Adaptive cruise control has been on high end cars for over a decade - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_cruise_control_syste.... It would be good to see it standardized as it can significantly reduce traffic congestion that's caused by over braking. I think BMW claimed that this would be happen if more than 30% of cars had the feature.
The most under-hyped, but most important, technology since seat belts
61–70 of 142 posts
Re: The most under-hyped, but most important, technology since seat belts
#62I've had the radar-assist cruise control for two years (complete with braking) and everything, and I view it as a first step towards automated driving. People aren't likely to accept automated driving (even if it's statistically safer than the average driver) but they will pretty readily accept driving aids that watch the car in front of you, and watch if you're in your lane, and what not. I expect those "aids" to co…
On long stretches of Highway in the American West, there really isn't a whole lot of driving to do except keep the car in the lane. It's pretty clear that we're getting painfully close to fully automated highway driving.
Re: The most under-hyped, but most important, technology since seat belts
#63> Just like it was criminal for car makers to drag their feet pushing out seat belts, air bags, and anti-lock brakes in previous safety fights Apparently Honda couldn't get consumers to pay for ABS and had to install it by default at no extra charge in order for people to have it.
And let's not forget that there are still laws on the books in most (all?) states to compel passengers to wear seat-belts.
People are very peculiar about which safety features they wil like and use.
Re: The most under-hyped, but most important, technology since seat belts
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
In practice what it means is that if you're about to crash into something, and you hit the brakes, that it hits them 100% right off the bat, instead of the 50% or 80% that most people would go for. I've not used the system in the Prius, but I've used a competing system and it's not at all surprising.
In many cases you're better off trying to steer around the collision than (or in addition to) stopping short of it. I've seen a few crashes where people could have just steered onto the shoulder or median to avoid the crash but it seems that they just applied the brakes and hoped for the best. I don't think driver's education in the USA teaches emergency maneuvering much. How is it elsewhere?
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Re: The most under-hyped, but most important, technology since seat belts
#65What worries me about this technology are the corner cases. If it's 99.9% effective, eliminating the need for manual braking, the 0.1% of the time where it doesn't work, the user won't be ready to brake, which is dangerous.
I think the point is that rarely would a human succeed in such a corner case, let alone in 99% of all cases.
Re: The most under-hyped, but most important, technology since seat belts
#66BMW has a system in their top-end saloons that will safely pull your car over to the side of the road without crashing if the driver is suddenly incapacitated (e.g. a heart attack). These system are great and I hope we can overcome the social barriers eventually. Car accidents are still the #1 cause of preventable death worldwide. EDIT: Here's another great system expected to start trials in 2011: http://nextbigfutur…
Car accidents are still the #1 cause of preventable death worldwide. That strikes me as unlikely, given that car accidents kill something like 50,000 people a year in the US. Just inside the US, an obvious candidate for prevention -- medical mistakes -- kills far more people. (Estimated at 200k per year preventable deaths in hospitals alone.) Casting our glance worldwide, poorer nations have millions of deaths from c…
(Estimated at 200k per year preventable deaths in hospitals alone.)
For the United States ALONE? I don't buy it. But prove me wrong by citing an authoritative source if there is one.
Re: The most under-hyped, but most important, technology since seat belts
#67I've had the radar-assist cruise control for two years (complete with braking) and everything, and I view it as a first step towards automated driving. People aren't likely to accept automated driving (even if it's statistically safer than the average driver) but they will pretty readily accept driving aids that watch the car in front of you, and watch if you're in your lane, and what not. I expect those "aids" to co…
On long stretches of Highway in the American West, there really isn't a whole lot of driving to do except keep the car in the lane. It's pretty clear that we're getting painfully close to fully automated highway driving.
I wouldn't describe fully automated highway driving as painful in the least. I'd be quite happy about it.
After all, highway driving isn't remotely interesting from a "driving" viewpoint, so I'd hardly miss it.
Re: The most under-hyped, but most important, technology since seat belts
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
It'd be especially cool if it took both front and back radar into account. If nobody is behind you break more liberally but otherwise exercise more caution. (It does seem like there would be room for such an "aggressiveness" parameter, since you can't predict the future breaking behavior of the car in front of you and it might have stronger or weaker breaks.) Either way I hope all of this stuff works out to be a net…
Wouldn't the ideal step be to harmonize the radar/lidar technology and have a system enabled that forces a safe driving zone. It's all too common on highways that vehicles can't stop within a safe distance if the vehicle in front of it stops, which leads to 5 vehicle pile ups. You'd only need a moderate percentage of vehicles with the radar/lidar technology to keep a highway reasonably spaced. EG if you're tailgating…
I don't think increasing your speed will avoid tailgaters, rather it (in my experience) makes them go all the faster, to continue with thier tailgating ways.
Re: The most under-hyped, but most important, technology since seat belts
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
Car accidents are still the #1 cause of preventable death worldwide. That strikes me as unlikely, given that car accidents kill something like 50,000 people a year in the US. Just inside the US, an obvious candidate for prevention -- medical mistakes -- kills far more people. (Estimated at 200k per year preventable deaths in hospitals alone.) Casting our glance worldwide, poorer nations have millions of deaths from c…
(Estimated at 200k per year preventable deaths in hospitals alone.) For the United States ALONE? I don't buy it. But prove me wrong by citing an authoritative source if there is one.
Citing an authoritative source doesn't prove you wrong any more than it proves global warming is happening ;)
Be that as it may, see generally To Err Is Human by the Institute of Medicine (an arm of the National Science Foundation), which put the tally at 100k back in 1999, or Dr. Chunliu Zhan and Dr. Marlene R. Miller in a research study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in October of 2003.
Re: The most under-hyped, but most important, technology since seat belts
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
In many cases you're better off trying to steer around the collision than (or in addition to) stopping short of it. I've seen a few crashes where people could have just steered onto the shoulder or median to avoid the crash but it seems that they just applied the brakes and hoped for the best. I don't think driver's education in the USA teaches emergency maneuvering much. How is it elsewhere?
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