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Comment by ygra | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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.

No it is not.

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