Dead Man Driving
menshealth.com
menshealth.com
I had the opportunity to give such a system a real-world test a couple years ago. I came over a crest on a German autobahn at just under 100 MPH (160 km/h) in a Volkswagen Crafter (a large van) to find a traffic jam in front of me. It's an odd experience; there's a snapping noise, and the pedal pressure is reduced to almost nothing. For an instant, I actually thought something had burst in the hydraulic system and the brakes had failed. The system applied the brakes as hard as the ABS would let it until I released the pedal.
It's completely crazy how fast people will drive vans on the German autobahn, 160 to 180 is no exception. Big problem when you're hit by a gust of sidewind. (that's when being loaded comes in handy again, but you can't really have a good stopping distance and good handling at speed).
- a million irrelevant paragraphs to make this guy seem like someone you can relate to
- guy driving on wet road
- picks up phone
- looks up and sees he's about to crash into another car
- swerves across median into oncoming traffic
- head-on collision with a Chevy Silverado
- more irrelevant stuff about what goes on in those microseconds of the crash to try to scare you
- explanations of what you should do in inevitable crash events
Editor anyone? Interesting read anyway, but I probably read every 3rd or 4th sentence.
As for the stuff making you relate to the guy - well, the whole point is that everybody believes it can't happen to them. The idea is - every fatal crash has a backstory, and yours doesn't protect you from it.
[Edit: the last link in that article might be of more interest to HN too: http://www.zoomsafer.com, which on quick perusal seems to be a service that automatically detects you are driving (presumably my monitoring your speed) and automatically autoresponds to calls by telling them where you are]
ZoomSafer prevents distracted driving by using your phone's GPS to detect when you're driving and automatically activating 'safe drive mode'. In 'safe drive mode', ZoomSafer locks your phone's keypad and screen so you can't text, email, or browse the web while driving - completely eliminating the need to look at your phone when your eyes should be on the road scanning for potential hazards.
The unfortunate situation detailed in the Men's Health article is one that's entirely too common - there were 6,000 deaths from distracted driving in 2008 alone. Visit www.zoomsafer.com to learn more about you can stay safely focused on the road.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrative_fallacy#The_narrative...
There are way too many really terrible drivers out there, and the government is doing nothing to keep them off the road. It's scary.
That being said, if you can handle a car in emergency situations is a good thing as long as that doesn't encourage you to cause those situations.
I noticed this in my own driving a year or two ago and I've since trained myself to become more alert as I get to intersections near my home. It's really amazing how alert I get. Unfortunately this training makes it difficult to fall asleep quickly after driving home. :)
>You're About to Rear-End the Car in Front of You
>The instinct: Brake hard
>The right response: Brake even harder
This is very dangerous if your brakes aren't in good condition. I did this last week with the SUV I normally drive. I applied the brake at full force to stop at a light.* I slammed on my brakes and on a flat, dry road surface my vehicle skipped 1/4 of the way into the intersect. I should have stopped before it.
Now I had known my brakes were acting a little weird but my dad replaced them today and I found out about 50% of the rotor surface was gone in large patches. Had I known just how bad my brakes were (I don't know anything about cars) I would have had them fixed sooner.
* I was driving the speed limit, not five over. I wasn't distracted. I did see the light change to yellow and started braking. Then the light quickly turned red. The light was way too fast for the intersection. (It's an odd intersect, there are two lights in a row and the traffic is usually heavy enough that you can't get up to 35mph to the second light during that time of day but I had a clear lane through the first intersection)
What does "skipped 1/4 of the way" mean?
What does "50% of the rotor surface was gone in large patches" mean? Have you ever seen a brake rotor? Are you implying you had big holes in your rotor? The rotor does not have a special surface, it's just bare metal. The only way the surface could be gone is if you have a hole in it.
If your pads are worn through you can wear grooves into your rotor surface. Grooves in your rotors reduce braking friction and are very bad.
That's exactly what happened. Because of the way the rotors were worn my brakes would only catch on every few inches of rotor surface which would cause the tires to hop across the road. It was like braking on patchy ice.
>What does "skipped 1/4 of the way" mean?
I was 1/4 of the way into the intersection by the time I stopped.
>What does "50% of the rotor surface was gone in large patches" mean? Have you ever seen a brake rotor? Are you implying you had big holes in your rotor? The rotor does not have a special surface, it's just bare metal. The only way the surface could be gone is if you have a hole in it.
I don't know much about cars so I don't know how to describe it in the correct terms. I saw the rotors, on both of them 50% of the surface was smooth and gray and 50% of it was pitted and black. The pitted sections were lower than the smooth sections so I don't think the brake pads would actually grab on them.