Tesla parental controls keep teenage lead feet in check
theregister.com
theregister.com
Shackles off, I drove at 60mph on country roads. It was always fine! Just like when I did 45mph everywhere!
Until it rained, and at a tight corner I nearly wrapped myself around a tree.
I didn’t fully appreciate the speeds I was going to be doing because I never was trained at them. I had no idea how it actually felt and how to understand when I could use speed and when I could lay off, because the limit was there.
It was so suffocating that I never really experienced understeer or circumstances where I was in danger, because the mollycoddled experience hid me from understanding what those dangers are and how to anticipate and prevent them.
Limiting speed is an answer, but I don’t really think it’s a good answer. The most dangerous crashes (rural) will still happen and be easily fatal at 70mph.
Trainee pilots will get put in dangerous feeling situations all the time; the instructor can put the plane into a stall or a dive - a terrifying situation that you should never put yourself in in the first place - and teach you how to recover.
I always thought driving instruction could do with something like that, because while learning to recover a plane is a lesson in and of itself, experiencing that sinking feeling and imagining it in circumstances where you’re under less control is a crucial lesson and disincentive.
Instead, youths experience that lesson when they see a rapidly approaching tree or brick wall instead of a tire wall.
In many states, driver's ed isn't even mandatory, so people get taught by their parents, which leads to massive gaps in education and in many cases, incorrect driving habits getting passed down between generations. For example, a friend of mine had his mom tell him to just stay in the left lane on the highway if his exit isn't coming up, training him to be a passing lane camper.
Not only should driver's ed be mandatory, but it should include a LOT more hands-on driving in bad situations, not to mention make them do something like an emergency stop test in both dry and wet conditions so they can understand the increased stopping distance and potential loss of control when slamming the brakes on water.
I'd even like them make drivers do a basic slalom course in both a small sedan or hatchback and a large SUV so they can possibly get an appreciation for different handling.
My local raceway has a car control course for training people how to control a skid [0]. I think this kind of training should be a mandatory part of earning a license.
[0] https://www.prodrive.net/car-control-and-defensive-driving-c...
On a similar note, maintenance should be mandatory training, as well. Basic ability to evaluate brakes, tires, suspension, etc. should be a given. I live in a state without inspections and the number of people whose reaction to metal-on-rotor in their brakes being "teehee whoops!" is shocking. If you can't afford the maintenance, that's fair enough in the sense that you need a vehicle to live in much of the US, but you should at least know the state of your vehicle and what that means when you're driving it.
Yeah...people argue over whether to "steer into" or "steer out" of a skid, and what gets me is that sometimes, both people mean the same thing but are calling it something different, and the reality is that it depends on the skid.
Every driver should know the difference between understeer and oversteer. Understeer? Straighten the wheel. If you have ABS, continue holding the brake, otherwise lighten up the brake pressure so the front tires can regain grip and steer the car. Oversteer? Forget arguing about steering into/out of the skid, and instead think about pointing the front tires in the direction you want to go. More importantly, DON'T slam the brakes! Any braking action will take weight off the rear tires and make the oversteer WORSE. Braking during oversteer is how drifters increase drift angle. If you're trying to straighten out, that's not what you want!
But the squeamishness, yeah...I suggested to my wife that these courses should be a requirement, and she thought it'd be too dangerous. I kept saying, in a large flat concrete pad with no walls (or very soft walls), there's no danger. She wasn't convinced. I think she was worried about cars flipping over from sliding, and I said that it's impossible to make anything that isn't a tall SUV roll from just aggressive steering, and even the tall SUVs don't typically roll. When they do, they get really bad safety reviews.
> Where I qualified, there’s a mandatory speed limit of 45mph on all roads (even motorways) a year after qualifying.
That sounds terrifying and dangerous! Aren't the other cars on a motorway there speeding past at 70mph+?
Seems like a nice system. I was surprised I’d never heard about it until I bought a Ford and found it in the manual.
I wonder if any other manufacturers have something similar.
https://www.ford.com/support/how-tos/keys-and-locks/mykey/my...
As far as real policy goes: he'll be driving the 12-year-old minivan primarily for the first year or so. Not because of genuine safety concerns (he's actually a pretty cautious kid) but just because new drivers get in a lot of wrecks and we'd rather that happen in the car that's cheaper to fix and easier to replace.
Does that make the car safe? Well, in relative terms, yes it does. Probably 100x less likely to cause fatality for specific kids. Not yours maybe, but a lot of them. Parents usually know if that's their kid or not. There are plenty of signs.
FWIW, that's ridiculous. If a popular car showed a 100x increase in fatalities for some common demographic, that would show up in the data. Sites like HN would be away in "Teen Boy Killer" Tesla articles. It's not.
I won't speak to the anecdata, clearly some kids want to drive fast. But speed on regular roads is limited by the roads, not the car. A Corolla or Outback is no less capable of reaching those speeds, its just takes 3-4 seconds longer to do it. That's the kind of delta that, sure, might show up in the data if you look hard (it's a solid hypothesis), but 100x is nonsense.
It would have been nearly impossible for me to do that in a minivan. Even if I could have gotten enough power out, the front wheels would have broken loose in a much more predictable and recoverable manner.
I could make some points about how the NHTSA values occupant safety over the safety of people in other cars but that's a totally different discussion.
That being said, Teslas ARE safe vehicles. They are regularly in the top tier for IIHS safety reports. I don't mean to decry that.
But that particular page has issues.
I don't sweat that stuff, it's the same logic that keeps kids in booster seats long after their friends are riding shotgun.
I guess I'm saying that if I had a kid I'd prefer them to learn the capabilities of a more average car before moving on to a sports car. Habits are a safety feature.
what does this mean? I'm thinking you're saying you can easily flee the police pursuing you but I'm guessing I just misunderstood
An example of what I mean is merging next to an 18 wheeler. In most cars including my ol' minivan that takes a somewhat concerted effort. Pick a slot, match speed, communicate intent. A Tesla (or any sports car, really) doesn't need to do any of that. You can just lay on the accelerator because you can reasonably assume that you'll always be able to outmaneuver the other vehicle, and drivers often do. I don't blame them, it's way more fun that way.
My argument is that a big part of learning to drive is building understanding and empathy for the other inhabitants of the road, and sports cars don't do a good job of this.
Maybe a simpler solution is to just send notifications when the car exceeds certain limits?
The greater risk comes from the car spinning out of control from a standstill because of enthusiastic acceleration.
As for safety, it’s not often we need to outrun a pyroclastic cloud/tornado/airplane crashing into your path.
"We love an external party able to control the speed of our vehicle!"
2. This has been a feature of slower-accelerating premium vehicles, primarily for valet use, for decades.