Comments on: ESC and Driver Adaptation

By: fred_dot_u

fred_dot_u — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 14:39:08 +0000

It’s great to see someone who recognizes that making the driver feel safe does not mean that it’s safe for everyone!

Put the driver in a bubble at the very front of the vehicle, put all drivers at the front, and see how much care is taken when driving!

By: clever-title

clever-title — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 19:03:39 +0000

This isn’t all that surprising. For years (especially since Freakonomics was published) economists have been talking about drivers acting in more risky ways when technology reduces the impact of the risk. Since seat belts, airbags, crumple zones, and the like don’t reduce the impact to pedestrians, cyclists, telephone poles, the roads are less safe to non-drivers.

If you really wanted drivers to act more responsibly, you would include technology that internalizes the risk to the driver, like a kitchen knife mounted to the steering wheel pointed at the driver’s heart.

By: John

John — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 01:31:44 +0000

It’s important and interesting to mention automatic transmissions– I wouldn’t want to be without one.

By: Scott

Scott — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:30:27 +0000

I’m not sure I completely agree with John. Based on the number of cars that are sold with automatic transmissions and ABS brakes, I’d say drivers aren’t completely concerned about their freedoms being taken away.

Personally, I think this “dumbing down” of driving is actually worse for safety. The prevelance of automatic features leads drivers to think they can pay less attention to driving and more attention to eating, texting, shaving, etc. Just think how many people would be able to eat and drive if we didn’t have automatic transmissions.

I’m not a psychologist, but there’s also a relationship between perceived risk and dangerous behavior. If you’ve got airbags, traction control, stability control, and everything else then why bother to drive more carefully? Have you ever noticed that most of the vehicles off the road in the winter are 4WD/AWD? Drivers don’t think they need to slow down when it’s slippery because they have the “safety of 4WD/AWD”.

By: John

John — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:59:15 +0000

Because the default will always be driver control, perhaps Mr. Vanderbilt will comment on the line of writing I use in “Best Driver In The World.” My reasoning could be used in a 1957 Cadillac or a 2009 Acura.

A car that drives itself takes away an important freedom and will not be that accepted.

By: Jeffrey Early

Jeffrey Early — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 16:09:22 +0000

The point about drivers increasingly relying on technology to get them out of fixes is well taken. A great example of this is people’s reliance on their brakes. In modern cars, people are perfectly happy to go flying right up to a stop sign and then stomp on the brakes at the last second. This is bad for a number of reasons, but almost always works because brakes are so fantastic these days. Now go try that with cars from the mid 1980s or earlier, and you’ll find you need much more distance (and effort) to stop.

That said, I still agree with the general conclusion that technology fixes like this will save lives, but that the estimates may be high.