They point out in this incident and an incident from the author where, when you’re relying on Autopilot, even when you see something well in advance, you hesitate to react because you expect the car to do it for you.
I’ve always felt the myriad of safety features that protect the driver through corrective input/output are more harm than good. If you rely on your lane assist, adaptive cruise control, and proximity sensors, you aren’t prepared to react when they fail.
You shouldn’t be under the impression that a car will save your life. You should always have the mindset that you are responsible for the vehicle. If someone hit my small car because a sensor failed on theirs, I don’t give a shit if your system failed. You’re the responsible driver.
The safety systems would work perfectly if the cars could communicate, or more robustly if they could be mechanically linked together for the “easy” (highway) portion of the drive. Imagine a lane with nose to tail cars all doing exactly the same thing. At exits (predefined stops) you could get off to change or stay on the same one. Put a little station there with bathrooms and food.
Maybe we could even replace that highway lane with steel tracks and the tires with steel wheels for lower friction.
Simply linking the cars wouldn’t be enough to address an issue like this though. They still need to individually recognize something like the debris this car ran over and deal with it appropriately.
If cars are linked to share data like this then I can easily see a scenario where one model of car with really good sensors sends a warning saying “hey, there’s road debris here”. But subsequent cars still need to be able to see it and avoid it as well. If the sensors in a following car aren’t as good as the sensors in the first car then that second car could still strike it.
Debris doesn’t remain stationary. Each vehicle that hits it will move it, possibly break it into multiple pieces, etc. And eventually, either through that process or by a person moving it, it will cease being a hazard.
We have an interesting highway near me where the HOV reverses direction for morning /evening commutes. When I come home from my son’s and it’s going the opposite direction, the stupid car would happily plough the multiple striped lift arms with red ribbons and flashing red lights at the entrance.
You are an idiot to have driven with AP/FSD and waited as long as they did.
I’m a very firm believer in the fact that safety features should be annoying and uncomfortable. Your lane assist needs to beep loudly every time it moves you back, thereby not only keeping you safe, but indirectly conditioning you to keep between the lanes to avoid the annoying beep.
My dad’s Mercedes indeed beeps incredibly loudly (anyone sleeping immediately wakes up in a panic) if the blind spot sensor goes off… which it does as soon as you put your blinker on.
Guess what that wonderful bit of tech taught my dad to do? That’s right, don’t use the blinker to change lanes if you don’t want your eardrums blown out.
The fundamental problem is that car manufacturers aren’t being held liable for the accidents caused directly or indirectly by these “safety” systems. There is zero oversight and no mandate to investigate false positives of these systems, even when they cause an accident. The end result is that for the manufacturers the point is not to improve safety but to do obnoxious safety theater so regulators look away from rising pedestrian deaths. “Sure our cars are one ton heavier, but they have automatic braking soooo we’re good right?”
Who knows if these gadgets actually do anything or even if they don’t decrease overall safety. The manufacturer gets positive marketing, throws the regulator off their scent, and isn’t held liable for shit when the “safety” system fails or encourages bad habits. Win-win-win. Except the general public loses. But who ever cared about these schmucks?
I have a particular gripe against lane keep assist. When it was active on cars I’ve rented… on the mountain passes just outside of the Vancouver Area, it went off way too often, since the lines would get blurry, or you have to stay clear of oncoming trucks around a curve meaning you have to go to the shoulder a bit. Also giving space when passing bicycle riders on the shoulder you (after checking of course), move to the centre just a tad.
Making these features more annoying would lead to alarm fatigue more than better behaviour.
I had to turn off the lane assist in our Mazda for that reason. It was constantly steering me back toward obstacles I was trying to avoid. I cursed it many times.
Other false alarms are frequent enough that I’m starting to ignore the alarm, so when it actually catches me in a mistake, I’ll probably ignore it then, too, and be in a crash.
That’s an easy argument to make but the reality is not that simple. Determining how many accidents are caused by these systems is much easier than determining how many accidents they have prevented. When an accident happens there’s something that can be investigated. There’s data. But when the system saves you and you go on your merry way, it’s never reported anywhere. The statistics have a very extreme bias here.
This will sound ridiculous and I’m not claiming it’s even a valid feeling, but I’d rather die by my own hand with my input being involved than to have a safety system fail and have no involvement from me.
At least then I know there was some action I could have maybe taken to prevent it. But when it’s a safety system (still under heavy development) that fails, I’d feel way more cheated. Someone convinced me I would be safe and now they’ve lied.
They point out in this incident and an incident from the author where, when you’re relying on Autopilot, even when you see something well in advance, you hesitate to react because you expect the car to do it for you.
