When an Algorithm Takes the Wheel 676
Wired has an interesting look at Jaguar's new automated driving dynamics system in their new XK convertible. From the article: "During an extreme test of the XK's handling capabilities, the car only fishtailed back and forth once after I jerked the steering wheel on a wet road around a 90 degree turn while driving at about 60 mph. The car's back wheels swung first left then right before the XK's sensors registered a difference in torque between the rear tires and, transparent to me, righted the fishtailing effect by a combination of de-acceleration, tire rotation and vehicle weight distribution control. More often than not, the sensation of flatness, as if there were a vertical force pinning the car to the road, was also felt then and when taking less extreme curves at high speeds."
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Not intrusive at all (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Intrusive. (Score:5, Insightful)
It sounds like you're a great driver who knows how to control a car in a skid, so this probably doesn't concern you, but I'm quite sure the thousands of people injured by an encounter with a retard playing Michael Shumaker behind the wheel every year would have loved the car to forcibly keep the driver in check.
Re:Intrusive. (Score:2)
Re:Intrusive. (Score:2)
Half the fun of driving a powerful performance car, is pushing it to the limits...of course, you do have to know how to drive a car.
Lord, everything these days is 'safety concious' and 'what about the children'....me? I'd prefer to take my chances and LIVE life, not have it done for me....
Re:Intrusive. (Score:2)
This system doesn't change that. The car still has limits, they're just further out.
Re:Intrusive. (Score:3, Insightful)
Depends on the technology. Are you as an individual driver able to independently control the acceleration or braking force to each wheel?
Re:Intrusive. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Intrusive. (Score:5, Interesting)
The robot cars are coming. At first it will just be for safety, then auto collision evasion, then auto interstate driving, then mandatory auto interstate driving, then auto street driving in select cities, then auto street driving, then auto road driving, then mandatory street/road driving.
Eventually you'll just be booting up the car and selecting a recent destination, bookmarked destination, or searching for a new destination with Google Auto Mapper.
Pros: extremely high traffic density at high speed and environmental legislation will prevent cars from being used for travel less than ten miles---excepting for the elderly with an exemption (otherwise bicycles will be required, thus combating both pollution and obesity). Much higher traffic safety, particularly at rush hour and during inclement weather. Safety is maintained by a combination of centralized regional routing control and client verification of instruction (the car will refuse a central signal that tells it to drive 120mph into a brick wall).
Cons: We don't get to drive anymore.
Re:Intrusive. (Score:3, Insightful)
Fine with me. I hate driving. It sucks. A great car on a great road can be fun, sure, but I never get to do that. I just bump over potholes while staring at the rear bumper of the car in front of me, doing the same twitch reflex actions over and over.
I'd rather use that time for something else.
Re:Intrusive. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Intrusive. (Score:3, Insightful)
I live in the woods, and we call our invisible traffic "woods rats", "venison" and "deer".
Re:Intrusive. (Score:4, Insightful)
- being able to do other things while getting there (sleep, read, have sex)
- can sing with the radio without getting killed
- eat breakfast
without all the irritating things like:
- having to travel on someone else's schedule
- sitting next to smelly/loud/irritating people
- sitting on seats stained with who-knows-what
- having to take 3 times as long to get where I'm going
- standing half the time, next to smelly people, because there aren't enough seats
- other people having sex (sometimes by themselves)
Sure, I'd still like to get out and drive the way I want from time to time, but for my daily commute, let my car take me there. And 90% of my driving is to-and-from work.
Re:Intrusive. (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.ghostriderrobot.com/ [ghostriderrobot.com]
-Lazn
I get a different impression from the article. (Score:4, Insightful)
From the sounds of the review, it seems that this kicks in only when the car is pushed beyond certain limits, and that it performs certain actions faster than a human driver might be able to because the sensors and feedback mechanism are inherently faster through the computer than they are through the human behind the wheel. Humans can outperform the computer only when they correctly anticipate all of the road conditions.
Correctly applied, this can allow the human to push the car further than would otherwise be safe because you have fine grain closed-loop compensation that is superior to pure open-loop anticipation. The driver can offload a few unknowns onto the car's compensating systems and really dig into it. For one thing, I don't think I've seen a car with human inputs for controlling the torque available on each of the four wheels. In contrast, several of these high-end systems can do tricks like partially applying individual brakes to force the differential to divert torque to non-slipping wheels. Last thing I want is four brake pedals.
