rhagfo wrote:
Paul Clancy wrote:
How is any of that worse than a semi locking its brakes in front of you? I get being paranoid of new tech that alters the old way of driving, especially on this board that leans older demographic and conservative. The same arguments were made against seat belts, airbags, stability control anti lock brakes etc. Nanny state in my car -no way. This tech will save lives when used properly and won't when not. I choose to have it given the choice. It not only makes me safer but those around me. Many will not see the benifits until they experience it. Some not then either.
Well I likely fit your "Older demographic and.conservative" I embraced all of the devices you mention, seat belts were added to all my vehicles, including a set of seat belt shoulder belt into my 64 Econoline van.
I also believe the most of the alert systems are great, although they may lead to drivers paying less attention to the job at hand. I see many doing every thing but driving going down the road.
There are already several documented cases of these devices causing unexpected braking. They currently use only local information around the vehicle, when I am driving I am not only looking at the vehicles near me but also, well down the road in front and behind, already way too many drivers don't look far enough down the road as they are tailgating.
I see these autonomous car working well in the city, and the interstates and moderate weather, but likely not well in snow or other blinding conditions.
I know fog could be OR not be an issue, many years ago late 80's or early 90's Sea-Tac airport and Alaska Airlines installed a system in the runways and planes that would allow take offs and landings in near zero visibility.
Sure it will be about the majority of gains versus small losses (the odd seatbelt fails too). We are far from truly autonomous cars and the driver aids currently provided (standard in new corollas so that shows how common now) are in their 3rd generation and very reliable. Until you sit in a new car and experience these on the road it is hard to understand how seamless and beneficial it can be to the overall stress of driving. Head on a swivel every time you hit the road is unsustainable. I think you are assuming that these systems allow bad drivers to be worse. In my experience the reverse is true and actually makes them better via lane departure, blind spot, rear cross traffic and forward collision alert tones. Its the truly bad drivers who will disable these systems to allow them to continue being bad drivers.
