Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say • Hacker News Board

Re: Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

#71

Post by caconym_ » Thu, Jun 01, 2023, 4:37 PM UTC

sidewndr46 wrote: post #58

caconym_ wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On my Honda if a car merges in front of me and is accelerating, it maintains its speed presumably on the assumption that the separation will continue to increase. If a car merges in front and is slower than me, i.e. separation is decreasing, it will brake in an attempt to maintain the set following distance. In practice it does leave a bit more following distance than most human drivers, but your worry of constantly…

OK, it's good to know that it won't stop. But if it slows automatically it will still result in the same thing. All the other drivers just continue to cut you off indefinitely.

Actually, maybe I misunderstood you. I thought you were talking about adaptive cruise but you may have been talking about automatic emergency braking.

Interpreting your original comment in that context: AEB only kicks in at a point where maximum braking will result in you barely not hitting something in front of you, or maybe even hitting it at a low speed. Modern cars can stop very fast indeed with maximum braking so in practice this threshold is never crossed under normal driving conditions unless the software returns a false positive. It's not about maintaining a safe following distance—it's about stopping the car at the extreme edge of the safety envelope, beyond which no manual or automatic intervention could prevent a violent crash.

False positives do happen but I think they are very rare or practically nonexistent in good implementations. I've never had it happen with my Honda.

Re: Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

#72

Post by jacquesm » Thu, Jun 01, 2023, 4:40 PM UTC

mkmk wrote: post #69

jacquesm wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seatbelt tensioners are life savers. They're a little explosive charge under the chair near the seatbelt attachment point that yanks hard on the belt to squeeze you against the chair while the car comes to a stop. They're super powerful and you don't want to mess with them unless you know exactly what you're doing (see also: airbags).

Interesting! My recollection was that it was a non-explosive tensioner, but maybe I'm wrong. Thinking about explosive tensioners reminds me of an EOD tool I recently learned about – the rocket wrench. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11qa5LFB6zI [1:36]

There are spring loaded ones too but they're not as powerful or as fast.

https://laughingsquid.com/a-slow-motion-video-of-a-pyrotechn...

Re: Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

#73

Post by ics » Thu, Jun 01, 2023, 5:01 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #59

ics wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wrote up a long comment that got scrapped by my focus filter but I feel the need to voice strong agreement here. I have a recent Mazda which in almost all ways is my perfect car except for the newfangled safety features all new cars seem to have. Lane correction and emergency braking, even set to the lowest sensitivity levels, are bad to outright dangerous in city (and some country) driving. In NYC it's common to h…

That sounds like there is a lot of commonality between the two cases that I had and the ones that you have experienced. My car was a Mercedes Benz C class July 2014 issue. The AEB relies on a lot of gear supplied by Bosch (I dug into it a bit to see if it could be disabled without surgery but that wasn't possible). Maybe Mazda has the same unit? (it sits behind the front license plate and there is a camera behind the…

I'm not sure of the exact sensor. There is a little more info on it here for example (https://www.mazdausa.com/static/manuals/2021/mazda3/contents...) but I can confirm the sensor placement is the same behind the windscreen, the lower one I think is by the badge. I wish they'd just made dashcam a standard feature instead and forget about trying to throw me through the windshield for shits and giggles.

Re: Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

#74

Post by ics » Thu, Jun 01, 2023, 5:06 PM UTC

lsaferite wrote: post #48

karaterobot wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the person you were responding to, but here's an anecdatum: One time I was driving behind someone under otherwise normal conditions, and they turned right into a parking lot. As they turned right, they obviously began exiting the road. The screen on my car screamed "BRAKE!" and then the braking system activated. They were about 60% of the way into the parking lot, and continuing to exit. I was at a normal followi…

I fully understand that frustration, but I would point out that continuing through the departure zone like that at full speed is prone to accidents with another car entering the road in that blind spot and you should adjust accordingly. Additionally, following the car in front of you so close that you hit them if they brake suddenly is inherently dangerous and a bad habit as well. Interestingly enough, a universal AE…

It's fair to say that some percentage of cases could be avoided by driving more defensively but I doubt it is significant. There are plenty of scenarios that the systems simply can't handle gracefully such as narrow or shifting lanes (my experience). The safest solution might be to avoid such roads entirely but then I'd never be able to leave my borough.

Re: Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

#75

Post by dole » Thu, Jun 01, 2023, 5:08 PM UTC

bombcar wrote: post #10

dboreham wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're thinking of adaptive cruise control. Automatic breaking only activates when you're about to crash.

I've had a car that apparently has "automatically breaks" because the darn thing spent more time in the shop than on the road.

