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Studies find automatic braking can cut crashes over 40%

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Re: Studies find automatic braking can cut crashes over 40%

#41

Post by dsfyu404ed »

nradov wrote: post #29
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #4

Headline claim only pertains to rear end collisions (which to be fair, are a large portion of collisions on our modern cell-phone filled roads). AEB won't save you from losing your shit in the woods trying to dodge that deer or road debris you couldn't see until last minute nor will it save you from entering a corner too hot.

True, but the latest generation of electronic stability control systems with brake-based torque vectoring are pretty good at handling those situations. Many cars already include that feature and it will probably be universal in a few years. https://www.motorbiscuit.com/do-you-know-what-torque-vectori...

Nothing will save you from physics. The tires can only apply so much force to the vehicle in order to change direction or speed. A stability control system fundamentally trades distance traveled forward in exchange for not getting sideways.

ESC is good at preventing people who don't know how hard their vehicle can actually turn from going "all in" with the brakes and winding up off the road because they robbed the car of all the tractive force it was using to turn. For example, if you whip around a turn at a high rate of speed and there's a deer there ESC will keep you on the road, you're still gonna hit the deer though.

I think all these technologies are beneficial because they bridge the gap between the hapless dolt and the driver who can get the most out of their vehicle but no amount of breathless hand wringing and low effort internet comments will ever change the rules of physics.

Re: Studies find automatic braking can cut crashes over 40%

#42

Post by brookst »

branon wrote: post #10

Oof, my experience with with auto-brake in a 2021 Subaru Crosstrek (anecdotal, sample size of one, all that good stuff) is much the opposite. It's too sensitive and tends to brake shockingly hard during fairly mundane maneuvers. When backing up near a wall/obstacle, the auto-brake seems to kick in when anything is closer than three or four feet away from the bumper. I use my mirrors and have an accurate impression of…

2020 Jeep here. I used to park in a garage where I had to go 4mph or less, because at 5mph and above auto-braking would trigger every time I got to the end of a row and a car had backed in so its headlights were facing me. Scared the bejesus out of me, over and over.

Also the same issue coming up on turning cars that will be gone momentarily. I'm ready to brake if they suddenly stop, but the system freaks the hell out and tries to get me rear-ended.

I am willing to believe that there is a net reduction in crash likelihood because it may save me one time that I would have crashed. But the cost is a constant low-level fear of surprise and terror from normal driving.

At least it's better than the 2014 Audi I had that would slam on the brakes on the freeway if there was a semi trailer going slow one lane to my right. I learned to keep one foot on the gas and ready to floor it when that happened (maybe 5-10 times a year).

Re: Studies find automatic braking can cut crashes over 40%

#43

Post by mattgreenrocks »

bhouston wrote: post #2

It feels like a simple thing but I also suspect it is effective from my personal experience. We have automatic braking (fixed: breaking) on my Toyota Rav4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbnoFbb8G8Q It is a simple thing but the PCS has been triggered 4 times in the last 5 years and never incorrectly. I think I would have stopped soon enough without it (as I've never hit anything in my 20+ years of driving), but it w…

We have it our 2016 Forester and I won't buy a new car without it. I'm a pretty careful driver most of the time but I had one incident where I went into a road trance right as the car in front of me braked very abruptly to make a turn and I didn't register it in time. Was going about 35mph and there were a few car lengths in front of me. Automatic braking kicked in along with a loud chime and I slammed on the brake and stopped within inches.

Amazing technology that saved my ass and my car.

