Automatic braking systems save lives. Now they’ll need to work at 62 MPH | Hacker News Reader

Automatic braking systems save lives. Now they’ll need to work at 62 MPH

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33 pointsBender91 comments

I have a Tesla with AEB that drives me up the wall. I'm often driving in heavy traffic, and occasionally need to quickly, but smoothly, stop within a few feet of the vehicle ahead. My car decides I'm cutting it too close, engages full automatic braking, jerking the car to sudden stop with a 10 foot gap. Sometimes the vehicle ahead will even start moving before my car is stopped, but it has decided to stop and stop it shall. Cannot override even by flooring the accelerator. I miss cars that did what they were told, when they were told to do it. For the record I've never rear-ended anyone.

There's a setting to disable that. I think you can just convert the action into a warning beep. That's the first thing I did, because I was pretty sure that the automatic braking was going to cause an accident before it saved me from an accident.

That's also part of the reason I would never even consider the Tesla insurance, where the cost is based on driving events like that I think? There is a RV that is parked on the street near a curve near my house, and every single time I drive by I get a warning about smashing into it.

> There's a setting to disable that.

Are these types of settings (like seat position, etc.) per-driver in Teslas ?

I can adjust the sensitivity in a way that is persistent, but I believe the emergency braking feature has to be turned off manually for every drive? I'll double check, but I have turned it off several times.

>For the record I've never rear-ended anyone.

I understand the sentiment. However consider that cars kill around 2 million people, and maim another 2, every single year. For scale, its equivalent to a fully loaded passenger jet falling out of the sky every few hours.

Anything you can do to reduce this insanity is welcome.

I understand how we got here. I read a study somewhere several years ago that found that even in emergency situations, a significant percentage of drivers will not use more than roughly 60% of the braking force that would cause a lock-up or engage ABS. They brake harder than they ever have before, they just don't have any idea where the limit actually is.

The average person is a poor driver, so we increase overall safety by mandating automated systems that perform below the level of a skilled driver. Of course even skilled drivers make mistakes, and even if I could outperform the automated system 99 times out of 100, I wouldn't bet that I wouldn't get the book thrown at me if I were in an accident with the safety system disabled. Grin and bear it I suppose.

Interesting… I have had my Tesla for 5 years and have never had this happen. Wonder what is different.

The driver.

Every time I've been in a car with someone who routinely complains about their AEB its no wonder why the system is constantly "falsely triggering". I try to not ride with those people again.

I drive a Honda instead of a Tesla, but I have automatic emergency braking. I will say I've had it false trigger on completely empty and clear highway on several occasions, but any tap on the accelerator or brake will give me control.

I've had it beep at me while I was stopping behind vehicles before a handful of times, but it doesn't try to override me if I'm intentionally braking. There wasn't any actual threat of accident there anyway.

I have the same experience in my honda. I've had it get ghost braking a few times, particularly when the highway is weird and there's temporary barriers.

But for the blinking BRAKE thing, I've almost completely gotten rid of that by just not following so closely. Now I can also regen brake more and I get better mileage.

Depends on infrastructure and traffic conditions. My commute includes several on and off ramps that are routinely backed up somewhere between several blocks and several miles. If you are in line for the ramp, you can choose to A) maintain a gap no larger than one car-length between yourself and the car ahead of you or B) attempt to maintain a larger gap, only to have it immediately filled by people who were too important to join the back of the queue. In this case you are back to less than a one car-length gap, and the only thing you've accomplished is to annoy the people behind you by making space for queue jumpers. (You can of course repeat option B as many times as you like, until cars in queue behind you also start going around. I assume the end game is that you end up parked on the sidewalk or shoulder as traffic streams by.)

> I have a Tesla with AEB that drives me up the wall. I'm often driving in heavy traffic, and occasionally need to quickly, but smoothly, stop within a few feet of the vehicle ahead. My car decides I'm cutting it too close, engages full automatic braking, jerking the car to sudden stop with a 10 foot gap

Oh so that’s what that is! That’s why Teslas are so annoying on the road.

It’s super dangerous when I’m motorcycling in rush hour traffic and cars in front of me unpredictably slam their brakes with plenty of room to go.

Another frustrating part is when you’re following 2 cars driving side-by-side on a curve and one of them keeps tapping their brakes because it thinks the car in the other lane is an obstacle. The lights come on and you’re never quite sure if it’s going to slam the brakes or just lightly tap them.

