4 ms·
There's a middle ground here where the car sees it's about to be rear-ended and softens the hold on the brakes just enough to convert some of the impact energy
by daviddumenil 11y ago
There's a middle ground here where the car sees it's about to be rear-ended and softens the hold on the brakes just enough to convert some of the impact energy to forward motion.
It knows the distance to the car in front and has a good idea of the rear car's speed. The only real variable is the weight of the approaching car but a pessimistic estimate could leave more margin to avoid touching the car in front.
- thrownaway2424 11y agoThat's the total opposite of what the car should do if it knows it's going to be rear ended. It should lock the brakes and tension the seat belts.
- NathanKP 11y agoIt depends on how fast the incoming car is travelling. If you are about to be rear ended by someone traveling 60 miles an hour (happens sometimes in rural areas where people don't pay attention and are traveling highway speeds on narrow two lane roads), then it would actually be safer to accelerate the car to 30mph and crash into the person in front of you so that it is a 30mph impact to front and 30mph impact to rear rather than a massive 60mph impact to the rear of the car.
- thrownaway2424 11y agoYou're demonstrating perfectly the urgent need for self-driving cars.
- mvid 11y agoIf this is happening at intersections, releasing the brakes would potentially push your car into oncoming traffic and add a t-bone collision that would not have happened otherwise.