This has some implications. First, for a performance car, this should be relatively easily disabled, or at least severely restrained for cases where the driver wants to perform some "trick driving" actions inconsistent with "going down the road fast and staying on the road." e.g. intentional donuts, spinouts and burnouts. Second, when active, the system better not fail when the driver is relying on it to take up certain slack since a driver accustomed to the computer compensation has mentally offloaded some of the burden to the vehicle.
I don't think this is about putting kid gloves and nerf on the car.
--JoeRe:Intrusive. (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree with you about living your life and taking considered risks but make sure those risks are your own. It's not fair of you to risk other people for your own enjoyment, particularly when there's a simple alternative.
Re:Intrusive. (Score:5, Insightful)
Look at it this way - I couldn't care less if somebody wants to ride without a helmet; that's their decision, even if it is less safe. However, each time a helmetless motorcyclist smears themself all over a public road, the city is going to have to being in somebody clean it up, a section of road will be closed for an indefinite period due to fatality, and there will be an investigation of the wreck, among other things. This is paid for with local tax money, which I would definitely prefer went towards something else. It's also a heavy inconvenience for everyone else involved.
So bear in mind that while you can choose which risks to take and which not to, you can't ever shake the social responsibility for how your own actions will affect those around you. That's why helmet laws keep springing back up. If a sociopath wants to get a thrill, he can find a way to do it in a manner where I won't end up paying for it.
Re:Intrusive. (Score:3, Insightful)
Ok...if it is all about the money saved by making people ride with helments...then upon repeal, why were these savings NOT given back to us? I saw no savings on my insurance...I saw no relief from taxes that 'must' have been spend in the past by the govt.
Re:Intrusive. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Intrusive. (Score:2)
This is true, but I can't help but think that a system like this might be crossing a line between technologies that make a car safer by adding a feature and those that make a car safer by removing a
Re:Intrusive. (Score:2)
OTOH, Cars enforcing minimum safe distance would be great. It seem every morning, one of the freeways I take to work is backed up because several cars following too closely behind one another are in an accident. blocking a lane in an already overloaded freeway. Why? Because somebody doesn't want to wait in line for the interchange ramp and squeezes in at the last possible second with m
Re:Intrusive. (Score:2)
Re:Intrusive. (Score:3, Funny)
My God! Hackers would no longer have to momentarily disable the ignition with a localized EMF pulse while scanning the IR keylock and forcing out the owner with body odour.
Make it... (Score:2)
If you're some sort of awesome super-driver that could pass a police offensive driving course while dying of alcohol poisoning and helping
Re:Intrusive. (Score:2)
One thing that has always worried me about anti-lock brakes, is what happens when I really need to lock everything up - like when I am sliding out of control in a safe direction and need to make sure the car does not spear off. I've been there on snow and - ahem - in other circumstances.
Seems all these systems should know when they are out of a normal driving regime and then turn off. Antilock does not seem to do that. We hear of people driving into things on w
Re:Intrusive. (Score:2)
I slid/rolled (slowly) down a 300 foot long incline on wet soft dirt & gravel because my antilocks freaked out. I applied the e-brake, which nicely locked up the back wheels, but since the back wheels had no load (pickup) I kept rolling. Didn't have the guts to throw it into park and kill the engine (and thus the anti-lock) as that is a one-way path, and I wanted my steering to avoid the fenceposts.
-nB
Re:Intrusive. (Score:2, Insightful)
This is an honest question: Do you know how ABS/traction control works? It isn't just: the breaks don't come on. What they do is give just enough brake so that traction is still held and the car doesn't slide. The point being it will slow you down in the absolute fastest way. In your wet grass example, if you really wanted to lock up the wheels,then you'd slide into something at 5mph. It doesn't make a di
Re:Intrusive. (Score:5, Informative)
That's a technicality, though. The number of people who can do this probably is in the hundreds, worldwide. (I had a friend who drove Formula 1's professionally and he could only manage to outdo an ABS about 20% of the time when he tried it.) So for real-world conditions, you're right: an ABS approaches an ideal stopping force, and allows you to A: not have great skill while still getting this benefit, and B: try and steer the car without worrying about braking modulation.
I'm glad many cars have it, and I wish all cars had it.
Mine works quite well in snow and mixed snow/ice/mud, even offroad. I'm really impressed by it.
