I know people who hack cars professionally. Car security is generally up there with Chinese smart bulbs. The "effort and expense" isn't as great as you suggest.
The teenager who was killed was doing 120mph in a 60mph in a limit.
How was speed not a factor. If the car was restricted to 70mph it might have been different.
The key word here being, "might." Yes, it might. Would it? I don't know the incident you're referring to, but 40mph is sufficient to be fatal, potentially lower if you're unlucky.
If they were doing 70 in a 60 they were still above the limit and thus breaking the law. Which as some posters seem to assert, is all that matters. Would a collision at 70 be wildly different from a collision at 120? Might've had more time to avoid it in the first place I suppose.
Just out of interest, what’s the limit on your stretch of road, and how fast was the pissed-up driver going, exactly? If it’s a 40, and he hit your house at 40, the subsequent damage is clearly going to be significantly greater than the old lady who reversed into it at walking speed. Physics, innit – mass x velocity, or summink like that.
As far as writing off a car’s concerned, nowadays, once a car’s over a few years old, a smashed headlight can write it off. That’s not an exaggeration.
It’s a 30 but roundly ignored by a lot of drivers. By the time he hit the house he was going about 40. The car he hit slowed him down a tad. Definitely more than a smashed headlight. The first car he hit is what caused damage to the second one. The former didn’t look great let’s put it that way.
In the last week I have driven around 300 miles, most of which on A and B road with maybe 5 miles on a motorway.
I haven't gone above 70 at any time but have probably been above the speed limit for 50% of the time as I tend to go over the 40/50/60 limits when on very quiet roads. What can be done about people like me?
You may be need to think about your driving. One day you may drive round a corner on a quiet road and regret it.
So they are not quiet roads when you’re driving on them then
Kerley. A variable speed limiter that limits your car to the local speed limit as suggested.
Just buy a car that hasn’t got all that unnecessary crap glommed onto it.
Unnecessary? Because everyone's such a great driver they don't need any aids?
Seriously?
Of course any safety feature can be circumvented, but you’ve got to make a conscious choice to do that and in doing so become more culpable for any collisions that might result. How frequently do you drive without your seatbelt or disable your airbag/traction control/ABS
Eureka moment! Speed limiter that can be disabled but also disables the airbags and releases the seatbelt buckles if disabled
Would a collision at 70 be wildly different from a collision at 120? Might’ve had more time to avoid it in the first place I suppose
Around about triple the impact at 120 vs 70mph, so yes significantly different.
Big sharp spike on the steering wheel instead of an airbag? That would reduce the number of RTCs.
One issue with driver aids is risk compensation. This was seen with ABS. Drivers of cars with ABS were driving faster in poor conditions and leaving less braking distance.
This was seen with ABS. Drivers of cars with ABS were driving faster in poor conditions and leaving less braking distance.
When was that study done? Before all cars has ABS it was mostly fitted on big fancy cars which drive fast and close for other reasons.
You may be need to think about your driving. One day you may drive round a corner on a quiet road and regret it.
Duh - I don't drive around corners where I cannot see what is around the corner above the speed limit, hence the 50% of the time not 100% of the time.
Kerley. A variable speed limiter that limits your car to the local speed limit as suggested.
Great. That may be some time away especially as I am guessing it would only be on new cars from year n sometime in the future but is ultimately the answer.
That study was perhaps 15 years ago but was pretty rigourous.
Risk compensation is a real phenomenon and is seen in many many things.
Great. That may be some time away especially as I am guessing it would only be on new cars from year n sometime in the future but is ultimately the answer.
Posted 1 minute ago
I have driven hire cars with this system.( that you can switch off) Been available for 10 plus years. The tech is no problem. The political will is the issue.
Any attempt to get our obsession with cars under control and to stop the routine lawbreaking by car drivers is political suicide.
I have driven hire cars with this system.( that you can switch off) Been available for 10 plus years.
Interesting, how did it work? Apple maps is not always accurate with speed limits and sometimes don't even know what the speed limit is so presumably the car was reading signs? 10 years ago?
I can't see any system currently available being accurate enough for variable speed control let alone 10yrs ago, signage is often obscured & also conflicting speed limits of roads running parallel or under each other would doubtless cause problems with geolocate.
How did it work? Black magic.
Innacuracies in maps can easily be dealt with. The tech is available to do this.
I'm in! It's a lot more fun driving a slow car quickly than a quick car slowly...
Surely such a system is supplemental to the driver doing the same thing that the driver has always had to do? So it doesn't need to be 100% reliable. We're not talking self-driving cars here.
Except we're drifting , Quite contentedly, to having the car do everything for us. The idiot behind the wheel just has to point...
