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Comment by rascul | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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...

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