Re:Intrusive. (Score:3, Informative)
One plus of ABS is that, in the hands of an unskilled driver, it allows significant evasion capability that a standard car might/would not allow because side-loading combined with heavy braking would exceed the tire's roadholding. As such it becomes a significant safety aid for the vast majority of drivers.
Re:Intrusive. (Score:2)
Same here. I grew up in a land that has snow on the ground from October to April, and never once met with anyone giving advice to lock the tires in a slide. Even in the days before ABS, the line was "pump your brakes" when trying to stop on ice.
Tires function kind of funny in that they grip their best when on the threshold of a slide. Lock your tires and you blow past that limit and end up going in a straight line as momentum dict
Re:Intrusive. (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure many only means 'ideal'. In most adverse weather conditions your dynamic friction is much much lower than your static, so ABS helps by not allowing your tires to skid over the ice. Perhaps on dry concrete ABS will stop further, but being able to steer makes up for that in terms of accident avoidance.
Dangerously incorrect (Score:5, Informative)
Not only wrong, but dangerously wrong. This is the kind of incorrect belief that can get people killed.
For car tires, static friction (i.e., when the tire is rolling) is almost always significantly higher than dynamic friction (i.e., when the tire is skidding). In other words, skidding tires brake slower than rolling tires. [howstuffworks.com]
ABS makes your car more controllable; it also makes your car stop faster. This is, in almost all situations, not a tradeoff---ABS is simply flat-out better than non-ABS in all meaningful ways.
Re:Dangerously incorrect (Score:3, Interesting)
An easy way to show this effect is to try to push something heavy through gravel: the gravel will gather up and the object will become
Re:Intrusive. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Intrusive...costly? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, I know for some people, its not an issue. But I can't stand gizmos that break and cost $1k + to repair. Why don't we just mandate better driver education. (Like weekend car control bootcamps or something!!! Like the motorcycle safety courses.)
Re:Intrusive. (Score:3, Funny)
Then he bought a newer car. With anti-lock brakes. Came home straight from the dealer, went to do his little trick into the driveway, and drove right through the garage door. Of
Re:Intrusive. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Intrusive. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Intrusive. (Score:3, Funny)
Everyone who drives faster than I do is an asshole. Everyone who drives slower than me is an idiot.
That means that only about 95% of drivers are idiots.
Re:Intrusive. (Score:5, Insightful)
So you believe you're a better driver than the computer. But are you willing to bet the lives of your passengers, or the lives of other people on the road, that you're a better driver than the computer? More importantly, if I'm driving behind or beside your car in bad weather, am I willing to bet you're a better driver than a computer? I think not.
Let's look at the statistics. In 2004, a total of 42,636 people died, and 2.8 million were injured on U.S. highways. In other words, more U.S. citizens were killed and maimed on U.S. roads every three weeks than have been killed and maimed in the Iraq war after more than three years. Yet society shrugs its shoulders at this level of highway carnage.
I'll bet that many of the drivers who instigated the accidents that led to those 42,636 deaths and 2.8 million injuries in 2004 had the same thoughts: "I want to be in control of my car." "I'm a better driver than a computer." But clearly they weren't, and in many cases innocent people were hurt or killed because of that hubris.
Finally technology is reaching the point that we can build an automobile with safety features that can help compensate for bad driving habits and bad driving conditions, and yet some people argue that they should be able to turn those safety features off. That's argument makes about as much sense as the old rationalization about not using seat belts: "My chances of survival are better if I'm thrown clear of the car, instead of being strapped in." I've heard people actually say that; of course, I'm sure none of them ever worked as a paramedic at a highway accident scene, either. It's an emotional argument, not a logical one.
Sorry, but if you're going to be sharing a public road with other automobiles, then as your fellow driver I vote that you keep those safety features turned on. Furthermore, the statistics prove that if your car does have those safety features, you're foolish not to keep them turned on 100% of the time, even if they may cause more harm than good in some rare set of circumstances - because it's impossible for you to know in advance what those circumstances will be if you're involved in an accident.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Intrusive. (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you know the exact speed of each wheel at any given time? Do you have an accurate accelerometer to measure lateral force? (The seat of your pants does not count.) Do you know, within a hundredth of a second, when an individual wheel looses traction? Can you respond within the next hundredth of
No (Score:2)
OTH, it sounds like idiots like you, want total control of how othe
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Intrusive. (Score:2)
Contrast this to my Subarus. They are an absolute joy to drive in the snow with *no* computer intelligence other than the ABS. Which never comes on. I'll take the Subaru approach any day.