Usually this is a frustration because I’m trying to lane-split between the cars so I’m following at a relatively short distance and slowly getting closer.

As a fellow cyclist, I feel your pain. I learned to drive on cars that didn't even have ABS. I wish I could buy an electric car that was as dumb as a rock. It would be illegal to make and sell one, but maybe I'll build one when I retire. ;-)

I have experienced some phantom/exaggerated auto-breaks but not so annoying/dangerous, while I have experienced another problem: parking. While I'm not leaving anymore in cities when I go there here in EU space is damn tight so it's pretty normal having to near-touching someone else bumper to been able to park, and well, an EV already tend to accelerate a bit too quickly for such maneuvering, the automatic break blocking the car too far from others it's a nightmare sometimes, could be disabled but re-enable itself so well... It's very annoying.

If you are going to share your anecdotal experience about AEB, please also share your specific vehicle make/model/year.

The entire point of these tests by AAA was to measure the effectiveness of these systems, as compared to older cars/systems.

If you're saying "Well my AEB sucks" you might want to look at the tests, and consider that your system might be old, or just an individually sucky implementation.*

The thing about federal regulations is the entire country could get stuck with a sucky implementation.

Only if there’s a single product on the market. The federal regulations specify a threshold you have to reach, not a particular implementation.

Yes, and a bad threshold like "cars have to panic stop if a car is under 200 feet ahead" means everyone could get stuck with a sucky implementation.

That’s why that’s not the requirement. They expect no contact at 62mph, which is roughly 2.2 seconds for that completely stopped vehicle 200’ ahead. Looking at our handy NHTSA worksheet, we can see they expect 160’ stopping distance from 60mph:

https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/documents/core_p...

So, yes, if you want to avoid a crash you have an under half a second (40 feet margin at 90 feet/second) to start braking before a collision is guaranteed. That’s legitimately an emergency situation because you really shouldn’t be driving that fast if you can’t see more than 200’ ahead, and if you’re incapacitated or unwise enough to be in that situation hard braking is much better than what would otherwise happen. Calling it sucky is like saying fire sprinklers are sucky because your wet carpet needed cleaning.

In any other situation, it’s not panic braking. Nobody is going to ship something which go straight to 100% braking in normal circumstances where you have a better balance of visibility and speed.

I've got a 2019 Subie Outback and the AEB is pretty good. It really only engages in very tight circumstances above a certain speed (and probably only lower than a certain speed) i.e. I'm pretty sure it will let me rear-end something if I'm crawling slowly enough. Prior to enaging AEB, the beeping is very loud with a very short interval.

(I traded in my 2017 Tesla Model S to get the Outback and I've never regretted it.)

Interesting, Subaru's eyesight from that generation is notoriously bad. I have a 2020 Outback and it will slam on the breaks when a car in front of me is decelerating to turn even though it is fully out of the lane. It also will yell at me about overhead tree branches that are at least 2-3 feet above the car.

I have a 2019 Impreza with the Eyesight tech and I have only had it engage the AEB a couple of times since purchasing it in Feb 2019.

Maybe something is out of whack with your cameras?

I've never had that happen; it's hard to compare without knowing the changes between generations or years. That said, the only real issue I've had is that the TACC is slow to start accelerating again when the car in front turns or changes lane. I think this is probably intentional though, as it seems pretty quick to react in other instances.

Regarding AEB specifically, I've probably only ever had it engage 2-3 times on the road, ever.

My mom has a 2024 Outback. Once in a while, when I'm in traffic changing lanes, it locks onto the car in front of me. Even though I've changed out of the lane with the slower traffic, it still thinks I'm going to rear end the car in my previous lane and slams on the brakes. This is really scary because I'm pulling into a faster lane and trying to accelerate to match their speed. But out of nowhere I'm suddenly braking in front of faster traffic. Not good.

My mom was telling me how this car doesn't let her hit anything. She was saying this as she was parking her car in front of mine, and let it bump into my car. Pretty annoying that people get used to these systems and think that they are foolproof.

2017 Subaru Forester here. The emergency braking on it likely saved the life of the previous owner. The only situation where mine has not met my expectations is when a car ahead of me was making a right turn, and I estimated it as clearing my lane in time but the vision system didn't agree.

With all this added tech and safety systems, why is per capita traffic deaths rising since 2018 and the highest since 2009?

Is all the added expense and impact on the environment worth it? Is the cost ever a concern in these mandates?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_...

