U.S. to require automatic emergency braking on new vehicles in 5 years | Hacker News Reader

U.S. to require automatic emergency braking on new vehicles in 5 years

npr.org

39 pointsgeox174 comments

The only experience I have with automatic emergency braking was with a large box truck several years ago. It was quite horrible, false positives often, and never was necessary. Once it braked for no apparent reason while going downhill around a turn and almost caused us to wreck since the truck didn't turn as well under heavy braking. I hope better implementations exist.

Yeah this technology ain't mature in any way, 99% or 99,9% is simply not good enough to deploy anywhere en masse. Lane assists, braking, collision recognition - I've seen false positives, I've seen no reaction where there should be one.

By far the safest driving for me is simply having experience and no assistants enabled, ever. I know this begs question how to get to that level, these flawed helpers can maybe statistically help, but they shouldn't be forced upon everybody.

It seems older cars will keep their value for quite some time. I am actively beginning to hate all new development in cars, when all everybody wants is simply full autopilot. If we are not there (and we are not), then just wait and help companies get there.

Yet, those 1% or 0.1% false positives, even if they kill the car's occupants, may still reduce the aggregate number of deaths. I expect government to make choices that are best for society at large, rather than for any individual.

That’s fine as long as it’s opt in at the individual level.

> I expect government to make choices that are best for society at large, rather than for any individual.

I expect the government to ensure the market contains accurate information and leave me alone to make choices for myself, not kill me to save 20 other people without my input or consent.

This hasn’t been my experience. And like anything else, turn it off if you don’t like it and don’t buy the vehicle with poorly implemented technology.

You are saying "if yoy dont like it dont participate" in response to a conversation about a feature that will be mandated.

Use your noggin

In the truck we had with it, it couldn't be disabled. We tried pulling the fuse but then the truck wouldn't start.

What truck?

It was a 26 foot International box truck.

That’s a commercial vehicle.

I am very skeptical of the claim.

A driver glance down to change the station, going 110 kms, with less than 15 meters and the car in front of you full stop breaks, you are going to crash, but yet folks still continue to do it and still they believe they'd be able to stop in time even with all the experience of driving.

I don't believe most drivers today would be able to pass the present driver test successfully the first time due to formed bad habits.

You are also atill going to crash if you break automatically in that scenario... i dont get your point

Not all collisions are equivalent. Suppose you and the car in front of you collided a fraction of a second later when both are doing 10MPH less, that alone removes a great deal of energy and thus risk.

You may avoid whatever the first person was trying to avoid hitting or spinning into the next lain etc.

Okay fine, but youve now introduced a whole class of accidents (false positive caused wrecks) that didnt exist before.

You also eliminate an accidents where the system prevents a collision. Insurance companies pay attention to the total risk and it’s a clear benefit.

No, the system could always maintain the correct distance to be able to break given your speed and the speed of the car in front of you or maintain that the crash will never exceed X speed based upon stats of the vehicle of survival rates.

As another commenter said, even reducing 10km more than a human will reduce the consequences.

What was your driver's test like? Driving around an empty lot is super-duper easy to do; the hardest part is parallel parking (in a space large enough for a semi-truck) and keeping two hands on the wheel.

I haven't heard of any that are better than a pulse test.

I'm thoroughly disappointed that there isn't a simulator component where you actually get tested on scenarios were a car crash is almost forced.

I didn't have to parallel park for mine. I had to stop at a stop sign, use my turn signal, and turn around in a box.

This technology is already in 99% of all new cars sold.

Are you one of those nutters who claim its safer not to wear a seatbelt?

Are you a nutter who has never hydroplaned before? Breaking during a turn is fucking dangerous especially if you dont know its gonna happen.

I really dont understand how anyone cluld think its a good idea

No it's not. Not as described in the article.

> It seems older cars will keep their value for quite some time. I am actively beginning to hate all new development in cars

s/cars/things/g

My wife’s car has this and it’s not perfect but good enough.

It has known (not published maybe) failure modes such as driving into a roundabout where the car is initially pointing towards the keep left sign (Australia) but then the road turns left. This is easy to remember and compensate for and while unnerving, not generally a problem.

I’m totally in favour of it, especially since rear end crashes are the most prevalent, accounting for 31% of crashes [0], this would avoid a large percentage of them I’d guess. [0] https://www.dinggo.com.au/blog/car-crash-statistics-australi...

I have it in my Subaru Forrester and it's... OK? It has saved me from near collision twice, but also triggered false positives a few times. The false positives never led to actual breaking, just to the loud peeping before the breaking starts: usually triggered by a going too fast into sharp curve with a warning sign next to the curve.

