Most Popular Automotive Safety Systems Nowadays

Most popular? A bevy of safety systems not mentioned in the article are far more popular than the systems that made were mentioned.

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The popularity of the unmentioned systems is so great to be practically ubiquitous, so that determining which comes in first second and third place would be nearly impossible......Safety glass, brakes, steering wheel, seat belt, crumple zones, air bags, turn signals, brake lights, etc.

Yeah, but you have the special issue of Kris hiding under the bonnet and chewing through the wires.

Rube Goldberg is alive and well!

Well I haven't changed my mind, still feel the as I did here.

The best automotive safety system I have ever came across is simply making sure that my vehicle is bigger and heavier built that the other persons.

You may be driving the worlds safest pop can but it's still a pop can when the boot is big enough!

Driving a bigger heavier vehicle definitely increases the chance the other driver will suffer more severe damage/injury (in absolute terms).....but that is not the same thing as improving your safety (once again, in absolute, not relative terms).

By that reasoning a railroad locomotive should be very unsafe in a crash being they have neither airbags or seatbelts and have terrible brakes. Speaking in absolute terms that is.

If I am in an accident I am not the least bit concerned about how well the other guy comes out if at all.

Well actually when trains crash often a lot of people are injured.

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To be fair though, that isn't a reasonable argument. Mostly because it pretends that my comment actually has the meaning you seem to attribute to it.

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Please note that I did not say 'driving a bigger heavier vehicle' decreases safety of the occupants. What I said is that a heavier and larger vehicle is not the same thing as safer vehicle for the occupants.

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I was also saying that your safety is not improved by maximizing the severity of the injuries you cause to the other driver and passengers. when you demonstrate their less massive car is'...still a pop can when the boot is big enough...'

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'...If I am in an accident I am not the least bit concerned about how well the other guy comes out if at all.....'

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You have made that position very apparent. You don't strike me as the type of individual that doesn't take responsibility for his actions or one that pretends to be infallible....so what if you were partially or mostly at fault in the accident? Wouldn't you be concerned about how you affected the other guys life?

Not really. A dead person costs my insurance company less than a permanently disabled one.

I'm a white middle class male with a life long clean driving record in my late 30's with skills that pay well. People like me don't go to jail for involuntary manslaughter just because my bigger better built vehicle happens to squish someone who chose to drive a smaller one.

Just for clarity: are you claiming:

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1. It is not possible for your driving to be less than perfect so there is no possibility that you might ever accidentally be at fault for injuring someone.

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2. You do not believe there to be any potential downside from your perspective for being responsible/at fault for maiming or killing another person other than a potential financial judgement (likely covered by your insurance) and the threat of criminal prosecution (which you feel is negligible)? Being responsible for killiing the loved one of another families doesn't suggest any downside to you other than criminal or financial?

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3. You don't believe that in a way similar to your bigger heavier vehicle increasing the chance the other driver is killed, that it also increases the chance that the other driver is severely disabled?

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4. That there is some benefit, perhaps as a consolation prize for making sure the other driver and or their passengers is grievously harmed.

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5. Some combination of the above choices?

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6. Some other factors that create such a spiteful attitude toward other drivers...even when they are not at fault. (if so, a brief explanation would be great, if you care to expound).

1. I never said my driving was perfect. It never was and never will be.

2. If me surviving simply due to my vehicle being superior to the other persons is not my fault. SAy a person on a motorcycle runs a stop sign and hits my vehicle. Had I been driving a small car they may have very well been launched over the hod of my car and landed with moderate abrasions and a broken bone or two. I however was driving my big heavy flatbed truck and the guy hits it full on and takes his head off on the side of the bed. Is that my fault he is dead because of what I chose to drive that day?

3. Unknown. I do know that the less damage done to my vehicle is likely to be directly proportional to the lack of injury I sustain in the event. My health and well being is my first priority and concern. A strangers is someplace else down the line.

4. I know of a number of people who have been in bad accidents where had the other person been killed they would have had far less legal and or financial issues and loss to deal with. It's very much like the concept of having someone break into your home. Most cases you are better off killing them than injuring them while protecting your own interests. Dead people can't sue and those who sue for them have less of a chance of winning if they were not there as first hand witnesses.

5. Variable and statistically unlikely to be defined with any consistency or accuracy. Each incident is unique to itself.

6. Other factors are self evident in actions of those who you see on the streets roads around you every time you drive. Most are good and decent drivers but there are some who more than offset them for the worse. Drive defensively not passively and never assume the other person has their stuff together when they are behind the wheel of whatever they are driving. No one is more responsible for your life than yourself so act accordingly.

1. That's is a great place to start (for any of us). Perhaps from this basis you will reconsider your response to number....

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2. Imagine that the accident is not caused by the other driver running the light. Instead consider if your wife had been acting particularly annoying and ultimately completely distracted your usual laser like focus on driving responsibilities. When you run the light you strike a car that has just picked up some people from a house within a moderate walk of your place to give them a test ride in the drivers new SmartCar. Only much later do you realize the passengers that the smartcar 'can you popped' and who received heinous injuries are your relatives. As you were not hauling anything substancial in your massive vehicle and were just headed to the post office, use of a less threatening ride would have been possible and might not have imposed such regrettable changes on the lives of those you care about.....

