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Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

arstechnica.com

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Re: Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

#21

Post by burgerzzz »

ddalcino wrote: post #20
jacquesm wrote: post #6

This almost got me into a serious accident, twice. Definitely would not recommend and I switched cars because of it. The last thing I need is buggy software with the capability of instantly changing the trajectory of my vehicle (slippery surfaces, cornering). A brand car as well (MB) so really, really disappointed, what should have been a safety feature actually was the opposite. Dealer said everything was fine so th…

Would you care to elaborate on what went wrong? The other comments here make ‘automatic emergency braking’ sound like a really good idea, and it’s hard for me to imagine that this particular feature would be so problematic. If you’re talking about other automatic steering features, that’s very different, and your comment makes more sense to me.

I’ve had the automatic breaking in my Jeep take effect needlessly, which can be quite jarring

Re: Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

#22

Post by karaterobot »

jacquesm wrote: post #6

This almost got me into a serious accident, twice. Definitely would not recommend and I switched cars because of it. The last thing I need is buggy software with the capability of instantly changing the trajectory of my vehicle (slippery surfaces, cornering). A brand car as well (MB) so really, really disappointed, what should have been a safety feature actually was the opposite. Dealer said everything was fine so th…

Most people I know buy older cars now. They're more fun, less cluttered with dumb features and technology. I get it. When I was shopping for a new car recently, all the salesmen talked about was how big the touch screens were. Cool, the manufacturer placed an order for a panel of a certain size, very impressive engineering there.

Re: Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

#23

Post by [deleted] »

mint2 wrote: post #18
dmfdmf wrote: post #13

I have a modern car (2019) and the auto braking, collision and lane drift alert is a nuisance. False positives are common and there is no way to disable most of it. Some of it can be turned off but as soon as the car is restarted it resets to the default. I've even had the car emergency brake and come to a complete stop in the middle of the road due to a phantom collision. As soon as I pay it off I am going to sell i…

Name the car brand and model. Not all implementations are so bad, so it’s important to raise awareness of the bad ones.

[deleted]

Re: Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

#25

Post by taeric »

I confess that I find a dark humor in how many self professed "great drivers" find these features a nuisance. All the while so many people are completely unaware that they have these, as they have never activated. Hard for me to square those pegs in a favorable way.

Which, yes, being a great driver means you may be pushing close to limits while still be completely under control a lot. I just don't have a strong prior for that view.

Re: Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

#26

Post by asoneth »

version_five wrote: post #2

Regulatory capture marches forward. In an environment where small, cheap, runabout electric vehicles could become very popular, I expect lots of "for your safety" reasons why cars have to be complicated and expensive.

Multi-ton vehicles capable of moving at highway speeds are dangerous and kill roughly a hundred people a day in the US[1]. So whether these changes are driven by regulatory capture or not it makes perfect sense to tightly regulate automobiles. Personally I think consumers should be free to decide things like seatbelt and airbag use but if they drive on public roadways they should not be allowed to make cost/benefit tradeoffs that decrease the safety of those around them.

> small, cheap, runabout electric vehicles could become very popular

Agreed that's a promising area. It's possible that the increasing regulatory burden on cars may drive an increase in low-speed vehicles such as neighborhood electric vehicles (NEV) for use cases that do not require more than 25mph/40kph.[2] Since they are exempt from the vast majority of new automobile regulations that makes them comparatively much simpler and more affordable.

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7126a1.htm

[2] I am not claiming this works for every suburban commute, just that there exists a nontrivial number of car trips in cities and towns that would be feasible in a NEV.

Re: Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

#27

Post by taeric »

version_five wrote: post #2

Regulatory capture marches forward. In an environment where small, cheap, runabout electric vehicles could become very popular, I expect lots of "for your safety" reasons why cars have to be complicated and expensive.

I mean, I can certainly agree that there is a thing as regulatory capture. I am not clear that this is it, though. Making cars safer has legit improved life expectancy. Anti-lock brakes, seat belts, rear view cameras, blind spot indicators, etc. are all very welcome advances that make modern vehicles much more safe than they would otherwise be.

Re: Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

#28

Post by nradov »

version_five wrote: post #2

Regulatory capture marches forward. In an environment where small, cheap, runabout electric vehicles could become very popular, I expect lots of "for your safety" reasons why cars have to be complicated and expensive.

That's not what is happening here at all. There is a separate set of regulations for those small, cheap, runabout electric vehicles. They are classified as "neighborhood electric vehicles". The NHTSA has not proposed to require automatic emergency braking for them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neighborhood_Electric_Vehicle

Re: Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

#29

Post by steve_adams_86 »

jacquesm wrote: post #15
steve_adams_86 wrote: post #11

The only time my vehicle ever used its emergency braking was when my wife’s mom was driving, and my entire family was in the car. I was so grateful for it. The scariest part was that she accelerated toward a truck that was travelling very slowly in front of us, the car braked so hard we were all pressed into our seatbelts and the car was audibly vibrating as it lurched from the anti lock brakes. We were literally inc…

Sounds like you don't want your wife's mom driving with you and the rest of the family in the car. Sounds like she quite possibly should not be driving at all. That must have been pretty scary.

It was one of the scariest vehicle incidents I’ve been in (thankfully). She really shouldn’t be driving; she seems almost senile to me, but her kids and husband are determined to pretend nothing is going on. She lives full time in Mexico so there’s not a lot I can do other than be grateful for that buffer.

Re: Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

#30

Post by jacquesm »

mint2 wrote: post #17
jacquesm wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, because the automatic braking 'feature' can cause you to crash.

Keep in mind that Not every car brand has the executional prowess of Tesla. As the others have mentioned I’ve never experienced phantom braking on my Subaru while driving. It hasn’t even done the object detected warning beeping when driving on actual roads, which I assume happens prior to the braking. The times I’ve had that warning are parking head on against walls and approach fast, and on one particular 15 mph off…

I didn't mention Tesla. FWIW mine was a Mercedes and it was the most dangerous car I've ever driven with distance. I've never had a car that actively tried to crash before.
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