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Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

arstechnica.com

381–390 of 512 posts

Re: Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

#381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every possible change to a car’s safety system will cause some deaths and save others… look at airbags. The aggregate stats are the most important things to look at, especially for something like AEB which has the ability to save pedestrians, which as of late are getting mowed down more and more frequently.

Agreed that overall it can be an improvement. But I've clocked up a good 40K km since I got rid of the car that was equipped with defunct EAB and I'm fairly sure (but of course can not prove it) that I would have been in an accident by now on account of it triggering falsely. Conversely, I've never had a problem with airbags deploying without cause and my seatbelt is on just to move the car 10 meters because it is de…

Those would be good stats to mandate sharing with the proposed rules. Would likely cause them to rework the system if they started losing sales over it.

Re: Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

#383
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…

Oh yes, I tried a Honda E for a few months and the emergency brake system was incredibly liberal. I live in a city with lots of parked cars and unusual road dips/bumps. There was a turn into my kid's school road that would emergency brake about 20% of the time whenever I entered it. I almost got rear ended a couple times and it scared the crap out of me.

On the other hand, maybe the benefits outweigh this drawback? Pedestrians get hit all the times by cars where drivers aren't paying attention (looking at their phone, etc.). So for the general population, it is probably a net positive.

Re: Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

#384
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forward emergency braking systems don't detect such situations. You'd be hit regardless. They only have a 170 degree field of view at the best of times in their current implementations. Somebody two hundred feet away closing at sixty miles an hour will hit you in the side regardless of forward emergency braking simply because it's not designed to look for something moving that quickly that far away at that extreme of…

I’ve never had a bad accident in a car, but the closest I have ever come was in my friends new VW with lane assist on a dark country rode on a bend when the lane markers vanished due to wear. I started to get lazy and distracted as the car was mostly driving, my friend was talking at me and the assist disengaged, next minute we were going pretty fast towards a barrier. We recovered but it was close. I’d just prefer t…

The article cites a 38% reduction in crashes. Random anecdotes to debunk that are not super compelling.

Some habitual drunk drivers never have an accident and may even claim it makes them a better driver, but that doesn’t make it the right choice on a population level.

Re: Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

#385
post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a cost benefit, if the number drops 38%, you are going to have to work to show it isn't worth it. What would the number have to be? Can they make the system even better by finding cases it didn't help? Almost certainly. Progress isn't a straight line, but increases are increases.

It isn't a binary choice, you can disable the function for situations it's not suited for. Nothing should be forcing us to enable harmful scenarios just because.

well, the law explicitly says mandatory. Defaults tend to stick.

Re: Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

#386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuisance or not is a false dichotomy. Mandating it rather than simply offering it makes cars even more expensive, by making cheap cars even more unprofitable to sell. Imagine if car ownership becomes increasingly unaffordable, like what homeownership has become.

What is the raw cost of AEB to the manufacturer? You need some sensors, a computer, and a way to actuate the brakes. Doesn’t seem like it would represent a significant fraction of the cost of even a cheap car.

They also already have that computer and most of them have the sensors too. The reason so many cars come with lots of these features is that the base electronic package that the maker uses just comes with it, so the R&D is already paid for and removing it would be more labor than the components cost. After all, it’s a $5 radar, a $3 chip, a $1 camera, and $0.02 of wiring.

Re: Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

#387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wanting to have control over the vehicle is not some "gearhead forum" thing at all. I barely care about cars and I still care about this. I'm the driver, I should be in control and there's literally no need to justify it any further. Anything that forcibly takes away control is automatically wrong from a basic human dignity perspective. I couldn't care less what governments or insurers think, I'm the goddamn human an…

I strongly disagree. You are not the only person on the road, you are creating risk for other drivers and pedestrians every time you drive. Vehicle regulation should be based on the overall safest option, not 'dignity' or freedom or individualism anything like that.

> You are not the only person on the road, you are creating risk for other drivers and pedestrians every time you drive.

Aren't you notice, my dear safety fan, that the thing you are propagating is effectively adding one more person/actor on the road - a programmer of potentially buggy software, totally not FOSS and without any responsibility for any possible outcomes of possible bugs?

Re: Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

#388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not exclusively a "gearhead" opinion to not want a system in your car that can violently take control away from you unexpectedly Statistics are meaningless to the individual. Sure, emergency braking might be safer across the board, but that means little compared to an individual who already drives safely without it.

> Statistics are meaningless to the individual. This is just blatantly untrue. > means little compared to an individual who already drives safely without it Until emergency breaking stops a bad driver from T-boning you in an intersection as they run a red light. “I’ll just drive safely” was the argument against seatbelts, airbags, and antilock brakes. Motorcycle helmets, too.

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Re: Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

#389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But odds of rollover and braking distance are proportional to your absolute speed. So is crash severity when you're impacting a tree, animal or pedestrian.

The problem is that there are more than two drivers involved: There is you, and the slow driver blocking traffic in the passing lane next to you. Then there are the 8 cars behind you, and at least one of those drivers is making everyone unsafe out of frustration. You can't do anything to change that driver's behavior. The situation persists until the system is altered.

Unfortunately, unless the frustrated driver is allowed to drive unimpeded at 100mph+, they will continue to be unsafe and make others unsafe. If there is enough traffic for you to be the slow car on the road, then that unsafe driver will be causing safety problems for all of you. Bottling them up in a line of cars going the same speed may be the safest course of action you can take for everyone.
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