> The false positives never led to actual breaking, just to the loud peeping before the breaking starts

Interesting. The one we had would not give any warning until it slammed on the brakes. I suspect it sometimes triggered on trees and signs but I don't really know what it detected in most cases.

All this technology has the effect of pushing up the cost of vehicles, often for questionable minor safety improvements. Is there a good analysis of why the road safety trend has gone the wrong way in the US lately?

This is protectionism for the voting block in Detroit. You'll see this sort of thing every 4 years.

I'm guessing patents and the like have already decided who the winner of this rule is and it probably isn't automobile buyers in the US.

It’s matching European standards after years of American roads becoming deadlier while the rest of the world is getting safer. I wouldn’t read anything more into it than “we’d like fewer dead people on our roads”.

Wait, which directive mandates auto-braking?

https://spectrum.ieee.org/europe-mandates-automatic-emergenc...

Even if true, who cares, if it means fewer preventable fatalities?

"If we can save one life, it's worth it" is part of the reason everything is so expensive in the US. People forget that poverty is also deadly and don't factor that into the calculation.

I'd argue that profit margins are more to blame here.

Then you'd be against giving gifts to Detroit to keep those high.

The article says it will save a estimated 362 lives per year at a cost of 82$ per car or 354 M$/yr. The actuarial value of a human life is usually around 5 M$, so that is a societal ROI of 5 if we only count fatalitys.

Your model assumes a even distribution of funds across society.

you don't have a better assumption.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/27/upshot/road-deaths-pedest...

I can't link the graph directly because it doesn't display the text, ctrl-f "Change in U.S. road deaths since 1994" to see it

I’d also add https://www.ghsa.org/resources/news-releases/pedestrians-pre...

> A combination of factors creates this deadly situation for people walking on U.S. roadways. A steep drop in traffic enforcement across the country since 2020 has enabled dangerous driving behaviors – including speeding and driving impaired – to flourish. At the same time, roads are largely designed to prioritize fast-moving vehicle traffic instead of slower speeds that are safer for people walking. Many parts of the country lack infrastructure – such as sidewalks, crosswalks and lighting – that help protect people on foot. The U.S. vehicle fleet is increasingly dominated by larger, heavier vehicles that are more likely to injure or kill people walking.

I think the pause on enforcement a lot of police departments did after the George Floyd protests is a contributing factor to that first point: it’s not just that the worst drivers realized that they could do whatever they want after buying some fake plates on Facebook[1] but that other drivers start feeling like suckers for still following the rules. I wouldn’t say the drivers here were ever great but they used to at least stop for the red light in front of the neighborhood elementary school.

1. This was incredibly blatant - clearly neither Facebook nor police were interested in doing anything about it. A local cyclist spent a few minutes looking and found tons of sellers:

https://tomlee.wtf/2023/02/03/fake-tags-are-a-real-problem/

> I think the pause on enforcement a lot of police departments did after the George Floyd protests is a contributing factor to that first point

Which is always a silly thing to read. George Floyd wasn't arrested because he flying 60 mph through red lights. It was over an alleged crime with maximum damages of $20; it's not even comparable to the violations being let slide.

The protests merely wanted police accountability, and police didn't like that and started just refusing to do their job.

It’s really frustrating to see those conflated. The fake plate guys are effectively going around with a big sign indicating premeditated intent to break safety laws. Floyd may or may not have even used a counterfeit bill but even in the case where he knowingly did, it wouldn’t have harmed anyone.

> All this technology has the effect of pushing up the cost of vehicles, often for questionable minor safety improvements.

DoT (and other departments) are required to take the cost of rules into account when writing them. So for example if the cost of putting in a safety rail on a curve exceeds the cost of the lives estimated to be saved at that curve over the lifetime of the rail, it won't be installed.

Different departments used to, and AFAIK still do (though I don't track this), value the price of a life differently. And it's not just the cost of the life; it's the cost of the cars damaged in a rear-end collision.

Cell phones. I look around me and at least half of the drivers I see are texting/scrolling, watching videos, or posting Snapchat stories.

This is true but it can’t be more than part of the explanation: pretty much everywhere else has phones but has seen declining fatality rates.

The US has heavier cars to skirt around regulations and no public transit infrastructure.

Yes, and worse pedestrian infrastructure, very limited law enforcement, and lax driver licensing. There isn’t a single fix which is going to make our roads as safe as, say, Germany but progress in any area will help.

The cost here is pretty trivial from my understanding. It’s essentially just a vision system that can send a brake command. Aka a camera behind the mirror and a microprocessor.

Much of the other components are already present on modern vehicles.

> The cost here is pretty trivial from my understanding.

The cost to implement it or the cost to make it utterly bulletproof?

