If the car is now expected to do the braking for me, does that mean I can floor it everywhere, knowing the car is supposed to brake automatically when detecting collisions etc. If it fails, who is liable? Driver, or faulty software?
“The car has AEB and it failed to detect the person in the road. The car and braking system failed so I am entirely not liable. Go sue ford instead”
Cars have had automatic braking systems like this for ages. The driver is always going to be the one responsible (short of some actual fault in the car)
Have had them for ages
Ive seen Volvo lorries with that, nothing else.
What cars are you seeing that have what the article is discussing, already implemented?
I don’t know if they meet all the requirements of this law, but I’ve seen Subarus, BMWs, and a Porsche that all had some form of automatic braking.
I think the Porsche was the oldest, around 2015-2016. It could keep even keep pace with the car in front of you
That does seem really dangerous, in terms of people who aren’t expecting a he cars they’re to stop. Or then our expecting their cars to stop and their cars don’t stop. And how bad we know Teslas are at stopping.
On the other hand, if it is implemented, people will be driving super carefully.
adding this kind of a feature seems like it’ll make cars more difficult to drive, and people are already so bad at driving.
This is an emergency brake, ie it will wait until the last possible moment and brake full on. If the driver wasn’t expecting it to stop, then they weren’t paying enough attention to the road in front of them
If the driver wasn’t expecting it to stop, then they weren’t paying enough attention to the road in front of them
And that hot coffee will be all over the place. Tough.
@FatLegTed @DrCake When I went to driver’s ed, the instructors repeatedly reminded us that we had to be prepared to stop at any time because the driver in front of us could brake for a squirrel or encounter debris in the road or stop for any reason. Most drivers don’t seem to understand the basic physics that stopping distance increases with speed. A key feature of driver assistance systems should be speed-based tailgating prevention.
What about malfunction or misidentifications?
Errors in any machine are common, and errors in automatic driving systems are ubiquitous and constant.
I’m no mechanic, but I’d guess there’s multiple/redundant sensors so the case where one fails is handled. It is a concern but I’ve never heard of that kind of incident happening in the years they’ve been around
Don’t forget the tradeoff with all the emerging automatic breaking in cars. If your car is braking “faster than a human” can react or brake, that has cascading effects to every car behind you, which may or may not have the same features. Following distance at highway speed just became way more important.
General rule of thumb I use is try to maintain a following distance that provides enough time to stop if the car in front of me magically stopped dead in its tracks. A car could lose a tire, brake suddenly, roll on its side or many other incidents regardless of emergency automated braking.
Whether it’s you breaking or the car doesn’t matter. The person behind you sees break lights and reacts.
If it’s the car reacting before you, less braking will be required and the likelihood of rapid deceleration due to hitting the car in front of you decreases.
Both of those things give the person behind you more time.
These rules are convoluted and near impossible to apply. Specific braking speeds for some objects compared to others? That requires reliable computer vision, which hasn’t been demonstrated anywhere yet.
And those speeds? 92mph is 148kph! Why the fuck are cars even permitted to be capable of that when no road in the country allows it? And why would you want to introduce unpredictable braking scenarios at such speeds?
What is feasible is a speed limiter based on the posted limit, but that’d be too practical.
Thing is like none of our roads are properly tested for the posted speed limits. Interstates can often go up to a 75 limit and regular traffic will go at 85 (because cops dont care til more than 10 over and that difference adds up on long trips) with some people going 90+.
What is feasible is a speed limiter based on the posted limit, but that’d be too practical.
I have recently got a car that tells me the currently posted limit and it is frequently wrong. It misses sign posts and sometimes thinks that a signpost for a side road applies to you.
It also has a speed limiter and a button to set the limit to the detected speed which I use a lot but I wouldn’t want it to do it itself.
So they want self driving cars, which do not brake for pedestrians and cyclists? Do I understand this correctly?
I think it’s worth thinking about this in a technical sense, not just in a political or capitalist sense: Yes, car companies want self driving cars, but self driving cars are immensely dangerous, and there’s no evidence that self driving cars will make roads safer. As such, legislation should be pushing very hard to stop self driving cars.
Also, the same technology used for self driving is used for AEB. This actually makes self-driving more likely, in that the car companies have to pay for all that equipment anyway, they may as well try and shoehorn in self driving. On top of this, I have no confidence that the odds of an error in the system (eg: a dirty sensor, software getting confused) is not higher than the odds of a system correctly braking when it needs to.
This means someone can get into a situation where they are:
- in a car, on a road, nothing of interest in front of them
- the software determines that there is an imminent crash
- Car brakes hard (even at 90mph), perhaps losing traction depending on road conditions
- may be hit from behind or may hit an object
- Driver is liable even though they never actually pressed the brakes.
This is unacceptable on its face. Yes, cars are dangerous, yes we need to make them safer, but we should use better policies like slower speeds, safer roads, and transitioning to smaller lighter weight cars, not this AI automation bullshit.
Under what circumstances does being hit from behind result in liability to the lead vehicle. It’s the responsibility of the vehicle behind you to keep appropriate distance. This sounds like you’re regurgitating their talking points like a bot.
but self driving cars are immensely dangerous, and there’s no evidence that self driving cars will make roads safer.
This is a horrible take, and absolutely not true. Maybe for the current state of technology, but not as an always-true statement.
Humans are horrible at driving. It’s not hard to be better at driving than the average human. Perfect doesn’t exist, and computer-driven cars will always make some mistakes, but so do humans (and media will report on self-driving cars much more than on the thousands of vehicle deaths caused by human error). AEB and other technologies have already made cars much safer over the previous decades.
On top of this, I have no confidence that the odds of an error in the system (eg: a dirty sensor, software getting confused) is not higher than the odds of a system correctly braking when it needs to.
Tell me you’ve never used or tested AEB without telling me.
Dirty sensors trigger a “dirty sensor warning”, not a full emergency brake. There’s more than one sensor, and it doesn’t emergency brake on one bad sensor reading. Again, perfect doesn’t exist, but it isn’t close to the 50/50 you’re trying to portray here.
- Car brakes hard (even at 90mph), perhaps losing traction depending on road conditions
Any car with AEB will also have ABS and traction control, so losing traction is unlikely. Being rear-ended is never on the liability of the front car.
Yes, cars are dangerous, yes we need to make them safer, but we should use better policies like slower speeds, safer roads, and transitioning to smaller lighter weight cars,
Absolutely agree on all of this. Slower speeds and safer roads make accidents less likely and less lethal, for human and computer drivers both.
As such, legislation should be pushing very hard to stop self driving cars.
Legislation should push hard for setting clear boundaries on when self-driving is good enough to be allowed on the road, and where the legal responsibilities are in case of problems. Just completely stopping it would be wasted potential for safer roads for everyone in the long run.
They want dystopia. Ideally you should pay per door handle use. Pay by kilometer and horn sounds are extra DLC. If possible, you’d keep paying and wouldn’t be allowed to change manufacturer and car for number of years so they don’t have to be as competitive and innovative. If possible government should mandate each human should have at least one car.
Well, since most of it sounds stupid and exploitative, they take what they can. Rent a heated seat, extra for autopilot and other gadgets, etc. The rest they lobby like crazy pushing against EV, pushing against different zoning laws other than suburban sprawl. Etc. Hyperloop anyone?
