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.
I would rather a person in a car hits another person in a car than a car hit a pedestrian because the braking worked the way it should.
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.
Remember that the auto industry was so resistant to putting speed governors in cars 100 years ago that they invented the term Jaywalking as a way of blaming the victims of their manslaughter.
That means it’s the right call to make. Whatever auto industry is complaining about the opposite is beneficial to consumer.
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.
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.
There’s no evidence that self driving can be better. It’s purely faith.
Drivers are not horrible, rather horrible drivers can get a license. Treating cars as a right makes that worse. Self driving makes that worse.
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.
I conflated two points. Driver hits something due to sudden braking = they are liable.
Driver hit from behind at high speed = dangerous for occupants. Either way no one asked the driver.
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?
It stops cars. It stops innovation.
The one rule I would dream of seeing is soft speed throttling to ensure that cars and trucks stay a safe 3 second distance or more apart from each other. That should be relatively easy to do with basic distance sensing and calculations.
Ripe for abuse as all gaps will always be huge and trivial to weave through.
It is relatively easy. My 2019 Mazda3 does this already when cruise control is on. Its front manufacturer logo is a radar device, and there are a few more on the car. Making it full-time should be easy enough.
Fucking tailgaters. No idea why so few people seem to be aware of how dangerous and stupid it is to tailgate.
Don’t you fucking understand, I HAVE to get to the liquor store 0.38 seconds faster or I’m going to start getting withdrawals!
obligatory reference
They do understand but think that they are playing the statistics. “It can’t happen to me” is the mantra of many drivers.
No, No. You don’t understand. They are great drivers, an accident won’t happen to THEM!
Duno about newer cars, but in a 2017 model bmw it tends to brake for parked cars quite often when using radar cruise control…
Why would you be using cruise control around parked cars?
Because it reduces reaction time? If you set the cruise control and cover the brake with your foot then you have a faster braking response than if you have to switch pedals first.
Maybe you don’t. But ancestor post is suggesting to make it mandatory to avoid tail gating and then it had better work properly.
I didn’t realize soft throttling is cruise control.
Adaptive cruise control is just “go at this speed, but then apply soft throttle”. So you’re welcome, I guess?
There’s often cars parked on the side of the road on highways in NZ… Its also incredibly useful in stop and go traffic and sometimes I’m too lazy to turn it off after the traffic ends, until it randomly brakes for a parked car 😅
Was going to ask the same question - cruise control is for open roads like motorways. Not around town. No wonder they had issues with it.
It’s incredibly useful in stop and go traffic, and I’m often just too lazy to turn it off after the traffic ends, until it randomly brakes for a parked car 😅
Cruise control is for when my foot needs a break. Especially when I’m speeding through school zones.
Cars broken down in the side of the road
I mean, you should be slowing down at least a bit when passing someone pulled over on the side of the road anyways, no? Just like going through a construction zone. It really depends on how much braking we’re talking about.
Yes, but that’s not regular.
If traffic is flowing, you can’t just slow way down on the interstate for each broken or stopped car
Not sure what the laws are there, but here you need to slow down or change lanes.
The Cupra Born I drove the other day (don’t own a car and rely on carsharing and rentals for my business) while doing deliveries for a catering event did this. It was really annoying driving in narrow streets with it braking for parked cars.
You can generally relax or turn off the setting but it takes going through annoying menus
My 2017 Volvo just warns me if there’s a parked car in a curve, never had it brake automatically for parked cars no matter the scenario, so I guess it’s just that BMW’s system wasn’t quite there yet at the time…
Ah true, yeah I test drove a polestar and a Hyundai ioniq 5 before deciding to go with the bmw and they both worked a lot better, but were also way more expensive since they were new and the bmw was second hand 😅
Unfortunately there weren’t any second hand phev volvos available in my area at the time.
My car had a recall on it for braking too much. Probably a software issue that can be fixed, or has been fixed in newer models.
I haven’t read up on the new law but the EU already mandates that all new vehicles are required to have “advanced emergency braking”.
I wonder how different that actually is from the US law, or are the car manufactures making a fuss over something they are already doing somewhere else.
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.
The highest speed limit in the USA is 137kph or 85mph. 148 is not a lot higher, and people tend to be stupid.
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.
Okay but we can still run a max speed governor. Put it at 78, with that annoying beeping sound if you creep above 75.
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”
Please hand over your driving license
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?
It’s been in my last 3 cars and they weren’t luxury vehicles. They were low 20k Honda, Toyota, and Nissan.
Most manufacturers have these types of systems but none are up to the new standard. They’re often called forward collision warning/avoidance systems.
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
Current implementation clearly doesn’t meet the defined regulatory changes in the main article.
Not sure it’s really relevant
Precedent set by older, and very similar, technology seems pretty relevant if we’re talking about liability
I think we are talking on similar, but not the same, situation.
In your case, absolutely you cannot rely on the car 100% to brake and its your liability.
But when cars are mandated to have some very specific technology, which will require the driver to get used to etc.
What if that technology fails? IE like Tesla autopilot at the moment. The more vehicles are regulated to have “self control” on braking etc even up to self driving, at what point does liability shift from the driver to the manufacturer?
At no point would or should the liability shift. Even in the case of autopilot. The driver still remains in complete control of the vehicle and it is their responsibility to not crash it. These automatic braking systems kick in at the last possible second. Things are already pretty bad if they are doing their job
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
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
It’s very common for Teslas to drive into things, like cop cars, parked cars, people and trees and off cliffs.
Sensors and software aren’t reliable yet for high-speed driving or auto braking.
It might still be worth it. I’d rather have Auto sensors in every car and have them all brake all the time and maybe have people stop using cars so much because they’re irritating.
Especially for those giant stupid American SUVs and trucks.
I like the idea, I just I hope they focus solely on make sure the car stops instead of getting distracted so that the sensors aren’t good enough, because that’s just going to cause more accidents
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.
Exactly.
To quote Ramsay Bolton, ‘If you think this is going to end well, you haven’t been paying attention’.
