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Seems a bit unfair for everyone to take cars intentionally calibrated to be super duper cautious and unsafe and never do anything risky, and then complain when

Seems a bit unfair for everyone to take cars intentionally calibrated to be super duper cautious and unsafe and never do anything risky, and then complain when they see an unexpected situation and do something annoyingly cautious but totally safe.

JKCalhoun 5y ago
I was thinking how unsafe it was to come to a complete stop on such a busy roadway.
clairity 5y ago
unexpected maneuvers, even if slow, are also risky, which is something that seems counterintuitive at first but shouldn’t be. unpredictability in any direction increases the risk of collision, which is why freeways have minimum speeds and incidentally why distracted driving is so dangerous, because it exponentiates unpredictability. we really need to collectively get past this idea that safety is bounded on one side, across all facets of our lives, because it’s usually not and that induced complacency has a way of coming back to bite us. (that’s not to say that the various risks are always substantial, just that they’re not all sitting neatly on one side.)
cddotdotslash 5y ago
Stopping in the middle of a busy highway is not safe. Cars come from behind much more quickly than anticipated. If one driver isn't paying attention and swerves to avoid it, the car behind that could easily rear-end you. As soon as the assistance team was dispatched, the car should have stayed where it was. Instead, it pulled out into a much busier road and stopped again.
- jfoster 5y ago
  > Cars come from behind much more quickly than anticipated. But that isn't what happened (or would typically happen) in this type of situation. Usually the car blocking the lane will be enough of an impediment that a queue of traffic will build up behind to overtake it. Cars at the back of the queue will be coming to a stop more gradually. Human drivers should not have critical failures just because there is an unexpected queue of traffic on the road.
  - perl4ever 5y ago
    Not too long ago I was stopped on a straight and level four lane non-divided road at the end of a line of traffic. An SUV came to a halt normally behind me, and just as the line ahead of me started to move, they were rear ended by a car cruising at highway speed. Which pushed them into me, not only caving in the trunk but damaging the C-pillar area. This sort of thing happens all the time. And because of modern crumple zones and safety equipment, people have an excellent chance of living through it and doing it again.

JKCalhoun 5y ago

I was thinking how unsafe it was to come to a complete stop on such a busy roadway.

clairity 5y ago

unexpected maneuvers, even if slow, are also risky, which is something that seems counterintuitive at first but shouldn’t be. unpredictability in any direction increases the risk of collision, which is why freeways have minimum speeds and incidentally why distracted driving is so dangerous, because it exponentiates unpredictability. we really need to collectively get past this idea that safety is bounded on one side, across all facets of our lives, because it’s usually not and that induced complacency has a way of coming back to bite us. (that’s not to say that the various risks are always substantial, just that they’re not all sitting neatly on one side.)

cddotdotslash 5y ago

Stopping in the middle of a busy highway is not safe. Cars come from behind much more quickly than anticipated. If one driver isn't paying attention and swerves to avoid it, the car behind that could easily rear-end you. As soon as the assistance team was dispatched, the car should have stayed where it was. Instead, it pulled out into a much busier road and stopped again.

jfoster 5y ago
> Cars come from behind much more quickly than anticipated. But that isn't what happened (or would typically happen) in this type of situation. Usually the car blocking the lane will be enough of an impediment that a queue of traffic will build up behind to overtake it. Cars at the back of the queue will be coming to a stop more gradually. Human drivers should not have critical failures just because there is an unexpected queue of traffic on the road.
- perl4ever 5y ago
  Not too long ago I was stopped on a straight and level four lane non-divided road at the end of a line of traffic. An SUV came to a halt normally behind me, and just as the line ahead of me started to move, they were rear ended by a car cruising at highway speed. Which pushed them into me, not only caving in the trunk but damaging the C-pillar area. This sort of thing happens all the time. And because of modern crumple zones and safety equipment, people have an excellent chance of living through it and doing it again.