Wide open roads and hyper aggressive drivers

You're high. Have you ever spent any time on the interstate in Floriduh? It's the complete antithesis to your comment.

All these new cars with their automated features are inherently creating safer vehicles while at the same time dumber drivers.

Things must be lightening up. I just saw, for the first time since mid March one of our village cops running radar. This is significant since our village is notorious for draconian speed enforcement. People I know have been cited for 2mph over the limit and our court upheld their fine.

The entrance of the village has a sign, put up by the local government, it says:
Drive slow and see our village,
Drive fast and see our judge.

americans learn how to operate a vehicle, but they don’t learn how to drive on roadways with others.

Narcissism

"Outta My Way!" Narcissism Is Linked to Aggressive Driving

Research shows a link between narcissism, age, gender, and dangerous driving.

Posted Jan 25, 2019

As most people probably know, by definition narcissists are entitled, lack empathy, and believe the normal rules don’t apply to them—on the road, or elsewhere. When narcissists feel their needs aren’t met, when they feel shamed or criticized, or feel other’s behaviors impose on them in some way, this can trigger what is referred to as “narcissistic rage.”


https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/...y-way-narcissism-is-linked-aggressive-driving

My biggest concern is what happens when the driver does have to take control of the car. At that point we now have even less capable drivers taking over. And I would bet money that someone in court will say "I thought the car had control! I was just sitting there! Its not MY fault!"

My 2018 Ford Escape has adaptive cruise control. I like it for maintaining speed I set and spacing in traffic, and I also learn from it for what is proper following distance. From that I find myself doing likewise when I control the speed and spacing because my mind has been calibrated to what I've seen in traffic. What I don't like at all is how it reacts to a vehicle passing me and then moving back in the lane in front of me. When that vehicle moves back into my lane, which is almost always at a distance less than my preset following distance, it applies the brakes hard, much harder than I would. But also, you or I would see that vehicle move around and expect it in front, and also know it is matching or exceeding our speed. So we know it won't endanger our following distance (most often). We'd back off the gas slightly if needed. But right now, even on the lowest reaction setting it applies the brakes hard enough to push me forward in the seat. Plus, I need to know if it also applies the brake lights for traffic behind me. If it does not, then that is unsafe.

I think if my own car was equipped with these newer features, and I had time to get used to them, I would appreciate their virtues. As it is, when I've been on business trips lately that don't require me to get a truck or a van, I've gotten a few rental cars that have adaptive speed and lane keeping controls. The most recent was a new Camry. I got into highway traffic and it creeped me out that the car was trying to override what I wanted it to do, enough so that I pulled over, dug the manual out, and figured out how to turn all of it off.

I just returned a 2020 loaner yesterday, after paying a princely sum to have the A/C compressor replaced on Offspring's vehicle.

Anyway: my regular conveyance being a base model 2006 vehicle, the feature set on the 2020 (which had the 2nd-to-highest trim level) was an eye opener. It was very easy for me to envision a newly licensed driver never advancing their skill set beyond the minimum needed to hold the steering wheel whilst every modern driver aid was on and functioning.

Each model year, said aids find their way to lower trim levels. This is because of Federal legislation requiring it, and/or due to economy of scale in manufacturing and the associated marketing of it. I'd guess that it won't be long before higher-trim-level driver aids reach the saturation point of power windows and power locks; the latter two now being standard equipment on virtually every vehicle sold today.

It's easy to be here, but I still believe the dumbing down effect is there no matter how strenuously lane departure warning systems, etc. are packaged as necessary safety.

Even more so...the instances in which the "driver" will be required to take over are likely to be instances that require advanced maneuvering. So, control is turned over to an inexperienced operator when the performance demand is the highest.

The lawyers will dictate that. Hopefully you'll have to sign a waiver to even buy the car taking all responsibility for how you use it.

Isn't there already a few Tesla's raising some hell due to dumb people misusing their features?

The root problem (IMO) is that Tesla's system completely ignores how humans interact with automation. When it comes to safety, you can't give someone an automated system that properly functions 90% of the time and tell them "be ready for that 10% of the time it doesn't function properly." There are a lot of drivers that don't even pay attention to thier non-automated cars going down the interstate. How much less attention will they pay to a partially automated system?

That they seem to think is fully automated and flawless.

I found it almost impossible to let a Tesla do it's automated driving, it just went against all my instincts.

I would imagine it would feel like sitting in the passenger seat while a teenager who just finished an extremely advanced driving school is driving. Sure, their eyes and reflexes are probably better than yours, and they probably learned more than you in that advanced driving school...but they just don't have the experience to predict whats going to happen next or where to focus that good eyesight.

My Honda CRV definitely activates the brake lights. It has an actuator that physically moves the brake pedal. I've tried to resist it with my foot and it's pretty strong. The adaptive cruise control is a little too aggressive on my car too. I think it would take a high degree of AI to make it smart enough to understand the overall context of a lot of driving situations. Even though it accelerates or brakes at times I wouldn't it doesn't do anything dangerous, just a bit wasteful.

Automated cars will never understand the shame of blocking the left lane and there's no telling how humans might attack one at a time or in unison. That's just one example.

Automated cars will probably obey all the laws, all the time.

That will certainly cause lots of confusion...............

My GPS told me to go out in the middle of the Fraser River and do a U-Turn.

McDonalds would not give me my food because my GPS said I was in the middle of the Fraser River.

Things are going to be great in the future.

You obviously haven't seen the video of the Tesla running a stop sign to get to its owner who "summoned" it from its parking spot? The sad part was it happened in front of a police officer, and the officer didn't know how to handle it, so he did nothing.

I remember reading another article about a Tesla that almost rear-ended a moto-cop...close enough that the cop ditched is bike to avoid what he thought was going to be a collision. The car stopped just shy of the bike. Once again, the cop didn't know how to handle it, and there wasn't technically a collision, so he did nothing.

In industrial automation safety, we treat every "near miss" as if an actual accident had occurred. This rule helps you prevent accidents before they happen. If an accident almost happens, you find the root cause and fix it before it an actual accident happens next time. I fear there are a lot of near misses out there in this infancy of transportation automation that are not getting reported or handled. So, no adjustments are being made, and it will lead to more severe consequences as more people use automation for transportation.

I was making no claims about their abilities, or effectiveness at this time, only that obeying all the laws, all the time is an incomprehensible concept for most road users.