This requires a automotive grade camera with connection to the can Bus.

This might not be expensive per se but is still a few hundred bucks.

For a small car this can easily be a few percent extra.

I think there's one of two ways to make roadways safer:

1. Add these safety feature mandates that increase the price of vehicles 2. Move towards banning larger and larger vehicles and create limits on height and clearance for non-commercial vehicles.

The latter doesn't seem politically popular, so the former is the only choice.

There's another way, which is far more cost-effective and particularly well suited to government action: build more public transportation.

Pushing up the cost of cars is good. They're damaging to the environment, people, and our infrastructure. The minimum we can be doing right now is to lower the safety risk and emissions of them.

No. It's not. Pushing down car ownership might be good, but not based on wealth. Priority should go to elderly, people with disabilities, people with kids, etc.

Even so, the goal shouldn't be fewer cars but less miles driven.

The kind of antagonistic approach you prescribe rarely leads to good policy.

Cars are massively subsidized, and requiring that they be safer reduces some of their externalities a bit, raising their cost and lowering that subsidy. That's a good thing.

Where I am, my car commute is 30 minutes. If I moved closer, shaving it to 10 minutes, my housing costs double. If I get down to 5, housing costs are about 4x.

If I use public transport now, the travel time is 2 hours. To keep my public transport to 30 minutes, I have to ~2x my housing costs.

I think, realistically, people will just end up commuting further, to offset the cost, since that is the best financial, and time, choice.

We should also build more housing!

That's another significant problem. Any dense housing built near the city is, necessarily, corporate built, due to initial costs. The ability to own these units is disappearing [1], with much more profit being found by renting. This means that moving near a city is, almost always, a 100% loss, where you burn your housing cost every month, rather than building equity with something you can own some commute away. This adds significantly more cost to the short commute, if you plan on living in the same place for a while.

[1] https://www.ppic.org/blog/multi-unit-housing-is-becoming-mor...

> where you burn your housing cost every month

As opposed to travel cost?

(yes, it's a really stupid situation that renting a house is far more expensive than renting some money for thirty years)

My cheap gas car gets 40mpg on the freeway. With our roughly $5.30/gallon cost here, a 40 mile one-way commute is around $300/month. That's < 1/10th the housing cost for living near work.

If free electric charging is available where you work, you can save even more by buying a low range, used, electric that nobody wants. I picked one up for $8k. The savings will pay it off in a few more years.

The flip side is that its a tax on poorer people who need a vehicle to work.

If we had walkable cities with good public transportation and people had actual options it'd be different.

There's an intersection of anti-car and social justice concerns where you have to ask where the financial burden is hitting.

Having driven a vehicle with automatic braking, I find myself experiencing no positive feelings about this proposal.

> Having driven a vehicle with automatic braking, I find myself experiencing no positive feelings about this proposal.

This post seems useful. As in - there are really important experiences behind it that we should know about.

Or better yet, experiences that lawmakers should know about.

Or worse yet, experiences do know about and disregard because it's an election year.

Don't know about GP, but the Mercedes A Class I drove a week ago had the fun idea that on narrow roads with oncoming traffic, it decided to break really hard and sway slightly onto the shoulder. Luckily it realized there was no shoulder, but a steel railing, before it hit it.

One time, I was taken over by a car, and the car suddenly hits the breaks. Same thing there: it breaks harder on the right side, so it feels like it's pulling onto the shoulder.

It made me feel really uncomfortable with the car. Sure, it was a narrow road and passing, but as a human I never had a problem with the distances.

(Ugh, FTR, I just realized it was a GLA, not A Class.)

> there are really important experiences behind it that we should know about

It was exactly what anyone with experience developing new automation might predict. The system seemed to do basically what it was designed to, and if we were ever about to rear-end someone it would likely have helped us do so less violently, but its false-positives were frequent enough and caused enough problems that I'm not convinced the driving experience was safer overall. It was certainly not less stressful!

One must continue watching the road, watching the other drivers, and trying to predict their behavior, as before - but one must also try to predict what the half-blind paranoid moron attached to one's brake pedal might do, so you can quickly react to its erratic spasms of deceleration and avoid causing a different sort of crash, after you find your car abruptly going somewhat the wrong direction or getting in someone else's way.

If I owned the car, perhaps, and had months to get acquainted with the robot's quirks, I might learn to anticipate its misunderstandings and compensate for them. In the rental I was driving, however, automatic braking was pure distraction.

Would the roads be safer if everyone used this technology? Well... there might be fewer rear-end collisions; but there would be more ambient chaos, vehicles abruptly braking for no apparent reason, leaving other drivers to react and compensate. The same quantity of danger, perhaps, only smeared out more broadly and thinly? Maybe that's a kind of an improvement, I suppose, but it does not seem like a better future so much as a messier one.

