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This seems like a simple case. I would have expected the driver assist in my 2017 Subaru to have reacted to something in the road. I'm surprised that the much m

This seems like a simple case. I would have expected the driver assist in my 2017 Subaru to have reacted to something in the road. I'm surprised that the much more sophisticated self driving system did not.

dogweather 9y ago
I didn't know that new Subaru's can come with driver assist. How does it work? What's your experience with it? I've got a 2013, and am thinking about trading in.
- ryduh 9y ago
  I love our 2017 Outback w/ EyeSight. Luckily, we haven't had to test the auto braking system at high speeds but the lane assist and assisted cruise control are wonderful.
  - conception 9y ago
    Mine's kept me from hitting something while parking. It's awesome.
  - dawnerd 9y ago
    Not a suburu but my passat engaged emergency breaking once. It's was kinda spooky to go for the break and realize its already depressed. Definitely prevented an accident. I was paying attention too, but someone jumped into my lane and slammed their breaks on for who knows why, there wasn't anything in the road...
    - HankB99 9y ago
      In some areas that maneuver is a strategy to collect an insurance payout. If the car had many passengers (who would all get soft tissue injuries) this might have been a "swoop and squat."
    - defen 9y ago
      > someone jumped into my lane and slammed their breaks on for who knows why Insurance fraud, possibly. Depending on jurisdiction if you rear-end someone you could automatically be 100% at fault (assuming the fraud is not discovered/proven)
      - dawnerd 9y ago
        Huh didn't even consider that. Makes sense now.
    - Sohcahtoa82 9y ago
      *brake
- foxbarrington 9y ago
  Absolutely love my Outback + Eyesight. That said, the lane assist and automatic cruise control are not very sophisticated. The automatic cruise control is great for freeway and some street driving, but don't expect it to brake very smoothly / like a human. I consider it outsourcing part of my concentration. Lane assist is nice, but it won't auto-center -- if you were take your hands off the wheel on a straightaway it would "ping-pong" back and forth. I mostly like it on long drives, reduces the amount of effort on bends.
  - flamedoge 9y ago
    > "ping-pong" back and forth. like travelling down a virtual tube
- ovao 9y ago
  The EyeSight system uses a pair of cameras — black and white, I think — mounted on the interior roof. With it, you get front collision avoidance.
- HankB99 9y ago
  2017 Legacy with "Eye Sight." I have had one or two situations where the car emergency braked on my behalf. It happens when the car in front of me turns off the road and is nearly clear. I don't brake because I know that the car will clear the roadway before I get there but the system doesn't see it that way and brakes. I anticipate that now and avoid anything close enough to cause braking so I don't wind up the front end of a rear end collision. The other thing this system does is to provide adaptive cruise control. If I'm behind a vehicle that results in slowing down and then switch lanes (to where there is another vehicle in front of me) the car seems to think it can resume speed and slip between the two vehicles. I've come to expect that too and disengage the speed control before switching lanes. It also provides a warning when approaching the lane markings (unless I have indicated a lane change.) Occasionally it triggers on seams in the pavement. It also provides steering input if the land deviation increases. I've only experienced when I tested it in purpose. I'm not sure it would reliably keep the vehicle in the lane. Overall the system seems to be pretty good and though not perfect, is a net asset.
  - DougWebb 9y ago
    That sounds awful. Driving is hard enough when you have to second-guess what other drivers and pedestrians are going to do. Why add to that by having to second-guess what your own car is going to do? I've got to side with the people who want no auto-driving until we have always-better-than-human auto-driving. When cars only have back seats, and no driver controls beyond a way to state your destination, auto-driving will be acceptable.
darkerside 9y ago
I wonder if this was affected by the fact that the pedestrian was in another lane up until the very last second. Perhaps the car detected the pedestrian but failed to consider it an obstacle since it wasn't in its direct path. It could be unexpectedly difficult to account for pedestrian crossing speed if it caused automated cars to stop when a car in the next lane happened to "wobble" towards the automated car's lane.
- badestrand 9y ago
  There is not only continuing and stopping, there is also slowing down, as many human drivers do as well in unclear situations.
  - stolsvik 9y ago
    This is the exact thing I've been thinking all the time: Something's not totally right here: Let's at least slow down to better assess the situation. Everything works better in slo-mo. My human brain would then have much better time to evaluate the scene. This would definitely also hold for the sensors and processing systems for an autonomous vehicle.
    - stordoff 9y ago
      And even if it doesn't, and the system still concludes it's noise/an obstacle that isn't going to move etc., a low-speed collision is preferable to a high-speed one. Unless you can be completely confident you aren't going to hit something, slowing down is not a bad default action.
- lsaferite 9y ago
  Even if you imagine it thought it was another vehicle stopped in the other lane of traffic, the SDV should have slowed. There's no way you should assume a stopped vehicle isn't hiding another danger and blowing through while speeding is what stupid humans do and what SDVs shouldn't.
  - 9y ago
freehunter 9y ago
I can't count the number of commercials I've seen for Fords and Nissans and Subarus and every kind of modern car that has this exact feature, and this is exactly how the advertising plays out. Someone sprints in front of the car, the car stops automatically, everyone is safe, pedestrian continues with their life. I've never used it in real life, but I assume it works how the ads show it. If Uber can't match a $25,000 off-the-shelf floor model mass-market midsized sedan for collision avoidance, it's hardly a self-driving car.
- foodstances 9y ago
  The system in my car does this but only under a certain speed, much lower than what the vehicle in this video appears to be doing. It's intended for stop-and-go city driving or to avoid hitting a kid that sprints out of a driveway in a slow residential area, not to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting a deer or person at 40mph.
- Piskvorrr 9y ago
  "Waterproof* (only works with dry water)"
carlsborg 9y ago
You would think that a reasonable project plan would attack the human safety/emergency situations first, and then move on to anything else. I guess having a car that avoids accidents but doesn't drive across the country on its own does not make for interesting headlines. This is the consequence of headlines-driven AI... "lets solve something hokey and grabs attention so management will be pleased instead of doing the more meaningful/long term r&d."