And remember, kids, no stability control can overcome the laws of physics.
Re:Intrusive. (Score:2)
Of course, your Subaru has all-wheel drive. Not exactly an apples to apples comparison. I agree for stabilty in a larger range of conditions, all-wheel drive is great. However, the added complexity and cost is a serious trade off.
600 RPM (Score:2)
Either it got some kind of weird V8 engine, or this is a typo. I think it is the latter - in fact, 6000 rpm would sound about right.
Re:600 RPM (Score:4, Funny)
When cars are smarter then their owners (Score:3, Funny)
Michael: "That's alright little buddy, I know you can" [Pushes button to do STUPID ass maneouver]
Also, "Little buddy" does Michael not realize that he is a human, 6'4, probably about 180lbs (David Hasselhoff is kinda lankey) talking to a car that you know - weighs a lot - especially with all the toys it has built into it.
Re:When cars are smarter then their owners (Score:4, Funny)
Plus the guy in the trunk talking through the mic.
Re:When cars are smarter then their owners (Score:2)
You could interpret this in so many ways...
Safety, safety everywhere, nor any drop to drink (Score:3, Insightful)
For front-end collisions, a fiber optic connection from left to right registers impacts. The sensors' algorithms then program the hood and front end to react differently according to what is hit.
For pedestrians, a mesh-like material is activated in less than 50 milliseconds beneath the hood, which serve to cushion the blow upon impact.
These well-nigh amazing safety features leave me asking the same question that I ask myself when I hear GM's OnStar commercials, touting features like calling emergency services on airbag deployment [gm.com].
How many lives does a feature have to save before it should be required equipment?
Early automobiles were deathtraps, until a fellow by the name of Ralph brought the issue to national prominence in 1965 with Unsafe at Any Speed [wikipedia.org] , a book to which many of us owe our very existence. Since then, we have assumed a right to a safe vehicle. No car company would be allowed to sell a $3000 rattletrap with no seat belts and no air bags and an engine in the passenger seat, even if they required purchasers to sign a safety waiver. I think this can be counted as "progress", though the more Libertarian folks out there might disagree.
But assuming that Da Gooberment has an obligation to obligate safer vehicles, where do you set the bar? If a "mesh-like material" is the difference between injury and Pedestrian Souffle', why not require such a system on all vehicles? Or do I have to cross my fingers and only step out in front of cars built by Jaguar?
Re:Safety, safety everywhere, nor any drop to drin (Score:5, Insightful)
When the costs of the increase in safety make it too expensive for the poor to afford even the cheapest "safe" car.
Re:Safety, safety everywhere, nor any drop to drin (Score:2)
Re:Safety, safety everywhere, nor any drop to drin (Score:2)
By that logic... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Safety, safety everywhere, nor any drop to drin (Score:2, Insightful)
What most capital-L Libertarians fail to realize is that you can't "vote with your dollar" if you're dead.
Re:Safety, safety everywhere, nor any drop to drin (Score:2)
Thank you.
Re:Safety, safety everywhere, nor any drop to drin (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, what most Libertarians realize is that you cannot govern based on emotions, and that everything has a value.
For example, the latest just-approved medical treatment is usually very expensive (it may have cost $1bn to develop), while the treatments we had 10 years ago are cheaper, but not as effective. Should every medical plan have to cover the expensive option?
For a more stark example, six healthy British men nearly died [cnn.com] while participating in a safety test for a new drug. Do you think it ok for drug companies (and indirectly, us consumers) to pay for people to risk their lives for this? Or is it wrong to ascribe a value to this?
Re:Safety, safety everywhere, nor any drop to drin (Score:2)
FYI: those cars are sold... they are used. So people that want 3k cars get crappy old ones, instead of what would naturally be better new cars. Just pointing out that because you make something illegal doesn't mean th
Re:Safety, safety everywhere, nor any drop to drin (Score:2)
WTF?! Maybe I am misunderstanding, but if your stepping out in front of moving traffic plan on getting turned in to shusi. What happens if you get knocked over and your head gets ran over by the next car? Saftey devices are great and all, but they can never replace paying attention.
Look left, look right, live.
