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NHSTA must not have much of a human factors / UX group. Given the vast disparity of driving experiences in rented cars there must not be much in the way of regu

NHSTA must not have much of a human factors / UX group. Given the vast disparity of driving experiences in rented cars there must not be much in the way of regulation either. Big government indeed.

jayd16 2y ago
If there's a failure here, then the private sector also failed, you know.
AlotOfReading 2y ago
People misunderstand what NHTSA actually does. The core of NHTSA's job is to manage FMVSS (what makes a vehicle legal) and investigate safety issues in production vehicles. They don't approve vehicles in any way that matters here, and they avoid telling manufacturers how to do things properly. They also don't meaningfully regulate software or system usability. Those are left up to industry norms and "market forces" until deficiencies are so severe that there's significant evidence for a safety risk in production vehicles.
- bee_rider 2y ago
  They must have some research going into touchscreen enhanced distracted driving. But I guess they must not have gathered enough data pointing that way, or something?
  - evanjrowley 2y ago
    I was at NHTSA a decade ago. They were in talks to acquire a petabyte-size collection of videos of drivers' faces to study distraction, but there was no funding for a system that could hold it, so it never happened. Unsure of what happened with that initiative, but I hope it gets revived. Today there are many great options for efficiently analyzing video. Storage is also cheaper. Side Note: Last night I was driving home behind a guy whose phone was mounted to his dashboard and was playing some video on YouTube. While maneuvering to pass by him, I could clearly see his eyes locked on the phone screen instead of the road. At least with Android, maybe Google could create a safety feature that prevents both Maps and YouTube from running simultaneously.
    - SoftTalker 2y ago
      Predictable objection: what if I'm a passenger and want to watch YouTube but the driver doesn't have a phone so we need to use Maps also.

NHSTA must not have much of a human factors / UX group. Given the vast disparity of driving experiences in rented cars there must not be much in the way of regulation either. Big government indeed.

jayd16 2y ago

If there's a failure here, then the private sector also failed, you know.

AlotOfReading 2y ago

People misunderstand what NHTSA actually does. The core of NHTSA's job is to manage FMVSS (what makes a vehicle legal) and investigate safety issues in production vehicles. They don't approve vehicles in any way that matters here, and they avoid telling manufacturers how to do things properly. They also don't meaningfully regulate software or system usability. Those are left up to industry norms and "market forces" until deficiencies are so severe that there's significant evidence for a safety risk in production vehicles.

bee_rider 2y ago
They must have some research going into touchscreen enhanced distracted driving. But I guess they must not have gathered enough data pointing that way, or something?
- evanjrowley 2y ago
  I was at NHTSA a decade ago. They were in talks to acquire a petabyte-size collection of videos of drivers' faces to study distraction, but there was no funding for a system that could hold it, so it never happened. Unsure of what happened with that initiative, but I hope it gets revived. Today there are many great options for efficiently analyzing video. Storage is also cheaper. Side Note: Last night I was driving home behind a guy whose phone was mounted to his dashboard and was playing some video on YouTube. While maneuvering to pass by him, I could clearly see his eyes locked on the phone screen instead of the road. At least with Android, maybe Google could create a safety feature that prevents both Maps and YouTube from running simultaneously.
  - SoftTalker 2y ago
    Predictable objection: what if I'm a passenger and want to watch YouTube but the driver doesn't have a phone so we need to use Maps also.