Hard-braking events as indicators of road segment crash risk • Hacker News Board

Re: Hard-braking events as indicators of road segment crash risk

#261

Post by dietr1ch » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 12:12 AM UTC

rconti wrote: post #172

dietr1ch wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the few things I really don't like about my Subbie is that it tries to help braking. I'm all in for traction control and to some extent ABS, but braking hard and upsetting the car's balance when you don't need it is dangerous.

Is it one of those cars that alters the brake boost depending on circumstances? That drives me nuts. When you put x amount of force into the brake pedal, you should know you're going to get y amount of deceleration. Don't double the brake boost just because you decided it's an emergency due to some opaque criteria.

> Is it one of those cars that alters the brake boost depending on circumstances?

No, it's just breaking a bit too hard for you while the panel beeps and has scary red lights pop (that you'll have a hard time reading).

Re: Hard-braking events as indicators of road segment crash risk

#262

Post by stevage » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 12:13 AM UTC

rgmerk wrote: post #255

stevage wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, I didn't know that was a thing. Been driving nearly 30 years, and never had a windshield chip.

Grow up in a place where roads have gravel on the shoulders and are made using coarse-chip seal and you’ll get them regularly.

Yeah, I imagine. I'm inner city.

Re: Hard-braking events as indicators of road segment crash risk

#263

Post by maerF0x0 » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 12:16 AM UTC

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #252

c22 wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like a tragedy, but actually it can be a boon as long as you travel in neither the leftmost nor rightmost lane . The majority of the traffic entering your buffer will be exiting your buffer out the other side as soon as they can, so you can just chug along at a (greatly reduced, but) consistent speed. Meanwhile, the traffic to either side of you is in standstill, paralyzed by your bow wake.

It's wild to me how often the left lane is not the fastest lane. I've had times where the right lane ends up being the fastest. On I-5 near Woodburn, OR, it's 3 lanes. So many drivers, including truckers, will often stay out of the right lane entirely to avoid being caught up in traffic coming on/off. Meanwhile, the left lane is going 5 mph under the limit because there's a left-lane camper somewhere miles ahead. So…

It's not the fastest often because it's oversubscribed and people do not understand that the car has a 3rd, mostly underuntilized, state of neither pedal depressed (ie "coasting") ... so they create cascading braking pileups ...

Re: Hard-braking events as indicators of road segment crash risk

#264

Post by crote » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 12:16 AM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #231

olyjohn wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh no! Cars will go around you!

Cars making aggressive maneuvers around you is dangerous for you.

If plain old overtaking results in "aggressive maneuvers", you should not be driving a car.

Re: Hard-braking events as indicators of road segment crash risk

#265

Post by cucumber3732842 » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 12:16 AM UTC

chad_oliver wrote: post #143

mschuster91 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah well fuck insurers. We are supposed to get spied upon by our cars with their blackboxes, by our insurers, by Google, by national security services of various countries... and what do we get in return? Dinged for other people's bad behavior which we cannot reasonably control. Either you follow the car in front of you very closely and get hard braking events, or other people switch lanes in front of you and in the…

Credit scores are universally hated but they make it possible to offer lower interest rates to more people. Without credit scores, fewer people would have access to credit. Similarly, people often don't like it when insurers track and score their driving. However, this allows insurers to offer lower insurance fees to more people by _not_ offering lower insurance fees (or instead charging higher fees) to people that a…

>There's nothing fairer than user-pays, especially when users can choose to pay less by changing their behavior.

If user pays is so fair why does anyone who could access credit or liquid assets in excess of their state's minimums have to pay hundreds to thousands per year for auto insurance?

Re: Hard-braking events as indicators of road segment crash risk

#266

Post by its_magic » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 12:16 AM UTC

rramadass wrote: post #258

duncangh wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Driving and living in Atlanta after living in Charleston and Raleigh felt like transitioning from a modern cooperative society to an island of cannibals. The amount of aggression needed to change lanes largely regardless of attempts to signal good faith and politeness is baffling. Driving is a fascinating ritual with vastly differing norms across regions. It would be interesting to learn if anthropologists have studi…

> Driving is a fascinating ritual with vastly differing norms across regions. It would be interesting to learn if anthropologists have studied this And Psychologists! Reading the comments in this thread is quite amusing. As a driver in India, i can tell you anything goes as long as you don't get into an accident (which may/may-not kill you) or get caught by the police. No rules matter and the only goal is to "one-up"…

I don't mind that sort of traffic, as long as I'm in Somebody Else's Car or an old junker that's already banged up. In these situations, the biggest and ugliest car/truck with the meanest driver always wins.