One thing i am surprised by is that black boxes and dashcams have not become more common. Both would improve driving standards and make it easier to prisecute lawbreakers.
I expected this to be forced by insurance companies by offering discouts or loading those without but it doesn't seem to be happening.
Except we’re drifting , Quite contentedly, to having the car do everything for us.
It's much more complicated than that. The car is doing what it CAN to augment the driver, but there's a massive gap between braking when it detects you're going to hit something and doing "everything". Not least because liability shifts from the driver to the manufacturer, and manufacturers REALLY don't want to take that on until they are absolutely sure it's going to work. And it's not, not for a long time, except on motorways.
The huge leap will be when the driver doesn't have to watch what they are doing, and we're a long way from that especially in the UK.
@tjagain I would estimate at least 50% of the cars in my street have dashcams.
I expected this to be forced by insurance companies by offering discounts or loading those without but it doesn’t seem to be happening.
A good few modern cars have them built in Tesla's do. My car has 4 cameras on it, and it wouldn't have taken much for the manufacturer to have added that capability. However at the same time a camera shouldnt make your insurance cheaper. They are not a preventative step, all they do is show who was at fault they dont stop an accident from happening. In fact I bet insurance companies use them a lot to turn down claims of their numpty drivers.
When I see cars with wired in dash cams I always give them a wide birth as inevitably they appear to be the people with the lowest driving standards.
Car insurance is definitely cheaper on cars that have all these 'driver aids' though
"It’s much more complicated than that. The car is doing what it CAN to augment the driver, but there’s a massive gap between braking when it detects you’re going to hit something and doing “everything”. Not least because liability shifts from the driver to the manufacturer, and manufacturers REALLY don’t want to take that on until they are absolutely sure it’s going to work. And it’s not, not for a long time, except on motorways.
The huge leap will be when the driver doesn’t have to watch what they are doing, and we’re a long way from that especially in the UK."
I rest my case...
I rest my case…
You should probably wake your case back up again cos I have no idea what you are on about.
However at the same time a camera shouldnt make your insurance cheaper. They are not a preventative step, all they do is show who was at fault
They should make your premiums cheaper because they make the insurance company's job a lot easier. Remember, premiums are the cost of the company providing a service, not a judgement on driving skill or how worthy you are. Lower costs to insure you come from you being a lower risk, but also fewer complex legal cases to fight.
Except we’re drifting ,
Which, ironically, doesn't necessitate breaking the speed limit.
When I see cars with wired in dash cams I always give them a wide birth as inevitably they appear to be the people with the lowest driving standards.
What a load of ****ing shite.
How can you see a dash cam from either the front or back of the car? Unless they have it right in the middle of the screen you would never know it's there.
Actually don't bother answering, it's clearly got to the point where the righteous have taken over and reason has long departed.
The huge leap will be when the driver doesn’t have to watch what they are doing, and we’re a long way from that especially in the UK.”
I dont think we are in certain circumstance.
On a major busy motorway I feel that my car can drive more safely than I can. It can see when traffic is slowing up ahead way before I can and starts to slow the car. I think it does this because some of the sensors are mounted high up in the windscreen and it uses live traffic data.
It also stops me missing anything in the blind spots and will only change lanes when it is safe to do so
@squirrel_king
fair enough, I know those maps are crap but it seems a bit of a wasted opportunity that I have a camera, a GPS and an on board modem and none of them talk to each other to provide live updates to the system.
It's the difference between an old school architecture where each device is bought in and the comms between them are run over a very simple CANbus, so the only place they all come together is a screen so the driver can see what's going on, interaction between systems is limited, simple and prone to errors. Hence the speed limit sign reading stuff talking to the ACC has been limited and quite often inaccurate. But flashing a speed limit change up on the DIM is easy and no one much cares if it's wrong for 5% of the customers 10% of the time.
Once you get the cameras and the onboard GPS in the car all talking to each other and referring to online live mapping *all the time* the car knows which road it's on, because it's been on it for 500m, so it'll ignore the parallel service road because earlier GPS signals indicate it couldn't have been on it then, so it can't be now, because no ones turned the steering wheel. It'll also use it's own camera data, the official mapped speed limit change and for some cars, those maps will include temporary speed limits that other similarly equipped cars will have seen and reported. So the whole thing checks it's own errors based on real time data.
I even get notifications of slippery roads when other cars with the same system have ABS or Traction control warnings. Rapidly slowing cars ahead will change the colour of the road ahead on my map, Stationary traffic will also change the mapping (and may divert me) and it's not done by someone reporting an accident or any sort of manual input, it's just cars reporting that they've slowed down a lot or stopped. It works very well in the region as we have thousands of similarly equipped cars driving round.
