Driving and Roads

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God, these all sound awful. I'm glad my cars have all been old 😕. How on earth can drivers ever actually learn to drive with all this "tech" doing it for them, let alone when the tech doesn't actually work properly? Something like ABS, ok, at least the driver doesn't have to learn how to cadence brake (and even if they do know how in a crisis it's easy to freeze and just jam the brakes on), but when the tech is making the decisions for you and getting it wrong... Having said that if we do ever get to the point when cars are successfully driverless at least traffic may flow smoother, and we can all have a pint in a nice country pub and let the car drive us home!
 
Wildebeest said:
Having said that if we do ever get to the point when cars are successfully driverless at least traffic may flow smoother
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You must be joking. I predict that pedestrians and cyclists (etc) will take advantage of self-driving cars not killing them that they will take over the highways and bring the self-driving fleet to a stand-still. There is only one way to maintain order on the roads, and that is by keeping them risky.
 
Black Hole said:
I predict that pedestrians and cyclists (etc) will take advantage of self-driving cars not killing them that they will take over the highways and bring the self-driving fleet to a stand-still.
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I hadn't thought of that, certainly should be taken into account.
Black Hole said:
There is only one way to maintain order on the roads, and that is by keeping them risky.
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Wasn't there a school of thought that cars should have big spikes on the steering wheel hub and no seat belts as it would make us all drive more carefully? 🫣
This is actually the thinking behind the various "shared roads"layout where no-one has priority and (for example) pedestrians can jump out at you at any time... I understand the rationale but I don't think these layouts work in practice, I prefer a protocol whereby everyone knows what's going on and what they're supposed to do. I've read these schemes have fallen out of favour in the Nordic countries they originated, but I don't know that for certain. But I do understand where you're coming from.
 
Wildebeest said:
This is actually the thinking behind the various "shared roads"layout where no-one has priority and (for example) pedestrians can jump out at you at any time... I understand the rationale but I don't think these layouts work in practice, I prefer a protocol whereby everyone knows what's going on and what they're supposed to do.
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I'm with you 100% on that. A complex junction in Portishead was made a free-for-all – try negotiating a series of roundabouts and junctions with traffic coming from everywhere when pedestrians could also walk across your path at any time. You needed eyes in the back of your head. It should only be necessary to look in one direction at a time, and that's how roundabouts work.

The Portishead layout got reversed. Shared traffic zones have their place, but only where flows are slow and simple.
 
Black Hole said:
The Portishead layout got reversed.
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At huge cost to local residents both to put it in and then take it out again.
Then the moronic councillors went and f*cked up the sea-front by the pier at Clevedon, with a similar outcome.
And then they moan about not having enough money and having to put our council tax up. I'd shoot the lot of them and save all the money as they achieve nothing useful.
 
Black Hole said:
You must be joking. I predict that pedestrians and cyclists (etc) will take advantage of self-driving cars not killing them...
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Probably meant as a joke on one of the comedy panel shows - something like...
"There is an increase in self-driving vehicles.
In other news, the number of accidents involving pedestrians has increased."

It's possible the problems have been solved, but wasn't there a recent documentary by Hannah Fry that showed self-drive vehicles deliberately driving into pedestrians, bicycles and stationary cars?
There is only one way to maintain order on the roads, and that is by keeping them risky.
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Possibly, but self-drive looks risky to me.
 
prpr said:
Then the moronic councillors went and f*cked up the sea-front by the pier at Clevedon, with a similar outcome.
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Yep. They're like teenagers – "wouldn't it be a good idea if we...", and then just go ahead without any consultation (because if they asked, somebody would say "no").
 
EEPhil said:
It's possible the problems have been solved, but wasn't there a recent documentary by Hannah Fry that showed self-drive vehicles deliberately driving into pedestrians, bicycles and stationary cars?
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There was indeed. The worst was a self driving Tesla where the logs (which took a court order to obtain) showed it correctly identified the stop sign and T junction, correctly identified the traffic lights on Red, correctly identified a stationary vehicle on the other side of the junction, and yet the self driving Tesla did nothing and just ploughed at full speed straight through the junction and into the car, killing someone. I was hoping the documentary would reveal why the Tesla did that, but it didn't.

There were also the self driving hail a ride cars in Austin, Texas which only took action if it recognised something, otherwise it ignored what it saw. Pedestrians were only recognised on a cross walk since in Texas like much of the US jaywalking (crossing the road anywhere other than a crosswalk) is illegal. So the self driving hail a ride car (during development, not live) just piled straight into a jaywalking pedestrian and killed her because it didn't recognise her as a pedestrian.
 
Coming in late on this, the only 'driver assistance' my '06 Mazda 3 Sport has is ABS with emergency brake assist - that's where the ABS controller recognises the driver has stomped on the brake pedal and takes over to stop the car as quickly as possible. I was staggered at how effective it was when I tried it out.
 
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What's "anid"? (Yes, I know what they meant)

It sounds like an improvement over my existing experience with lane keeping... but the article does not address the issues I had with it trying to follow shadows on the road!
 
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The more I read about the technology taking the fun out of driving (and it's been a while since I've driven - I can't afford it, and don't really need to) the less likely I am to renew my driving licence when I reach 70. I used to enjoy driving - it looks like I wouldn't with all these modern systems.
 
prpr said:
They're all just control freaks.
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"They", whoever they are, are trying to micromanage all aspect of our lives.
prpr said:
Why can't these people realise that "off" means "off and stay off, until somebody turns it on again"?
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In a different context there is a bus running around Nottingham plastered with signs about consent. If it applies to people it should also applies to things - and my bank account where I don't want to go paperless, I've told them and every time I enter the app up pops a reminder to go paperless. :mad: No means NO!
 
Had an interesting experience in the work van yesterday which a few times automatically dabbed the brakes with a COLLISION WARNING on the display. Except I was on the open road with nobody else around. The only thing I may have been in danger of hitting was a fly!
 
I must be very lucky because all the safety technology on my Toyota Corolla works very well. I have had cars with lane keeping systems since 2011 with a Ford Focus and that worked reasonably well but sometimes the lines that the car wanted to use were a bit different to my choices. The system on the Toyota just works. The emergency braking system also works well and I avoided a collision thanks to it in heavy traffic last year. I always use the cruise control when on a motorway and again it does its job very nicely.
 
EEPhil said:
If it applies to people it should also applies to things - and my bank account where I don't want to go paperless, I've told them and every time I enter the app up pops a reminder to go paperless. :mad: No means NO!
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My bank does the same periodically. I just have to go in and turn it on again. Of course I get nagged about "upgrading" to a secure key app. thing (on a phone) or whatever the phrase is and decline and tick the box that says "do not ask again" but it still asks... every fu**ing time. I want to keep my hardware key unit and don't want any of this crap. Then they're always prompting me with an annoying box to "chat" which gets in the way of what you are trying to read and can't be got rid of. I really despair with most things these days.
 
gomezz said:
Had an interesting experience in the work van yesterday which a few times automatically dabbed the brakes with a COLLISION WARNING on the display. Except I was on the open road with nobody else around. The only thing I may have been in danger of hitting was a fly!
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I've known it be triggered by a leaf dropping on the camera - granted unlikely this time of year but maybe a bit of litter would do it too
 
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