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3. '.... I do know that the less damage done to my vehicle is likely to be directly proportional to the lack of injury I sustain in the event....' I invite you to reassess the inclusion of this theory in the set of things you 'know'. It will be helpful if you contemplate the damage done to crumple zones and the benefit of having those zones instead of building the vehicle rigid enough that it only deformed minimally in an accident.

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4.5.6. I'm curious if reconsidering #2 with passengers being your close relatives and the fault being your own might bring out some evidence of concern for something beyond just legal or financial liability.

Nobody in my family will ever buy a smart car. Full sized sedans and pickups are what we drive. Always have and always will. Same with my friends. No one drives small econo cars. They simply do not work in our environment.

As far as what if's go I don't play that game. Nothing good ever comes from pre guessing yourself about worst case scenarios. Life happens and I deal with it as it comes.

I am also not against crumple zones. I am for them. What I am against is my crumple zone being smaller and weaker than than the other persons.

'...Nobody in my family will ever buy a smart car....'

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It didn't require rocket surgery to anticipate that response, which is why I had the car owner drop by and insist they enjoy a test ride in his just purchased SmartCar.

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It certainly seems like you have been heavily engaged in a series of what-if questions to formulate that rigid adversarial outlook.

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I find it interesting that even with a reminder and prompting with involvement of family, empathy/sympathy remains starkly absent from your stated rationale.

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Do you ever get the impression that other people might be feeling their emotions more strongly than you do... or perhaps that most people are exaggerating about the emotions they say they feel?

I am highly aware of my emotions and of those others have as well.

That in itself for me is no reason to bypass rational logical thought process. If anything its that much more of a reason to keep a tight lid on things.

As far as what someone else drives and how they fare in an accident with me or anyone else what they chose to drive and why is not my responsibility nor is it reason for me to get emotional over it.

I chose to drive what I find to be vehicles that represent the upper end of strength and physical build that have the laws of physics favoring my survival in most realistic accident scenarios. I have no need to complicate it any further with emotions.

Fair enough.

Truth, I great up in the midwest and I had the same attitudes about safety in a large vehicle. The reason is that the weather stinks and there are lots of accidents due to sliding on ice or snow. The idea is to protect yourself by buying a large, strong vehicle.

After living in So Cal for over 25 years, I have changed my opinion about vehicle safety. I no longer want to own a large vehicle (H2, Escalade, GL550, etc). We have some fun roads and I enjoy a vehicle than can handle curves well. I also want it to be well engineered and have lots of safety features. Follow my logic for a second. Cars that were designed to sustain very high speed impacts will fare much better in an accident at any speed. Typically these cars will be European - we all know what one of the fastest highways in the world is and BMW's, Mercs, Audi's, Porsche's, etc keep people alive in some insane high speed crashes. These cars also allow me to avoid many accidents due to superior road handling and braking.

If I lived in a bad weather state, I'd probably be driving a big, heavy 4X4 SUV.

It's funny. Many people can engage in very open minded, rational, even thoughtful discussions on any number of subjects, as long as a small handful of hot-button (for that individual) topics are avoided.

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Often it seems that the hot-button subjects are those most strongly related to expressing that individual's identity. Religion (beliefs, not ancestry/ethnicity), political party, and choice of automobile are subjects for which delving into the underlying reasoning/logical support for one, will be a hot-button for many people......but, it seems like this is only true (and atypical compared to the average topic) if the particular subject if largely tied to their identity.

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This strikes me as odd, since it seems a person with certain foundational beliefs would be at ease discussing the support thereof. Moreover, it seems a person whose identity is closely tied to certain beliefs would be most eager to realize, understand, and make adjustments for significant divergence between real world observations and what their beliefs would have them expect.

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All other things being equal, in a two vehicle head on collision, the heavier vehicle with the occupants sitting slightly higher will protect the occupants more effectively.....which is certainly true, but a false premise. As you note above, using the example of German cars built for higher speeds, things are not equal, nor are all accidents two vehicle head on collisions.

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There seems to be rather widespread confusion centered around the erroneous idea that injuries in one's own vehicle can be reduced by increasing the injuries in any other vehicles involved in an accident. Support is so widespread and so fervent that I wouldn't be too surprised if we started to see long barbed spikes become a popular option on after-market tubular front bumpers.

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Here is a study that indicates that a 1% increase in the percentage of light truck on the road increases traffic fatalities by 0.34%. While 4/5ths of this increase is for occupants not in light trucks, 1/5th is for the occupants of light truck. The implication is, 'Yes, driving a big heavy vehicle can make it less safe for others on the road, but it also makes it less safe for the occupants of the big heavy vehicle'.