I’ve always felt the myriad of safety features that protect the driver through corrective input/output are more harm than good. If you rely on your lane assist, adaptive cruise control, and proximity sensors, you aren’t prepared to react when they fail.
You shouldn’t be under the impression that a car will save your life. You should always have the mindset that you are responsible for the vehicle. If someone hit my small car because a sensor failed on theirs, I don’t give a shit if your system failed. You’re the responsible driver.
Yes! They’re making people lazy and inattentive behind the wheel.
Its basically LLM brain rot but for driving.
The safety systems would work perfectly if the cars could communicate, or more robustly if they could be mechanically linked together for the “easy” (highway) portion of the drive. Imagine a lane with nose to tail cars all doing exactly the same thing. At exits (predefined stops) you could get off to change or stay on the same one. Put a little station there with bathrooms and food.
Maybe we could even replace that highway lane with steel tracks and the tires with steel wheels for lower friction.
Damn you just always re-derive the train
Simply linking the cars wouldn’t be enough to address an issue like this though. They still need to individually recognize something like the debris this car ran over and deal with it appropriately.
If cars are linked to share data like this then I can easily see a scenario where one model of car with really good sensors sends a warning saying “hey, there’s road debris here”. But subsequent cars still need to be able to see it and avoid it as well. If the sensors in a following car aren’t as good as the sensors in the first car then that second car could still strike it.
Debris doesn’t remain stationary. Each vehicle that hits it will move it, possibly break it into multiple pieces, etc. And eventually, either through that process or by a person moving it, it will cease being a hazard.
I was just jokingly rederiving a train instead. I think automated cars is mostly really silly
We have an interesting highway near me where the HOV reverses direction for morning /evening commutes. When I come home from my son’s and it’s going the opposite direction, the stupid car would happily plough the multiple striped lift arms with red ribbons and flashing red lights at the entrance.
You are an idiot to have driven with AP/FSD and waited as long as they did.
This is the massive gulf between level 3 and 4 systems, and why level 3 is potentially dangerous.
I’m a very firm believer in the fact that safety features should be annoying and uncomfortable. Your lane assist needs to beep loudly every time it moves you back, thereby not only keeping you safe, but indirectly conditioning you to keep between the lanes to avoid the annoying beep.
My dad’s Mercedes indeed beeps incredibly loudly (anyone sleeping immediately wakes up in a panic) if the blind spot sensor goes off… which it does as soon as you put your blinker on.
Guess what that wonderful bit of tech taught my dad to do? That’s right, don’t use the blinker to change lanes if you don’t want your eardrums blown out.
The fundamental problem is that car manufacturers aren’t being held liable for the accidents caused directly or indirectly by these “safety” systems. There is zero oversight and no mandate to investigate false positives of these systems, even when they cause an accident. The end result is that for the manufacturers the point is not to improve safety but to do obnoxious safety theater so regulators look away from rising pedestrian deaths. “Sure our cars are one ton heavier, but they have automatic braking soooo we’re good right?”
Who knows if these gadgets actually do anything or even if they don’t decrease overall safety. The manufacturer gets positive marketing, throws the regulator off their scent, and isn’t held liable for shit when the “safety” system fails or encourages bad habits. Win-win-win. Except the general public loses. But who ever cared about these schmucks?
I have a particular gripe against lane keep assist. When it was active on cars I’ve rented… on the mountain passes just outside of the Vancouver Area, it went off way too often, since the lines would get blurry, or you have to stay clear of oncoming trucks around a curve meaning you have to go to the shoulder a bit. Also giving space when passing bicycle riders on the shoulder you (after checking of course), move to the centre just a tad.
Making these features more annoying would lead to alarm fatigue more than better behaviour.
I had to turn off the lane assist in our Mazda for that reason. It was constantly steering me back toward obstacles I was trying to avoid. I cursed it many times.
Other false alarms are frequent enough that I’m starting to ignore the alarm, so when it actually catches me in a mistake, I’ll probably ignore it then, too, and be in a crash.
That’s an easy argument to make but the reality is not that simple. Determining how many accidents are caused by these systems is much easier than determining how many accidents they have prevented. When an accident happens there’s something that can be investigated. There’s data. But when the system saves you and you go on your merry way, it’s never reported anywhere. The statistics have a very extreme bias here.
Accidents per miles driven takes successful trips into account.
This will sound ridiculous and I’m not claiming it’s even a valid feeling, but I’d rather die by my own hand with my input being involved than to have a safety system fail and have no involvement from me.
At least then I know there was some action I could have maybe taken to prevent it. But when it’s a safety system (still under heavy development) that fails, I’d feel way more cheated. Someone convinced me I would be safe and now they’ve lied.