EU proposes new safety features for new cars

[Smudger]

How about a Dacia Sandero, comes highly recommended by James May...

[jimborae]

How about a Dacia Sandero, comes highly recommended by James May...

No thanks, I have some dignity!!!

Seriously;y though it would have to be something with a lot more speed and handling prowess.

[raygdunn]

How about a Dacia Sandero, comes highly recommended by James May...

I like the price, but it seems if you want Comfort, then you have to pay extra.

https://www.dacia.co.uk/vehicles/our...fications.html


I'd actually like something that would spot the speed limit changes, sometimes they change so often and such a clutter of road signs that you miss a few.

[Kumagoro]

I think they would be better of introducing this sort of thing in stages.

Start with something simple like a 100 mph limiter and go from there.

[TeePee]

I think they would be better of introducing this sort of thing in stages.

Start with something simple like a 100 mph limiter and go from there.

It's Brexit then...

[smurfm]

We can't resist progress - otherwise, we would be still riding carriages!
ABS, cruise control, lane-departure warning, self-parking are all very useful...

[Spud1]

TBH I can't see why any law abiding drivers would have a major issue with this from a day to day standpoint...speeding is dangerous and is the principle cause of thousands of accidents (and deaths) each year, and ultimately if you are not speeding anyway, this tech will not affect you in the slightest. I had it on my previous car and it worked well - wasn't an option on my current car so don't have it at the moment, but certainly wouldn't object to it. Just because I have 340ish bhp doesn't mean that I need to exceed 70 on the motorway, it just helps me get to that speed quicker

There is a bigger question regarding interference with our lives, and the whole "big brother" thing which is a more pressing point imo, but even then...speeding isn't justifiable in everyday driving, and systems like this *do* allow for an override when it's neccesary (pressing harder on the pedal lets you exceed the limit for overtaking/emergencies etc). The one on my previous car was accurate almost all the time, and when it wasn't you could override, or if it wasn't sure then it just didn't enforce a limit.

It's a smart move imo and WILL save lives.

I would however ideally like to see this implemented alongside an increase in motorway speed limits to 75 or 80mph, which would likely placate many of the main objectors here.

[Butcher]

I'd be a bit worried they'd make it not disableable, I like to take my car on track and having the speed limiter on would be rather annoying to say the least.

[philehidiot]

ABS & Stability control are perfectly fine, it's the more advanced stuff I'm talking about. I don't even mind if it's there's as long as I can permanently disable if I want to.

I want to be able to disable ABS and TC as well. But I ride a motorcycle as my primary form of transport and so the effect of ABS, etc is different to cars. On my current bike I can't disable the ABS which I hate. The previous bikes which did have an ABS off switch were designed for conditions where you don't want it and this one isn't so it doesn't matter so much.

These laws are always incremental little steps. Speed cameras were only at black spots where speed was an issue. Now they'll use any road based incident including someone jumping off a bridge in their justification stats. The averaged speed cameras were only at road works. Now they employ fixed systems in some places. The "smart motorway" cameras were only ever going to be on when the reduced speed limits were in force. Now they are on constantly.

So this will go from a beeper to warn you you're exceeding the speed limit and a black box to cameras recording when you speed to recording all the time to submitting any footage of you speeding to the cops for evaluation.

Then the auto braking stuff.... anyone ever looked at how that works? Most of it detects cars and cars only using a laser. So you get people going "I've got auto braking" and idiots like Volvo encouraging people to rely on it in their adverts and you get dead cyclists, motorcyclists and pedestrians as people start to rely on this crap. The phrase at the end of Volvo's advert showing how their emergency braking system works when you're too busy drinking coffee and spilling it to be in full control of the vehicle??? "We welcome you to try it".

Remove warning signs on mountain roads and people stop falling over the edge. Remove traffic lights and collisions drop as people are forced to actually observe and not just blindly go when it's green. Remove white lines and people are more cautious as with mixed pedestrian and motor vehicle areas.