Can't do this well on cars that are more than a couple of years old, because the systems aren't integrated, which is one reason it's easy to hack them, it's a simple network. Newer cars have far more integration, with a lot more data and onboard/offboard processing. There's also a move to new cybersecurity standards, which means that hacking the cars will become a lot more complex. (Though, to be honest, calling what a lot of car hackers do "hacking" is pushing it. It's more like going in and just switching random things on and off and seeing what happens, then writing it down for next time. And we can see that you've done it too.)
Big sharp spike on the steering wheel instead of an airbag? That would reduce the number of RTCs.
It'd would reduce the number of repeat RTCs by vastly increasing the number of fatalities. A price worth paying?
One issue with driver aids is risk compensation. This was seen with ABS. Drivers of cars with ABS were driving faster in poor conditions and leaving less braking distance.
But, drivers of cars with ABS need less braking distance. 😁 Would you rather do 40 in a Tesla or 30 in a Ford Anglia?
I'm not convinced by this argument, unless maybe it's a subconscious thing? If you're up the arse of the car in front, you're not thinking "I'm golden, I've got anti-lock brakes," you're thinking "come on, get your toe down, get out of the way."
Except we’re drifting , Quite contentedly, to having the car do everything for us.
Weird really, isn't it.
"I can't wait for self-driving cars!"
"Driving aids are making drivers lazy!"
Well, pick one.
One thing i am surprised by is that black boxes and dashcams have not become more common.
There's a very obvious problem with mandating black boxes. Actually, two. The pushback against it would be massive and (once more with feeling) those most in need of being monitored would disable it.
Dashcams though, I don't understand why this isn't a standard feature. I already have a rear camera, I've had one in like the last half dozen cars I've owned. It'd surely be trivial for an OEM to link it up to a recording device.
Cougar
It is subconscious and its a long known about psychological phenomenon seen in all sorts of ways.
The spike on the steering wheel is a joke but how carefully would you drive if you car was like this ie you know you will die in a crash ?
You'd drive more carefully but you'd be more likely to die in a crash - net result would probably be the same.
When cars were actually more dangerous, deaths were higher, so clearly the safety increases aren't being cancelled out.
Consider the level of driving in countries where most vehicles are deathtraps...
It is subconscious and its a long known about psychological phenomenon seen in all sorts of ways.
I see you, Jeremy. This is your 'cycling helmet' argument in different pants. 😁
The spike on the steering wheel is a joke but
"I'm not racist but..."?
But, it's not a joke, is it. It's a serious suggestion to remove safety features in order to make people more cautious. Remove railings from balconies, no-one would fall off if we taught them to keep away from the edge. Throw children under cotton mills, they'll soon learn. History is littered with people who have overridden guards on things like bandsaws and then lopped their fingers off.
Track this, monitor that, ring fence the other, film everything - Minority Report anyone?
May as well take children's DNA at birth and stick a tracker in them - it's for everyone's best interests in the end - they'll only turn out to be wrong 'uns and it'll make it easier to find and eliminate them.
Molgrips. More car drivers might die but less cyclists and pedestrians
Safer cars lead to more risky behaviours by car drivers
“I can’t wait for self-driving cars!”
“Driving aids are making drivers lazy!”Well, pick one.
Or maybe lazy drivers want self driving cars and can't way for them whereas 'active' drivers don't want them as they feel something will be taken away from driving for them.
More car drivers might die but less cyclists and pedestrians
It won't be long before you're physically unable to run over a pedestrian because it will slam the brakes on for you.
Track this, monitor that, ring fence the other, film everything – Minority Report anyone?
May as well take children’s DNA at birth and stick a tracker in them – it’s for everyone’s best interests in the end – they’ll only turn out to be wrong ‘uns and it’ll make it easier to find and eliminate them.
Well if it's a bit too much big brother-ish for you, you could always consider not driving 😉
"These days, you say you're a driver, they come and lock you up".
Sod it... Restrict everything to 50 mph.
Driving through rural France is such a pleasant experience as they've reduced speed limits to 80kmh. OK, it's pleasant because the roads are relatively empty, but it's so relaxing. Stuck behind a truck... Meh. So what.
I avoid motorways as I don't like driving at speed. It's stressful. Overtaking, being overtaken. Dick moves. When I do use motorways I drive with the aim of keeping up with the trucks out of respect for them. They've got deadlines and schedules to keep. Me, I'm cruising around for my own entertainment.
Track this, monitor that, ring fence the other, film everything – Minority Report anyone
A chap that used to work for us got trackers fitted to all our vans. I had mine disabled within 20mins.
I say disabled, I randomly disabled it to see how closely the **** was watching it. Whilst it was enabled i got the passenger to give it a random shake to cause an alarm.
I then fitted a cctv camera pointing at his desk. (Not really but I threatened to).