I sure hope this works better than the "automatic collision warning" system that ships in most modern cars. Fortunately my actual car doesn't have this. But every time I drive a rental car the damn thing is constantly beeping at me in completely safe scenarios. Last thing I need is for the government to mandate that those beeps instead become emergency full stops.

Probably a user setting? Our car gives us a visual warning. I think it’s a nice to have.

Do U.S. people really benefit from this kind of restriction from the Government? Seems like they are pawing their way into our property to empower themselves with all kinds of precedents.

Like seat belts?

Seat belts is user's responsibility, so not like that.

Like requirement to have a display, requirement to be able of stopping if the Government wants, anything like the covid restrictions.

The government in 60s was not able to insist on any restrictions for drivers which are working willy-nilly.

I don't get the downvotes, it's a valid question imho. For example in France in 2012 they made it mandatory for every car to have 2 alcohol tests (the dumb ones, you blow in it changes color if you're above a certain threshold).

A good idea right ? it's pretty cheap too no ?

It turned out that the lobbyists who pushed for it were also invested in the company manufacturing 90% the alcohol tests for the french market.

https://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/2012/06/27/01016-20...

It’s the weird conspiratorial tone (see their other comments). There’s a century of precedent for safety equipment and from a privacy perspective this is a non-issue – I’d be far more concerned with data from things like OnStar which actually connect to a network or LPRs. There could be a good conversation about privacy and costs but I doubt it can start from that point.

I would also note that you can find the same general comments, almost word for word except the stuff about COVID restrictions, said about antilock brakes, seatbelts, daytime running lights, airbags, etc. Some people have an instinctive reaction to oppose any new requirement.

That law does not exist since 2020 as it was found not to help with drink driving accidents.

https://www.thelocal.fr/20200108/france-to-finally-scrap-law...

Yes, good thing, at 1 to 2 euros a pop, times 2 tests per car, times 38m cars in France that was a lot of money for nothing

This system was the first thing I turned off in my new (2024) car because it was triggered by road debris and almost got me rear-ended on the Interstate by a semi doing 75mph.

This technology is too error prone to be mandatory. All I want are less huge vehicles on the road and a return to normal cars and all the improvements in handling and dynamic performance we have gained over the decades.

As long as I can see far ahead and my view isn’t blocked by some blocky shitbox SUV, and my vehicle handles well, I can avoid nearly any possible collision.

Too bad the existing systems suck: https://www.thedrive.com/news/most-small-suvs-are-bad-at-aut...

"The SUVs that participated in the test were the Subaru Forester, Honda CR-V, Toyota RAV4, Ford Escape, Mazda CX-5, Hyundai Tucson, Jeep Compass, Mitsubishi Outlander, Chevy Equinox, and the Volkswagen Taos. Of those ten SUVs only one (!) received the IIHS' "Good" rating—the Subaru Forester. After that, only two were rated as "Acceptable," the Honda CR-V and Toyota RAV4. The Ford, Hyundai, and Jeep were rated "Marginal," while the rest were sent home with "Poor" ratings and their heads hanging low."

It sounds like they made the test harder because the market has matured:

> The old test was done at 12 and 25 mph. Now that automakers' tech has improved dramatically since the first test was designed, the IIHS bumped the speeds up to 31, 37, and 43 mph.

> The vast majority of new vehicles now come with automatic emergency braking, and our research shows the technology prevents as many as half of all front-to-rear crashes. This new, tougher evaluation targets some of the most dangerous front-to-rear crashes that are still happening," said IIHS President David Harkey.

Making this a required feature seems like a great way to get manufacturers not to skimp on development.

This is already mandatory for cars sold in Europe for some years, it's really no big deal. Before that it wasn't mandatory, but I think it was required the be able to get a 5 star safety rating (which all brands want) so it was very common even before it was mandatory.

Perhaps knowing the car ahead of you may brake suddenly outside of human control will break the habit of tailgating!

> Perhaps knowing the car ahead of you may brake suddenly outside of human control will break the habit of tailgating!

But tailgating is how you know a cop is unhappy with you.

There is one safety feature that would universally make cars safer and not require radar or computers. Just simple speed governors based on geo-fencing and radio speed limit signs. It would be trivially easy to install on existing vehicles and much less expensive on new vehicles. In addition it would increase pedestrian safety by leaps and bounds.

We do it for electric bicycles and scooters. Why not cars?

Realistically, because politicians drive cars, and like to speed.

If you read any articles on the subject, you can almost feel the author resisting the urge to say that outright.