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So it isn't odd that a typically rational person will sometimes be presented with data that contradicts the beliefs they have help up to that point. The odd part follows in that if the subject is tied to their identity, sometimes there is a departure from their typical reaction of reexamining the evidence and reevaluating their held beliefs, instead becoming perfectly truculent.

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My opinion is that in many cases the cause of this aberrant behavior is that the support for the ideas is create acceptable support to justify the decision (and keeping the conscious mind pleasantly deluded that it is actually making all the choices), when in reality the choice has much more to do with solidifying a desirable self image....

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'I am a big strong solid warrior who protects my family and if you tangle with me I will decimate you and your loved ones. Honk! Honk!'

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....or something like that.

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See what I mean? It's funny.

"All other things being equal, in a two vehicle head on collision, the heavier vehicle with the occupants sitting slightly higher will protect the occupants more effectively.....which is certainly true, but a false premise. As you note above, using the example of German cars built for higher speeds, things are not equal, nor are all accidents two vehicle head on collisions."

And therein is where the problem lies. The vast majority of vehicle crashes are not head on. Most are fender benders and the like.

I would say that in my life I have seen maybe 5 honest and true head on crashes of which only one happened to someone who I knew. BTW her big old 1970's barge of a car killed the two drunk idiots in their late 90's mid size car who drove into her at 70+ MPH. She spent a month in the hospital but went on to get married and have a good family. They never even left their vehicle alive.

Now that said I can't begin to put a number to the quantity of accidents and vehicle crashes that involved everything but a direct head to head collision. I have been in five of which only one was my fault.

In all five my larger heavier vehicles were in good enough shape to not be declared totaled and in none of those accidents did I sustain any injury. People in the other vehicles were not so lucky and required ambulance rides to the hospital.

Head to head at highway speeds may have played out different but in side impacts, corner impacts, sideswipes, rear endings, and parking lot bumps the bigger heavier vehicles and their occupants will almost always fare better.

Your anecdotal evidence suggests that driving a large heavier vehicle probably made the crashes far more dangerous for the people in the other car. Perhaps if you had been driving a vehicle with less mass, similar to the mass of the other car in the accident, then the other people in those five accidents also wouldn't have required trips to the hospital.

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I know, I know, You don't care at all about any of those people.

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So in each accident you were injury free and in all five of the accidents you sent the occupants off the other vehicle to the hospital via ambulance. Is it safe to assume that in each case the other vehicle was indeed smaller?

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This is anecdotal evidence, but if one or more of the vehicles was of similar weight, it kind of makes the example useless as support for your argument.

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Assuming that all the other vehicles were less massive, this still does not support a claim that your vehicle is safer because it is more massive, only that it is more dangerous.

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You would have to have been struck by a vehicle as massive as your own to compare relative safety.

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All of this seems to be pretty supportive (even though the support is rather weak given this is all anecdotal) of the study I provided in the link which suggests increases in the percentage of light trucks on the road increases the danger to both those in light trucks and those in cars.

Anecdotal or not I think what happened validates my points exactly.

Whomever those people were they had as much right and opportunity to buy and drive larger vehicles than they did but they didn't and thus their choices in what they chose to own and drive sent them to the emergency room after a crash.

I however chose to drive a larger vehicle and thus suffered both minor vehicle damage and no bodily injury during the events.

To me much of your side of our debate gives me the impression that you are more than likely a small vehicle owner who is trying to convince me, a large vehicle owner, that you getting injured in an accident between your smaller vehicle, you choose to drive, and my larger vehicle, I chose to drive, is my fault.

Sorry but I disagree. We all have to accept the ultimate outcomes that our decisions and actions create for us. No one else is more responsible for you than you yourself.

The concept of whose vehicle was better crash rated obviously didn't carry much value being my vehicles at the time were likely less well rated older and of overall less value. That said being bigger heavier and more solidly built still gave them the advantage that played to my favor and I have no regrets for how things turned out.

It is difficult to know if you are deliberately or accidentally dancing around the salient point:

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Your experience only suggests that their hospital visits were related to your insistence on a more massive vehicle, not on their insistence on a normal vehicle. To begin to establish that your vehicle is safer then their vehicles you would have to have been hit by a vehicle that was as large as the one that hit their vehicle (your own).

Think of it this way. If you are running away from a hungry man eating animal do you really have to be the fastest person alive for your size or just a little faster than the other guy next to you?

My vehicles just happened to be a bit better at protecting me than their vehicles were at protecting them.

Comparing the best lightweight boxer to an average heavy weight boxer doesn't mean much. Best in class is just that an equal class comparison. My vehicles were of a heavier class so even if their crash rating for their class was mid range at best physics still dictated that their ability to survive was better than the better rated lighter class vehicles were.

What other vehicles in my size and class range may or may not be rated better for such a crash in comparison to mine is irrelevant. They weren't driving one so I have no comparison.

A marginal heavy weight still beats a high end light weight and that's what happened.

You are still missing the point. The boxer analogy is not a good one because unlike in a boxing match, decimating the other person involved in a car accident does not indicate that you will have less damage.

