Are driving aids dodgy?

[slowmotion]

[QUOTE 5276382, member: 9609"]There was a woman reversed her car into another car at the supermarket then blamed the accident on the fact her regular car has a parking proximity sensor and she had not realised that her loan car was not so equipped - basically she just kept going back waiting for the beeping noise to start and instead heard a crunch of metal..

trouble is with these drivers aids is they ultimately allow the driver to concentrate less as they are relying on the new tech. For instance modern wagons are so simple to drive you just have to steer it. On a motorway, adaptive cruise means you don't need to control the speed, and automatic emergency braking and lane departure reduces the need to concentrate on what is happening. Is the driver still going to study the road half mile a head looking for developing situations or is he going to put a film on the lap top or fire up the george foreman on the dash.[/QUOTE]
Spot on! It's totally unrealistic to expect the driver to be alertly hovering over the controls to "correct" the behaviour of a semi-autonomous vehicle. The concept is utter madness.

 

[Drago]

Ayw, its been said before, but ill say it again - the sooner cars are fully autonomous, robitised, or controlled by Skynet, the safe the roads will be. The most useful semi-autonomous feature would be enforced GPS speed limit adherence, but both the manufactures and government are strangely quiet on that one.

 

[jefmcg]

I think that they haven't yet worked out how to accommodate hipster beards in the skinny, minimalist drivers' seat.

Yeah, they have.

View: https://youtu.be/KoeVOxkBVIA

 

[Crackle]

CC's finest curmudgeons and dodderers in an 'unable to adopt to modern life' thread. Whod'a thought it.

 

[Tin Pot]

[QUOTE 5276382, member: 9609"]There was a woman reversed her car into another car at the supermarket then blamed the accident on the fact her regular car has a parking proximity sensor and she had not realised that her loan car was not so equipped - basically she just kept going back waiting for the beeping noise to start and instead heard a crunch of metal..

trouble is with these drivers aids is they ultimately allow the driver to concentrate less as they are relying on the new tech. For instance modern wagons are so simple to drive you just have to steer it. On a motorway, adaptive cruise means you don't need to control the speed, and automatic emergency braking and lane departure reduces the need to concentrate on what is happening. Is the driver still going to study the road half mile a head looking for developing situations or is he going to put a film on the lap top or fire up the george foreman on the dash.[/QUOTE]

+1

Remove the seatbelts and the windscreen, watch RTA deaths plummet.

Add a spike to the steering column for the worst offenders.

(Copyright 1983, my Dad)

 

[jefmcg]

+1

Remove the seatbelts and the windscreen, watch RTA deaths plummet.

Add a spike to the steering column for the worst offenders.

(Copyright 1983, my Dad)

Yes, let's turn this graph upside down!

 

[Tin Pot]

Yes, let's turn this graph upside down!

View attachment 414219

Because 1800 deaths per year is an acceptable loss of life.

 

[swansonj]

it's a ball ache when you get a hire car with all this shyte on it. likely you've landed at an airport, tired, its dark and you just want to get to your destination / back home. Then find that basic features are not where they've been for the last 70 years but aome wazzock has decided to overcomplicate it. There are basically 6 controls on a car plus lights indicators and wipers. Just stop monkeying around with them.

And it's worse than just irritation.

Kegworth. As in the air disaster. As in when multiple people died in part because, in the stress of dealing with an emergency, the pilots instinctively assumed the layout of the aircraft they were flying was the same as all the previous ones. But the manufacturer had changed a couple of things -swapped sides - and so people died.

We change layouts of safety critical controls at our peril.

 

[swansonj]

+1

Remove the seatbelts and the windscreen, watch RTA deaths plummet.

Add a spike to the steering column for the worst offenders.

(Copyright 1983, my Dad)

If we did those things, RTA deaths would not plummet. We broadly drive to the level of risk we think is acceptable. If driving becomes safer, we drive faster or more carelessly so that the same risk is maintained. If driving becomes more dangerous, we drive slower to maintain the same risk.

Spikes on steering wheels would result in slower speeds and hence reduced pedestrian and cycling casualties (just as introducing seat belts resulted in higher pedestrian casualties) and therefore would be a good thing - but I predict it would make little difference to the bulk of RTA casualties.

 

[jefmcg]

Because 1800 deaths per year is an acceptable loss of life.

What part of what I said makes you think I believe that. I want it to continue it's downward trend. We are doing something right.

 

[smutchin]

[QUOTE 5276382, member: 9609"]trouble is with these drivers aids is they ultimately allow the driver to concentrate less as they are relying on the new tech.[/QUOTE]

They don't "allow" anything of the kind. Inattentive drivers will be inattentive regardless of what technology is or isn't available to them.

If you think driver aids are detrimental to road safety, I'd be interested to see some evidence to back that up.

 

[smutchin]

[QUOTE 5276817, member: 9609"]as the technology is becoming more widely used we note the fall in road casualties seems to have bottomed out and is starting to rise again. [/quote]

Is the causal link you're implying established by evidence?

one thing is certain, for many the tech will allow concentration levels to fall.

It's no good repeating this assertion without providing evidence to support it. Speaking purely for myself, I find technologies such as cruise control and speed limiters make driving less stressful and tiring and therefore enable me to maintain greater concentration levels for longer while driving.

 

[Crackle]

[QUOTE 5276817, member: 9609"]as the technology is becoming more widely used we note the fall in road casualties seems to have bottomed out and is starting to rise again.

And I also note seeing more and more people using phones / laptops / ipads whilst driving, driving is easier than ever before leaving drivers bored and more confident in taking their eyes off the road. Hopefully the progress of the tech will outweigh the fall in driver concentration, but one thing is certain, for many the tech will allow concentration levels to fall.

Personally I think the tech is a good thing and I want to see more of it, the less control the driver has seems like a good thing to me, however the transition towards them will cause problems. The driver on the night trunk who spends all of his time in a modern truck, sitting their half asleep in his own little world knowing the tech will keep him and others safe, then one shift he has an older wagon to drive that doesnt have all the whistles and bells - a bit like the woman I mentioned earlier who reversed into another car as she was waiting for the proximity bleeper to sound.[/QUOTE]
You can't just infer something to confirm your own prejudices and then repeat it as if it meant something.

Road traffic has gone up, so even if RTA's have risen slightly, it's probably less as a percentage. So there's no link between driver aids and RTA's and your anecdotes don't confirm one.

I think Swansonj is probably on the right track

 

[Crackle]

[QUOTE 5276912, member: 9609"]well neither can you then ![/QUOTE]
I can do the maths if you like but then again, so can you, which is kinda my point. You don't seem to want to as you have an explanation already prepared.

 

[Profpointy]

Thia is kind of related to whether other so say safety things actually improve safety. Are better brakes a safety aid or an enabler of higher speed. Better handling / roadholding - exrtra safety or higher speed. I use to (in my irresponsible youth) drive my cortina to its limits, a bit of slide round corners and all the rest. Speeds were low. Vastly more capable modern cars can be driven much faster round corners - is this safer ? Maybe, maybe not.