Found this for you: https://stateline.org/2023/11/10/less-driving-but-more-death...

Basically, law enforcement switched from enforcing traffic laws to automated detriments like traffic cameras that don't have the same prevention effects

Interesting, thx. The UK which supposedly has world leading road safety, traffic deaths have been flat since 2012 (don't see the per capita or per km\mi figures.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reported_Road_Casualties_Great...

According to the source statistics at gov.uk there has been an 8% increase in vehicle miles but a 5% reduction in deaths over the period 2013–23. Unless you adjust for the increased miles travelled, I would say the stats are just showing annual variability.

Data sources/classifications for injuries are more open to question because, for example, it might be possible for a minor injury to not be included in a police report at the scene while presenting later at a hospital. However, using a consistent basis for the period, Seriously injured are down 10% and Slightly injured down 32%, without adjusting for the increase in miles.

As with any stats, though, you have to understand the detail to draw any conclusions.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casua...

Fancy cars will never solve the underlying issues of massive automobile dependency (no matter how snazzy and how big their touchscreens are). The only solution to this scourge is fewer cars, or to put it more accurately: ensuring there are viable alternatives to driving.

More cars. Less training. More distraction. More anxiety. ?

Cell phones, distracted drivers

People have been buying bigger vehicles whose designs are more dangerous to pedestrians, use of phones and dashboard TVs is widely normalized, and the police stopped doing a lot of traffic enforcement so drivers have less fear of being caught driving in safely than they used to.

I very much doubt AEB saves anything like as many lives as "studies" claim, for the simple reason the "studies" will not be able to account for the number of times AEB hauls on the anchors, unexpectedly, for no reason at all. This has happened to me 3 times in the last few years, fortunately with nobody behind me, and likely causes more accidents than it avoids. It will be good when it's production ready.

AEB at 62mph is likely to be pretty damn scary.

I've experienced it slamming on at slow speeds and it's pretty aggressive.

Its existence has made me change my driving habits for sure, and none of my cars even have AEB. It’s a nagging sense that the car directly in front of me is going to come to a screeching halt for no reason and it’s up to my own reaction time to avoid rear-ending them.

I also got a dashcam, but all things being equal my preference would be to not hit anything in the first place.

> It’s a nagging sense that the car directly in front of me is going to come to a screeching halt for no reason and it’s up to my own reaction time to avoid rear-ending them.

That should always be the case, even without AEB.

If it's making people less inclined to tailgate, I'm in favor.

My 2019 Honda Ridgeline has slammed on its brakes at over 60 MPH half a dozen times when it decides I'm passing another vehicle too closely. I HATE the damned thing. I'd turn it off, but it resets back on each time I restart the vehicle so there's no point. It makes me gun shy every time I drive a 4 lane and start to pass someone. AND THAT SUCKS.

IMO, all the vehicle's other convenience electronics are no-gos too. The lane keeping sensors trigger randomly and uselessly. Clearly the camera is unable to find the lane markers reliably. I turned off the service after less than a week of ownership.

The auto-high-beams work poorly, often leaving the highs lit even though headlights are clearly approaching. So I have to remain constantly vigilant that I don't annoy others, AND that it hasn't turned itself back on automatically.

Even the turn signals can't be stopped easily. Neither pulling on the stalk nor cross-signalling will stop the blinking once it starts. Cancellation seems to require about 8 additional blinks before it finally does stop, leaving me wondering which of my actions actually worked. After 5 years of ownership, I still don't know what the right magic incantation is for something that should be dead simple.

What's the point of e-conveniences that are inconvenient?

Respectfully, you're probably driving too recklessly. I don't have this problem in this same generation of Honda Insight. If you're following too close, you really are at risk of an accident. Also, you're wasting gas - cranking it up to 80, getting on someone's ass, and then braking down to 65 is absolutely horrible for mileage.

Respectfully, if you're driving an Insight, you probably never pass anyone.

Geez guess I hit a nerve. Look all I'm saying is I don't have this problem, and I also don't know anyone else who has this problem. In addition, in my experience, people who drive pickup trucks are much more likely to drive like they want to be put in the ground as fast as possible.

Try not tailgating. Try not switching lanes when it's close. Your car will stop beeping at you, and you'll also save yourself a lot of money in the long run.

