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

Re: Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

#131

Post by taeric » Fri, Jun 02, 2023, 12:01 AM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #101

taeric wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

All of the safety devices you mention were bought by many consumers before they were required by regulations. Why? Because they are obvious benefits with no real downside. In fact, the only reason regulators were able to require things like anti-lock brakes and seat belts on all cars was that the vast majority of cars already had them, because the vast majority of drivers already recognized their benefits. They didn'…

As a sibling post said, this is not that accurate, all told. I specifically remember similar argument against anti-lock brakes when those were first made.

To your credit, I have never heard anyone say bad things about rear view cameras. It is scary how many lives that has to have saved by now.

Now, I have heard complaints on cruise control. I don't see that going away any time soon.

Re: Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

#132

Post by dorfsmay » Fri, Jun 02, 2023, 12:01 AM UTC

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…

Are you talking about emergency braking or lane assist?

We've disabled lane assist on our car as it seems to always take the wrong action, but we've never had an issue with the emergency brake which is the subject of the article.

Re: Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

#133

Post by toast0 » Fri, Jun 02, 2023, 12:04 AM UTC

sidewndr46 wrote: post #3

I have never understood how this would work in the real world. If my car automatically brakes, I would just get cutoff by other drivers constantly until my car comes to a complete stop in the roadway.

Different cars have different systems, but mine has never triggered for a car coming into my lane. Sometimes it's triggered on cars leaving the lane while slowing though.

Otoh, I won't use the adaptive cruise control, because the granularity for following distance settings is too coarse, so I have to pick either follow closer than I'd like or follow far enough back that people treat it as an engraved invitation.

I'm not a big user of cruise control anyway, so no big deal. I'm also less frequently driving long distances on I-5, so not in that situation much anyway.

Re: Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

#134

Post by taeric » Fri, Jun 02, 2023, 12:04 AM UTC

toast0 wrote: post #127

taeric wrote: post #25

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…

I can't count the number of flowers AEB has prevented me from murdering. But at least in my equiped vehicle, the nuisance activations haven't been dangerous, and most of the events in traffic have been reasonable, if overly conservative. During parking, less so, but at least predictable. Having AEB without being aware of it is probably not ideal. If it activates improperly and you didn't know it was there, that's twi…

Sadly, most anything is disorienting in crash situations. I recall how disoriented my mother was when a car came from the side and almost hit us. She tried braking and swerving, but that just caused a hydroplane and when the wheels got traction again, jerked us to the side. She was convinced the other car hit us. I was, too, all told. Until I saw that there was no impact on the side of our car.

Which is to say, you aren't wrong. I prefer folks knowing what their stuff can and will do. I am not clear on what that really says about deploying AEB. How many folks have no idea why their seatbelts lock up if you pull them all the way out, until you let them retract all the way? Very useful feature that they should not wait for everyone to know about before sending it out.

Re: Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

#135

Post by ethanbond » Fri, Jun 02, 2023, 12:06 AM UTC

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #118

notatoad wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this seems like the sort of thing that would be better measured with actual numbers, not just anecdotes from people on the internet. the NHTSA is a pretty cautious organization, and they like numbers. if they've studied it and found that automatic braking will prevent 24000 crashes and 360 deaths per year, i'd be inclined to believe them. having the car brake for me when i'm not expecting it sounds kind of scary to m…

The problem with numbers is that they don't tell the whole story. I can easily imagine a scenario where it might prevent 25000 crashes a year that are caused because 5% of drivers are staring at their phones, have a high chance of rear-ending someone, and this software makes that far less likely. While also containing bugs causing 1000 crashes a year for the larger number of non-distracted drivers, resulting in a net…

I’d imagine this is exactly the sort of analysis the powers NHTSA’s recommendations. They collect huge amounts of data on this stuff.

Re: Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

#136

Post by sroussey » Fri, Jun 02, 2023, 12:07 AM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #79

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

My father is 87 and drives well. He is cognizant of his age and tries to only drive during the day and relatively short distances (I like 90min away and he is not visiting).

My fear is that if there is a decline that I won’t see it, and at 87 he isn’t interested in a new car with more safety features.

Re: Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

#137

Post by ethanbond » Fri, Jun 02, 2023, 12:08 AM UTC

peteradio wrote: post #123

notatoad wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this seems like the sort of thing that would be better measured with actual numbers, not just anecdotes from people on the internet. the NHTSA is a pretty cautious organization, and they like numbers. if they've studied it and found that automatic braking will prevent 24000 crashes and 360 deaths per year, i'd be inclined to believe them. having the car brake for me when i'm not expecting it sounds kind of scary to m…

360 deaths is noise.

Was that determined by looking at the statistics or is this just your gut-reaction?

Re: Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

#138

Post by getmeinrn » Fri, Jun 02, 2023, 12:09 AM UTC

I've always wondered why brakes don't have a variable brightness based on how hard the driver is braking. If you've ever been behind someone who has braked hard, part of the danger is not realizing just how fast they're stopping.

Re: Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

#139

Post by tqi » Fri, Jun 02, 2023, 12:09 AM UTC

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #118

notatoad wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this seems like the sort of thing that would be better measured with actual numbers, not just anecdotes from people on the internet. the NHTSA is a pretty cautious organization, and they like numbers. if they've studied it and found that automatic braking will prevent 24000 crashes and 360 deaths per year, i'd be inclined to believe them. having the car brake for me when i'm not expecting it sounds kind of scary to m…

The problem with numbers is that they don't tell the whole story. I can easily imagine a scenario where it might prevent 25000 crashes a year that are caused because 5% of drivers are staring at their phones, have a high chance of rear-ending someone, and this software makes that far less likely. While also containing bugs causing 1000 crashes a year for the larger number of non-distracted drivers, resulting in a net…

That's true of basically any change isn't it? Even seat belts conceivably could result in some very small increase in the chance of death as a result of it being harder to escape a vehicle. Obviously the benefits far outweigh the risk, but then we are just arguing over where to draw the line.

Re: Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

#140

Post by taeric » Fri, Jun 02, 2023, 12:09 AM UTC

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #118

notatoad wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this seems like the sort of thing that would be better measured with actual numbers, not just anecdotes from people on the internet. the NHTSA is a pretty cautious organization, and they like numbers. if they've studied it and found that automatic braking will prevent 24000 crashes and 360 deaths per year, i'd be inclined to believe them. having the car brake for me when i'm not expecting it sounds kind of scary to m…

The problem with numbers is that they don't tell the whole story. I can easily imagine a scenario where it might prevent 25000 crashes a year that are caused because 5% of drivers are staring at their phones, have a high chance of rear-ending someone, and this software makes that far less likely. While also containing bugs causing 1000 crashes a year for the larger number of non-distracted drivers, resulting in a net…

No, that isn't a problem with numbers. That is a problem with letting your imagination run things.

The scenarios and questions you ask are easy to explore in the data. If the number of crashes goes down, contrived scenarios don't really impact things. If they stay flat or go up, then you have to answer why.

To emphasize, for your imagination here to be relevant, the number has to do one of those. If the number goes down, even if it shifted some situations into a wreck that would not have been before, it must have done fewer of those than it moved wrecks to non-wrecks. If it somehow causes more situations to be wrecks, the number, by definition, goes up.