Re:Safety, safety everywhere, nor any drop to drin (Score:2)
Re:Safety, safety everywhere, nor any drop to drin (Score:5, Insightful)
Examples include: Proper adjustment of the seat and headrests for best control and protection; proper wearing of the seatbelt; proper use of child-safety seats; keeping signal lights in proper function and using the turning signals; Taking new drivers on a real high-speed driving course where they actually do accident avoidance maneuvers; teaching new drivers how to recognize treacherous road conditions; more emphasis on cooperative driving instead of purely "defensive driving" (which quickly turns into a passive-aggressive "I can be in the left lane because I'm doing the speed limit" game).
Re:Safety, safety everywhere, nor any drop to drin (Score:2)
You'd drive much more carefully with such a "safty" device. And it probably wouldn't kill you unless your a bleeder.
Re:Safety, safety everywhere, nor any drop to drin (Score:5, Funny)
They are, they're called SUVs: same weight, same mileage, same damage to other cars in an accident, it just doesn't have the big gun and the tracks.
gravity (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, if only there was such a force...
Re:gravity (Score:2)
(In other words, you beat me to it.....)
Your wheels are turning... (Score:2, Funny)
How is this different from... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How is this different from... (Score:2)
Well, for one thing, this has a British accent.
Re:How is this different from... (Score:2)
Washington State Drivers (Score:5, Funny)
I think I might love this idea being fully explored. Add some more IA, a social conscience. The I-5 and I-405 will get much nicer.
Or,
Or,
To be honest, I still want control of my car. I'll drive, thank you. (Still don't trust ABS since I hit that deer.)
Re:Washington State Drivers (Score:5, Insightful)
That's logic turned on its head. So you hit a deer with your ABS-equipped car: does it occur to you that, perhaps, without ABS, you'd have hit the deer a lot faster?
Re:Washington State Drivers (Score:2)
-Rick
Re:Washington State Drivers (Score:3, Informative)
Yes and no. The fastest way to stop any car is to brake at the limit of traction - so that the wheels are still rolling, but any more braking and they'd lock up. A skilled driver can do that in a non-ABS car, but most people can't - they just slam on the brakes and lock the wheels, causing a skid. ABS will make a normal driver stop faster by preventing that skid and braking at the limit of traction.
What it DOES do though is allow you to steer while
ABS=Increased Stopping Distance (Score:3, Interesting)
I wish I had done the same. My vehicle was involved in one moderate crash over a thirteen year s
Re:Washington State Drivers (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Washington State Drivers (Score:3, Funny)
A driver that is that good should be aware of what type of equipment he is driving and mash the brake petal to the floor.
Jaguar (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously, I've known at least 3 people who bought them (against my advice) who all unloaded their problem-prone cars within a year to some other poor soul. (Just for the sake of not picking strictly on Jaguar, BMWs suck quite a bit sometimes too. I have a friend that I pick up from the BMW dealer's service dept at least once every 2 months or so).
Before any Jaguar fanbois flame on, there's certainly a reason why the resale value of a Jaguar plummets to 21% of its original retail price after only 5 years of ownership.
When algorithms go bad (Score:2)
Re:When algorithms go bad (Score:4, Informative)
http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/8.77.html#subj6 [ncl.ac.uk]
Fishtailing saved me once (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Fishtailing saved me once (Score:2)
I was always taught to respond to the car, not the lights. After being in a few close calls with drivers whose brake lights did not function, this lesson is engraved in my brain. It also made me get in the habit of checking the lights on my vehicles every month like I am supposed to (I still don't floss, though).
Hate to say it... (Score:2, Insightful)
...but no matter how cool it is, it is still a Ford.
Translation (Score:4, Funny)
Translation: The car tossed him out the window.
There is a low-tech alternative (Score:2, Insightful)
You could also just slow down.
I'm kind of sick of seeing commercials with cars driving 60mph through 2 feet of snow as if it were a hot summer day.
Robot (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Robot (Score:2)
Re:Robot (Score:3, Insightful)
Ah yes, the "control freak" response, also used by the "robots are taking over our jobs" people.