Lane keeping assistants can be pretty bad too. I have a relative with a 2018 VW that has a lane keeping function, and it's swerved the car out of nowhere a couple of times (or at least, maybe it made a small correction which startled the driver and caused them to swerve - either way it's a human interaction nightmare).

I think it's kept in some kind of standby mode at low speeds then kicks in automatically when over a certain speed, when IT chooses to kick in and can take the driver by surprise, the car tries to move to the centre of the lane (or what it thinks is the lane).

As a big defender of ADAS in general and after experiencing active Lane Keep (not LDW) in several rental vehicles, while on holiday, I feel that they genuinely make driving on countryside roads and mountain roads more dangerous.

That's been my experience. They apparently have no "understanding" of single lane roads. ~2022 Toyota and a 2025 Ford.

Multiple times they attempted to steer me back into the oncoming vehicle because it thought I was too close to the edge. You can disable it but only for the current trip; so every time we got back in we had to go through a 2-3 minute checklist of disabling the murder settings.

> disabling the murder settings

Why is owning a modern car such a nightmare...? I suspect there's also a weird overlaid anxiety when one feels like they are "co-piloting with an unpredictable partner" rather than just driving.

My VW has lane-keeping assist. In general I like it, because it had nudged me when I wasn't paying as much attention as I should have. But one failure mode is that it can detect shadows or other artifacts that it decides are lane markers. For example, at the right time of day hanging power lines will create a smooth curved shadow line on the road surface that the car will want to follow where ever they lead. It's not strong enough to yank the wheel out of my hands, but if I were briefly holding the wheel with my knee while reaching for something, it could get messy.

> I were briefly holding the wheel with my knee while reaching for something, it could get messy.

you are what?

Right? These lane keep assists in every car I've used have been very gentle nudges. People talking about how their car was forced into another lane by the LKA really make me question how firmly they were holding on to the wheel.

> hanging power lines will create a smooth curved shadow line on the road surface that the car will want to follow where ever they lead

This is some literal Looney Tunes stuff... But it's the future we live in.

> or at least, maybe it made a small correction which startled the driver and caused them to swerve

LKA is practically never strong enough itself to overpower an actual driver and force the car to swerve especially if the driver had even a reasonable grip on the wheel.

If the nudge of LKA was enough to startle the driver and have them swerve then just normal road feedback into the wheel would also cause them to startle and swerve.

Normal road feedback is predictable and has a central tendency. Who knows what the LKA will do when it does the equivalent of seeing a squirrel on an otherwise straight road.

This wasn't a "study" of real world data it was a series of controlled tests by AAA. The full report is here: https://newsroom.aaa.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/REVISED-...

The conclusion: The systems are getting better.

There is no claim that they are creating safer roads, or are a net benefit.

It's great that the systems are getting better. Maybe they should infict them on the public when they've reached a level where they're fit for purpose?

Would a few tens of rear-end car to car accidents where no one gets hurt be worse than a pedestrian getting killed once?

What about a few tens of rear-end car-to-car accidents, caused by inappropriate intervention by a poorly-calibrated system, where multiple people get hurt?

I was in a Mazda dealer waiting for a checkup on my car and could overhear this young woman talking on her phone and to the service technicians. Her car had braked for no reason 3 times in the last few days and she was worried she would get rear ended if it kept happening. The mechanics did all sorts of test and drove her car around but couldn't find anything wrong. She had an 8 hour drive coming up and after exhausting other options decided to trade her car in on the spot for a new one! Extreme but at least her trade in wouldn't be considered defective.

I personally find ADAS technology to be deceptive, dangerous and terrifying from a vehicle control and privacy perspective.

Consider the fact that you essentially have a webcam both forward and cabin facing with advanced sensors scanning your face from the dash, eye position, monitoring your location at all times, recording audio (https://www.mobileye.com/privacy-roadclips/), capturing images of everyone around you all the time, taking and uploading a constant stream of data via an onboard SIM card.

Don't forget this device is even on when your car is off as it is wired directly into the car powered by the battery.

I ripped mine out of my Honda and now there isn't a third party literally trying to control my steering wheel. The car drives noticeably better.

I don't think most people are aware this much data is being collected.

Look at Mobileye's new "SuperVision" platform that has literally ELEVEN Cameras... https://www.mobileye.com/solutions/super-vision/

https://ggim.un.org/unwgic/presentations/SS1_19Nov_Mobileye....

here's an interesting analysis for a lot more detail: https://lindseyresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/NHTSA...