Judging by how my car shows a speed limit change from 55 to 25 as I go under bridges that could get real dangerous real fast if there's a poor implementation.

Aren't all the scooters just a flat 20/25 mph cap with no dynamic changing? I think drones are the things you're looking for where they avoid flying near airfields.

Most rental scooters are geo-fenced so people don't zip around walking paths at 20+mph.

Edit: Here is a quick link https://www.li.me/blog/lime-introduces-new-geofencing-techno...

> not require radar or computers

> speed governors based on geo-fencing and radio speed limit signs

sounds like that requires computers

> We do it for electric bicycles and scooters

I've never seen a scooter nor e-bike for sale that includes such a feature. Unless you're talking about rental scooters, which doesn't make sense to compare an owned car against.

My Class 3 ebike is governed at 28mph when pedaling or 20mph on motor alone. Above those speeds the motor just turns off. I can pedal/coast above that speed but the motor does nothing. This is a legal requirement to meet the class specification.

>scooter nor e-bike for sale

You're forgetting that the majority of electric scooters and bikes out there are rentals. Every single one of them has geofencing and speed governors.

Currently, if you buy your own (aka, one that is "for sale"), you can do with it what you want. I wouldn't us the same argument for a car that you own, because there is significantly greater public risk associated with misuse of an automobile.

The technology does exist though, and it is trivial to implement.

Speed governors have worked for much longer than the history of computers. For geo-fencing you don't need GPS and can use proximity. However, I'm pretty sure you would use a very inexpensive microcontroller with GPS in addition to an antenna for an aftermarket addition.

Almost every e-bike and scooter is sold with a speed governor. This is so they meet the regulatory requirements for Class-C electric bicycles.

https://www.heybike.com/blogs/heybike-blog/ebike-classes-1-2...

The first thing I hear people argue against is their "freedom" to drive their car without the government telling them what they can and cannot do.

But you already don't have the freedom to drive as fast as you want, and the current enforcement system is to come face-to-face with a cop.

I, personally, would prefer a system where my car physically will not allow me to drive over the speed limit. The problem though is that it has to apply to everyone. If 90% of the cars on the road don't have governors, and your car does, when you merge onto a highway where everyone is driving 20mph over the limit, you'll be in real danger since your car won't let you drive with traffic.

More speed can also be safer in some scenarios

Like when

Like when everyone else is speeding.

If everyone is going 80 mph, then being the one driver actually obeying the 65 mph speed limit puts you and everyone around you in MORE danger.

Would it be safer for everyone to be going 65 mph? Absolutely. I'm definitely not disputing that.

But speed differential is more dangerous than speed itself.

EDIT: To be more accurate, speed differential makes crashes more likely, but speed overall obviously makes the crashes more likely to be fatal. Whether it's safer to go 80 when everyone is going 80 to reduce the likelyhood of a crash, or if it's safer to go 65 mph to reduce the severity of a crash if it happens is very debatable, and I'm not sure there are good enough statistics to back up either claim.

Without data, this reads like self justification for poor behavior.

One thing to keep in mind is when is the breaking point? If one person drives 100mph, should every single driver match that speed? What about 90? 80? What is the cutoff?

There is a reason there are speed limits. They are the cutoff.

> If one person drives 100mph, should every single driver match that speed? What about 90? 80? What is the cutoff?

Completely irrelevant to my scenario. Let me try to be more clear.

If everyone is driving 65 mph, then the person driving 80 mph is in the wrong.

If everyone is driving 80 mph, then the person driving 65 mph is in the wrong.

So who determines what speed everyone should drive? Maybe we should put up signs! Oh wait...

I've found that many drivers feel uncomfortable being passed by other drivers. They translate that discomfort to being "Less Safe." Despite the fact that they are objectively much safer traveling at slower speeds. Not many people appreciate the difference in fatality rates between 65 and 85 mph. Fatality rates go from 20% to 70%. In addition, your ability to control your car in a minor collision at high speeds is heavily compromised.

https://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/speedmgt/ref_mats/fhwasa1304/Res...

Edit: It appears the source above is for pedestrian collisions in kph. However speeding is a factor in 1/3 of traffic fatalities.

https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/speed-campaign-speeding...

I've read both of your links, and both fail to address one scenario and a question regarding it:

If EVERYONE is driving 80 mph, is it more dangerous to be the one person deciding to drive 65 mph?

Most studies and statistics either focus on speed alone OR being the ONE person driving 80 while everyone else is driving 65.

Speed differential increases the frequency of crashes, and overall speed makes crashes worse. I posit that the best crash is the one that doesn't happen, so reducing the frequency of a crash by going with the flow of traffic is the safer option.

So you are arguing FOR speed governors which would keep everyone at the same speed?

