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The most under-hyped, but most important, technology since seat belts

scobleizer.com

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Re: The most under-hyped, but most important, technology since seat belts

#101

Post by evgen »

vlad wrote: post #95
ams6110 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many cases you're better off trying to steer around the collision than (or in addition to) stopping short of it. I've seen a few crashes where people could have just steered onto the shoulder or median to avoid the crash but it seems that they just applied the brakes and hoped for the best. I don't think driver's education in the USA teaches emergency maneuvering much. How is it elsewhere?

My drivers education course (in the US) emphasized steering to avoid a collision first, and then braking afterwards. We were taught that colliding with a pole at 35 mph is better than doing so with oncoming traffic for a total effect of 70 mph. It also reduces the chances of injury. After reading that pilots are the safest drivers, I've made sure to always look around my car as I drive.

Ditto. The thing that seemed to trip up most people in the simulators was remembering to correct for the swerve. Most would turn hard right/left to avoid the obstacle and then forget to make a fast counter-turn to avoid running off the road.

Re: The most under-hyped, but most important, technology since seat belts

#102

Post by Imprecate »

axod wrote: post #39

I don't buy it. If you need a radar to tell you you're about to crash, you're probably not paying attention properly. We should tighten up driving tests. Driving shouldn't be a right, it should be something only competent attentive people can do. It'd be interesting to know stats on Manual vs Automatic car accident rates. I'd guess that Automatics are involved in more accidents since the drivers are probably paying l…

Modern cars make so much power that you really don't need to shift unless you're accelerating from a stop, in traffic, or on curvy/hilly backroads. I can comfortably drive in 6th gear between 55 and 100+ mph including passing, going up hills, and so on. Obviously it's not the ideal gear in all of those cases, but if you're feeling lazy it works.

I would guess manuals are involved in more accidents and more fatal accidents, at least in the US, since the only people who buy them here in great numbers are performance enthusiasts, frugal bastards, and diesel truck drivers. Some enthusiasts are responsible and don't push their cars on public roads, but many aren't. If there is a difference, it's probably small. My parents have two of the same car, one in manual and one in automatic, and they never mentioned a large difference in insurance cost. Actuaries would charge manual and auto drivers different prices if their risk rates differed.

Re: The most under-hyped, but most important, technology since seat belts

#103

Post by DenisM »

kscaldef wrote: post #46
mattmaroon wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that you need it to tell you that, it's that the human brain, even when focused, is relatively slow to respond. Not to mention many people have a panic impulse that causes them to yell first and then step on the brakes. In certain situations where a half second can mean the difference between death and a bruised knee, it's pretty impressive stuff.

That may be, but I still look with suspicion on someone who says he would have gotten in 2 accidents in 11,000 miles had his car not saved him. In my experience, it's very, very rare for someone to just cut you off with no warning. I can almost always predict that someone is going to switch lanes without signaling; usually 2 or 3 seconds before they do it.

Good for you, but how about the other 95% of the population who are less attentive than you and lack predictive powers?

Re: The most under-hyped, but most important, technology since seat belts

#104

Post by djcapelis »

weaksauce wrote: post #36
vijayshankar wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One more argument is that there is usually a time gap between one light turning red and the other turning green. This gap should allow most of mild red light runners to pass through safely. (At least in my city in India this is true, the time gap is as big as 5 to 8 seconds)

The systems here have a time gap too but it was not sufficient in this case. I think it's at most 1-2 seconds here. I understand that argument but I am of the school of thought that the machine should not make decisions that can impact my safety unless it is an emergency. shaving off a few seconds on my commute is not what I would call a much of a benefit when there is a substantial possible downside.

These types of technology are unlikely to make it out of research for quite a long time. Assist and emergency operation tech seems to make it to deployment a lot faster because of exactly these issues.

The transition between research and deployment is an important period where things that recently became possible can be fully scrutinized. The goal of research is simply to make things possible. The rest is a long hard slog that not all tech makes it through.

In short, I really wouldn't worry about anything they're working on in a research facility, that's just so far away from shipping product figuring out which parts are more or less useful probably isn't worth doing at this point.

