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Comment by poopbutt | Hacker News Reader

Cool as this is, the only thing that sketches me out is the "automatic braking" feature. If I go to avoid something and it slams on the brakes, isn't that going to totally change my trajectory possibly causing an accident? Or a false positive causing heavy braking which someone could be surprised by and overcorrect for causing an accident?

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My Volvo does this. Not sure if it's the same thing, but stops you if you're about to collide with something. I've never experienced it (as I've never yet needed the feature), but have heard good things. Here's a really impressive video of it in action on a semi-truck:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ridS396W2BY

Counterpoint (with the model I have, unfortunately):

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/self-braking-volvo-fai...

I wouldn't consider that a counterpoint. Article goes on to say that the system wasn't on that car and obviously these are supposed to be emergency measures, not relied on.

Volvo claimed that the driver hadn't paid for the pedestrian detection upgrade which costs an extra $3,000. That said, it seems like a feature that shouldn't be confusing as to whether your car has it or not. But then again, its not a feature that non-professionals should be testing/showing off on living beings...

That video has been shown many so times and debunked equally many times. If you know how it looks like, it's obvious from the video that the car does not have the system installed, you should be able to see a small plastic box-like shape embedded in the grill which is one of the sensors, they blend in but if you know what to look for you do see them easily.

Whether installed or not, testing a safety-net feature like this qualifies for darwin awards.

My Chevy Sonic has some kind of automatic braking feature. It kicked on for me once and probably prevented an accident.

Edit Actually, I think it's not detecting a possible collision but recognizing that I slammed on the brakes and helping me push harder? Either way I wasn't braking hard enough at first and the car just took over.

You might not be wrong, but your concern seems reminiscent of the fears raised when seatbelts became mandatory: That someone would get into an accident where the car went into a lake or pond, and the seatbelt trapped the occupants inside the sinking car.

That is, it's a legitimate fear, but such a rare occurrence that the benefit of seatbelts far, far outweigh the risk of this sort of uncommon scenario.

> such a rare occurrence

It depends on your driving style.

Do you find yourself driving into ponds and lakes often?

No, but I do drive sideways from time to time. I would hate it if my car applied the brakes at one of those moments.

It's becoming pretty common. Every time I go to the cinema I see an advertisement for VWs touting their automatic braking.

I imagine the avoided rear-end collisions caused by inattentive drivers will outweigh the contrived "emergency manoeuvre" failure scenarios. The times when the car actually engages its automatic braking is probably also pretty conservative.

Volvo at least, and I think Benz and the japanese luxury marques have had automatic braking for a while now I don't have links but there's probably some studies/articles on how it pans out in the real world.

My Mazda cx-5 has it. Saw this recently where most manufacturers are making it standard: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/12/business/automakers-will-m...

The automatic braking is as good as the sensors/technology.

My Subaru has a dual camera system and the collision detection is amazing. It has saved me from a very hard braking or collision situation a few times. I haven't had the automatic braking actually kick in but the alert is very helpful.

Considering how many rear-end fender-benders I see on my daily commute, the benefits outweigh the risks.

Same here. I've thought of these as incremental improvements on the way to the autonomous car, but it really will be interesting to see how traffic improves as these technologies see wider adoption over the next few years.

That is a feature, which is standard for any premium car brand. Just wondering, why the Tesla S didn't hat this feature in the first place.

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