new safety systems

[toyyoda]

I think it is backward that the new safety systems they are making for vehicles claim to "connect the driver more with driving."  It is more likely a disconnect.
Unless when the system overrides the driver it yells, "WHAT ? ARE YOU STUPID ? NOT PAYING ATTENTION ?"
"YOU ARE AN IDIOT !"

Comments

[theheretic]

That is exactly the sort of thing you could hack in mere seconds using a laptop and the transmitter needed to run it, thus cause a deliberate "accident" or traffic jam. Its a way to enable crime. And it doesn't work unless ALL vehicles have it. So that will never happen.

I remain a big fan of manual transmissions, with the exception of stop and go traffic jams. Automatics are better there. The rest of the time, manuals. Simpler is better. Simpler weighs less. Simpler has less to break. Simpler has fewer moving parts to fail. Simpler usually costs less too. I can enjoy the complexity of lots of fancy Japanese or English cars, but if we simply ended the use of fixed axles on US cars, and improve the efficiency of our V8 engines, we'd never have to be ashamed on Top Gear again. And why haven't we? Aren't these easy things to do? The Japanese car companies that manufacture in the USA with US workers are producing best selling cars that don't have fixed axles. They have efficient engines, V6's with more power than the typical GM V8, and better fuel economy at the same time. Isn't this exactly the sort of thing we should be doing? Is there some kind of Automotive Engineer's version of the 99 Complaints from Martin Luther?

[toyyoda]

A good point of manual transmissions, few can drive with one anymore, and a manual has advantages.
Very true that not everything will ever have the new safety systems, like a classic car, bicycle, jogger, walker etc.
So they will tuneup the radar on ones that do.
Now it stops for deer, kangaroo, joggers, bicyclist. Pedestrians and animals don't use turn signals for any forewarning so the intrusion spectrum must be widened. That is not good enough, tuneup for racoons, opossums, dogs & cats, armadillo.
Still not good enough, tuneup for puppies, kittens, lemurs.
Still not good enough, tuneup for squirrel, chipmunk, frogs.
Now with the sensitivity toned up try getting anywhere. A parking lot, if pedestrians are anywhere near the car stops. Deer loose fear of cars, the cars always stop, so why hurry ? The geese are at the side of the road, yet your car will not go past them. You are no longer in control of your car, everything that gets in front of it is.
Bear learn, one blocks the road, another tears a door off, cars have food inside. Don't believe that? In Yosemite or Yellow Stone Park they wait for them to park before tearing doors off.

Shape Recognition

[theheretic]

Radar isn't perfect. Some things reflect differently from others. A girl wearing chrome studs on a leather jacket will look like a huge truck on Radar. A piece of steel laid down on a road to cover a hole and is meant to be driven over, if the angle is not quite 90 degrees will look like an immovable barrier and the car will stop. Throw in augmented reality glitches, such as the computer wireframing what it thinks that radar signature means and displaying it like a real object on your windshield where it thinks it is, something google cars is likely to do eventually, and computer robotics interface designers have wanted since Neuromancer was published in 1984, its going to be more and more glitchy. There's a good article about this actually on Kneeslider. are-motorcycles-the-last-refuge-from-robot-transporters . Have a look. My primary counterargument for robotic drivers, which is what you're getting towards too, is that people are inherently able to rapidly identify and classify shapes, assess them as threats and where they're moving and respond far quicker than a robot currently can. Shape recognition is NOT something robots do well. They do it quite poorly. It is only a matter of time before the Google car runs down some children. I'm sure their designers did their very best, but shape recognition is something computers do worst of all.

I wonder how radar responds to puddles? How about black ice? How slow do you get before your safety systems are worse than hopping out and walking? We can walk weird little cars like the messerschmidt or the larger but more efficient VW 1L, but really, compact AWD biodiesel is almost certainly where our cars are going to go, unless we can build some kind of growing biotar so our roads stay flat, and I can't see a way for that not to go sideways evil on us. More likely, we're headed for gravel and dirt roads in 10 years, and we'll be dealing with plants overgrowing them too. I see that in the boonies all the time, and the boonies are close to me now I live in the mountains. How does a robot car deal with potentially car-crippling mud puddles? How does it face facts that a bridge is out because its foundations were swept away and its hasn't made it into the database yet? How does the robot car deal with collapsing infrastructure?

We are disposable

[theheretic]

Bears do attack cars. Been there, seen that. Black bears think people are tasty snacks. People aren't nearly wary enough of them. In serious bear country an appropriate rifle or shotgun with buckshot and slugs is entirely called for. Trouble is, bears run 40 mph, which is far faster than I can unlimber a gun and pop the safety if they're coming out of the brush or across a meadow, particularly if I don't see them first. Bears are scary monsters. They aren't common where I'm living now.

I still wonder how these magic self driving cars deal with gravel roads or standing water or mud bogs. As best I can tell, your basic 4WD toyota pickup or enduro bike are better for those. Also a dune buggy would work better there as well. The best combo would be a Subaru with AWD and a biodiesel engine. Its scalable and the fuel can be made locally. It keeps the rain off. Just better travel only when you mean to, because I don't see a future with extensive road repair crews in it. Just more minimalism and a lot of roads falling back to nature as our economies shrink and fewer and fewer people leave home anymore. For now, eggs are cheaper than raising chickens, but that won't always be true. At some point, raising chickens and veggies and buying grains for basic carbs is going to be our basic standard of living. Govt clinic doctors will give us medical exams once a year, immunizations against the latest superflu. We'll have to trust they aren't killing us or using us for human experimentation, but we won't know till we're dead from it. That is the ultimate Totalitarians dream, after all. Disposable villages. They did it before. They'll do it again.