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Comment by gofreddygo | Hacker News Reader

> It enables me to take my eyes off the road for enough time to rest my eyes, stretch my back, feet, change the tunes, grab something from the back seat

Oh for your and the sake of others, please don't do this.

I have a similar system in my car, works great 99% of the time. But that 1%, where it went wrong, could have resulted in crashes had i taken my eyes or my hands or my feet or my mind off the driving aspect.

There is no room for error here. Just stop on the side of the road if its too tiring. Focus more if you're late. Or just take an Uber or have someone else drive. Or better yet, take public transport. If none of these are options, just suck it up and drive.

Please don't put yourself, or others in danger relying on this bullshit. When things go wrong, only one person is at fault and pays the price, it's you. Not Kia, not Tesla, just you, your family, the people in the crash and their family. Not worth it really.

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I’m not sure your risk analysis is correct, if the driver is going to do those activities anyway, without the aid of self driving tech.

People already do things like grab food from the backseat, fiddle with the music, read their texts etc.. while driving. Are they less of a risk to those around them if they have some self driving guard rails? I would argue very likely yes.

Your conclusion of “you’re bad if you do this, so don’t do it” is rarely going to change human behavior. Giving people a tool to make the behavior they already want to do much safer is more likely to succeed.

My knee jerk reaction was to point out the flaws in your argument, but I figure thats not constructive, so here goes.

My first point is that taking eyes off the road while driving is risky business whether in a 2024 FSD Tesla or a 1996 Toyota tacoma. It's clear we don't want that.

My second point is the risk is entirely on the driver, and the people involved in the crash, not the producer of the technology who absolves themselves of all liability from the use and effects of said technology.

My personal experience that formed my opinion on this is that the technology is not ready to be fully trusted, not to the extent of taking eyes off the road (which really brought out my instinctive comment).

I will agree that this does have potential to avoid some crashes. But human nature would make us sloppier drivers.

So what, in your view, is the value of adaptive cruise control? Why did you purchase it? If I have to keep my eyes glued to the road, hands on the wheel and foot over the pedals 100% of the time, what’s the point? I’d rather just drive.

To be clear I’m not saying I shut my eyes and nap - “rest” in this case meant “look at something other than the road / car in front of me / taillights”. I’m doing things that, as another commenter said, I’m already going to do anyway, but now it’s safer to take a momentary break to do them without resorting to “knee-steering” or other hacks. I’m also doing these things only when it’s a straight section of open road with little traffic.

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