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Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

arstechnica.com

141–150 of 512 posts

Re: Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

#141
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…

A driver that drives unreasonably more slowly than the traffic that surrounds them is a bad driver. They cause traffic and create more chances for crashes -- after all, crash severity is directly proportional to relative speed between moving bodies.

Re: Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

#142
post #117

There is a lot of concern about incorrect actuations in this thread. One way to address this is to dictate that the car AEB status prior to each accident was made known to everyone involved, and to hold the manufacturer directly liable whenever AEB contributed to a collision. After making that change, they could circulate the draft bill, and let the car manufacturer lobbyists kill it.

Love the path this comment took.

Re: Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

#144
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There appear to be major variations between manufacturers. I've driven many miles on a wide variety of roads in a Subaru and haven't experienced any false positive automatic braking incidents. However, the system does automatically disable itself (and warns the driver accordingly) in heavy precipitation so there is still significant room for improvement.

> the system does automatically disable itself (and warns the driver accordingly) in heavy precipitation That would have saved me one of two incidents so Subaru may well be the one doing this right.

My parents have a couple of newer Outbacks. My father, who's rather technical and pays close attention to these things, had commented repeatedly that he likes how Subaru appears to be more conservative in deploying new technology, but what they do deploy seems to be functionally solid and correct. (His opinion; YMMV.)

Also, they still provide physical knobs and switches for the important things; that includes climate controls and, I believe, the stereo.

I'm driving an 11 year old Forester and just as happy not to be dealing with all this crap quite yet. And the various satellite connectivity options on it have been left never activated.

Re: Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you care to elaborate on what went wrong? The other comments here make ‘automatic emergency braking’ sound like a really good idea, and it’s hard for me to imagine that this particular feature would be so problematic. If you’re talking about other automatic steering features, that’s very different, and your comment makes more sense to me.

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've had this happen too but after the first few times I understand why it's doing it and try not to follow too closely in these situations.

Re: Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

#146
post #100
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Multi-ton vehicles capable of moving at highway speeds are dangerous and kill roughly a hundred people a day in the US[1]. So whether these changes are driven by regulatory capture or not it makes perfect sense to tightly regulate automobiles. Personally I think consumers should be free to decide things like seatbelt and airbag use but if they drive on public roadways they should not be allowed to make cost/benefit t…

> it makes perfect sense to tightly regulate automobiles Not the way we do it, it doesn't. What it does make sense to do is put the liability for harm where it belongs: on those who actually cause harm. But the vast majority of our automobile regulations--I include traffic laws in this category--do not do that. The regulation proposed here is an example.

Nonsense. Better than worrying about liability of the harm that happens, is reducing the amount of harm that happens. To argue otherwise is silly.

Re: Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

#147
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I suspect it's more like people brake at first like a startle reflex, but they only brake really hard once their brain does the calculus and full panic sets in. Then they can bend the brake pedal.

On a motorcycle this is actually a lifesaver that's a very natural reflex because you want to load the front suspension and tire before you almost lock it up.

Re: Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

#148
post #125
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The other comments here make ‘automatic emergency braking’ sound like a really good idea That's because those other comments all assume that "automatic emergency braking" will only do exactly what it's supposed to do and will never make a mistake. But any sensible person knows that's not going to happen. These systems will make mistakes, and some of those mistakes will cause harm. So you can't just make a blanket c…

I think there is one other aspect to consider. Over here at least, generally if someone rear ends you it's always their fault. The law says they were not maintaining a safe following distance. So from the perspective of the manufacturer they would probably say such mistakes should not by themselves cause problems unless someone else is breaking the law, no different to a human tapping the brakes because they thought…

> from the perspective of the manufacturer they would probably say such mistakes should not by themselves cause problems unless someone else is breaking the law

The kinds of mistakes described elsewhere in this thread have not been of the form "system mistakenly brakes my car and someone behind me rear-ends me because they were following too close". So your comments, while valid for that particular scenario, do not appear to be relevant to what other posters are concerned about.

Re: Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

#149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you care to elaborate on what went wrong? The other comments here make ‘automatic emergency braking’ sound like a really good idea, and it’s hard for me to imagine that this particular feature would be so problematic. If you’re talking about other automatic steering features, that’s very different, and your comment makes more sense to me.

Not the poster Vw golf r 2016 the sensor was low to the ground and it would randomly brake for stuff it thought was a threat like a cardboard box. Subaru crosstrek 2018 - would brake for no reason, cars turning up ahead of me, etc. VW atlas 2019 - brake for no reason would also scream at me and show a red symbol on the hud when nothing was in the road in front of me. Subaru impreza 2023 - brakes for turning vehicles…

> Subaru crosstrek 2018 - would brake for no reason, cars turning up ahead of me, etc.

Another anecdote - I have the exact same car and haven't had it do anything unexpected. It would really help if Subaru et. al. had ways to offer feedback back to them, because experiences like yours should be shared with them so they can understand what kind of corner cases some drivers are getting into.

> I also had the lane assist on the crosstrek almost cause an accident on the highway at speed. Roads here are inconsistent and it was violently jerking the wheel trying to stay between lines.

I've also not experienced this - the lane assist is just a nudge and if it's overpowering you you should take it to the dealership, this is not normal.

Re: Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say

#150
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…

The B in AEB stands for “braking”, not “steering”, so I don’t understand what system you’re referring to that would steer into cyclist traffic

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