Hacker News Reader

Comment by hn_throwaway_99 | Hacker News Reader

Honestly, I feel this way about pretty much all "driver assist" systems in the wild today.

That is, I fully understand that to get to Levels 3, 4, and 5, you need to pass through levels 1 and 2 in autonomous driving. But the issue is that I feel like these systems are basically at the "slight drunk teenager" stage, with you as the driver having to ensure they don't mess up too badly. Honestly, unless I can, say, read a book or do something else, these systems (I'm specifically referring to an advanced cruise control/lane keeping system) right now just require me to pay MORE attention and they stress me out more.

Fully understand we need folks to help train these systems, but, at least for me, they currently make the driving experience worse.

View on HN

> Honestly, I feel this way about pretty much all "driver assist" systems in the wild today.

My five year old Honda has a very limited driver assist system (radar cruise control + lane centering), which (in my opinion) is very good at what it's trying to do. It has no pretensions of being a "self-driving" system, but it very successfully manages to reduce some of the stress of driving and make my driving better. I think the key point is it only automates the fine adjustments and provides alerts, but is very careful to never allow the driver to rely on it too much.

I feel the same way about my Subaru's EyeSight system. It helps me stay in the lane, and annoys me if I get distracted and cross a line. It slows down the car automatically when it detects an obstacle ahead. It speeds up and slows down automatically to maintain a mostly-steady speed when I set cruise control.

Until autonomous vehicles reach "read a book or fall asleep" levels, this is all I'm interested in. No thank you to any dumb "autopilot" system that I can't actually trust, but tries to control my wheel.

I’ve had the same experience with eyesight. I would also add that it brakes very naturally. Much better than other similar systems I have tried.

I've also driven a Subaru with EyeSight. I think it's pretty good too, and kinda follows the same philosophy as my Honda, but with different tradeoffs. The Subaru doesn't lane center, so it's less relaxing to drive on the highway because you have to pay more attention to fine tuning your lane position. On the other hand, my Honda deliberately won't automatically come to a stop to avoid a collision (it will only slow down in the last few seconds), so it's more annoying in stop-and-go traffic.

Exactly! I would also add emergency breaking at low speeds so that pedestrian stepping in front of the car from nowhere can be spared. There is no need for real self driving, it wouldn’t really change anything and we are not even close to that.

For the Tesla driver assistance specifically (non FSD) it's more advanced and reasonable reliable. I find it helps a great deal to reduce fatigue on long drives. It is nearly flawless on highways and watching to see the car is safe is much less fatiguing than a constant centering and monitoring the accelerator. Seeing the car is the right speed is less mental energy than constant control of power to get the right speed

Given the potential consequences of a mistake, it feels like there's still a pretty big difference between "nearly flawless" and flawless.

Speed control I'm fine with and is obvs. a mature tech that has been around for decades. Maybe it's the way I drive, but I find lane assist a liability -- especially on curves. More than once the car swerved unexpectedly one way or the other going around a bend. After the 2nd time that happened, I shut it off.

Lane assist isn't supposed to entirely keep you in the lane on it's own, it's supposed to just help tug you in the right direction as a hint in case you weren't paying perfect attention. It's usually not supposed to steer the car entirely on its own.

I suspect the difference in experience might be attributable to differences in the environment. I went cross country in a model Y and noticed that it did not handle one lane turning into two lanes with any grace - but I also drove across entire states where that didn’t come up. It wouldn’t surprise me if some experiences were regional to an extent.

You can’t really concentrate for long times, and as it has been shown many times, people are bad at expecting rare events. Reasonably reliable is not enough.

FSD marketing has always seemed sketchy to me. Though I like Open Pilot. It's a much smaller scope for an L2 system to keep you in your lane and keep you a safe distance from the next car. It works well for highway driving.

I personally really enjoy my ADAS systems on my cars even though it's not to the read a book or take a nap level of automation. It's really just cruise control on steroids. Do you see value in regular cruise control systems, even though it's not 100% automated?

When I'm in stop and go traffic, I really like not having to constantly go back and fourth between the brake and gas pedal, I can just pay attention to what's happening in and around the lane and let the car keep a good follow distance.

I've gone over 100 miles at a time without having to touch the gas or brake pedal, even through stop and go traffic.

I could see the value in that. I am a different type of driver however. I have never used cruise control and don't even know how to engage it on my car. It is true I don't drive much but when I do drive I like to be much more involved in it. I love the sound of my engine at 7000+ rpm shifts and the feel of my hydraulic steering rack.

My only disdain for driving stems from sharing the road with other driver who are completely stupid and seem to lack and critical thinking skill(this shows up in especially in traffic jams and navigation within them on local roads with obstacles also present, like a parked truck loading).

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the thrill of driving and racing. Some spirited driving on open highways is way different from stop and go traffic and long family road trips. In the end I still have a throttle lock on my 1050cc motorcycle though, it comes in handy when going on a long road trip.

> Honestly, I feel this way about pretty much all "driver assist" systems in the wild today.

I've found adaptive cruise control to be a simple, noticeable improvement.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com