No, it is not.

https://www.iihs.org/topics/speed#:~:text=Dangers%20of%20spe....

I literally covered the "driving with traffic" issue in the comment you are responding to. Driving at higher speeds isn't inherently safer, it is conditionally safer.

If the speed limit is 60MPH, and everyone is driving 80MPH, it is safer to drive 80MPH than to drive the speed limit and get hit from behind by someone going 20MPH faster than you.

Of course, every single person driving 80MPH in this scenario is breaking the law (in most states this is reckless driving), and making the road less safe for everyone, especially motorist obeying the law. The status quo isn't great if we just accept that everyone has to drive recklessly because the people around them are. That's a problem in need of a solution - a solution that can include mandatory speed governors and geo-fencing.

If you require governors and geo-fencing, the condition of "everyone is driving 20MPH over the limit" doesn't exist, because everyone's cars will be capped at the legal speed limit. Driving with traffic will only entail speeds up to the speed limit, not up to the fastest speed that drivers around you feel like driving.

Thus why I said that regulators would have to go all-in on this technology, rather than allowing slow roll-out, because a transition period would make the roads more dangerous allowing older vehicles to drive recklessly fast while not allowing newer vehicles to safely drive according to road conditions (created by reckless drivers).

Freedom is not an on off switch. You can argue against freedom under any context with that kind of argument. Seeing it as a min max problem is better. Maximize freedom while minimizing problems or something.

I agree. My freedom to not be killed far outweighs the freedom of idiots to drive too fast.

>You can argue against freedom under any context with that kind of argument.

The context I am talking about is a logistical issue that kills between 35,000-40,000 Americans every year. Nearly twice as many annual deaths as all forms of murder combined. It's the leading cause of accidental death.

There aren't that many "freedoms" that have such a staggering human cost. There are already laws that exist that prohibit you from driving at unsafe speeds, so it isn't even a freedom to begin with. You don't have the freedom to break the law. I see no issue with enforcing those laws proactively rather than reactively when that many lives are on the line.

Requiring speed governors on all vehicles is the only thing that makes sense. You would probably require installation by a certain date with a phasing in of activation for geofences and radio speed limits.

I'd be happy with a top speed cap of 85 mph to start.

This alone would be a great start. Lately I've had at least three instances of people doing over 100mph barely avoid hitting me in the far right lane as they zig zag across the freeway. It's gotten to the point that driving after 1 AM is like being on the runway of an international airport.

Probably because public backlash would be insane. There is very little political or economic incentive to push something like that.

It's kind of like banning alcohol. Yeah, it's bad for us (individually and collectively) but most of the population does it anyways and we're used to it. Taking that away would cause massive outrage.

I think the far more politically dangerous proposition is fighting with the automotive lobby.

https://www.treehugger.com/big-surprise-car-industry-doesnt-...

Because it would make roads less safe.

It's very common to need to *accelerate* in emergency situations.

Something like smart cruise control which drives the speed limit would be appreciated. A hard cap would not.

Like when

You're passing a broken-down vehicle, a deer that hoped into the road, a toddler, or otherwise go into the opposite lane. There is an incoming car, and you need to merge back before a head-on collision, without hitting whatever you're passing.

Floor it and merge.

I can name many other scenarios, but generally, emergency maneuvers are helped by good control over the car, including braking, turning, and acceleration.

There are nice charts showing accidents per million miles driven by car, and the best ones I've seen are anyone, but not testosterone-promoting agile. Crash ratings are misleading since many of the safest cars in a crash also crash a lot more often and have higher fatalities overall since bigger cars are less likely to be able to avoid an accident.

In all of the instances you mention, it is recommended that you use your brakes. NOT go faster. Who sees a toddler in the road and floors it? Are you avoiding rocket children?

In the situation described, I already charged lanes to avoid the toddler / deer / stopped car.

The question is what I do about the incoming car I didn't notice.

A) change back and hit the toddler

B) do nothing, and have a fatal head-on collision

C) hit the brakes, and have a non-fatal head-on collision

D) speed up a little bit, so I can get back into my lane before the other car gets here

If swerving into another lane to avoid a toddler rather than stopping is a “common” scenario, you already sound like a psychopathically reckless driver. In none of those situations should you be swerving into the wrong side of traffic. You should be stopping. And then, if necessary, carefully going into the other lane.

Your examples are comically dangerous

Edit: in fact, specifically you remind me of Richard Horne in twin peaks season 3:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=V62BJFn-BTQ

So, you are driving in such a manner that you cannot stop in time for toddlers, deer, or broken down cars. Perhaps if you were driving slower you would not need to swerve into oncoming traffic to avoid road hazards?