>>The systems “are headed the right way,” says Greg Brannon, the director of automotive research at AAA.

They may have some promising data, but from what I've seen driving 2019 and 2021 model vehicles from Ford and Mazda, they are not even close to ready for prime-time.

I find both vehicles consistently falsely trigger the red-flashing-and-loud-beeping "COLLISION ALERT!!" dashboard warning to both small pavement cracks/potholes, and also to vehicles parked on the outside of a curve. This has happened at least a dozen times in the past ~30,000 miles driven. If those were instead automatic braking events, they would have caused an unnecessary rear-end accident least three times, as if I'd surprise "brake-checked" the driver behind me.

Yet, in an ACTUAL near-collision situation a few weeks ago, driving at night ~50mph on a rural road, a car ran a red light right in front of me, and I had to full-on threshold brake, years of road-race training reflexes kicking in before I was even aware of it. I barely avoided a collision, stopping with smoking brakes and a passenger with a pulled back muscle from having been not quite square with the seatbelt, my front bumper about a meter from their driver's door.

The car never made a peep — it completely missed the incident.

Of course, a working automatic braking system might have helped anyone in that situation, including me if I'd been a bit more sleepy or distracted. BUT IT DID NOT EVEN DETECT IT. The track record for the past 30,000+ miles is:

— 100% false positives — 100% false negatives

These 'collision detection systems' are 2-5 years newer than the systems AAA tested, yet the track record is awful. IDK what they are smoking but I do not want any.

I doubt the automakers are somehow holding back some magic solution, and would give them a LOT more time to get it right.

Just because a technology is promising does not mean it is ready to provide a benefit released in the wild on fast-moving multi-ton vehicles.

Smoking brakes from a single emergency stop? Sounds like your car is defective and I'd get it checked out. Sounds like you were lucky this time and avoided the accident but get your brake pads changed and make sure the fluid is topped up as that isn't right. Potential issues are stuck calipers, worn out friction material, or boiling fluid.

With a well maintained car (i.e. brakes that don't end up smoking when doing just a single emergency stop, even from 60-80mph...) you are less likely to avoid accidents by just a meter...

It's a metaphor; I didn't actually smell any smoke (but didn't stay around either). But I guarantee those pads were momentarily very hot.

Thanks for your concern, but no, the car's braking capability was fully up to snuff and not compromised, stuck, worn-out, or boiling; it hauled the car down to zero in a handful of car-lengths, and mildly injured the passenger — crappy brakes can't do that.

And yes, perfectly good brakes, even race brakes, can be made to smoke in a single stop. It's done every time you take them out to bed them after install (many high-performance brake pads are 'transfer pads' that work best when some of their material is transferred at temperature to the rotor). Also, it is very common to see high-performance situations where the rotors are glowing-hot in a corner [0].

The reason it is so rare in ordinary street cars is most people not knowing how to use even 30% of the real braking capability. People either don't press hard enough, or just press mash the pedal and skid. Once the tire is skidding, the brakes aren't turning, so they aren't heating. Even ABS just splits the braking between the pads and the intermittently skidding tire.

Threshold braking is a skill that both takes time to learn and practice to maintain. It is basically getting a feel for the exact maximum braking grip the tire has at that moment, and braking just below that threshold. It extracts maximum performance from the car (sliding friction is always less than gripping friction) and also puts maximum heat into the pads.

And yes, threshold braking can really heat up the pads in one stop, and (depending on the car, track, and driver) completely burn down a set of pads in a single outing. OTOH, I had a set of pads last an entire race season on one car, or have to replace them every several sessions with other cars. Properly used, brake pads are just a wear item, but this is unfamiliar with street use, because you should typically almost never be threshold braking, so they'll last tens of thousands of miles.

But the main point here is that the ONE situation I've had in the last 30k miles with "collision alarms", the car completely missed it.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBoMTYZAyJc

edit delete stray chars

What does everyone think of the cost benefit?

>As a result, it should do more good; according to the NHTSA, if manufacturers deploy auto-braking systems that work at higher speeds, it would save at least 360 lives each year and prevent 24,000 injuries

>The government estimated that installing more advanced AEB systems on its cars would cost an additional $350 per vehicle. The auto lobbying group estimates prices could range up to $4,200 per car instead, and it has filed a petition to request changes to the final federal rules.

Over 13 million light duty vehicles were sold in the US in 2022, so +$4,550,000,000 in added costs per year.