Re: Studies find automatic braking can cut crashes over 40%

#44

Post by n8cpdx »

CydeWeys wrote: post #27
branon wrote: post #10

Oof, my experience with with auto-brake in a 2021 Subaru Crosstrek (anecdotal, sample size of one, all that good stuff) is much the opposite. It's too sensitive and tends to brake shockingly hard during fairly mundane maneuvers. When backing up near a wall/obstacle, the auto-brake seems to kick in when anything is closer than three or four feet away from the bumper. I use my mirrors and have an accurate impression of…

Honestly, I feel like a lot of the people complaining about this feature are just bad drivers who regularly drive unsafely and are now getting called out on it. This in particular: > Sometimes, though, I will allow the distance between myself and the next car to close, for example, if they're turning and will be gone in a second anyway. The Subaru then ruins my well-calculated slowdown maneuver by slamming on the bra…

I used to have a roommate (who has several accidents on his record) with the exact same model of Toyota Corolla that I had. We’d frequently go on trips together.

My driving experience: very rarely have a PCS audible warning when conditions change unexpectedly on the 10 (SoCal). Braking activated once or maybe twice in three years.

His experience: constant “false” alarms from the system, several instances of pedestrians and vehicles “coming out of nowhere” that passenger saw 10+ seconds away, several instances of slamming on the brakes, both machine and human-activated.

Some people just don’t treat driving as the life safety critical activity that it is. Most people.

Re: Studies find automatic braking can cut crashes over 40%

#45

Post by DiggyJohnson »

branon wrote: post #33
CydeWeys wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I feel like a lot of the people complaining about this feature are just bad drivers who regularly drive unsafely and are now getting called out on it. This in particular: > Sometimes, though, I will allow the distance between myself and the next car to close, for example, if they're turning and will be gone in a second anyway. The Subaru then ruins my well-calculated slowdown maneuver by slamming on the bra…

That was just one example. I've clarified my original comment, previously I was using the term "car length" in a way that did not make sense to others. I should have said "seconds of follow distance" All of this is infinitely nuanced anyway. There might not be a side street. It can happen on the highway too when cars switch lanes to exit. And it's not like it happens every day, it's fairly rare, I just have yet to ac…

I’m not comfortable at all claiming that you’re a bad driver in general, like the GP proposes, and maybe I’m taking your unit of measurement too literally, but I don’t think 1-2 car lengths is a reasonable follow distance in almost any circumstances above 45mph, two lengths is kinda the minimum to not bother the person in front of you. Again, I’m making a very general statement, that might not apply to the situations you’re describing.

And I’m a young guy that is working on being a more conservative driver myself - so I’m chuckling to myself just at the idea of me taking this side of the discussion.

Re: Studies find automatic braking can cut crashes over 40%

#46

Post by melling »

macintux wrote: post #32
melling wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, everyone’s got that one story in a billion that tries to be the counter example. I remember back in the day when seatbelts were controversial because someone was thrown free from a car.

Many of us are quite familiar with the reliability of software, and have serious concerns about trusting it to make the right decisions in a complex real-world situation.

Yes, that would include me.

We really should work on software reliability.

As for humans, 35,000 Americans die every year on the roads and 6 million accidents occur.

I think we should be able to get software reliable enough to reduce that by 10x

Re: Studies find automatic braking can cut crashes over 40%

#47

Post by saiya-jin »

kleiba wrote: post #19

I don't have an automatic brake in my car, but a sensor that warns me when I'm about to crash into something. There has so far been a single incident where this was actually helpful. In >95% of the cases, it's false positives. I can only imagine what driving would be like if the car did indeed autonomously brake in those situations.

Same here, previous generation of bmw 5 series, the warnings happen often in non-standard but completely safe situations that human can easily assess (ie full parking lane starting on the right in lane that was driving one 50m before, with very clear signs and good visibility).

Or in situation when I am already breaking ie to full stop hard with enough breaking room and it still pops up the warnings. Sometimes just warnings out of blue, in the middle of an empty road. Me and my family are very happy no automated breaking is integrated into that car, its current state would kill us sooner or later.

