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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

#281

Post by bobthepanda »

ticviking wrote: post #214
bobthepanda wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that road departments often have a hard time keeping paint fresh I have low hopes of nails faring much better. Some roads get their next resurfacing in timespans measuring decades.

I've found the folks forget just how HUGE the USA is. It might be possible to do this in a few core urban areas, but out in the hinterlands where there's nothing but cropland that feeds the core many roads are maintained only when they condition of the road causes serious damage.

Urban areas are not hot either. Roads are pretty consistently underfunded in most of them, and are in disrepair due to heavy usage, frost issues, etc. none of which is very kept up with due to the sheer size of urban road networks.

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

#282

Post by Maursault »

josefresco wrote: post #242
Maursault wrote: post #35

I'd be happy if local and state police just started issuing citations in earnest for misaligned headlights on pickup trucks. 99% of the pickups I come across at night have their low beams pointing straight instead of down at the road. It's so common that it can't be a coincidence that nearly every pickup truck has an illegal headlight configuration. And it isn't due to higher ground clearance, that's just their lame…

> misaligned headlights on pickup trucks Never had a problem with pickups but I've had several dozen experiences where the headlights behind me were "blinding" and in most cases the vehicle in question ended up being an Audi, Mercedes or BMW. In later years, this "headlight disease" spread to other mainstream brands - can't say I've ever been blinding by "big pickup guy".

What kind of truck do you drive?

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

#283

Post by snovv_crash »

shellfishgene wrote: post #276
snovv_crash wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Metamizol (Novalgin) is probably one of the biggest examples of this I know. It's a non-NSAID, non-addictive painkiller that was discovered over 100 years ago and banned in the USA in the 60s. It has a similar danger profile to Diclofenac (Voltaren), which is now prescribed like candy. And it is still widely used in Germany and Switzerland, so there is lots of data on 'modern' populations. But since nobody can patent…

While it's widely prescribed in Germany, it is actually pretty restricted, too, but there seems to be a lot of off-label use. It's only supposed to be prescribed for strong pain, or for fever only if other medications don't work. There is a risk of agranulocytosis, which is low, but the reason for the restriction in various countries.

Yes, it's not a paracetamol replacement, more like an option as a combination with paracetamol and ibuprofen to treat pain that would otherwise require opioids.

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

#284

Post by Retric »

maxerickson wrote: post #279
Retric wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average American only drives ~35 miles per day. 1 hour may represent the average time driven per day but it’s much longer than the average trip length. Which doesn’t mean it’s a bad point of comparison but distance seems like the more common metric. Failure intervals generally use multiple different metrics depending on context. You see statistics for fatalities per year or per passenger mile as both being releva…

Decision events probably correlate better with distance than time. Like your self driving car shouldn't be meaningfully more reliable if it slows down by 5 mph (because if it is the operating parameters are poorly chosen!).

5MPH makes a dramatic difference in stopping distance so that alone is going to make a car noticeably safer.

However, safety isn’t the only thing people care about or it would be illegal to sell cars with the downright ludicrous top speeds currently available.

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

#285

Post by hansvm »

fastball wrote: post #275
hansvm wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really: - All FSD miles put together are still only 1/3 of the average miles needed to generate a fatal crash using a human driver. - The vast majority of those miles are in ideal conditions. - A cursory glance indicates there have been 15 FSD-induced fatalities.

- Fair point, guess we will see in the next 60m miles, which by the sounds of it will be in the next few months. - Tesla's FSD in particular (being an entirely vision-based system) likely operates in less-than-ideal conditions much more often than competitors. - Where are you finding the "15 FSD-induced fatalities" stat?

- Another 60m miles will be suggestive, but you need at least 2x-3x the ordinary fatality mile count to even have a 90% confidence that the results weren't a fluke.

- Tesla's FSD might operate in less-than-ideal conditions more often than competitors, but I'd posit that the typical human driver operates in much less ideal conditions than FSD. Humans are explicitly instructed to not enable it in sketchy scenarios and to be fully attentive when it's in control, and performance in that environment is at best an upper bound on what you might expect if deployed more widely.

- I skimmed the stats from https://www.tesladeaths.com and was hoping Cunningham's law would kick in if that was too far off base.

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

#286

Post by hnbad »

anotherman554 wrote: post #196
hnbad wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think this has less to do with "modern cars" and more to do with American preferences for SUVs. Most "modern cars" in the rest of the world haven't changed much when it comes to visibility (in fact, in some cases windscreen sizes have actually increased) but because of the trend in the US over the past decades for personal cars to get bigger and sit higher on the road, I can imagine that visibility has decreased significantly.

I'm not sure I understand you correctly though. I'm aware of "parking cameras" for driving in reverse. Are you saying American cars typically have cameras covering their blind spots that are meant to be used when switching lanes or turning? Because those are the situations for which you're supposed to do a quick blind spot check by looking over your shoulder and I can't imagine Americans who don't look over their shoulders checking cameras for those.

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

#287

Post by adultSwim »

kalleboo wrote: post #105
Maursault wrote: post #35

I'd be happy if local and state police just started issuing citations in earnest for misaligned headlights on pickup trucks. 99% of the pickups I come across at night have their low beams pointing straight instead of down at the road. It's so common that it can't be a coincidence that nearly every pickup truck has an illegal headlight configuration. And it isn't due to higher ground clearance, that's just their lame…

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)

It's a serious safety issue. When I replaced my car's headlights with a popular aftermarket model they pointed way too low, to a unsafe degree on unlit roads. Unlike the OEM lights, the angle could not be adjusted. The product is unsafe and should not be sold in the first place. This should absolutely be caught during a safety inspection.

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

#288

Post by adultSwim »

deburo wrote: post #7

Available in Europe since 2006? Why did it take so long for the US? LED lightbeams are so bright that high beams is almost unbearable for opposing cars.

Brightness and angle should be regulated. Ability to adjust angle should be considered for regulation as well.

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

#289

Post by anotherman554 »

hnbad wrote: post #286
anotherman554 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think this has less to do with "modern cars" and more to do with American preferences for SUVs. Most "modern cars" in the rest of the world haven't changed much when it comes to visibility (in fact, in some cases windscreen sizes have actually increased) but because of the trend in the US over the past decades for personal cars to get bigger and sit higher on the road, I can imagine that visibility has decreased si…

I just meant driving in reverse. I switched from a 1998 Nissan Maxima to a 2019 Toyota Camry. With the Nissan Maxima it was easier to look out the rear view mirror or turn around and see what was going on behind the car. With the Camry it seems that you really need to use the backup camera.

I can't find anything authoritative on this so it could be I was mistaken but it was my understanding modern cars have more blind spots in order to increase crash safety performance and the backup camera is supposed to compensate.

Here's a reddit post by someone saying they are a former automotive engineer who discusses this but obviously using a reddit post as a source is not ideal:

https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/q1jart/c...

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

#290

Post by fastball »

hansvm wrote: post #285
fastball wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Fair point, guess we will see in the next 60m miles, which by the sounds of it will be in the next few months. - Tesla's FSD in particular (being an entirely vision-based system) likely operates in less-than-ideal conditions much more often than competitors. - Where are you finding the "15 FSD-induced fatalities" stat?

- Another 60m miles will be suggestive, but you need at least 2x-3x the ordinary fatality mile count to even have a 90% confidence that the results weren't a fluke. - Tesla's FSD might operate in less-than-ideal conditions more often than competitors, but I'd posit that the typical human driver operates in much less ideal conditions than FSD. Humans are explicitly instructed to not enable it in sketchy scenarios and…

Autopilot is not the same as FSD. There are no recorded deaths related to FSD.
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