That seems fair: driving is effectively subsidized by at least a trillion dollars a year by not requiring drivers to pay the full cost for collisions, and cars have a service lifetime measured in decades so even if the industry figures aren’t exaggerated that should pay for itself:

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

I suspect the industry figures aren’t exaggerated that highly exaggerated both because of the political angle and because it’s an unsourced claim with a big range ($200 to >$4,200) with some of the concerns stemming from the need to have faster processors and better sensors which they’d almost certainly be doing anyway since everyone wants to sell driver assistance features.

This is not feasible so likely a number of seperate broken systems will be implemented that will contribute to the injury and deaths of many till the NHTSA recognizes reality again. It usually takes them a few years, like when they tried to mandate vehicle-to-vehicle wireless broadcasting of identity and velocity vectors in cars by 2024 in the late 2010s and early 2020s.

It seems like there is a need to merge control loops. Humans have sensory input, a model of the situation, and react to all that. So also automated driving or driving assistance machines have input, a model, and reactions. Instead of having these systems compete, they could interact. Instead of simply slamming on the brakes or beeping loudly the automated system could display its current inputs and model of the world so that it would be easy to see if the issue were in front, to the side, or in the rear and what physical objects may be involved. Instead of competing for control of the vehicle cooperate to present the best sensory input, analysis, and modeling and have the driver and vehicle negotiate all that in order to control the vehicle in the best way.

Some of the complaints in this thread make me wonder if Mercedes has a really good automatic braking system, or if you are all much more erratic drivers than my wife and I to make them kick in all the time on your cars (or maybe a the systems are all temperamental, and we just happen to have driving styles that align with MB's AEB). Across a couple of their cars, I've only noticed it kicking in once, and in a situation where it definitely helped avoid an accident (car ahead braked rapidly and unexpectedly in fairly light traffic at around 40mph).

They have been recent cars though, so I'm inclined to agree with the comment theorizing that maybe those cars just aren't as new

Same, have never had a false positive in five years now on my prius prime (2019), and the times when it has engaged have been helpful.

We have a Toyota Sienna, and it's never had a false positive either. Once when it triggered, it definitely prevented an accident. The other time, I think I could have reacted quickly enough to prevent an accident.

I feel the same. I've put at several hundred miles each on four makers of cars with AEB through rentals and many tens of thousands on another two through long term ownership. I've probably had about four real AEB engagements I can remember over the last decade, all of them being pretty reasonable engagements.

I really do think that many people tailgate, approach slower cars too fast, and otherwise drive pretty unsafely and assuming they're driving just fine.

Could be the road conditions which vary by location.

Automatic breaking is perhaps the worst feature I've ever experienced on a car. It's jarring, takes control from the driver, and, in my case, was unnecessary to engage and dangerous.

On a related note, I've always wondered if straight ahead 60 to 0 braking tests were relevant to anything. Not many accidents happen where a driver is just unable to completely stop and end up hitting the other car at 10 mph.

I would think the insurance companies could come up with a better braking test, like 60 to 40 with a swerve, where the suspension response factors in as well as both tire lateral and longitudinal grip.

You get a bunch of accidents where traffic has stopped and people just keep slamming into the back of the stopped vehicles, then more into the back of those, and more into the back of those and so on. It happens.

A 60 to 0 braking test gives you a floor on the braking distance.

You've got to add safety factors from there. Reaction time, road conditions, vehicle condition, steering inputs, etc.

But also, a brake test with a swerve is going to be a lot less repeatable, because the driver input is more complex.

I agree that more complicated tests are useful but you do get a lot of deaths where someone is cruising down the road and doesn’t see a stop sign, pedestrian, bicyclist, etc. and those are quite deadly due to that speed differential. Cell phones also make it more common for people to rear-end cars in simple usage, too.

The AEB on my 2016 Honda Civic seems pretty good: I've only had it misfire one time, which admittedly is very jarring when it happens. It was down a winding road that had a very large brick wall winding around it: I guess the system didn't anticipate that I was about to turn. In fairness, it happened once.

Of course, I have most of the driving assistance features, like LKAS, disabled. They work alright, but when I got my windshield replaced, I couldn't easily get the part that had the all-important "H" logo on it, so they will refuse to re-calibrate the sensors. I think it's pretty funny that potentially life-saving driving assistance features could become useless because the glass on your car doesn't have the right logo on it. Maybe if there was something wrong with the glass, sure, but I mean, it is literally identical to the OEM glass as far as I understand it (same manufacturer, Pilkington...) and there's nothing preventing me from engaging the features now, they just are a bit misaligned. Given the direction that EVs are going, I'm guessing the enshittification of cars is just getting started, and safety will be a key scapegoat just like security often is for other electronics.