Fatality rates drop dramatically with lowered speed. I have yet to see an emergency situation where acceleration makes any difference. Brakes are often an order of magnitude more powerful than the car's engine.

Never been in the path of a speeding police car or ambulance rushing to an emergency from behind you and wanted to get out of the way at the next intersection, just 100m ahead?

Statistics didn't support you. Look at deaths per mile for vehicles. The worst ones are lumbering hulks which can't do avoidance maneuvers.

If you are in the path of a police car or ambulance, you are required to slow down and pull over to the right. Death rates per mile have a loose correlation to vehicle size. However, engine size has a high correlation to deaths per mile. Sports cars love to kill their drivers.

https://www.iihs.org/ratings/driver-death-rates-by-make-and-...

I would encourage you to look more closely. Safest mainstream car is Chevy Bolt which (1) isn't bought by douchebags to show off (2) does 0-60 on 6.6 seconds, on par with muscle cars, exactly as I described.

So would you say that Chevy Bolt drivers tend to drive slower? And are thus safer? Why should douchebags be able to buy cars that drive 100+mph on public roads?

> Because It would make roads less safe.

Speeding makes roads less safe too. Wouldn’t you agree that there would be a net reduction in serious injury and death from enforcing the speed limit?

> It’s very common to need to accelerate in emergency situations

Very common to accelerate past the speed limit when you’re already at/above it? Acceleration is usually useful as a safety tool when you’re at a stop and want to cross before oncoming traffic reaches the intersection. Your acceleration from a stop would not be limited beyond what your drivetrain can do.

I think there are soft mechanisms which could enforce speed limits which would need both needs.

Even an obnoxious beeper like for seatbelts.

I prefer the seatbelt beeper to having seatbelts which won't unfasten until the car has come to a complete stop, or cars which don't start without seatbelts. Not everything needs to be enforced with force.

Evidence indicates that speed limits need to be enforced by some other method. Nearly 1/3 of all fatal accidents are a result of speeding. Speeding is so commonplace that people barely even pay attention to it.

Seatbelt laws are important, however they have much less impact on the people around the vehicle. Speeding kills pedestrians and other drivers.

Edge cases like medical emergencies, natural disasters, terrorist attacks etc., where speeding can actually save lives. You can’t account for all of those in an automated system.

Those are movie plots. We know what happens in things like natural disasters: epic traffic jams because the roads have limited capacity and once people start thinking they can violate the laws they crash and make it even worse.

Medical emergencies are more plausible but it’s a collection of edge cases: you have to be somewhere a long way from the hospital, without an ambulance, no traffic, and safe road conditions for much higher speeds. If all of those aren’t true, you’re either making a bad situation much worse with a crash or running off the road (the most realistic places for this situation are rural areas where it’s often not safe to go even the posted limit around every curve) or you’re not really saving enough time to be meaningful. Even the ambulances rarely drive like that in those regions despite being much better trained, equipped, and experienced with the area.

Now, contrast those extremely low probability events with the tens of thousands of people killed by drivers every year and the hundreds of thousands who have life-altering injuries. How many people are we willing to write off so a bunch of people can fantasize about having the chance to play ambulance driver some day?

True, but on the other hand, it would only take one headline about people losing their lives while trying to drive off a bridge about to collapse at 20 kph to spark public outrage. We tend to be less sensitive to tragedies that occur due to an individual’s own bad decisions.

What about the tragedies that occur every day when speeders kill strangers, friends, and family? Currently about 33 deaths per day are caused by speeding. I have yet to find a person who died because they couldn't exceed the speed limit.

There is a reason that, during an emergency, people are urged to walk and not run. People panicking and running like a herd of gazelle results in accidents. Accidents clog exits and roads preventing escape.

Why are people commenting on Hacker News so negative?

This is a progressive, good idea.

It will save 24,000 injuries a year.

I think if Hacker News was around when seat-belts were invented there would be some looney tunes claiming it's an abuse of first amendment rights or some rubbish.

The next thing should be mandatory lane keeping.

> This is a progressive, good idea. It will save 24,000 injuries a year.

This is what it is promised it will do. What it will do is what it can, with the resources that are left over for development and safety - once shareholders and execs are satisfied (per scotus: Dodge vs Ford).

Sorry but your comment makes no sense.

I think the person is saying there may be a vast difference between what's marketed and promised, and how projects like these have historically under-delivered or failed.

Yeah. Sorry for the wording. Not a lot of people are eager to converse with my 6am head.

I misjudged a tight pass on the highway this past weekend. It was stupid on my part but I will faux righteously blame the clown camping in the passing lane.