Okay. How do you define less damage?

I go by the fact their vehicles were totaled despite being worth considerably more than my vehicles and had to be hauled away with wreckers.

Mine were not totaled and all had less than $1000 in cosmetic damage and were able to be driven to a safe parking place once cleared by the attending police officers.

My personal injury was zero were they spent time in the emergency room.

What you continue to miss is that it is important to note that all the vehicles you got into accidents will were in a much more severe accident than the one you were in. If you had been struck by a vehicle the same mass as the one they were struck by, you might also have ended up taking an ambulance ride.

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Just because you hit them with a larger hammer and they went to the hospital, it does not mean that if your were hit with a similar size hammer that you would not also go to the hospital. This isn't a zero sum game. You do not benefit from the severity of their injuries.

But they hit me. I didn't hit them and they were not driving vehicles of similar build and size as mine.

Theory about what if they had something different or I had something different are not relevant here. The fact is their smaller vehicles hit my larger vehicles and they took the damage and injury.

I am quite sure that had they been driving bigger vehicles like mine and I were driving a smaller ones like theirs I would have been going to the hospital and they would have been the ones uninjured instead. Or if all of our vehicles were equally large or small all of us would more than likely been in the hospital.

Either way theory only suggests what might have happened. Reality played things out as they did happen with me coming out better than they did which to me give pretty strong evidence that having larger heavier vehicles will more than not make things work in my favor in these sort of accidents.

It looks like I have no choice but to accept the conclusion that you are either unwilling or unable to understand the importance, when it comes to comparing the safety of different vehicles, that the comparison be made considering similar impacts.

Well that's the whole problem. You are trying to quantify crashes based on theoretically perfect and equal vehicle standards. Whereas I am comparing real life as things happen results as are seen in real life accidents.

There is no comparison. Crash ratings are only valid in controlled laboratory conditions. In real life not everyone is driving equally sized equally classed vehicles hitting each other at perfectly defined angles and speeds.

Some are driving sub compacts and some are like me driving large heavy well built work vehicles.

AS I said in post 4, You may be driving the worlds safest pop can but it's still a pop can when the boot is big enough!

You are trying to compare whose pop can is superior to whose while I am comparing my size all leather 14 wide steel toed boot to those pop cans. Sure your super safe pop can scuffed my boot when I stomped on it but I still smashed it flat and walked away just the same.

How exactly does purchasing a large truck reduce your risk of being hit by a large truck? Or is there something far more sinister going on than I expect?

It doesn't. I never said it did.

What it does do is give a measurable chance of receiving less personal injury and or vehicle damage when in a collision with a smaller vehicle. If the vehicle I am driving is in the class representing the top 10% or less of non commercial vehicles on the road based on physical size and build I have a much greater chance that most other vehicles I could have a collision with will likely be smaller and less heavily built than mine.

It's sort of like with the heavy commercial truck traffic we have in the oil fields around here. State wide tractor trailer rig collisions with average vehicles are a near hourly event however tractor trailer to tractor trailer rig collisions are rather rare.

Granted all the idiots in the smaller vehicles pulling out in front of commercial rigs are not fairing so well but the truck drivers are generally waking away from the accidents unless they hit another commercial rig of similar size course.

I know that what you are saying is a popular idea, but it definitely was not demonstrated by the accidents you site as references, and crash test ratings do not support giving that idea the type of influence it apparently has.

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The comparison you made between the other lighter vehicles in the accident and your heavier vehicle does not give us any idea about the comparative safety. Specifically it does not show that if the lighter vehicles were in an accident with a lighter weight car, like you vehicle was, that the results for the passengers would have been any better or worse. Similarly, there is nothing to show that had your truck been in an accident of similar mass to the one the other cars impacted (your vehicle) that you wouldn't have similar injuries.

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In general and with all other factors equalized (in reality they never are, which you asserted and I fully agree) having passengers sit higher and in a more massive vehicle would offer some improvement in safety in some collisions. However any benefit cannot really be distinguished when you look at crash tests and safety statistics (at least as far as I have discovered, but I would love to have someone open my eyes to some new info) probably because of the much greater influence of numerous other factors.

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There is an unambiguous correlation between the size of your vehicle and the risk of injury to occupants of a vehicle in a collision with you. It's just that people seem to get the idea mixed up in there head, loosing track of the reality that you aren't winning more safety for yourself by causing more injury to the other vehicle. The other vehicle is not your opponent.

Here is an observation.

After the afte artic or polar vortex. as recently as my drive home from work last Friday, a 35 Mile Drive on I-43 between Manitowoc, WI to Green Bay, WI

there were approx. 6 Vehicles (I stopped counting after 6, it was less then 10) in the ditch, with one being a rollover. 2 were mini vans, 2 were SUV's and 2 were 1/2 ? ton and 3/4 ton" (possible have been a dually which would be a 1 ton) truck.

How many cars were in the ditch,..... Zero.

Makes one think that a bigger vehicle gives a false sense of security, at least when it comes to handling in poor conditions.

