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Comment by lacogubik | Hacker News Reader

I think what they are implying is that car with so many safety features should be able to handle this situation. Volvo has lot of "collision avoidance" safety features, so one would expect that they could handle this as well.

This is common feature in other cars - I rented mazda few years back and it did automatically stop when I almost reversed into another car.

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That's actually what I meant. It's unfortunate because the car already has everything it needs to handle this situation. I admit it was an idiotic thing from my part to do, but still, you gotta expect better from a 56K car whose main selling point is safety.

At that point, the driver really is to blame though. Manufacturer's job is to make things affordably; not to save himanity from themselves despite the ongoing insistance by governments that somehow the industrial sector should take on the onus for technically enforcing whatever measures that some bureaucrat sets their sights on today.

This mentality that the car should make up for fundamental defects in safe driving is horrifying.

And yet, airbags are a thing.

> the driver really is to blame though

Yes, I know I'm responsible. I do not want/need car/manufacturer to be responsible, I just want technology to help where it could.

> Manufacturer's job is to make things affordably

This maybe is your opinion, but that's not how it works. There is plenty of manufacturer's who manufacture things which are not affordable and plenty of people buy it. Pretty much any industry has luxury segment which also tends to be most profitable

> This mentality that the car should make up for fundamental defects in safe driving is horrifying

Humans are imperfect. Stress, distractions, tiredness etc could make anyone to make mistake, even yourself. Why would adding safety features be horrifying?

Horrifying?

People always have made and always will make mistakes and we've been using technology to avoid accidents or minimize the consequences of them for a long time.

Technology preventing accidents is not horrifying.

The trouble of regulatory bureaucracy or liability is adjacent but separate.

Exactly, not sure what OP is on about.

This Volvo like I said, is absolutely wonderful on the road, and the safety features it's got even in the base model are a godsend and make the car feel like it has a mind of its own, in a good way. It saved my butt from so many accidents that I never even noticed, it sees danger before it even happens, it's amazing.

So my point from the beginning was, if a car is capable of detecting/anticipating and dealing with danger at 100Kmh, it sure as hell should be able to prevent dumbass me from reversing into another car by mistake.

Its' not some impossible ask here. My 16k yaris beeps then brakes the car when going forwards into an obstacle. Why cant a 56k volvo do the same in reverse? It definitely has this technology, I think its mandated now, but seems to me OP is saying volvo didn't bother putting it on the reverse side of the car. Which is a little bewildering that a car manufacturer might consider a reverse collision impossible, and makes you wonder what other common sense safety things they've screwed up as well, or opted to knowingly not include to improve their bottom line.

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