Re: Hard-braking events as indicators of road segment crash risk

#267

Post by maerF0x0 » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 12:17 AM UTC

a_e_k wrote: post #235

maerF0x0 wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's frustrating because someone is taking your safety buffer as their opportunity to travel faster. And it results in you having to travel slower and slower to maintain the gap that is constantly consumed, tragedy of the commons style, by opportunists.

Not to mention if that if somebody needs to come over, the proper thing to do is signal first . Then I'm happy to politely ease off a bit and open more space for them to come over safely. It's the people who aggressively slide right over just a few feet in front of me (cutting off nearly all of my safety buffer) without so much as a signal that really drive me nuts.

It's the people who hit the gas when they see your signal, that really irk me. In Austin I stopped signaling because it was a punished behavior.

Re: Hard-braking events as indicators of road segment crash risk

#268

Post by maerF0x0 » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 12:22 AM UTC

gwbas1c wrote: post #145

mountain_peak wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maintaining a safe following distance is incredibly challenging on busy freeways where hard braking is often 'required'. Most people have likely found themselves in this situation: vehicle changes lanes in front of you; you slow down to maintain a safe following distance, another car sees a gap and changes lanes in front of you. Repeat for your entire commute. Incredibly frustrating, and I've driven all over North Am…

I'm one of the faster drivers and I maintain a safe distance. (I usually have the most distance in rush hour.) It's very easy with adaptive cruise control or the other self-driving technologies that are on the market. The only people who cut too close to me are driving recklessly. That being said: If you're in the mode where people are constantly changing lanes in front of you, think a bit about how you're driving: O…

In my place, there's a significant group of drivers who will ride your tail too close hoping you'll move over so they can get 1 car ahead. And if they see more than 0.9 car length in front of you they will do what they can (weaving other lanes) to try and get into that space, 1 car ahead of you.

As far as I can tell it's pure selfishness and competitiveness. Their desire isn't to cooperate and arrive it's to take from others for their own gain.

Also "Only pass in the left lane" only makes sense when the lanes aren't significantly full. The guy in the left lane wants to do 90mph but the average speed of traffic is <55mph. Should I move over just because I'm doing 55 (despite wanting to do 65) and they want to do 90? They can only do 90 if there's a cascading group of drivers in front of them who defer their own desires to the desire of the most aggressive. Seems obvious to me that moving over to let them pass is not the right move.

Re: Hard-braking events as indicators of road segment crash risk

#269

Post by dpatrick86 » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 12:23 AM UTC

presidentender wrote: post #20

I got one of those dongles from my insurance company that plugged into the ODB2 port and reported my driving habits. I was a bad driver. It would frequently beep at me to let me know that I had braked too hard. I was mystified. "What should I have done differently," I'd think, as I raged at the objective machine that judged me so. The next time my brother came to visit, he called mom. "Oh, and presidentender is a goo…

It would be really interesting if cars did this by default. Maybe it could figure out your threshold, how much of an outlier you are, and then you could opt-in to a new threshold that's somewhat better and/or closer to average.

Re: Hard-braking events as indicators of road segment crash risk

#270

Post by its_magic » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 12:23 AM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #257

its_magic wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's all fun and games until one gets rear-ended by one of these mental patients. The solution is just to stay out of Atlanta, or drive faster. I'm OK with that. Not really sure where you were going with all this. Sounds like pretty extreme, weird behavior that you are advocating.

> Sounds like pretty extreme, weird behavior that you are advocating. Advice for when someone is following closely in anger that summarizes to "try getting off the highway for a minute and if that fails call the cops." is suggesting you perform "extreme, weird behavior"? I don't understand your reaction at all.

The people in question weren't angrily following me. If that were the case, there's no need for any theatrics.

The first weapon to be employed is a Middle Finger. If that proves ineffective, it's followed by a lugnut taken from a coffee can that I keep handy. If and when things get to that level, the person usually wises up quick and finds a new hobby. There are other tools available if the nutcase decides to escalate further.

No, in this case it was just people speeding along at 95 (in a 70) who were terribly offended at my dangerously slow driving, who wished to register their indignation as they flew by, momentarily held back but undeterred as they sped off to their Bright New Tomorrow. Message received, loud and clear.