And today, here we go again with another polar vortex

A year and a half ago, I was in a slow speed head on collision. I had my C-Class and the other driver had a Honda Civic. I barely felt the hit, while the other driver was pretty shaken. My car needed $2,100 in repairs, while the other car probably needed over $5K. German cars are stronger and protect the occupants better.

About 15+ years ago, I witnessed a terrible head on accident. An older man driving a late 60's Plymouth Valiant turned left in front of a mid 90's Thunderbird. This was on a back road where the T-bird was doing 60+ and the Valiant maybe 5 mph. The guys in the T-Bird were shaken and could've had some broken bones, but would survive. The older couple in the Valiant was in bad shape. I think the old man's leg was pretty messed up - his foot was stuck on the gas pedal and he had it floored. We didn't dare move them and my gut feeling is that they didn't make it. Newer cars are safer than old ones.

About 25+ years ago, my friend got in a head on crash in Chicago (a suburb close to where we lived). He had a mid 70's Cadillac Eldorado and was driving 65ish on a four lane road. The lady driving the other car started to make a left, stopped and at the last second pulled right in front of my friend. She was driving a mid 80's Sentra. My friend told me that her car just flew, the passenger was thrown out the side window (she died). The driver survived, but was in very bad shape. My friend told me he barely felt the impact. After hitting her, he lost the brakes and hit a telephone pole. He and my other friend said that the really felt hitting the pole. Weight does matter - think of momentum.

Truth,

Southern California has a strong car culture. Our identity is partially tied to the car we drive. Today I took the Toyota Tacoma (trade in) and I felt like a kid driving it. When I drive my GMC Sierra, I never feel like a kid.

I saw an older man driving a Porsche 991, then an older woman driving a Porsche Turbo. I love 911's, but I've noticed that most times its a more mature person driving it. In fact it looks like a mid life crisis car. This of course wouldn't keep me from getting one.

In the midwest, you should have a larger car. Since there are so many larger cars, you're at a disadvantage. The last time we were visiting, we drove my sister's old Acura Integra. It's so small and low to the ground that I felt unsafe in it. In LA, I wouldn't give it a second thought, but in Chicago it's a different story.

My generation is a car generation. The current generation doesn't care about cars. They care more about cell phones and iPads. I don't get it, but they probably don't get me.

Your suggestion that it is wise to consider the typical environment of vehicles that will be surrounding out in a particular location makes a lot of sense.

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I still feel that the idea that strength of the belief that heavier cars are safer without regard to numerous other important factors (or even looking up the available safety info, has the effect of creating roads that are more dangerous for everyone because the vehicles are on average much heavier than these otherwise would be.

'....I still feel that the idea that strength of the belief....'

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Wow. That is exceptionally poor in its construction. I could have simply left most of that first portion off:

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"....The widespread belief that heavier cars are safer without regard to numerous other important factors creates roads that are more dangerous....."

on't know how everyone feels the same, but it's time to get over yourself! You strike me as one of those A$$holes that will pull their 32mm, because someone might be slowing you down.

I'm sorry if sounds like this is a personal attack, but your ego is what put a black eye on California and the citizens of California. I do know there are good people like Fredski that don't hold your values in So. Ca. But CR4 is not an advertising forum and we don't boast our accomplishments or our attitudes.

We, of Northern California, ( I'm sure other N. Ca. feel the same way) do not condone this type of attitude.I was born in Cheyenne, Wy. grew up in part of Colorado and California and proud not to associated with So. California. I always disliked going to your part of the State in part because of your attitude, only to fix broken airplanes and I still dislike it.

Maybe we will read about you adventures in the Darwin's Awards, hopefully you don't take other innocent people out with you

Get over yourself and Have a Great Afternoon!

You are going to pull a 32? Just make sure they have their window rolled down, or they are just going to laugh at you.

Another consideration, by the way, is the higher fatality rate for light trucks (pickups, vans, minivans, SUVs) in single-vehicle crashes, likely due to their higher centers of gravity. It was either federal or insurance data (I forget which), but their single-vehicle fatality rate is 47% higher, and 55% of highway fatalities stem from single-vehicle crashes.

Good point.

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If only the appearance of the vehicles was an accurate indicator of the actual level of protection/safety, then people could not only satisfy their need to display a fierce intention to protect their family riding with them, but their choice would honestly be likely to further the safety of the people riding with them AND the safety of others on the road.

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Unfortunately, this isn't the case. An Hummer looks safer than an S class Mercedes to many people.

"After living in So Cal for over 25 years, I have changed my opinion about vehicle safety."Paul Walker and his buddy felt the same.

This crash occurred only a few miles from my home. In fact, I was driving on Rye Canyon a few hours before the crash. The road was empty and as you can see from the picture, it's not your typical canyon road - it's right near a Wal Mart.

You also took my quote out of context. I drive vehicles I consider safe, but a safe vehicle has a different meaning in So Cal vs the midwest.

