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"safety mechanism" A seatbelt is a safety mechanism. Driving assist functionalities encourage unsafe behaviors of drivers more than safety. Why should I pay a

"safety mechanism" A seatbelt is a safety mechanism. Driving assist functionalities encourage unsafe behaviors of drivers more than safety. Why should I pay attention to the road if my car will automatically brake for me? Well, until the one time it doesn't and someone dies.

chrisseaton 5y ago
> Why should I pay attention to the road if my car will automatically brake for me? Was literally an argument people made against seat belts.
- jjav 5y ago
  Absolutely nobody made an argument that they don't want to use seatbelts because then they'll just start crashing all the time. (I'm old enough that seatbelts weren't a thing when I was a kid, so I remember well the arguments when they became common and later required.)
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    Tons of people thought seatbelts would do more harm than good. https://www.pennlive.com/opinion/2020/08/people-once-complained-about-seat-belts-opinion.html https://www.pennlive.com/opinion/2020/08/people-once-complai... > trapping people in burning cars or causing drowning or preventing rescue personnel from being able to free those who are injured > belts cause internal damage when an accident causes the wearer to slam forward > folks wear them incorrectly, across their stomachs rather than their waists, where they will do more harm than good
    - sam_lowry_ 5y ago
      After reading the Superfreaconomics chapter on child seats I can believe seat belts do quite some harm in accidents.
jjav 5y ago
There certainly can be, and have been, surprising drawbacks from what would've seemed like a clear win safety technologies. For example ABS increased crash rates for a good while when it was new, contrary to all expectations. From this NHTSA report: https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/811182 https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/... "Analyses of data from the early 1990s showed significant increases in fatal run-off-road crashes with ABS, on the order of 28 percent. The increase was baffling, given the success of ABS on the test track. However, at that time, many drivers did not yet know how to use ABS correctly." I observed this effect first hand, because from the late 90s to the late 00s I was frequently a car control clinic instructor. One of the exercises of these clinics was to teach panic braking. In the earlier years most people showed up with non-ABS cars so this was a great exercise in teaching proper braking control. As ABS cars became more and more prevalent we (the instructors and the school) thought that this exercise can go away since there is no skill to learn braking if you have ABS, just mash the pedal. Alas, no! It is difficult to believe, but approximately nobody that came to these car control clinics with an ABS car was actually able to initially brake hard enough to even activate the ABS. Sometimes it took many many runs through the braking exercise to finally get it: just press hard on the brake pedal.

chrisseaton 5y ago

> Why should I pay attention to the road if my car will automatically brake for me? Was literally an argument people made against seat belts.

jjav 5y ago
Absolutely nobody made an argument that they don't want to use seatbelts because then they'll just start crashing all the time. (I'm old enough that seatbelts weren't a thing when I was a kid, so I remember well the arguments when they became common and later required.)
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  Tons of people thought seatbelts would do more harm than good. https://www.pennlive.com/opinion/2020/08/people-once-complained-about-seat-belts-opinion.html https://www.pennlive.com/opinion/2020/08/people-once-complai... > trapping people in burning cars or causing drowning or preventing rescue personnel from being able to free those who are injured > belts cause internal damage when an accident causes the wearer to slam forward > folks wear them incorrectly, across their stomachs rather than their waists, where they will do more harm than good
  - sam_lowry_ 5y ago
    After reading the Superfreaconomics chapter on child seats I can believe seat belts do quite some harm in accidents.

jjav 5y ago

There certainly can be, and have been, surprising drawbacks from what would've seemed like a clear win safety technologies. For example ABS increased crash rates for a good while when it was new, contrary to all expectations. From this NHTSA report: https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/811182 https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/... "Analyses of data from the early 1990s showed significant increases in fatal run-off-road crashes with ABS, on the order of 28 percent. The increase was baffling, given the success of ABS on the test track. However, at that time, many drivers did not yet know how to use ABS correctly." I observed this effect first hand, because from the late 90s to the late 00s I was frequently a car control clinic instructor. One of the exercises of these clinics was to teach panic braking. In the earlier years most people showed up with non-ABS cars so this was a great exercise in teaching proper braking control. As ABS cars became more and more prevalent we (the instructors and the school) thought that this exercise can go away since there is no skill to learn braking if you have ABS, just mash the pedal. Alas, no! It is difficult to believe, but approximately nobody that came to these car control clinics with an ABS car was actually able to initially brake hard enough to even activate the ABS. Sometimes it took many many runs through the braking exercise to finally get it: just press hard on the brake pedal.