Benz suspension components (though Daimler has since sold off their interest in Chrysler). Incidentally, Ford has recently entered an agreement to sell Volvo to a Chinese manufacturer. http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/dec/23/volvo-sale-chinese-ford http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/dec/23/volvo-sale-ch...

kyro 17y ago

The assisted braking 'feature' where the system moves your calipers closer to your rotors sounds really stupid and dangerous. When I press the brakes, I am expecting a buffer period between initial contact with my pedal and the actual deceleration of the vehicle. Because of that buffer, I tend to push my pedal down further to initiate braking. Eliminating that buffer with drivers who have come to expect it will make for very sudden braking, which would probably increase the chance of being hit from behind.

dkokelley 17y ago
Presumably the ABS still works, meaning you won't lose control of the car while slamming on the breaks. As far as being hit from behind, I suppose this is (and always has been) an issue in accidents and other emergency situations. Still, the car behind you should allow appropriate spacing to prevent rear-ending you. I don't see how emergency breaking systems change really change the basic rules of the roads.

dgallagher 17y ago

GPS-enabled Governors should be put in all cars too, limiting your speed to that of the speed limit, adjusted for weather conditions. If you're in a 35 MPH zone, you car will stop accelerating (and ideally auto-slow when going downhill or onto slower roads) once you hit the limit for that part of the road. Speed limits would likely have to be re-adjusted in some cases as they may be too low in some area's, but it would certainly cut down on accidents. An exception would be allowing people to speed in short bursts. While rare, sometimes you need to accelerate to avoid an accident. Not allowing for this would be unfair. Definitely wouldn't be popular with a lot of people, or police departments generating revenue from speeding tickets. But driving is simply a means of getting from A to B in a safe and efficient manner. So long as people are getting hurt or killed in between A and B, something is very broken.

portman 17y ago
This proposal wouldn't increase safety until all cars on the road had the GPS-governor feature, which would take 15-20 years for old cars to be phased out. In the meantime, the new cars would have an annoyance (no speeding) without providing any measurable safety improvement.
- dgallagher 17y ago
  You're correct on some points, though it may slow other cars by way of simply being in the way. It wouldn't work on highways with passing lanes until a high adoption rate, but a single slow car on one-lane side roads will "bottleneck" any speeders. This alone would most likely increase safety. Gradually as more people got the cars, things would get safer and safer. Once, say, 90% of cars on the road have governors, it'll be hard for a speeder to find the opportunity to speed. Economic reasons could speed up adoption too. For example, insurance carriers would likely charge less for those with the device, and more for those without it. Governments could give those with the device a break on their income taxes. But honestly, I don't think the idea has much traction. It's too emotionally charged which would make it difficult for politicians to implement it, and there are large switching costs from current cars. Self-driving cars will likely appear beforehand. Radar and governors and what-not are really all just bandaids for the real problem with cars; their human drivers.

aneesh 17y ago

What worries me about this technology are the corner cases. If it's 99.9% effective, eliminating the need for manual braking, the 0.1% of the time where it doesn't work, the user won't be ready to brake, which is dangerous.

TeHCrAzY 17y ago
I think the point is that rarely would a human succeed in such a corner case, let alone in 99% of all cases.

kiba 17y ago

Do ya think it will have the unintended consequences of making people take more risks then they would have if they know of safety features? Or maybe the increased safety outweigh the cost of false sense of safety?

tjmc 17y ago

Adaptive cruise control has been on high end cars for over a decade - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_cruise_control_system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_cruise_control_syste.... It would be good to see it standardized as it can significantly reduce traffic congestion that's caused by over braking. I think BMW claimed that this would be happen if more than 30% of cars had the feature.

deleted 17y ago

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dnsworks 17y ago

As usual, Scoble misses the boat by several magnitudes in his aim to over-sensationalize something he read on techmeme. I would personally put safety glass, airbags, anti-lock brakes, traction control, and crumple zones ahead of radar. Those are technologies that improve safety for everybody, whereas radar is for people who don't pay attention and should not be driving in the first place.