And as great a car the Porsche Carrera GT is, a crash at speeds that fast are probably going to be fatal. Though I do remember an Enzo crashing on PCH, the car splitting in half and the driver got out and ran home - he called the car in stolen!

Back in 98, was in CA on a project for business. Being from the Midwest, I learn quickly that the only way I was going to survive on CA highways was to drive as they do.

And that is imo "Aggressively". With radio reports the car turnovers, vehicle on fire was a real awakening. If there's an opening, TAKE IT. don't yield.

Yeah. I like Rocket Surgery. Brain Science doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

Thank you for posting this. I will add these vehicles to the list of vehicles I will never lease or own. My Unimog is looking more and more like a keeper.

All of these seem to only be of use if the driver is not paying attention....I pay full attention when driving, and keep my vehicle in well maintained condition....I take a proactive approach to maintenance....and a defensive approach to driving...Still there is a case to be made for a vehicle that can take lifesaving measures when the driver can't or won't....I look forward to the day when vehicles can't collide....when police can shut down a fleeing vehicle....and all accidents are survived with minimal or no injury....

'....Still there is a case to be made for a vehicle that can take lifesaving measures when the driver can't or won't...'

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I don't think I'll get much disagreement from you by stating that as described, realizing a net safety benefit from at least a couple of these systems is at best highly uncertain.

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Consider the description of the lane departure system; '....If the system detects that the car starts to drift out of its lane, it applies counter-steering force to get the car back in its lane....'

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So, potentially, when a driver steers onto the shoulder of the road to avoid becoming a part of a large wreck in progress, the car applies a counter-steering force to get the car back into the pile-up? Not a pleasant prospect.

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Also, the removal of feedback vibrations (and as commented on above, direct linkage) of steering seems like and incredibly bad idea, and not at all likely to improve control on slippery roads. With none of the vibrations feeding back, there will either be a tendency to lose traction more easily because you can't feel it slipping, or the computer will steer for best control, but there will be a gross mismatch between your blind steering input and the direction the car actually turns the wheel.... Also not a pleasant prospect.

I think these systems will continue to gain sophistication and value, and eventually auto pilot feature....If you put your blinker on, the lane assist is off....in any case I understand it(lane keep assist) is easily overcome, and is turned on by the driver when desired....Lane departure warning just gives an audible warning...In any case I suggested these technologies several years ago....so your fault finding falls flat here....

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/165320-what-is-lane-departure-warning-and-how-does-it-work

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traction_control_system

'... your fault finding falls flat...'

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I appreciate the alliteration, but did I really wander that wide of the well worn way? Perhaps with a second test drive my suggestions might gain some traction (or my problem might be easier to diagnose)

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That description of the lane assist seems better than the one above, but I prefer your version that just gives warnings and does not torque the wheel. Even with a driver overriding the car's attempt to keep the car in the lane, complications arising from a system that has input into the steering seem like they could be very dangerous. Situations like delay in intended course correction, overcoming the lane assist, or excessive steering input anticipating or overcoming the lane assist seem hard to eliminate with that type of system.

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The other link you provided is not what I was talking about. I was referring to the adaptive steering described above. Specifically, removing the road feedback from the steering wheel is likely to result in some weighting of two components of a bad compromise that spans two extremes:

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One extreme is a reduction in steering related traction on slippery roads, but the car (when it has traction) turns reliably at about the rate per steering wheel turn that it does in any other condition. The reduction in steering related traction is due to the fact that you can't sense the wheel slip through the wheel (though it will become evident via motion of the whole car momentarily)...and the wheel points where you have instructed it....essentially no input to steering to maintain traction.

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The other extreme is that there will be plenty of input to limit the amount of steering to maintain maximum traction...but since the feedback from the road is absent, and basically you are just cranking the steering wheel with no feel for the road, the amount the car turns for a given level of steering wheel rotation will likely vary with road conditions......unless of course, the system provides artificial road feed back to the steering wheel....but then what exactly is the point?

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Maybe I'm missing some key concept here. I'm open to that very real possibility and hope that if I am being daft, someone will take joy in providing some ridicule that specifically describes the part I've been overlooking.

I would think the apprehension exhibited would be an overreaction tantamount to the trepidation endured by those brave souls that first tried cruise control....why the very thought of having the car take control of the accelerator is enough to make a brave man walk....but alas, now every car has this feature, and its acceptance is universal...I am assured that your assumptions are as ill-founded as those of yesteryear were....The anticipated wresting of the wheel from your desperate grasp of horror will not come to pass in anything more alarming than the daydreams of the uninitiated....The article on traction control was to ease your mind that the car now has better control than you ever did of the road conditions that could lead to loss of traction, it does this by independently controlling all four wheels simultaneously, something we could never quite master as mere humans....One last point would be that I take no joy in ridicule, but great joy in the announcement that the future has arrived.....

I'm not saying that removing the feel of the road from the drivers hand will result in terrible accidents for everyone. I'm sure things are thoroughly ironed out in most cases prior to release.