Let's think this through. If you want to tune the station on your radio, would you rather 1) turn a dial or 2) tune the PLL by hand because, after all, there's a "robot" that doesn't allow you to tune in non-standard frequencies and it is making decisions for you how best to tune to stations that may not be exactly on fre
Developing in the wrong order? (Score:2)
It will never happen, end it. (Score:4, Interesting)
First, and foremost, you could never have a mixed environment of automated and manually driven vehicles. Watching iRobot and seeing Will Smith take over manual control on an automated highway was completely ridiculous. In an environment where computers will have to react to the unpredictable behaviour of human drivers, the computes will always lose. How many 200 car pileups will have to occur before it is realized that computer drivers and human drivers won't mix. Computers cannot anticipate the irradict behaviour of a drunk driver. Nor can they anticipate a woman swearving across 6 lanes of traffic to hit her exit because she was too busy putting on lipstick to pay attention to the exit signs. Humans and computers won't mix.
Secondly, you need to either put the highways underground or put a cover on them. There is no way a computer driven vehicle will respond appropriately if a deer rushes on the road, or suddenly there is a freak blizzard and the road conditions go from dry to slick. Putting highways in tunnels will mean your eliminating weather and most other external obstacles from interfering with computer driven vehicles. A human might pick up a deer standing still off the side of the road and slow down anticipating if it might jump out. A computer probably wouldn't register the deer was standing there until its firmly embedded in its windshield.
Lastly, simple fact will be that there will be some significant flaw in the entire system. Your not going to get all car manufacturers to use the same systems. Your going to need some external system regulating the traffic and communicating with a variety of different systems which will vary city to city, state to state. Even if the communication protocol is standardized, your still going to have some car manufactures that implement automated driving better then others. A Jaguar or other high end vehicle is going to react faster and have better handling them some Geo Metro or Ford Escort.
Bottom line is, in an environment with so much variation, something will go wrong, and it will cost significant human life. When this happen, people will abandon the concept of computer driven vehicles.
Its a nice hobby, but its a complete waste of time. Unless they invent anti-gravity and force fields, your never going to have an automated highway system.
Re:It will never happen, end it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It will never happen, end it. (Score:5, Insightful)
I will, slightly, agree with your contention that computer and human controlled vehicles will not co-exist on the same structure. However, there are already numerous examples of seperated roadways that carry automated vehicles. Las Vegas has just installed an automated busway where the buses have drivers, but in reality, the bus does 99% of the driving with the driver just there "in case" (really just there so the people on board don't freak out over no human driver). You also see more and more HOV lanes going in all over the country. It wouldn't take much to turn the HOV lanes into high-speed automated vehicle lanes.
All of the other points in your article are merely technological difficulties, and not particularly difficult ones to solve. Solving cost effectively right now is the issue, but as technology is improved in testing and the incremental cost comes down it is almost inevitable.
In addition, are you serious that you believe a human being in a car at night is more likely to notice a deer at the side of the road at highway speeds than a computerized hazard identification system? Let alone said human being able to take an appropriate action in sufficient time. Humans work on the order of seconds, while a decent control system will work on the order of milliseconds. This would make a huge difference in a lot of cases.
Add to this the fact that the vast majority of drivers would really prefer to be able to get into their car in the garage, tell it to take them to work, then sit and read the paper, talk on the phone, apply makeup, etc. and have the vehicle deliver them to the front door of their office in a fast, safe manner... then go park itself to wait until they needed it again. The representative audience of
Your contention that "something will go wrong, it will cost significant human life, it will be abandoned" is laughable. The system we have today kills over 45,000 americans per year. To me that's pretty significant loss of life, and not only do I not see people trying to abandon the system, I see idiots all over (in this discussion thread even) defending it in the name of "I should be free to drive like an asshat if I want to."
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Cadillac had it since '97 (Score:2, Informative)
The system does what it is supposed to and does it well, it has saved my ass a couple of times on icy winter roads. My only problem is that if you are a good driver these systems will help you, if you are the type that pushes a c
Better idea than auto-driving. (Score:5, Interesting)
Humans are worse at thinking logically in situations where they have to emergency brake, or steer, etc. and are more prone to panic. If the computer could figure out these functions for the driver, that would make driving a car a lot safer in hazardous conditions.
Re:Jaguar has long stopped being a performance bra (Score:2)
That's right, those "type-R" stickers, huge tailpipes and big-ass wings sure can turn a Volvo into a Jaguar. I know, I've seen it in Fast and Furious...
Re:Jaguar has long stopped being a performance bra (Score:2)
I agree with you on the 'high end' tuning front btw. I had a 15 year old supra turbo (bought for £600, ~$1100!)
Re:astroturfing (Score:2, Insightful)
Slashdot didn't, but I'm sure Wired did.