There's a tonne of evidence to show that when you integrate safety systems which take responsibility away from the driver (as they see it - my Dad was running illegal tyres and said "it's okay, I've got ABS" which is utter bull - I explained how it works and that it would increase stopping distances in adverse condiitons) people get more comfortable. More comfort = less observation and planning and increased risk. If you increase the perceived risk then crashes drop as people are more cautious.

There are some things like ABS which will occasionally cause issues but the overall effect will be positive. Stability control comes into this category as most people can't control a swerve in dodgy conditions (I know I can't - I think skid pan experience should be mandatory). The problem is when you take this too far. ABS and so on work as a safety net in an emergency and people know that. There's a difference between a safety net to save your life in extreme situations and something that intervenes all the time and makes you comfortable. Having an airbag doesn't make you comfortable. Having a system that ensures you can't get too close to the car in front does. This becomes an issue when you're pratting about, relying on this system and you ram into a bike.

Volvo advert amongst some swearing and criticism. https://youtu.be/Ig-N91X5E-k?t=7m39s

[kalniel]

I guess no-one has been crass enough to say it, but I'm sure a certain Boing anti-stall safety system was also considered a good idea at the time as well.

If we are to learn anything from such tragedy, it's that systems to make humans' lives easier and make decisions clearer are good. Systems that take control away (and make regaining control non-trivial), however, are not.

Another axiom is bad data in causes bad outputs. Be that faulty sensors, or inaccurate mapping data, trees blocking speed signs (because you know, austerity and council cut backs), or gaining sight of a side road speed marking that doesn't apply to the road you are travelling on.

[Jonj1611]

[philehidiot]

I guess no-one has been crass enough to say it, but I'm sure a certain Boing anti-stall safety system was also considered a good idea at the time as well.

If we are to learn anything from such tragedy, it's that systems to make humans' lives easier and make decisions clearer are good. Systems that take control away (and make regaining control non-trivial), however, are not.

Another axiom is bad data in causes bad outputs. Be that faulty sensors, or inaccurate mapping data, trees blocking speed signs (because you know, austerity and council cut backs), or gaining sight of a side road speed marking that doesn't apply to the road you are travelling on.

The Boeing thing is utterly unacceptable. This failure mode is not a malfunction but a feedback effect of the system working as it should when interacting with a human. We know that flight envelope protection systems such as this can have this kind of effect. It caused a crash very early on in the JSF program when an idiot test pilot did a very shallow takeoff in what was a totally green aircraft. At this stage of testing you don't do low flying as you're trying to tease out any weird performance quirks and you may need time to recover or eject, so altitude is your friend. He took off and skimmed along the ground after the runway, the plane thought he was going to stall out and pitched the nose down, he corrected and pulled up, overcompensating as he was soiling himself, the plane responded by pitching down to prevent a stall and after a few cycles within in a few seconds (you can see the flaps.... flapping) he slams into the ground. This stalled the program (I'm pretty sure it was a JSF plane, back in the stage where they had two prototypes) as they investigated and they published their findings.

Then, on top of this the system required physically disconnecting and manual control taking which was a three step process, whilst fighting for control of a plumetting plane.

On top of this, part of the problem was conflicting data from two sensors. The alert mechanism for this was an optional, paid for extra. How much does a couple of lines of code which says "If X does not equal within 5% of Y then print "ALERT!"" really cost the company? So they KNEW there was the potential for this problem and they made controlling for it a financial decision driven by accountants rather than safety.

So you had a known failure mode which had caused dramatic crashes before, a system already developed to warn pilots before it became catastrophic and a solution to the problem. You ignore the known and widely published failure mode, you make the warning system optional / costly and you make disengaging the system complex in an extreme situation. A) Ignore an established issue (which can be corrected as they've proven recently), B) Make troubleshooting problem difficult in a time critical, high stress situation by removing the warning and C) Make correcting the problem difficult in a time critical, high stress situation.