dogweather 9y ago

I didn't know that new Subaru's can come with driver assist. How does it work? What's your experience with it? I've got a 2013, and am thinking about trading in.

ryduh 9y ago
I love our 2017 Outback w/ EyeSight. Luckily, we haven't had to test the auto braking system at high speeds but the lane assist and assisted cruise control are wonderful.
- conception 9y ago
  Mine's kept me from hitting something while parking. It's awesome.
- dawnerd 9y ago
  Not a suburu but my passat engaged emergency breaking once. It's was kinda spooky to go for the break and realize its already depressed. Definitely prevented an accident. I was paying attention too, but someone jumped into my lane and slammed their breaks on for who knows why, there wasn't anything in the road...
  - HankB99 9y ago
    In some areas that maneuver is a strategy to collect an insurance payout. If the car had many passengers (who would all get soft tissue injuries) this might have been a "swoop and squat."
  - defen 9y ago
    > someone jumped into my lane and slammed their breaks on for who knows why Insurance fraud, possibly. Depending on jurisdiction if you rear-end someone you could automatically be 100% at fault (assuming the fraud is not discovered/proven)
    - dawnerd 9y ago
      Huh didn't even consider that. Makes sense now.
  - Sohcahtoa82 9y ago
    *brake
foxbarrington 9y ago
Absolutely love my Outback + Eyesight. That said, the lane assist and automatic cruise control are not very sophisticated. The automatic cruise control is great for freeway and some street driving, but don't expect it to brake very smoothly / like a human. I consider it outsourcing part of my concentration. Lane assist is nice, but it won't auto-center -- if you were take your hands off the wheel on a straightaway it would "ping-pong" back and forth. I mostly like it on long drives, reduces the amount of effort on bends.
- flamedoge 9y ago
  > "ping-pong" back and forth. like travelling down a virtual tube
ovao 9y ago
The EyeSight system uses a pair of cameras — black and white, I think — mounted on the interior roof. With it, you get front collision avoidance.
HankB99 9y ago
2017 Legacy with "Eye Sight." I have had one or two situations where the car emergency braked on my behalf. It happens when the car in front of me turns off the road and is nearly clear. I don't brake because I know that the car will clear the roadway before I get there but the system doesn't see it that way and brakes. I anticipate that now and avoid anything close enough to cause braking so I don't wind up the front end of a rear end collision. The other thing this system does is to provide adaptive cruise control. If I'm behind a vehicle that results in slowing down and then switch lanes (to where there is another vehicle in front of me) the car seems to think it can resume speed and slip between the two vehicles. I've come to expect that too and disengage the speed control before switching lanes. It also provides a warning when approaching the lane markings (unless I have indicated a lane change.) Occasionally it triggers on seams in the pavement. It also provides steering input if the land deviation increases. I've only experienced when I tested it in purpose. I'm not sure it would reliably keep the vehicle in the lane. Overall the system seems to be pretty good and though not perfect, is a net asset.
- DougWebb 9y ago
  That sounds awful. Driving is hard enough when you have to second-guess what other drivers and pedestrians are going to do. Why add to that by having to second-guess what your own car is going to do? I've got to side with the people who want no auto-driving until we have always-better-than-human auto-driving. When cars only have back seats, and no driver controls beyond a way to state your destination, auto-driving will be acceptable.

