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

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

#321

Post by singingbard » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 2:01 AM UTC

mountain_peak wrote: post #46

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…

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 actually disagree.

People only take your lane if you are in the fastest lane. If you are in any slower lane, people tend to jump in and then leave and I have no problem with people who do that.

You can also keep a gap in the fastest lane but you need to keep track of other cars on the road. You’ll observe that most cars rarely leave their lane. People who tend to leave their lane keep smaller gaps in front of them. Use that knowledge. There are many more factors than just that but if you start observing everyone drive, your little simulation in your head will start putting other drivers into buckets.

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

#322

Post by bcraven » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 2:14 AM UTC

singingbard wrote: post #321

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 actually disagree. People only take your lane if you are in the fastest lane. If you are in any slower lane, people tend to jump in and then leave and I have no problem with people who do that. You can also keep a gap in the fastest lane but you need to keep track of other cars on the road. You’ll observe that most cars rarely leave their lane. People who tend to leave their lane keep smaller gaps in front of them.…

These comments make me grateful that we have the concept of 'lane discipline' in the UK. It's rare to see the 'fastest' lane be anything other than the outside one. Otherwise we keep left and out of the way.

https://www.highwaycodeuk.co.uk/lane-discipline.html

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

#323

Post by cindyllm » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 2:19 AM UTC

its_magic wrote: post #299

ssl-3 wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So just... let them go. It's easy to do. Escalation usually doesn't improve things, including for the person displaying the universal finger (or throwing the lug nut). You've got a choice: You can keep plodding along in your truck while you escalate and retaliate and get all grumpy and stuff, or just keep plodding along in your truck without any of that noise. The errant, instigating driver won't really learn anythin…

[flagged]

[dead]

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

#324

Post by stuporglue » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 2:27 AM UTC

crest wrote: post #291

rootusrootus wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On I-5 near Woodburn, OR The section of I-5 between Portland and Salem is absolutely psychotic, and I have never been able to reason out exactly why . It consistently has a left lane jammed with angry people going at or below the speed limit, a fairly normal center lane filled with cruisers, and a mostly empty right lane with the occasional big rig and regular very-high-speed cars expressing their frustration with…

It's wild to me that it's allowed and accepted to overtake on the right on US highways.

That's the freedom we're talking about when we say "land of the free".

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

#325

Post by ehnto » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 2:33 AM UTC

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #213

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…

> vehicle changes lanes in front of you; I will never understand why this is so rage-inducing for people. Changing lanes is a necessary part of navigating, even during busy traffic. People on an on-ramp will need to get in front of somebody . People needing to move back to the right because their exist is coming up will need to get in front of somebody . Your lane is not a birth right. Let people merge. > you slow do…

Might depend on your location, but usually you are legally required to allow a merge. Which makes sense, the system stops working when two lanes that are required to merge, don't merge because people are being petty and entitled.

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

#326

Post by ehnto » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 2:34 AM UTC

maerF0x0 wrote: post #219

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> vehicle changes lanes in front of you; I will never understand why this is so rage-inducing for people. Changing lanes is a necessary part of navigating, even during busy traffic. People on an on-ramp will need to get in front of somebody . People needing to move back to the right because their exist is coming up will need to get in front of somebody . Your lane is not a birth right. Let people merge. > you slow do…

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.

Slow down a bit to create another buffer. You can even do this before they have merged, as part of the bit where you allow them to safely merge.

I think if you reflect a bit you'll find you are being the same kind of person as them, if you are getting angry that you have to slow down and give up space for someone else. I understand some people can be aggressive though, that can be frustrating regardless of the outcome.

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

#327

Post by overfeed » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 2:34 AM UTC

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #213

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…

> vehicle changes lanes in front of you; I will never understand why this is so rage-inducing for people. Changing lanes is a necessary part of navigating, even during busy traffic. People on an on-ramp will need to get in front of somebody . People needing to move back to the right because their exist is coming up will need to get in front of somebody . Your lane is not a birth right. Let people merge. > you slow do…

> I will never understand why this is so rage-inducing for people

Putting my armchair psychoanalyst hat on: I think American society embeds a need to be the "winner", and are you winning if end up behind another driver who's contending for "your" spot?

If you've driven elsewhere for a while, you start noticing subtle driver differences, such as drivers who want to merge into your (slower) lane never braking to merge behind you and always accelerating to do so, even when you're at the tail end of a vehicle chain in your lane.

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

#328

Post by killjoywashere » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 2:35 AM UTC

Table 1 and Figure 4: why are the Virginia controlled-access highways different? That population stands out in a way that smells like either a cultural difference or a policy difference.

I spend most of my time in California, have lived in SoCal and NorCal, and I spend a fair chunk of time driving around Virginia. My guess is that there's something fishy with the Virginia data being reported. Because if there is anyplace on earth with an insane number of controlled access roads, it's gotta be NVA/DC metro area (or the Tri-Border Area as I like to call it).

Also, they need to either update the caption for Figure 4, or move the plots to correspond with the caption. Clearly the Virginia data is on top (or the code is wrong, which seems exceedingly unlikely).

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

#329

Post by shepherdjerred » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 2:36 AM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #74

rogerrogerr wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Though for an insurer, it’s the same thing - whether you’re risky because you’re a bad driver or because you drive on poorly constructed roads or around other poor drivers is inconsequential to them)

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…

So, what's your proposal? What should insurers be doing differently?

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

#330

Post by apparent » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 2:45 AM UTC

mountain_peak wrote: post #46

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…

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…

Totally. People will just cut you off repeatedly, which puts you (and the cars behind you) in a less-safe situation than if you followed more closely.