Especially during inclement weather (honestly even only mild weather), the system activates when it thinks i’m not gonna stop in time near a stop light. I don’t drive aggressive or reckless, but if the right mix of weather/sun/etc hits, the system is far too sensitive (despite adjusting settings)

Having this shit at 62 mph? Excuse my french but fuck no

Do you drive a Toyota? Have never had any false positives yet.

Haha good guess, yeah I drive a Tacoma for the last 3 years

I'm pretty impressed by Toyota (2024 Prius Prime). Braking has only ever kicked in when I parallel-park between two very close vehicles and it was very easy to override. Just press the break and let go. Lane-keeping assist is a bit wonky sometimes but it's very understandable why, like train tracks that veer off away from the road or poorly painted lanes.

They do just the right amount of "help" without really getting in your way.

Completely agree (prius prime 2019), huge fan of the AEB, which has saved me from at least two accidents and has never given me a false positive I can remember outside of like very slowly inching my car up against a retaining wall one time, which like you said was easy to override.

Toyota Safety Sense has kept me from a few fender benders. It’s active at up to 50mph and has been super reliable.

boomer automotive companies buying a perception system from the lowest bidder? that perception system also has full control authority over the brakes? what could go wrong

62 MPH is insane. This is going to kill more people than it saves. I don't know what kind of idyllic driving scenarios the engineers and policymakers have in mind when they come up with this kind of stuff, but they certainly don't seem to have considered many I've experienced.

Perhaps I am in weird kind of commuter bubble by living down in the Houston area. None of this shit makes sense to me. If I were to take my car out onto I-45 right now (not even rush hour) and slam on my brakes in the main lanes, I can 100% guarantee there would be a serious multiple vehicle accident. It's actually against the law (white sign, black letters) to come to a complete stop in the main lanes on many freeways and tollways around here.

This. With a lorry tailgating me I wouldn't even risk breaking when a deer crosses in front of me.

> It's actually against the law (white sign, black letters) to come to a complete stop in the main lanes on many freeways and tollways around here.

So when there's a big accident and traffic comes to a stop you're just supposed to plough 60+mph into the crowd? Or are you supposed to come to a stop and not collide with the other cars?

Note to Wired: it's okay in 2024 to just use "100 km/hr" without pointless conversions.

Antilock brakes are bad enough. I don't want to ever own a car with an automatic braking system.

How are anti-lock brakes bad? What?

ABS can be very dangerous, and as a technology are less good than simply knowing how to drive in the snow.

For someone who thinks that you need to slam on the brakes to stop, ABS are probably fine (but you will lose a lot of stopping power). For someone who understands that you need to gently ease onto the brakes to stop, ABS are detrimental and can put you in dangerous situations because, once they engage, they can be hard to disengage fast enough to recover.

This is why a lot of cars these days have added a button to disable ABS/traction control.

Hard disagree. You can't win.

> (but you will lose a lot of stopping power)

Source?

Look up demos on ABS anywhere on the web. You'd be hard pressed to find a professional driver defeating the stopping distance of ABS against threshold braking. Including F1 drivers.

These demos are often done in controlled conditions on a track, with a highly experienced driver. The demos are plentiful.

The one scenario I can see a driver outperforming ABS is in the snow/ice, as you mentioned. But even that comes with caveats.. such as -> Are really prepared to preform optimally in an emergency situation? Is loss of control acceptable such as to prevent an accident VS keeping control in order to change directions in order to avoid an obstacle? The ideal balance between these are handled well with ABS in most situations, including snow. The MORE ideal situation is to drive in such a way that you do not out-pace your braking capabilities on your following distance.

Related to a real-world in a split second decision scenario, there's no contest between a pro and ABS. Not to mention your average driver vs ABS.

>This is why a lot of cars these days have added a button to disable ABS/traction control.

Source on that?

I personally believe there are OFF switches on some cars (not all) due to personal owner preference. Personally, Ive used this switch to reduce launch control issues when I'm planning on a hard acceleration. NEVER to attempt to defeat the computer in deceleration.

My favorite video explainer on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-GEUkiMuLk

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