My car's warning system lost its mind as I approached the car in the right lane. I accelerated through the situation and into the left lane because I knew speeding up was contextually appropriate.

Had the car possessed an automatic braking system, the car disastrously would have jammed on the brakes with me mid-lane-change. That would not have been pretty in heavy highway traffic.

Honestly no idea what you're on about.

Because people here understand information technology. Any system that can accomplish this will be complex enough to fail regularly. It will be a net decrease in road safety. It will be a decrease in vehicle movement predictability. And it will be a significant decrease in vehicle operational lifetime as well as increased mantainence cost.

Not according to the data.

It's the current HN culture to whine about all technology, especially if it isn't impossibly perfect.

To be fair, the reliability threshold had better be extremely high for systems controlling a 2 ton box going 120 km/hr surrounded by other boxes of similar velocity. There's plenty of room for reasonable discourse about where exactly that threshold should be. I suspect most of us (myself included) are also probably not familiar with how reliable modern iterations of this technology are.

It may save 24,000, but kill, say, 50,000 in new ways due to bugs.

No Karen.

> "up to 62mph"

Placing the dividing line at 62mph is interesting because many areas (in the US) fluctuate between 55mph and 65mph speed limits. What was once a seemingly arbitrary difference in speed will now carry more implications.

We have a 2017 Highlander, and the automatic emergency breaking has avoided accidents at least 3 times. One time, my wife was at an intersection turning right. She was looking left for an opening, and a teenager saw the same opening and tried to run across the street as she accelerated into the right turn. The automatic breaking saved him and my wife from a sad situation.

That's horrific. You would hit another car or person every two years if not for automatic braking?

Also, it's inexcusable to turn in front of a pedestrian without even looking where you're going. I know it's common driving behavior but it's simply selfish to endanger someone on foot because you want to squeeze into cross traffic ASAP.

Consumers: We want our cars to stop spying on us, stop conspiring w/ our insurance companies, stop distracting us with awful touch screens+controls, stop blinding other drivers, stop taking away features we bought and stop introducing endless new points of failure.

Lawmakers: ...and soon we're going to have your car start braking w/o your consent. You're welcome. Remember to vote!

Well, you should hope the vehicle behind has it too.

Is that not what would happen over time?

That would be a comfort to the bereaved.

Incentive to stop tailgating

People who tailgate are impervious to those types of incentives.

Thats why insurance rate rises are a good thing

If you’re inattentive while going so fast and so close that it’s a fatality rather than a fender bender, you’re already making a big gamble with your safety.

Remember that the background here is 40k dead and hundreds of thousands injured, and costs estimated at close to a trillion dollars annually (what we pay for car insurance is so low that driving is effectively subsidized by the medical system and people’s well-being and productivity[1]). The question has to be whether there are significantly fewer crashes with these systems than without.

1. https://www.economist.com/united-states/2024/01/18/why-car-i...

They should also come with shock collars that give the driver a little zap whenever this feature has to be activated. Just so they get some feedback for doing a no-no.

I wonder when or if they will ever require drunk driving detectors or breathalyzers?

They already did, they’re just deciding on what exactly to use.

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/us-age...

Note the "if the technology is ready." As I recall from the discussion here 5 months ago, the actual text includes says the decision might be delayed for up to 10 years, and if that happens then they need to make a special report to Congress about why it's taking so long.

Starting in 2026 all new cars must come with passive alcohol detection systems.

If you are referring to the "ADVANCED IMPAIRED DRIVING TECHNOLOGY" section of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act at https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3684... then I think you've misread the bill.

First, it does not require passive alcohol detection. The text allows a system which can "passively monitor the performance of a driver of a motor vehicle to accurately identify whether that driver may be impaired". I think this is meant to allow systems like the one in Volvo’s EX90 electric SUV described at https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/21/23363673/volvo-ex90-elect... ("two cameras inside the vehicle will monitor the driver’s eye behavior to determine whether they are paying attention or even perhaps impaired").

Second, 2026 is the absolute minimum. It requires first a final rule:

"Subject to subsection (e) and not later than 3 years after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall issue a final rule prescribing a Federal motor vehicle safety standard under section 30111 of title 49, United States Code, that requires passenger motor vehicles manufactured after the effective date of that standard to be equipped with advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology."

and then (assuming it is not delayed - the bill says it can be delayed for up to 10 years before sending a report to Congress):

"shall be not earlier than 2 years and not more than 3 years after the date on which that rule is issued"

Has that final rule been prescribed? Last I heard they were still testing the various options.

Hopefully - it would prevent a large amount of car fatalities.

A good strategy: treating people more and more like idiots make them for sure less idiotic.

Breaking news

Looks like i'll be keeping my 17 y/o car another 17 years

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