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>I think it has made me a better/significantly more defensive driver I am highly, highly suspect of such an assertion. Watching videos of edge cases is at bes

>I think it has made me a better/significantly more defensive driver I am highly, highly suspect of such an assertion. Watching videos of edge cases is at best a really inefficient way to get good at detecting the preceding conditions.

rossjudson 4y ago
I'd disagree with you. If you're in the right-hand lane of multiple lanes, traffic is stopped in the left lane but the right hand lane is going through...after seeing this 50 times in dashcam accidents you know that there's somebody making a blind left turn in front of that stopped lane of traffic to your left, and you slow down. These aren't really edge cases. For some definition of frequent, they happen frequently. There are a lot of near misses...
macNchz 4y ago
The value of deeply understanding “edge cases” depends a lot on the context. An edge case where my beta release mobile app doesn’t work on some outdated phone when it’s being held upside down is irrelevant. “Edge cases” on the highway lead to tens of thousands of deaths and millions of serious injuries every year, so understanding them is worthwhile, inefficient or not. There are plenty of very specific scenarios that are easily avoidable crashes, yet constantly show up in these videos. Off the top of my head: - Being “nice” on multilane surface streets: stopping to let someone turn across your lane (or turning when someone leaves room for you) is dangerous. The other lanes may be moving at different speeds and drivers won’t be able to see or expect someone coming across their lane from between stopped cars. There are countless videos of this scenario. - “Thing on the highway”: in heavy but fast moving highway traffic, a foreign object on the road will be hidden by cars ahead until the last moment. Following distance helps, but paying attention to cars suddenly changing lanes a few cars ahead is also useful. - Backing up at a light: a surprising number of stupid crashes happen when someone decides they’re too far into an intersection at a red light, and starts backing up. The driver behind them assumes they’re checking their mirror, but they’re not! I honk and flash my lights proactively based on having seen this fender bender happen in so many videos. - Mismatched turn lanes: people are terrible at knowing which lane they’re going into in a multiple-lanes-turn-the-same-way intersection.

rossjudson 4y ago

I'd disagree with you. If you're in the right-hand lane of multiple lanes, traffic is stopped in the left lane but the right hand lane is going through...after seeing this 50 times in dashcam accidents you know that there's somebody making a blind left turn in front of that stopped lane of traffic to your left, and you slow down. These aren't really edge cases. For some definition of frequent, they happen frequently. There are a lot of near misses...

macNchz 4y ago

The value of deeply understanding “edge cases” depends a lot on the context. An edge case where my beta release mobile app doesn’t work on some outdated phone when it’s being held upside down is irrelevant. “Edge cases” on the highway lead to tens of thousands of deaths and millions of serious injuries every year, so understanding them is worthwhile, inefficient or not. There are plenty of very specific scenarios that are easily avoidable crashes, yet constantly show up in these videos. Off the top of my head: - Being “nice” on multilane surface streets: stopping to let someone turn across your lane (or turning when someone leaves room for you) is dangerous. The other lanes may be moving at different speeds and drivers won’t be able to see or expect someone coming across their lane from between stopped cars. There are countless videos of this scenario. - “Thing on the highway”: in heavy but fast moving highway traffic, a foreign object on the road will be hidden by cars ahead until the last moment. Following distance helps, but paying attention to cars suddenly changing lanes a few cars ahead is also useful. - Backing up at a light: a surprising number of stupid crashes happen when someone decides they’re too far into an intersection at a red light, and starts backing up. The driver behind them assumes they’re checking their mirror, but they’re not! I honk and flash my lights proactively based on having seen this fender bender happen in so many videos. - Mismatched turn lanes: people are terrible at knowing which lane they’re going into in a multiple-lanes-turn-the-same-way intersection.