What you get for buying a bombcar.

Re: Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

#76

Post by nradov » Thu, Jun 01, 2023, 5:15 PM UTC

ics wrote: post #50

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…

I wrote up a long comment that got scrapped by my focus filter but I feel the need to voice strong agreement here. I have a recent Mazda which in almost all ways is my perfect car except for the newfangled safety features all new cars seem to have. Lane correction and emergency braking, even set to the lowest sensitivity levels, are bad to outright dangerous in city (and some country) driving. In NYC it's common to h…

If you haven't already done so, please file a formal safety defect complaint with the NHTSA with details on that bridge incident. Once the regulators receive enough similar complaints they will open a formal investigation and potentially issue a recall.

https://www.nhtsa.gov/report-a-safety-problem

Re: Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

#77

Post by steve_adams_86 » Thu, Jun 01, 2023, 5:45 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #37

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I once was in the car with an American friend who was looking sideways while talking to me and would then swerve around cars in front at the last moment. Very annoying and quite scary. I asked him to stop the car and got out. There is no way I'll trust my life to someone who isn't 100% on the ball when it comes to driving. Good for you you did not end up in an accident there, and it must really suck that you are esse…

> essentially powerless to do something about it given the family relationship

Yeah, the fallout of telling a person they can’t drive is unreal. It took a couple years to go from incredulity towards me to finally accepting that I’m not joking/grumpy/changing my mind.

Some bad driving is so egregiously bad though that it can’t be chalked up as a lapse of judgement or something.

There is a strange sort of entitlement to recklessness like you described (why in the world would you take your eyes off the road to talk!?), and we seem to take for granted the fact that we’re still alive despite flying around in metal boxes within feet of each other. I think some especially bad drivers are severely influenced by survivorship bias. They’re not dead yet so they must be fine/good at driving and different from the people who’ve had bad accidents already. But they’re only protected by very bad odds.

Re: Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

#78

Post by randomfinn » Thu, Jun 01, 2023, 6:07 PM UTC

mkmk wrote: post #19

This feature once saved me from what would have otherwise been a very nasty crash, many years ago. I was driving too fast in a borrowed car over a small hill and hadn't realized that traffic had stopped just out of my sight until too late. I heard a beep and saw flashing on my dash and I started braking but a moment later the emergency braking system kicked in, braking much harder than I would have been able to. The…

> braking much harder than I would have been able to

Any idea why you weren't able to apply full brakes? I remember reading that most people don't in an emergency and that's why the emergency brake boost was created, but haven't seen the reason for it.

Re: Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

#79

Post by jacquesm » Thu, Jun 01, 2023, 6:48 PM UTC

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #77

jacquesm wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once was in the car with an American friend who was looking sideways while talking to me and would then swerve around cars in front at the last moment. Very annoying and quite scary. I asked him to stop the car and got out. There is no way I'll trust my life to someone who isn't 100% on the ball when it comes to driving. Good for you you did not end up in an accident there, and it must really suck that you are esse…

> essentially powerless to do something about it given the family relationship Yeah, the fallout of telling a person they can’t drive is unreal. It took a couple years to go from incredulity towards me to finally accepting that I’m not joking/grumpy/changing my mind. Some bad driving is so egregiously bad though that it can’t be chalked up as a lapse of judgement or something. There is a strange sort of entitlement t…

I have a similar situation with an 87 year old family member that still drives and I've offered to be on call for chauffeur service or to pay for cabs or whatever it takes but they will keep doing it until they either die from other causes or get into an accident, which in my opinion is only a matter of time. So far I've managed to get them to rely on me for two really long rides and at least they no longer go on the highway. Highly frustrating because on the one hand I applaud the person for being that old and still self-reliant but on the other hand I am seriously concerned about other users of the road who are effectively in danger. And short of having them declared legally incompetent there isn't much that I can do beyond offer help.

Re: Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

#80

Post by jacquesm » Thu, Jun 01, 2023, 6:49 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #76

ics wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wrote up a long comment that got scrapped by my focus filter but I feel the need to voice strong agreement here. I have a recent Mazda which in almost all ways is my perfect car except for the newfangled safety features all new cars seem to have. Lane correction and emergency braking, even set to the lowest sensitivity levels, are bad to outright dangerous in city (and some country) driving. In NYC it's common to h…

If you haven't already done so, please file a formal safety defect complaint with the NHTSA with details on that bridge incident. Once the regulators receive enough similar complaints they will open a formal investigation and potentially issue a recall. https://www.nhtsa.gov/report-a-safety-problem

Good one, not in the USA but I will do this here in NL with the equivalent service. It never crossed my mind so thank you very much for this option.