darkerside 9y ago

I wonder if this was affected by the fact that the pedestrian was in another lane up until the very last second. Perhaps the car detected the pedestrian but failed to consider it an obstacle since it wasn't in its direct path. It could be unexpectedly difficult to account for pedestrian crossing speed if it caused automated cars to stop when a car in the next lane happened to "wobble" towards the automated car's lane.

badestrand 9y ago
There is not only continuing and stopping, there is also slowing down, as many human drivers do as well in unclear situations.
- stolsvik 9y ago
  This is the exact thing I've been thinking all the time: Something's not totally right here: Let's at least slow down to better assess the situation. Everything works better in slo-mo. My human brain would then have much better time to evaluate the scene. This would definitely also hold for the sensors and processing systems for an autonomous vehicle.
  - stordoff 9y ago
    And even if it doesn't, and the system still concludes it's noise/an obstacle that isn't going to move etc., a low-speed collision is preferable to a high-speed one. Unless you can be completely confident you aren't going to hit something, slowing down is not a bad default action.
lsaferite 9y ago
Even if you imagine it thought it was another vehicle stopped in the other lane of traffic, the SDV should have slowed. There's no way you should assume a stopped vehicle isn't hiding another danger and blowing through while speeding is what stupid humans do and what SDVs shouldn't.
- 9y ago

freehunter 9y ago

I can't count the number of commercials I've seen for Fords and Nissans and Subarus and every kind of modern car that has this exact feature, and this is exactly how the advertising plays out. Someone sprints in front of the car, the car stops automatically, everyone is safe, pedestrian continues with their life. I've never used it in real life, but I assume it works how the ads show it. If Uber can't match a $25,000 off-the-shelf floor model mass-market midsized sedan for collision avoidance, it's hardly a self-driving car.

foodstances 9y ago
The system in my car does this but only under a certain speed, much lower than what the vehicle in this video appears to be doing. It's intended for stop-and-go city driving or to avoid hitting a kid that sprints out of a driveway in a slow residential area, not to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting a deer or person at 40mph.
Piskvorrr 9y ago
"Waterproof* (only works with dry water)"

carlsborg 9y ago

You would think that a reasonable project plan would attack the human safety/emergency situations first, and then move on to anything else. I guess having a car that avoids accidents but doesn't drive across the country on its own does not make for interesting headlines. This is the consequence of headlines-driven AI... "lets solve something hokey and grabs attention so management will be pleased instead of doing the more meaningful/long term r&d."