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The most under-hyped, but most important, technology since seat belts

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Re: The most under-hyped, but most important, technology since seat belts

#51

Post by portman »

dgallagher wrote: post #48

GPS-enabled Governors should be put in all cars too, limiting your speed to that of the speed limit, adjusted for weather conditions. If you're in a 35 MPH zone, you car will stop accelerating (and ideally auto-slow when going downhill or onto slower roads) once you hit the limit for that part of the road. Speed limits would likely have to be re-adjusted in some cases as they may be too low in some area's, but it wou…

This proposal wouldn't increase safety until all cars on the road had the GPS-governor feature, which would take 15-20 years for old cars to be phased out. In the meantime, the new cars would have an annoyance (no speeding) without providing any measurable safety improvement.

Re: The most under-hyped, but most important, technology since seat belts

#52

Post by sjs »

mhartl wrote: post #26
Devilboy wrote: post #20

BMW has a system in their top-end saloons that will safely pull your car over to the side of the road without crashing if the driver is suddenly incapacitated (e.g. a heart attack). These system are great and I hope we can overcome the social barriers eventually. Car accidents are still the #1 cause of preventable death worldwide. EDIT: Here's another great system expected to start trials in 2011: http://nextbigfutur…

N.B. saloon == sedan. (As with many of the Britishisms in my brain, I learned 'saloon' from The Economist .)

And here I was searching Google Maps for a classy place to drink and brawl.

Re: The most under-hyped, but most important, technology since seat belts

#54

Post by patio11 »

Devilboy wrote: post #20

BMW has a system in their top-end saloons that will safely pull your car over to the side of the road without crashing if the driver is suddenly incapacitated (e.g. a heart attack). These system are great and I hope we can overcome the social barriers eventually. Car accidents are still the #1 cause of preventable death worldwide. EDIT: Here's another great system expected to start trials in 2011: http://nextbigfutur…

Car accidents are still the #1 cause of preventable death worldwide.

That strikes me as unlikely, given that car accidents kill something like 50,000 people a year in the US. Just inside the US, an obvious candidate for prevention -- medical mistakes -- kills far more people. (Estimated at 200k per year preventable deaths in hospitals alone.)

Casting our glance worldwide, poorer nations have millions of deaths from causes that aren't even "hard problems", such as clean drinking water, food distribution (solved in Europe in about the 1700s), malaria (solved in America over half a century ago), etc, etc.

Re: The most under-hyped, but most important, technology since seat belts

#55

Post by dkokelley »

kyro wrote: post #47

The assisted braking 'feature' where the system moves your calipers closer to your rotors sounds really stupid and dangerous. When I press the brakes, I am expecting a buffer period between initial contact with my pedal and the actual deceleration of the vehicle. Because of that buffer, I tend to push my pedal down further to initiate braking. Eliminating that buffer with drivers who have come to expect it will make…

Presumably the ABS still works, meaning you won't lose control of the car while slamming on the breaks.

As far as being hit from behind, I suppose this is (and always has been) an issue in accidents and other emergency situations. Still, the car behind you should allow appropriate spacing to prevent rear-ending you. I don't see how emergency breaking systems change really change the basic rules of the roads.

Re: The most under-hyped, but most important, technology since seat belts

#56

Post by rdtsc »

houseabsolute wrote: post #22
ugh wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Driving cars is very dangerous. The earlier we radically change how we use cars the earlier we can avoid deaths on the streets. I want an autopilot for cars as soon as possible.

Absolutely. The moment we develop an autopilot that is safer than average human drivers by a statistically significant margin, it should be mandatory in all cars. I am hopeful that we will see this during our lifetimes.

The technology might get there soon but not the legal framework. I can't even imagine the legal implication of cars on autopilot killing pedestrians and drivers.

That is also probably one of the reasons we don't have flying cars yet.

Re: The most under-hyped, but most important, technology since seat belts

#57

Post by mattmaroon »

axod wrote: post #43
mattmaroon wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that you need it to tell you that, it's that the human brain, even when focused, is relatively slow to respond. Not to mention many people have a panic impulse that causes them to yell first and then step on the brakes. In certain situations where a half second can mean the difference between death and a bruised knee, it's pretty impressive stuff.

Sure but that's why you pay attention and drive properly, and look out for any dangers/issues. The best way to cut down the number of accidents is to get rid of all the crazy bad drivers, rather than any sort of technology IMHO.

It's not even remotely economical to eliminate bad drivers, not to mention good drivers who driver badly at times. My sense is that during any test, people will appear much better drivers than they are on average, since they won't be drunk or shooting off an SMS message or whatever else.

It is economical to save a lot of lives with technology. This is a good tech. I don't know if I'd go with most important since seat belts, but it could save lives.

Re: The most under-hyped, but most important, technology since seat belts

#58

Post by mattmaroon »

kscaldef wrote: post #46
mattmaroon wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that you need it to tell you that, it's that the human brain, even when focused, is relatively slow to respond. Not to mention many people have a panic impulse that causes them to yell first and then step on the brakes. In certain situations where a half second can mean the difference between death and a bruised knee, it's pretty impressive stuff.

That may be, but I still look with suspicion on someone who says he would have gotten in 2 accidents in 11,000 miles had his car not saved him. In my experience, it's very, very rare for someone to just cut you off with no warning. I can almost always predict that someone is going to switch lanes without signaling; usually 2 or 3 seconds before they do it.

No doubt. He probably Twitters while driving.

Re: The most under-hyped, but most important, technology since seat belts

#59

Post by TeHCrAzY »

ams6110 wrote: post #33
mschy wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In practice what it means is that if you're about to crash into something, and you hit the brakes, that it hits them 100% right off the bat, instead of the 50% or 80% that most people would go for. I've not used the system in the Prius, but I've used a competing system and it's not at all surprising.

In many cases you're better off trying to steer around the collision than (or in addition to) stopping short of it. I've seen a few crashes where people could have just steered onto the shoulder or median to avoid the crash but it seems that they just applied the brakes and hoped for the best. I don't think driver's education in the USA teaches emergency maneuvering much. How is it elsewhere?

Nothing taught in Australia, at least conventionally. My driving instructor was a retired police driver trainer, I benefited greatly from his experience and understanding of vehicles. Never had an accident, but avoided several via quick thinking + knowledge of how the car will react and what options I have when driving.

Re: The most under-hyped, but most important, technology since seat belts

#60

Post by michaelbuckbee »

ams6110 wrote: post #37
ricree wrote: post #19

"Think about that. If we could cut down on car crashes by even 5% we could save more than 2,000 lives!" I don't know whether or not this is true, but the argument is fallacious. Without further evidence, it is a bit premature to assume that the fatal:nonfatal ratio in crashes prevented will be the same as that of crashes in general. It is possible, though unlikely, that a chance might only prevent nonfatal crashes.

Seems that I've read about studies that show that people have a certain, nearly unconscious risk tolerance. For example, ABS and all-wheel-drive made driving in the snow and ice easier, so people drive a bit faster or more aggressively until they reach their previous risk tolerance level. Thus the potential safety benefit is not realized in actuality. In fact, if people overestimate the added safety of the new techno…

Agreed, my dad always described 4 Wheel Drive as a way for people to get stranded farther from help than they otherwise would have.
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