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Humans haven't been able to figure it out either (so many Winter accidents). At least the automated car will drive slowly and at a safe following distance.

by jonknee 11y ago

semi-extrinsic 11y ago
Interestingly, driver aids have been implicated in causing more severe winter accidents, eg. this [1] 100-car pile-up in Sweden a few years back. Basically, people don't understand that the ESP lamp flashing means "slow down or you will probably crash". Drive an old, RWD, no electronics car and you'll be more aware of dangerous conditions. 100% non-overridable self-driving cars may someday fix this, but things will probably get worse before they get better. Humans being humans, they will think the car is overly cautious most of the time, and put it in manual because they're running 5 mins late. The more interesting question about the automated car is "can it do a Scandinavian flick"? They should come with a dedicated button for that. [1] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-21035634 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-21035634
- deathanatos 11y ago
  > driver aids have been implicated in causing more severe winter accidents, eg. this [1] 100-car pile-up in Sweden a few years back. The linked article, AFAICT, doesn't implicate driver aids in the accident, at all. (It's a rather short article, and the video doesn't mention anything about driver aids either.) Am I missing something?
  - semi-extrinsic 11y ago
    I couldn't find anything in English, but local media had discussions along these lines at the time, with incident responders blaming ESP systems. They had ambulances with flashing lights being hit by new cars coming to the scene of the accident, i.e. it didn't happen within just a few seconds; in this case it's apparent that drivers were oblivious to just how bad the conditions were. I'm not saying ESP is a bad thing, mind you. The technical system works well and has reduced accidents overall, this is proven in several studies. There's been a few faulty ESP systems causing accidents, e.g. the Audi A3 and the Alfa Romeo Spider around '05 (fixed in recalls), but overall it's a success. But the more abstractions you put between the car and the driver, the more your run the risk of drivers ignoring, or not being aware of, bad conditions. Educating users about proper operation of any system is notoriously difficult.

Humans haven't been able to figure it out either (so many Winter accidents). At least the automated car will drive slowly and at a safe following distance.

by jonknee 11y ago

Humans haven't been able to figure it out either (so many Winter accidents). At least the automated car will drive slowly and at a safe following distance.

semi-extrinsic 11y ago

Interestingly, driver aids have been implicated in causing more severe winter accidents, eg. this [1] 100-car pile-up in Sweden a few years back. Basically, people don't understand that the ESP lamp flashing means "slow down or you will probably crash". Drive an old, RWD, no electronics car and you'll be more aware of dangerous conditions. 100% non-overridable self-driving cars may someday fix this, but things will probably get worse before they get better. Humans being humans, they will think the car is overly cautious most of the time, and put it in manual because they're running 5 mins late. The more interesting question about the automated car is "can it do a Scandinavian flick"? They should come with a dedicated button for that. [1] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-21035634 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-21035634

deathanatos 11y ago
> driver aids have been implicated in causing more severe winter accidents, eg. this [1] 100-car pile-up in Sweden a few years back. The linked article, AFAICT, doesn't implicate driver aids in the accident, at all. (It's a rather short article, and the video doesn't mention anything about driver aids either.) Am I missing something?
- semi-extrinsic 11y ago
  I couldn't find anything in English, but local media had discussions along these lines at the time, with incident responders blaming ESP systems. They had ambulances with flashing lights being hit by new cars coming to the scene of the accident, i.e. it didn't happen within just a few seconds; in this case it's apparent that drivers were oblivious to just how bad the conditions were. I'm not saying ESP is a bad thing, mind you. The technical system works well and has reduced accidents overall, this is proven in several studies. There's been a few faulty ESP systems causing accidents, e.g. the Audi A3 and the Alfa Romeo Spider around '05 (fixed in recalls), but overall it's a success. But the more abstractions you put between the car and the driver, the more your run the risk of drivers ignoring, or not being aware of, bad conditions. Educating users about proper operation of any system is notoriously difficult.