However, you have created a situation unrelated to the OP. Lets review the original criteria: After the vehicle has been engaged in “normal” driving operation then, (and) with engine at or near idle, (and) ground speed is VERY low, (and) door is open, (and) seat sensor indicates it is unoccupied, (and) transmission is engaged in (not) park… Then a safety interlock is activated.
My logic string may be imperfect, but the point is, this scenario is controllable. Confusing the issue at hand, with the complicating factors involved in the act of ass scratching @ 75 MPH, is immaterial (and non effectual) in this case.
Understood. But faulty engineering on behalf of the manufacturer does not negate the original intent and validity of the notion.
SUccessful man/machine interface design also depends on simplicity.
We fight this a bunch in aviation. The engineers can conceive of a chain of 12 if/then’s that result in the ideal behavior for the circumstances. But to us operators the damn thing seems to have a random mind of its own because there’s always one more subtle distinction you forgot about in your systems knowledge or you didn’t notice applied to the current circumstances. It’s also often the case that the sanitized version of reality the engineers designed to doesn’t match the unsanitary reality we operate in. So some modes they expected would be exceedingly rare become the most common ones and vice versa.
Given how few people know anything about their car except how to start it and push two pedals (usually not simultaneously), and steer sorta, I’m not thinking that *subtle *is a very good design goal.
Years ago I was reading a car magazine and on the letters page a guy had written in to ask about a part on his car he couldn’t identify. He had bought a classic muscle car, and it had a box mounted to the firewall, but the wires that came out of it didn’t attach to anything and he could not find mention of it in the manuals.
The editors identified it immediately, and said it came on only one model year of car.
See, in the early 1970s, Congress decided to require that the driver’s seatbelt be buckled to start the engine.
The editors explained that this law lasted roughly “Until members of Congress began taking delivery of (model year) cars.” It was an idea that looked good on paper, but had same annoying drawbacks in practice.
Sort of like the sensors that sounded a warning buzzer if the front seats were occupied but the belt wasn’t buckled. Which is why my neighbor had to buckle in their groceries in a 1970 Ford.
An interlock that shuts off the engine if the seat is unoccupied sounds decent on a brand-new car. I have never owned a brand-new car. I have, however, owned cars that were particularly hard to start. Hard enough to start that I would leave the engine running (and lock the doors) when I went into a store.
An interlock that shuts the engine off if I get out of the driver’s seat is a feature I would pay extra not to have, right up there with headlights you can’t turn off.
When the car went forward it didn’t travel parallel to the wall, but drove into the wall at an angle. Possibly the car was aligned at an angle to begin with; possibly the driver still had her hand on the wheel and it turned when the car began to move (and she, with one foot on the ground, didn’t); possibly she grabbed the wheel in a panic.
Anyway, the car moved forward and closer to the wall. The door was open and the driver was partly out, leaning down to recover what had been dropped. The open door would be the first, or one of the first, things to strike the wall. It would then pin her, possibly by the head or neck, and continue to close, compressing or choking her, until the car came to a halt, most likely when the front driver-side wing hit the building.
I can see that, but I can’t see how it could be described as her being pinned between the car and the building, which is what someone said in the video. That’s being pinned between the door and the door jamb.
Maybe they were just being sloppy with their words.
To be clear: I’m not advocating for any new interlocks to be introduced.
My posts on the topic were intended to comment on what appeared to be two consensus trends that developed here. One, being the opinion that the OP’s scenario could not be practically addressed, and two, the general nasty tone of the replies the OP has generated.
In the course of this, there seemed to be quite a few comments that ran off the tracks of relevancy as related to the OP. Hence my comment on “comprehension”.
Sorry if you got caught up in my generalization of such. I was merely trying to make the point that random inclusion of new sensors, (a seat occupancy sensor in this case) was not the point. Rather, how it could be incorporated in a logical fashion to address the OP, and ONLY the OP.
There is a seatbelt sensor in most cars, and there are door sensors in most cars, so a simple switch that prevents the car from moving itself forward if both of those switches are open. Automatics cannot be push-started nearly as easily as a manual, and creep is really only an issue with automatics.
On the other hand, my aunt’s '02 Taurus has an open-door light lit on the dash all the time, so relying on valid inputs for something as important as doing what a car is meant to do might prove somewhat risky.