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To me there is a huge difference in brief unintended/unexpected variations of throttle as opposed to similar variations in steering. The throttle depressed an extra 25% for 1/2 a second might get you a few feet closer to the semi ahead in your lane. Turning the steering wheel 25% to the left for 1/2 a second might lead to a more intimate connection with the Semi in the oncoming lane. This is, of course, an exaggeration of what might reasonably ever be expected, but hopefully it makes illustrates that cruise control and steering control don't have to same allowable margins for error.

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My car has electronic power control/ drive by wire 'throttle', and there is a non negligible chance of the engine failing in a runaway over speed condition. This is not a big concern for me, because I have numerous ways to keep the engine from moving the car.

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If a drive by wire steering system malfunctions at highway speeds, perhaps as I try to safely come to a stop, I could try to control the direction of travel with aerodynamic introduced by quickly opening the windows on the side I need to steer towards? Perhaps revving the engine in just the right way will will torque the chassis just right to finesse those roadside safety rails.

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Sounds like something that might require some practice.

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We probably will continue to disagree about this point. There seems to be a lot more that we agree on.

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The future has arrived, and continued to arrive seemingly without fail.

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(BTW the 'ridicule' wording was no aimed at you or anyone in particular, I was just saying that if there was some common concept I was obviously missing, that I probably deserved a little ribbing for it and wouldn't be offended if a response were written in that way).

You should check out this more recent thread.

Safety improvements should be focused on the nut behind the wheel! I hate the thought of people feeling "safer" while they text, read news papers, fix their meal, have sex, etc. all while "driving" on the road at highway speeds!

They have that in many countries in the form of their driving tests to get a licence being considerably harder than our american ones are.

In Turkey people drive crazy but there are very few accidents. The main reason for that is the people behind the wheel had to pass the equivalent of what our american semi rig drivers have to pass to get a full class A Commercial Drivers Licence.

If they want to make our roads safer make the requirements to be behind the wheel a privilege for those who have the mental focus and intelligence to pass a test that is a good 10 times harder than what they give now.

I'm not afraid to take it but then I did make it to having a full class A CDL with HazMat endorsements too.

When we were in Peru, the drivers gave us quite a scare. In the two weeks we were there, we only saw one accident! I wondered why and came up with a conclusion. The people in Peru value their car tremendously. It's something that most people can't afford and even the 200K mi junker is still a valued treasure. They don't want to lose their car to an accident, so they drive defensively and are always paying attention.

Here in the US, we value our cars, but if something happens, we can get another one very easily. Since we can replace our cars, we take more chances. Women putting makeup on, men shaving, reading books, texting, talking on the phone, turning to yell at the kids in the back seat, etc. I didn't see any of this in Peru.

Ah, the moral hazards and unintended consequences of mass insurance.

Will there be an override switch for the candidate suicide drivers?

Having read all posts (thus-far)... giving #2 a "GA" divulges *where-I-am-coming-from*.

It scares the cr4p out of me, wondering WHO is truly at-the-bottom of coming-up with such concepts...(??)

Good-ol' Rube Goldberg taught us well that SOME ideas were just NOT meant to be!

Yet, inventors and engineers alike continue to suffer from the syndrome (apparently as-yet-unacknowledged) of developing the "cart" before the "horse".

In that proverbial "IMHO" attitude, for the time-being at least, control of one's vehicle needs to remain in the hands of the operator; NOT in the minds and hands of "Rube Goldberg wanna-bees"...(!)

Such people ought to focus on more-likely-to-be-truly-useful efforts, such as "GPS" systems for aircraft:

"Continue on current course for 482 miles."

"Reduce airspeed to 300 knots while descending into landing pattern at heading of 2-1-5 degrees."

"Begin descent at rate of 800 feet per minute..." etc etc etc, so as to eliminate these sorts of events, once and for all ! (Airports don't change as frequently as street construction does. Control towers could certainly be 'linked' so as to send multiple updated / digital instructions to multiple craft simultaneously.)

IF SUCH designers *INSIST* on struggling to gain control over people's vehicles, WHY can't they BEGIN with a system for motorcycles (beginning with the 'you-know-what-rockets');

...sensors to automatically power-down-to-idle when the operator attempts to shoot down the center-line in-between traffic on both sides. Laser-rangers to measure both FRONT and REAR frame-distance-to-ground ~ and keeping it level!

. . . F E E L - F R E E to jump on the bandwagon here with your own additions!

"PS" ('dvm') : those "suicide drivers" will simply need to steal a police-vehicle to accomplish their onus... as THEY (police) will most certainly require an 'override switch' in order to accomplish successful 180's and chase-downs of "illegal" vehicles...

Strange you mentioned, "Such people ought to focus on more-likely-to-be-truly-useful efforts, such as "GPS" systems for aircraft:" As a Southwest Airlines landed at the wrong airport in Branson Missouri airport yesterday, Jan. 12, 2014.

So much for the modern technology, huh? No excuse for it or Boeing's Dreamlifter ending up at the wrong airport either.

