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That's fairly unusual; modern cars have a fairly standardized user experience such that there aren't many ways for a car to do something surprising and dangerou
by Zak 13y ago
That's fairly unusual; modern cars have a fairly standardized user experience such that there aren't many ways for a car to do something surprising and dangerous that's covered in the manual.
I did experience one once though: I discovered that a vehicle had traction control when the system activated during a skid. The computer and I disagreed about the best way to respond, and the surprise did make the situation more dangerous than it could have been.
In both vehicles and databases, the situations in which the product might do something unexpected and dangerous should be clearly documented in their own section of the manual. Databases should say "here are the things that could lead to data corruption or loss". Vehicles should say "here are the situations where the vehicle might disregard or override the driver's control inputs".
- grmarcil 13y agoI'm curious about your desired response during the skid and what the traction control system did differently. Would you mind expanding on that if you remember it clearly?
- Zak 13y agoSure. The vehicle involved was rear wheel drive and, as loaded probably had a rear-biased mass distribution. It began to oversteer in a corner on a patch of ice. Standard protocol for these situations is to apply a moderate amount of throttle to shift weight to the rear and increase traction there while reducing or reversing steering input. The traction control system counteracted my attempt to increase power, requiring vastly more reverse steering input and interfering with my ability to position the vehicle on the road. I suspect some people will believe the results wouldn't have been what I expected without the traction control. I can't prove they would have been, but I did grow up and learn to drive in Alaska. Based on my experience, I think I would have done better than the computer did. Here's somebody describing the basic idea involved while discussing the joys of mildly irresponsible driving on cloverleafs: http://www.scottgood.com/jsg/blog.nsf/d6plinks/SGOD-66RJ2Y http://www.scottgood.com/jsg/blog.nsf/d6plinks/SGOD-66RJ2Y