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The US will finally allow adaptive beam headlights on new cars

arstechnica.com

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Re: The US will finally allow adaptive beam headlights on new cars

#191

Post by uptown »

ericmay wrote: post #183
bb88 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may find it interesting the NHTSA is pushing for breathalizers in cars starting in 2026. Personally I'm more in favor of smart road like technologies where a highway has a mechanical or physical properties to assist self-driving vehicles stay in line with the road. Mostly because a 100% software solution will likely not work, particularly in the midwest and great lakes states during the wintertime. It need not be…

People drink and drive in America because they have no choice. You can’t walk him from a bar, and even if it’s available nobody is paying $40 for an Uber when they can drive their car. If we want to lower drunk driving incidence rates we need people walking to the bar or taking public transit. It requires us to fix our outdated and asinine transit culture. All of the technical solutions in the world can’t solve this…

"People drink and drive in America because they have no choice."

They always could choose not to drink if they have no choice but to drive. How is that not a choice?

Re: The US will finally allow adaptive beam headlights on new cars

#192

Post by j-bos »

datavirtue wrote: post #163
kalleboo wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's something that should be caught in mandatory periodic vehicle safety inspections. I always thought it was weird that in large parts of the US that is simply not a thing (compared to places I'm used to in the rest of the world where it seems totally normal)

We don't have the resources deployed for this. They are too busy wasting thousands and thousands of rounds of ammunition each week, practicing for thier next shout-out.

Unlikely as most people (in Texas at least) get their vehicles inspected at a mechanic's shop, not a police station.

Re: The US will finally allow adaptive beam headlights on new cars

#193

Post by lotsofpulp »

londons_explore wrote: post #85
rswail wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is not drunk drivers but incapacitated drivers, whether due to alcohol, drugs, lack of sleep, distractions (mobile phones), etc. The fix is not arbitrary alcohol blood levels, or extending the "War on Drugs", but with standardized, enforced, in-vehicle continuous testing that ensures that the driver is awake, responsive, and in control of the vehicle. That is something where R&D in AI/ML/software to analy…

I have a suspicion that most accidents involve the worst 10% of drivers. I'd like to see research into ways to identify those drivers and encourage them to improve their driving skill. For example, one way might be to make a register of driving skill public information, and then insurance companies can jack their prices up for those people unless they go on and pass (government funded) extra training courses. Such a…

>Such a register could simply be an open database of insurance claims, or police crash records showing the names of people involved.

In the US, these are CLUE and A-PLUS

https://risk.lexisnexis.com/products/clue-auto

https://www.verisk.com/insurance/products/a-plus-commercial/

Re: The US will finally allow adaptive beam headlights on new cars

#194

Post by sethammons »

EthicalSimilar wrote: post #158
sethammons wrote: post #152

The bright-in-your-eyes headlights (oncoming or following you) are a problem, especially oncoming on curves. I learned early to follow the outside lane marker with my eyes, effectively taking my eyes off the road to avoid getting temporarily blinded. My wife suggested a fun tech solution: night vision and making all lights less bright. Kind of a fun idea: a slight glow or dim lights so you can still see vehicles unai…

Most newer vehicles have automatically dimmed rear view mirrors to prevent this issue from vehicles behind you.

The auto-dimming rear view mirrors are great

Re: The US will finally allow adaptive beam headlights on new cars

#195

Post by piaste »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #190
ericmay wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People drink and drive in America because they have no choice. You can’t walk him from a bar, and even if it’s available nobody is paying $40 for an Uber when they can drive their car. If we want to lower drunk driving incidence rates we need people walking to the bar or taking public transit. It requires us to fix our outdated and asinine transit culture. All of the technical solutions in the world can’t solve this…

>People drink and drive in America because they have no choice. You can’t walk him from a bar, and even if it’s available nobody is paying $40 for an Uber when they can drive their car. List of choices: 1. Not drink alcohol 2. Drink less alcohol, and switch to water at least 1 hour before driving. 3. Pay for a driver 4. Live where you can walk to an establishment that serves alcohol 5. Rent a hotel room nearby And so…

6. Sleep in your car

I think it's important to add this one because it's free and doesn't even require previous planning, so it's very hard to argue that you couldn't do it instead of driving drunk.

(Although keeping a blanket in your trunk makes it a much better experience.)

Re: The US will finally allow adaptive beam headlights on new cars

#196

Post by anotherman554 »

hnbad wrote: post #187
Hamuko wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They tell that about every single safety feature in cars. Reversing cameras usually always have a warning to not rely on the image, even though basically the only way to actually get a proper view what's behind you in a modern car is to get out of the car and go behind it. I imagine it's all about liability.

Looking over your shoulder isn't part of driver's ed in the US? In Germany you'd literally fail your exam if you forget to do that even once before turning. You don't even need to move your upper body, just turn your head to the side and look in that direction and you'll cover most blind spots. They also teach you how to adjust your mirrors and how to tell they're adjusted correctly. They also do a blind spot demonst…

Any technique you learned in driver's ed is going to be less effective on a modern car than it was on an older car because modern cars have more blind spots and expect you to use the backup camera to compensate.

Re: The US will finally allow adaptive beam headlights on new cars

#197

Post by spookie »

fastball wrote: post #137
sgtnoodle wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lane following isn't the hard part of self driving cars. I wouldn't say it's trivial, but it's a minor detail compared to everything else that also needs to work reliably 99.9999% of the time. Such infrastructure might help make cheaper lane-keep assist as standard options I guess, but at the speeds where it matters for safety, you need significant look-ahead on the trajectory rather than just lateral position error.…

Do you need everything to work reliably 99.9999% of the time? Is that the reliability rating of human drivers?

A single person might die, go to the hospital, or even go to jail depending on the accident. But if it's the car's software fault... Who gets blamed? Bear in mind we are trying to make this economically sustainable.

Re: The US will finally allow adaptive beam headlights on new cars

#198

Post by i80and »

ggm wrote: post #90

Fix glare. Headlamp technology has driven to a point that harms other drivers. It's dangerous. I don't drive at night now if I can avoid it, because of night vision issues which high strength blue light headlamps exacerbate.

So for what it's worth, in 2016 the IIHS started looking closely at headlights including glare to oncoming traffic.

Some automakers took this to heart and have since eliminated the glare that was then-rampant.

Re: The US will finally allow adaptive beam headlights on new cars

#199

Post by spookie »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #174
bmitc wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's clear that human behavior and existing road design is still vastly worse Is that true? Those human statistics take every human car and driver into account, not just Teslas. I have never seen data that shows self-driving cars anywhere close to human driving capability. If we replaced every car on the road with "self-driving" Teslas, it would be mayhem.

Most of the "teslas are safer than other cars!" stats are severely biased because: 1)Teslas are "luxury" vehicles, much higher-end than the average US car. A base Model S, or average model 3, costs twice the average US car cost. They are as a result significantly better equipped with safety features and have better crash engineering. In terms of driver assistance, the auto industry was pretty belligerent about backup…

So true, we're (unfortunately) going to see accidents more frequently as time goes on.

Re: The US will finally allow adaptive beam headlights on new cars

#200

Post by [deleted] »

datavirtue wrote: post #163
kalleboo wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's something that should be caught in mandatory periodic vehicle safety inspections. I always thought it was weird that in large parts of the US that is simply not a thing (compared to places I'm used to in the rest of the world where it seems totally normal)

We don't have the resources deployed for this. They are too busy wasting thousands and thousands of rounds of ammunition each week, practicing for thier next shout-out.

[deleted]
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