Your right about touching on the same subject and I'm sorry for it, I was just walking out the door when I replied back to you, but at least we're thinking on the same page. Automation will be the down fall of all us. My feeling is you can only cut so many jobs and move so many jobs off shore before you take away the buying power of the people, the same people your trying to sell your products to.

But back to the subject at hand, automation also induces complacency and there lays the problem, humans lose touch with what they doing when they start depending on an automated system, then fails you when your most reliant on it and least expect it.

And what's really sad is these are same people are the one's who will try and put the blame on the automated system for their own screw up. And to add fuel to the fire, you'll find the trough feeder's trying to make a Million $$$$ from it.

(_{^{No 'apology' required-at-all... I was simply 'acknowledging-the-same-thought', regarding our minds being on the same wavelength}}...!)

Re: "automation also induces complacency" ... ... ... "_^EXACTLY!"

Without even re-reading the whole yarn, I do believe that THAT was (_{^{together with fatigue and insufficient training}}) in large part what the origin of the Asiana Airlines Flight 214 disaster boiled-down to...

There was a lot that went wrong there and it wouldn't be the first time pilots have crash due to fixation. I believe it was a Delta L-1011 that made an off airport landing into the Everglades all because of a burnt out light bulb, 2 pilots and a flight engineer, lost touch with flying the airplane. These are highly trained professionals and at times lose touch and depend on the automated systems, only to find out it bit them in the butt, if it didn't kill them.

And now they want to bring this type of technology into everyday driving with people who will become complacent. It scares the crap out me, it's bad enough they can't dive and text without crashing

What's really sad is when you have something like Asiana crash and then something like this comes out. I've watched Tori Campbell for 30 something years and she got set up big time on this one.

dj954401: '.... you can only cut so many jobs and move so many jobs off shore before you take away the buying power of the people...'

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This is a very important point. It hints at a huge possibly rapidly approaching problem, perhaps as potentially disruptive as acute global overpopulation might be. That problem is the vicious circle of continuous improvement in productivity leading to extreme deflation and very high rated of unemployment...not just domestically but abroad as well.

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As automation and assistance allows each worker to be vastly more productive, there will come a point when the ability of the employed workforce to produce will exceed the total ability to consume/purchase. If productivity improvements are not gradual, but instead arrive in leaps after times of stagnation, the mismatch could be significant and consequences rapid and severe.

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I'm a big fan of the free market, so the following is not a happy prediction. The hard truth is that, at a certain point, as technology improved and as we approach the sustainable carrying capacity of the Earth, a shift away from a system that hold capitalism as its pure ideal is necessary if we are to not run a severe risk of a disruption so great it might cause a new plunge back into dark ages.

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....or maybe my coffee didn't have enough caffeine in it this morning.

There are some fundamentally anti-democratic aspects to safety technology. People don't develop the capability to take responsibility for their actions without a lot of practice, and without a sense of responsibility, they aren't fit voters or citizens of a democracy in other ways. Yet, the period of acquiring that practice is inherently unsafe. So should we give up on democracy, and let techno-elites rule over the farm animals? (And how would the techno-elites develop a sense of responsibility that would make them fit to make decisions about the best interests of the people?)

For those who don't know, I'm in the auto industry and I have many clients who like these systems.

1. The Q50 fully electronic steering? I'm not sure that I would like it, but I know that my clients prefer being isolated from the noise, vibrations, smells, etc of the outside world. So Infiniti designs a system to increase this isolation.

2. Laser cruise control has been around for years. I was able to test an early XC60 with the crash avoidance system. It does work and it will prevent accidents. For example, lets say you look down for a second and someone slams on the brakes in front of you - it happens quite often in big cities. The system will stop your car, even if you don't see it or if you see it too late.

3. Lane departure is also good in congested traffic. I see people drifting out of their lane all the time. Or what about that guy that falls asleep behind the wheel. Add number two to this and it could not only save his life, but keep him from plowing into you.

Here are some other safety features I think are pretty useful:

1. Blind spot detection. I've noticed that most people have their side mirrors adjusted wrong. Due to this, they have blind spots and as you know, they move in and out of traffic not knowing if they're cutting someone off. Until people adjust their mirrors properly, I'm all for this.

2. Back up camera/park sensors. Too many people cannot judge distance well. This keeps their car from hitting walls, other fixed objects, parked cars, moving cars, people and children.

3. Smart stop braking. All those people who claimed that Toyota/Lexus cars would accelerate on their own can no longer blame their car. I know that the NHTSA was on a witch hunt and their final finding was that the could not duplicate the problem = the car does not accelerate on it's own. This tells me that it was driver error, so we now have a solution for people who accidentally press both pedals at the same time.

At times, I think all of us are guilty of not paying attention while driving. There are others who are very bad about this. Do you want them to keep causing accidents - potentially one with you, a friend, relative, neighbor or co-worker? I sure don't, therefore I appreciate having these systems on cars.

Well it will be an interesting court case when a vehicle with no physical connection between the steering wheel and the wheels is in a collision and the argument is that it wasn't the driver's fault, it was the computer that did it!