Re: Studies find automatic braking can cut crashes over 40%

#48

Post by tshaddox »

CydeWeys wrote: post #27
branon wrote: post #10

Oof, my experience with with auto-brake in a 2021 Subaru Crosstrek (anecdotal, sample size of one, all that good stuff) is much the opposite. It's too sensitive and tends to brake shockingly hard during fairly mundane maneuvers. When backing up near a wall/obstacle, the auto-brake seems to kick in when anything is closer than three or four feet away from the bumper. I use my mirrors and have an accurate impression of…

Honestly, I feel like a lot of the people complaining about this feature are just bad drivers who regularly drive unsafely and are now getting called out on it. This in particular: > Sometimes, though, I will allow the distance between myself and the next car to close, for example, if they're turning and will be gone in a second anyway. The Subaru then ruins my well-calculated slowdown maneuver by slamming on the bra…

I tend to agree, especially in the situation described in that comment. I have a 2020 Subaru Outback that I believe has a very similar braking system, and while I have also experienced a small handful of false positives (especially when moving very slowly in a tight parking spot), I think the system is pretty good, and I do feel good about its ability to help at least a little bit if I ever really need it.

I’m willing to ignore the false positives when moving very slowly in tight parking spaces. That’s startling and annoying, but doesn’t really bug me too much. I believe you can also turn that off independently of the forward-facing road-speed emergency braking feature (and you need to if you have a trailer or bike rack).

As for false positives while at road speed, I think the actual brakes have only kicked in once or twice, and only very briefly (certainly not enough to slow me down so much that it could cause an accident). It’s a bit more common to get a false positive on the first stage of alert, which in my car is an audible alert and some red LEDs on the primitive heads up display.

Re: Studies find automatic braking can cut crashes over 40%

#49

Post by berberous »

branon wrote: post #33
CydeWeys wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I feel like a lot of the people complaining about this feature are just bad drivers who regularly drive unsafely and are now getting called out on it. This in particular: > Sometimes, though, I will allow the distance between myself and the next car to close, for example, if they're turning and will be gone in a second anyway. The Subaru then ruins my well-calculated slowdown maneuver by slamming on the bra…

That was just one example. I've clarified my original comment, previously I was using the term "car length" in a way that did not make sense to others. I should have said "seconds of follow distance" All of this is infinitely nuanced anyway. There might not be a side street. It can happen on the highway too when cars switch lanes to exit. And it's not like it happens every day, it's fairly rare, I just have yet to ac…

Have you ever looked up stopping distances?

https://www.automotive-fleet.com/driver-care/239402/driver-c...

I don’t know how accurate the above is, but it suggest that the stopping distance at 40mph is 5-9 car lengths, so I have to agree with the above poster that if you are routinely leaving one car length and your car system is freaking out, you are probably driving unsafely.

Keep in my that statistically this could work out for you fine for 20+ years before one day you get into accident, and presumably blaming the driver who suddenly stopped mid turn.

Check out watchpeopledie or idiotsincars for plenty of videos of what could go wrong. I recall one video of exactly this issue — an idiot SUV stopped mid turn in the middle of a lane, clearly a bad driver. And then another driver t-boned her because he didn’t have enough distance to stop, also cleary partially at fault IMO.

I know people with lifelong pain from minor auto accidents. Don’t have that be you, or cause that for someone else. What do you lose by keeping some more space between you and the next car?

Re: Studies find automatic braking can cut crashes over 40%

#50

Post by erisian »

melling wrote: post #9
erisian wrote: post #8

Fuck no. I had to deal with a rental that had driver assist technology and it damn near killed me. There was a boulder on the road around a blind corner and the car fought me trying to swerve out of the way, I barely avoided it. Imagine auto braking on black ice or because of a faulty sensor. We're giving immature technology too much control of the vehicle.

Yeah, everyone’s got that one story in a billion that tries to be the counter example. I remember back in the day when seatbelts were controversial because someone was thrown free from a car.

It's a bit of a stretch to compare software overriding intentional input from the driver to the introduction of seatbelts.
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