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> Actually parenting is more about teaching your kids to do the responsible thing when nobody is watching. Without that it's not "parenting" it's "babysitting"

Supervised learning with holdout data

>software based limit on the maximum acceleration

That strikes me as a bad idea. There are scenarios where you need to accelerate your car as quickly as possible to move out of the way of danger or avoid an accident.

And how frequent are those situations compared to those where people accelerate too quickly and lose control of their car? That's like the argument that seatbelts are dangerous or lethal in some situations. Sure they are. But in all other situations they save lives and reduce injuries.

Possibly more frequent, though neither of us have data. Driving at too high a cruising speed to have adequate reaction time is common, I've never known anyone to crash a car because they lost control during acceleration (motorcycles yes). In contrast, based on my admittedly anecdotal experiences, it's common to accelerate to avoid someone who, for instance, ran a red light or stop sign.

Ok, phrased misleadingly, I guess. My thought was more along the line of »How frequently would I need to speed up to avoid something instead of slowing down?« – generally it doesn't seem wise to me to add more energy to a situation and so far I haven't come across a situation where slowing down wasn't an appropriate response (granted, something heavy coming up fast from behind is an issue, but that also only helps if there's nothing in the front to speed into).

Anecdotal as well, also with a huge grain of salt, considering that despite being somewhat old, I'm only allowed to drive since December. To other drivers I'm probably overly cautious, I guess.

It's a whole different ballgame with a high performance car. Most modern supercars require a lot of care to drive safely.

That one instance when you do need to accelerate quickly without the car car limiting you can be a matter of life or death.

If I get in a car, I expect consistent behavior based on previous performance. If the car pulls a "I'm sorry I can't let you do that Dave" and arbitrarily changes behavior when it feels like it, bad things are going to happen.

In most cases, I'd rather lose control and slip and slide around on/off a road than get flattened by a long vehicle merging into my lane because my car limited my acceleration.

>In most cases, I'd rather lose control and slip and slide around on/off a road than get flattened by a long vehicle merging into my lane because my car limited my acceleration.

That is an absolutely insane position to take. How about instead of losing control and going off the road, you take the car off the road in a controlled manner. You're already okay with going off the road... so just do that in case you find yourself in an exceedingly unlikely situation in where it's needed.

Otherwise, I'm not buying the whole "pedal to the metal is going to save me" line.

No it is not.

The problem with this reasoning is that the consequence of misjudging the situation is so much worse that a situation where you wrongly decided to use the brakes. The speed if something goes wrong is much higher, so the injuries will be much worse. For that reason it is almost always a bad judgement to accelerate out of a bad situation.

In Australia there are power to weight restrictions for new drivers and they can't ride a motorbike over 250cc for the first year.

From VicRoads: The list is primarily determined by assessing the power-to-weight ratio and engine capacity of motorcycles. If the power-to-weight ratio of a motorcycle exceeds 150 kilowatts per tonne or the engine capacity exceeds 660cc, the motorcycle will not be included on the list. Motorcycles may also be excluded from the LAMS list if they have other characteristics that make them unsuitable for learners, for example, being found to be overrepresented in crashes.

I believe the limit is 660cc in other states too.

At any rate, it's a bit of a moot point because all electric motorcycles are LAMS-approved and their acceleration is absolutely ridiculous.

It's like Kerry Manning is deliberately ignoring that 18-year-old brains aren't "finished" with respect to judgment and perceiving consequences. Manning's argument is blatantly circular, simply assuming that Korn is mistaken that there is an issue with late adolescent brains in order to assert that 'programming' late adolescent brains with parenting is the answer.

For "the best part," that was really disappointing.

I'll begin considering this argument when 18 year olds are no longer allowed to vote.

Why? Voting only has influence in aggregate.

That's very poor argument.

I toned it down from `Voting doesn't change anything on the margin.'

So 18 year old brains aren't fully developers, yet we allow them to drop out of high school, buy a car or house, vote, go to war, get a license without a permit or behind the wheel, etc. Why should driving be any different? Any problems arising out of a bad 18 year old driver are because they don't understand the risks because they've never encountered the consequences.