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Every new car sold in the European Union must include a driver monitoring camera

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Re: Every new car sold in the European Union must include a driver monitoring camera

#521

Post by dpark »

davemp wrote: post #451
aenis wrote: post #187

If I hate anything about the EU, its the morons writing regulations for cars. My car constantly distracts me with some beeps, sometimes loud enough to be dangerous. Its surely one of the reasons far right is on the rise -- with things like 'drivers party' in some European countries winning serious votes. I spend 1-2hrs in the car each day, and I hate what those regulations did to driving. (Worst offenders: Japanese c…

Totally insane that they enshrine this stuff in law without a reference design and corresponding data to validate its effectiveness.

Problem is do you trust the government to produce a proven reference design and test data? I have doubts that the best automotive engineers are working for any governments.

More likely any reference design would come from a private company and the regulation would end up establishing an effective monopoly. Everyone has to implement the reference design because the liability is too high for not implementing the government-blessed one.

Re: Every new car sold in the European Union must include a driver monitoring camera

#522

Post by hsbauauvhabzb »

tempestn wrote: post #506

I like a fair bit of what the EU does, and in the past they've been behind some significant advances in vehicle safety, but boy do I hate most of what's coming out of there lately as far as driving . All these driver "assistance" features that arguably do more harm than good for competent drivers and are forced to be enabled by default on every drive. And now this. Bleh.

This is the part I hate, enabled for every drive? What kind of hostile cockroach UX is that?

Re: Every new car sold in the European Union must include a driver monitoring camera

#523

Post by inventor7777 »

Reason077 wrote: post #460
inventor7777 wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes I wonder if Tesla also has a much better software stack than most other manufacturers. IIRC, Tesla has had interior cameras in their cars for years now and I haven't heard about major issues stemming from it.

The camera was not actually used initially. With the old Autopilot software, attention monitoring was (and still is?) exclusively done with steering wheel torque sensors. Our camera got enabled when we purchased the FSD upgrade. I do agree the software is good, however: it's both more effective and much less naggy/annoying than the old "hands on wheel" method. It still falls back on the torque sensor (requiring hands…

Wow, I did not know that! Thanks for the clarification, that is actually decently well thought out.

Re: Every new car sold in the European Union must include a driver monitoring camera

#524

Post by teravor »

aenis wrote: post #187

If I hate anything about the EU, its the morons writing regulations for cars. My car constantly distracts me with some beeps, sometimes loud enough to be dangerous. Its surely one of the reasons far right is on the rise -- with things like 'drivers party' in some European countries winning serious votes. I spend 1-2hrs in the car each day, and I hate what those regulations did to driving. (Worst offenders: Japanese c…

forcing citizens to buy goods which are adversarial to them with their own money is rarely a good idea.

paradoxically, citizens expect the government to be adversarial towards them in big things (see America) but it's the 'little' things which breed true contempt.

sooner or later something will happen which will test the revealed preference of the population and everyone will suddenly discover that contempt is all that's left.

Re: Every new car sold in the European Union must include a driver monitoring camera

#525

Post by carlosjobim »

fsuts wrote: post #222
55873445216111 wrote: post #25

"self-driving safeguards fooled by $30 doll heads" https://electrek.co/2026/06/15/chinese-drivers-plastic-heads...

In the event of a serious accident police will likely check to see if it was tampered with and so sentence will be more severe

That's not how courts function.

Re: Every new car sold in the European Union must include a driver monitoring camera

#526

Post by bigstrat2003 »

aucisson_masque wrote: post #215
teki_one wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up in/with cars which would score 0 (more like -3 to -5) and made it to adulthood, so I have a feeling that these features are not strictly neccesary. At the same time what if it saves at least one life a year? (same goes for riding with/without helmets)

My father grew up drinking a ton of alcohol and smoking, like his friends. Many of them are dead. By your logic, we should keep drinking and smoking.

Everyone dies eventually, so that means very little by itself. Did they die young? How much younger than their peers? Did they gain enough enjoyment from drinking and smoking to offset the fewer years of life (subjective, of course, but important to consider)?

Every intervention has a cost. Not all results will be worth the cost we pay for them. I think we are well past the point in Western society where we are giving up too much in order for too small a return, personally. With cars, but also just in general, people have lost the ability to do cost-benefit analysis and act as though every safety improvement is an unalloyed good. But they aren't, and I think that this thinking is making all of our lives significantly worse.

Re: Every new car sold in the European Union must include a driver monitoring camera

#527

Post by Narishma »

zero0529 wrote: post #371

The overregulation and the constant attempt to destroy any notion of privacy has really pushed me towards being anti EU. I wonder if ressources are spent seeding that sentiment.

The destruction of privacy by technological and regulatory means is unfortunately a world-wide phenomenon.

Re: Every new car sold in the European Union must include a driver monitoring camera

#528

Post by dpark »

simoncion wrote: post #470
noosphr wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go in a car from 1970 and try the seatbelts. I can see why people didn't want them. I too would rather not have a stiff blade like plastic meterial nearly cut my head off everytime the car breaks. By comparison today we have luxurious silk strands that don't pinch anywhere.

> I too would rather not have a stiff blade like plastic meterial nearly cut my head off everytime the car breaks. I have to wonder how much of this is due to ~fifty years of aging of the belt material. It's not as if the very first time we'd ever designed and installed an operator-safety belt was in the 1970s... so it'd be very surprising if the designers chose to make them stiff blades. Your description is also at…

Apparently they were nylon instead of polyester. So less comfortable, yes. Plastic blade, maybe not.

Re: Every new car sold in the European Union must include a driver monitoring camera

#529

Post by bigstrat2003 »

baw-bag wrote: post #190
trinix912 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seatbelts are actually heavily enforced around the EU, most people would rather just belt up than pay the fine.

Toyota... When we look after a dog for a few days for a friend, it beeps. When I put shopping on the back seat, it beeps. Drives me wild. It "beep... beep... beep..." for a minute then "BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP". I wouldn't get another because of how annoying that is.

I once rented a VW which beeped the seat belt warning at me from the weight of my phone in the passenger seat. It was absolutely insane. Seat belt nags are an utterly terrible feature.

Re: Every new car sold in the European Union must include a driver monitoring camera

#530

Post by extraduder_ire »

> Starting July 7, 2026, every new car sold in the European Union must include a driver monitoring camera aimed at your face. Glance at your phone, your kids in the back seat, or the radio for too long, and the car will flash a warning light and sound an alert.[1]

Is the [1] meant to be a footnote pointing to the law or something? I don't see that anywhere on the page.

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