jsz0 17y ago
Those careless people do drive and radar might stop them from causing an accident that kills your friends or family one day. Radar also has a huge potential to improve the safety of pedestrians who otherwise might briefly admire the traction control system of a careless driver's car before they are crushed to death.
randallsquared 17y ago
whereas radar is for people who don't pay attention and should not be driving in the first place. So, "for people", then. I'm confident that there is no driver who is fully paying attention to driving at every moment while driving.
anigbrowl 17y ago
Radar is not for the people who don't pay attention. It's for the people who are driving in front of them who are going to get rear-ended otherwise. The less control idiots have over cars, the better. I would feel far more comfortable dealing with a bunch of automated vehicles than a similar number of typical drivers, to be frank.
- dnsworks 17y ago
  Radar will just be another crutch for a bad driver. Good drivers make sure that they always have an out, check their mirrors and blind spots as often as possible, stay safely away from other drivers, and do their best to control the situation. Adept use of brakes and speed can control how far people stay from you, as well as your position within a lane. These are skills every motorcyclist learns very, very quickly.

dghughes 17y ago

"Another place the radar is invaluable? In fog. I drive over the Santa Cruz mountains every day to get home and there often is fog. One day there was a car in front of me that had no back taillights." I bet the driver of that car was just using parking lights. I hate that! People who drive with parking lights on don't seem to realize the rear running lights are not on, parking lights are not meant to be used when driving that's what headlights are for.

mmastrac 17y ago
Daytime running lights are mandatory in Canada. Not sure why they aren't in the USA. If the car is out of park, the headlights turn on automatically. It solves a handful of issues like this that are potentially dangerous.
- sokoloff 17y ago
  It specifically does not solve the "no rear lamps" issue. In fact, it exacerbates it.
  - mmastrac 17y ago
    Not true. Every car in Canada engages headlights and rear tail lights when the car is out of park, regardless of the headlight settings. The only thing effectively controlled by the headlight knob outside of park is the dashboard lights.
    - sokoloff 17y ago
      Interesting; I did not know that. In the US, every DRL that I've seen lights only one pair of front lamps (usually the headlamps at partial power, but some models light other front lamps).
sokoloff 17y ago
I've never seen a car where the "first click" of lights (what I presume you're calling parking lights) doesn't turn on the taillights. In most cars, they're even on the same fuse. (Yes, there are cars with true one-sided parking lamps that will only illuminate one side front-and-rear to mark the edge of the car parked closest to the road.) I suspect what you're actually seeing is drivers using only the daytime running lights. Those do not turn the rear lamps on.

jsz0 17y ago

Besides radar I think there's a lot of potential for automated systems to help drivers cope with snow & ice. For example a sensor scanning the road able to warn the driver of black ice, or at least inform the driver that they may be seeing rain on their windshield but it's freezing on the ground. Maybe speed controls based on real time weather conditions. No one should be going over 40MPH on any road in the snow. How about using cars as a way to measure road safety? Monitor the road conditions and the cars traction and report this information to the DOT so a plow/sander can be dispatched to particularly bad areas.

blahedo 17y ago

Here's the reason I expect to hate this "feature": I already hate the way my seat belts work and they have nearly gotten me into multiple accidents. Specifically, if I see a hazard coming from the sides/rear and slow down and try to avoid them, I need to be able to turn my head quickly and sharply to see them. And the GODDAMN SEATBELT IS PREVENTING THIS because the slowdown and my quick sitting-up-straight has caused it to lock me tight against the seat. I am now PARTIALLY BLIND with respect to whatever threat is incoming and I have to hope for the best. This is terrifying and it is not a safety improvement. Based on the descriptions in this article, the situation in these cars of the future will be even worse, because the seatbelts will lock down more often and the brakes will become hypersensitive and work differently than your muscle memory has been trained to expect. No matter how much training and experience you have with your car, as soon as you get in a situation that requires precision handling you are suddenly transported into a car that behaves and handles completely differently, that you've never driven in before. Put me down in the "no" column.

rglullis 17y ago
Humm... turning your head? Something wrong with your rear-view mirror?
anigbrowl 17y ago
Sure, buddy. And not wearing a helmet would doubtless make you a better motorcyclist, too. Fortunately, in the case of motorcyclists, people who actually believe this tend to kill themselves earlier, sparing the rest of us from having to listen to their bullshit. Edit: I suggest not slouching to start with.
- blahedo 17y ago
  Note that I'm still wearing the seatbelt, and I'm not pushing for the repeal of seatbelt laws. If you'll read a little more carefully, you'll see that my objection is to the mechanical change in handling, visibility, etc, just at the moment when you need it the most, not to the presence of safety measures in general.
maigret 17y ago