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Yes, it's relatively simple things like this that can actually improve car safety right now, no self-driving capabilities necessary. Automatic braking, lane dep

Yes, it's relatively simple things like this that can actually improve car safety right now, no self-driving capabilities necessary. Automatic braking, lane departure warning, dead-spot detection, driver attention detection, missed signal warnings, etc. I don't understand why we are not investing all of the efforts and resources that are now spent to develop full self-driving capibilities, into making existing viable safety technology cheaper, and eventually mandatory. I'm 100% convinced it would have a much bigger impact on traffic safety, in a much shorter timeframe, to the point we don't even need self-driving cars anymore. At least not for safety purposes. Come to think of it, maybe the whole self-driving car hype is not actually because companies want to improve car safety, but because they see new business models based around them, and we, the public, need to be convinced self-driving cars will be safer than alternative technologies or modes of transportation.

marcosdumay 9y ago
It's certainly because of the potential market. Nobody is even claiming to be researching self-driving cars for the safety, it's always because of the potential.
r00fus 9y ago
Yes, AEB and Adaptive Cruise are the two most important features I looked for in a car. I ended up leasing an EV without them (waiting for my Model3), but my next vehicle will require these (for example, almost all Toyota models have similar features - TSS-P warns for frontal crash but doesn't brake immediately).
- dfox 9y ago
  Since beginning of this year I almost exclusively drive cars with some kind of front facing radar for AEB/ACC. On one hand there were situations where imminent collision warnings or even AEB were useful, on the other the amount of false positives for collision warning is annoying and in some cases actually dangerously distracting. And for some reason the minimal front distance for WV's ACC is almost an order of magnitude larger than safe braking distance, so other drivers see no issue with changing lanes into that large free space in front of you. So in all, this technology obviously requires some work both in terms of reliability and in terms of UX.

marcosdumay 9y ago

It's certainly because of the potential market. Nobody is even claiming to be researching self-driving cars for the safety, it's always because of the potential.

r00fus 9y ago

Yes, AEB and Adaptive Cruise are the two most important features I looked for in a car. I ended up leasing an EV without them (waiting for my Model3), but my next vehicle will require these (for example, almost all Toyota models have similar features - TSS-P warns for frontal crash but doesn't brake immediately).

dfox 9y ago
Since beginning of this year I almost exclusively drive cars with some kind of front facing radar for AEB/ACC. On one hand there were situations where imminent collision warnings or even AEB were useful, on the other the amount of false positives for collision warning is annoying and in some cases actually dangerously distracting. And for some reason the minimal front distance for WV's ACC is almost an order of magnitude larger than safe braking distance, so other drivers see no issue with changing lanes into that large free space in front of you. So in all, this technology obviously requires some work both in terms of reliability and in terms of UX.