I really hate all these warning features because, first off, as a driver, you should be paying attention to what you’re doing, and secondly, technology is not perfect. Systems fail. So what happens when you become dependent on built-in warnings?
yeah, I’m old and while I’m not anti-technology, I am anti-technology-dependence. makes me crazy!!
Humans are not perfect either. In fact, humans are less perfect than technology. Extra systems to help humans stay safe are not a bad thing.
My take: the commercial suggests that if teens don’t pay attention, we’ll try to warn them. But it doesn’t criticize that lack of attention. Well, some people shut down when criticized and a teen might say that adults have to acknowledge that they don’t pay attention at times, either.
I liked this take on the subject:
Another good approach.
But even if you can text or whatever without killing any body, I think there are other possibilities worth considering. Fender benders often involve other cars, texters may run stop signs, and lots of traffic jams result. I finally get alongside the slow poke who’s been blocking the lane, holding up the line and—quelle surprise—they’re doing something on their phone, hardly watching the road.
Taken with a grain of salt, notifying parents is an interesting thought.
Maybe it’s like calculators. People said kids still needed to learn multiplication tables because what will happen when the calculator battery doesn’t work? I think even more so, people need a feel for whether or not the machine is functioning correctly or whether they’re using it properly and so on. I knew a math teacher who once remarked that his students couldn’t determine if an answer were reasonable. “I tell them to enter ten plus ten into the calculator and some will get 100 or 1 or 0. So I ask them if they had ten dollars and got another ten dollars would they have a hundred dollars? They just shrug and say that’s what the calculator said, so it must be correct.”
I got a loaner from my Subaru guys when I took our car in for service. It has that lane departure stuff. The copy I was driving did mostly OK but there were a couple of times it failed. If the striping on the road was faded, it had a hard time; I purposely drifted when no cars were around and it stayed silent, a false negative. And another time when the cones gradually “diagonaled” me into another lane because a construction zone was coming up it started beeping. Not really a false positive, but it goes to show they aren’t omniscient. Subarus will supposedly brake to keep you from hitting things. I just hope it doesn’t malfunction when you’re driving down the highway with a semi right behind you.
But I suspect the extra automation is a net good.
My brother took his Subaru through one of those small gas station car washes. After the wash is over, it instructs the driver to pull forward which trips a sensor and opens the exit door. The problem was, the Subaru sensed the obstruction and wouldn’t let him pull forward. So now he’s stuck. Can’t pull forward to open the door and can’t open the door to pull forward.
He ended up finding the gas station’s phone number, calling them and having someone come out and open the door for him. After he got home he figured out how to disable (at least temporarily) that feature.
That’s the other way that such systems are dangerous–not being smart enough to tell if the situation is actually dangerous or not.
A system that is designed in such a way that it cannot be easily overridden in such a situation is poorly-designed.
Self driving AI automobiles are/will be safer and quicker to respond than human drivers. But software can fail.
Inattentive drivers offer little little help in the event of an AI car failure.
The safest situation is combining AI with an attentive driver. But, how do you prevent drivers from growing dependent on AI and becoming inattentive?
By adding one more layer of technology: eye tracking scanners that beep when the driver’s eyes are not focused on the road for more than 2-3 seconds. Eye tracking software already exists. It should be mandatory in cars with or without AI.
This one was behind the wheel but streaming an episode of “The Voice.”
This one is even less attentive.
Then again, some are attentive but not even behind the wheel.
Volkswagen raised some hackles in 2006 when it released a series of ads depicting actual car crashes:
They have a difficult time creating a plausible scenario in which the driver isn’t a dumb shit.
The vibe I’m getting is “If you are a dumb shit, we’ve got you covered”.
Not a problem when the dumb shits crash into inanimate objects (Darwin Award herd culling is good for the species). When they crash into animate objects, like me, I do have a problem. I say load them up with AI cars and all the safety tech possible.
Okay, we need a cognitive/reaction time test to determine what level of NannyTech™ each driver has to drive with!
How about commercials that tell us that, no matter how much supposed “NannyTech” is installed in a car, driving irresponsibly is still wrong, and that innovative safety features are NOT a substitute for driving like you give a shit about your life and the lives of others?