Re: The most under-hyped, but most important, technology since seat belts

#105

Post by enjo »

shaddi wrote: post #99
Devilboy wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

World stats (causes of death) according to WHO: 1) Coronary heart disease - 12.2% 2) Stroke and other cerebrovascular diseases - 9.7% 3) Lower respiratory infections - 7.1% 4) Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease - 5.1% 5) Diarrhoeal diseases - 3.7% 6) HIV/AIDS - 3.5% 7) Tuberculosis - 2.5% 8) Trachea, bronchus, lung cancers - 2.3% 9) Road traffic accidents - 2.2% Although maybe it's more correct to say the leading…

Yes. In the public health course I took last semester, road traffic accidents were the most common form of death by injury, if I remember correctly. Turns out, tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable death worldwide, a label applied to diseases that can be avoided through the use of vaccination or healthy behavior. "Preventable" has a fairly specific meaning in the public health community, as opposed to its c…

It appears that the leading cause of death for folks under the age of 35 is auto accidents (the bulk of 'unintentional injuries' if I understand the data correctly).

http://www.chdl.org/Projects/10%20Leading%20Causes%20of%20De...

Re: The most under-hyped, but most important, technology since seat belts

#106

Post by Imprecate »

mattmaroon wrote: post #57
axod wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure but that's why you pay attention and drive properly, and look out for any dangers/issues. The best way to cut down the number of accidents is to get rid of all the crazy bad drivers, rather than any sort of technology IMHO.

It's not even remotely economical to eliminate bad drivers, not to mention good drivers who driver badly at times. My sense is that during any test, people will appear much better drivers than they are on average, since they won't be drunk or shooting off an SMS message or whatever else. It is economical to save a lot of lives with technology. This is a good tech. I don't know if I'd go with most important since seat…

Agreed. Even assuming people do the right thing all the time and never get behind the wheel after drinking, when emotionally heated, without enough sleep, or while distracted by phones, etc., anyone can be distracted for a split-second and cause a major accident.

That kind of "Superman" thinking that things would be great if only you tried harder is BS in a lot of cases. Most people do not want to get into road accidents, deliver code late, or build a shoddy product. Fixing the incentives or process works better.

Re: The most under-hyped, but most important, technology since seat belts

#107

Post by enjo »

ams6110 wrote: post #33
mschy wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In practice what it means is that if you're about to crash into something, and you hit the brakes, that it hits them 100% right off the bat, instead of the 50% or 80% that most people would go for. I've not used the system in the Prius, but I've used a competing system and it's not at all surprising.

In many cases you're better off trying to steer around the collision than (or in addition to) stopping short of it. I've seen a few crashes where people could have just steered onto the shoulder or median to avoid the crash but it seems that they just applied the brakes and hoped for the best. I don't think driver's education in the USA teaches emergency maneuvering much. How is it elsewhere?

I believe these systems don't have the effect until the point at which steering is no longer the option. The idea isn't so much to avoid the accident, but rather to try to bleed as much of the force of the accident out through braking as possible.

If you can get the brakes fully engaged you can reduce the severity of an accident pretty substantially, even if you can't fully avoid it.

Re: The most under-hyped, but most important, technology since seat belts

#108

Post by jrgnsd »

ams6110 wrote: post #33
mschy wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In practice what it means is that if you're about to crash into something, and you hit the brakes, that it hits them 100% right off the bat, instead of the 50% or 80% that most people would go for. I've not used the system in the Prius, but I've used a competing system and it's not at all surprising.

In many cases you're better off trying to steer around the collision than (or in addition to) stopping short of it. I've seen a few crashes where people could have just steered onto the shoulder or median to avoid the crash but it seems that they just applied the brakes and hoped for the best. I don't think driver's education in the USA teaches emergency maneuvering much. How is it elsewhere?

It's not taught in South Africa, although we have a number of Advanced Driving Courses which teaches you anything from skid control to collision avoidance.

Re: The most under-hyped, but most important, technology since seat belts

#109

Post by kscaldef »

DenisM wrote: post #103
kscaldef wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That may be, but I still look with suspicion on someone who says he would have gotten in 2 accidents in 11,000 miles had his car not saved him. In my experience, it's very, very rare for someone to just cut you off with no warning. I can almost always predict that someone is going to switch lanes without signaling; usually 2 or 3 seconds before they do it.

Good for you, but how about the other 95% of the population who are less attentive than you and lack predictive powers?

You think 95% of the population gets in 2 accidents a year? Scoble is either overstating his case, or he's a wretchedly bad driver.

Re: The most under-hyped, but most important, technology since seat belts

#110

Post by nazgulnarsil »

Devilboy wrote: post #41
nazgulnarsil wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how does that work if you're not right next to the shoulder?

GPS combined with various road / traffic sensors. VW has a system that can drive itself all the way to a hospital (or anywhere really) in city traffic. They're going to trial some of these systems in Germany this year. Because of more stringent liability laws in the US you won't see it in America any time soon though.

uh...then why are the darpa challenge guys having so much trouble? surely darpa would just give the money to one of the big car manufacturers if this was a solved problem?
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