How long have Boeing been in this industry? Not learning from history is bad enough but B and C are even worse. And then to LET IT HAPPEN TWICE?!

They need to face the mother of all fines to ensure that no other company thinks that trading safety for financial advantage is in their best interests ever again. They did the same to the medical devices industry and it.... had a profound effect.

[philehidiot]

Volvo branded crash mats.

Somewhere in there, there is irony.

[DanceswithUnix]

I'd actually like something that would spot the speed limit changes, sometimes they change so often and such a clutter of road signs that you miss a few.

I drive around with the Waze app running to give me a beep if I miss a road sign. I like the beep, it isn't distracting or interfering with my driving.

I think they would be better of introducing this sort of thing in stages.

Start with something simple like a 100 mph limiter and go from there.

The worry is that this *is* doing it in stages. This stage is not acceptable, the next certainly won't be.


I can see people using systems like this to drive everywhere at the maximum possible speed limit by just planting their foot on the accelerator at less than the override amount and letting the car decide how fast it can go. That isn't paying attention to the road or conditions, as if we don't already have enough inattentive drivers on our roads.

Full autonomous driving will make all this stuff irrelevant, they should be pushing development into those systems rather than just mandating an expensive driver aid package (which NCAP was probably already forcing on us in order to get better than a 3 star rating on a car).

[TeePee]

The Boeing thing is utterly unacceptable. This failure mode is not a malfunction but a feedback effect of the system working as it should when interacting with a human. We know that flight envelope protection systems such as this can have this kind of effect. It caused a crash very early on in the JSF program when an idiot test pilot did a very shallow takeoff in what was a totally green aircraft. At this stage of testing you don't do low flying as you're trying to tease out any weird performance quirks and you may need time to recover or eject, so altitude is your friend. He took off and skimmed along the ground after the runway, the plane thought he was going to stall out and pitched the nose down, he corrected and pulled up, overcompensating as he was soiling himself, the plane responded by pitching down to prevent a stall and after a few cycles within in a few seconds (you can see the flaps.... flapping) he slams into the ground. This stalled the program (I'm pretty sure it was a JSF plane, back in the stage where they had two prototypes) as they investigated and they published their findings.

Then, on top of this the system required physically disconnecting and manual control taking which was a three step process, whilst fighting for control of a plumetting plane.

On top of this, part of the problem was conflicting data from two sensors. The alert mechanism for this was an optional, paid for extra. How much does a couple of lines of code which says "If X does not equal within 5% of Y then print "ALERT!"" really cost the company? So they KNEW there was the potential for this problem and they made controlling for it a financial decision driven by accountants rather than safety.

So you had a known failure mode which had caused dramatic crashes before, a system already developed to warn pilots before it became catastrophic and a solution to the problem. You ignore the known and widely published failure mode, you make the warning system optional / costly and you make disengaging the system complex in an extreme situation. A) Ignore an established issue (which can be corrected as they've proven recently), B) Make troubleshooting problem difficult in a time critical, high stress situation by removing the warning and C) Make correcting the problem difficult in a time critical, high stress situation.

How long have Boeing been in this industry? Not learning from history is bad enough but B and C are even worse. And then to LET IT HAPPEN TWICE?!

They need to face the mother of all fines to ensure that no other company thinks that trading safety for financial advantage is in their best interests ever again. They did the same to the medical devices industry and it.... had a profound effect.

The failure mode was in taking an aircraft designed for 85 people and extending it to take 230 and creating an unstable POS in the process. If Airlines wanted a more efficient 757, Boeing should have built one.

[philehidiot]

The failure mode was in taking an aircraft designed for 85 people and extending it to take 230 and creating an unstable POS in the process. If Airlines wanted a more efficient 757, Boeing should have built one.

I love the engine reposition. I think it's a work of such arrogance it deserve its own award. "And the award for most fatal arrogance in aerospace engineering goes to......."