"Modern cars are too powerful for UK roads"

It’s noticeable how differently people approach risk when they rock climb and skydive – there’s nothing like the same level of nonchalance about the risks and dangers and an awful lot less over-confidence and unjustified self-belief.

That’s because all people who rock climb and skydive do it entirely for pleasure. They are interested in their sports and tend to be clued up about them.

Driving on the other hand is practised by pretty much everyone whether they like it or not and so inevitably some people are entirely clueless of the dangers involved. Particularly since modern Euroboxes are quite refined and remote from the world outside.

You’ll also find that people who race cars professionally take as much care over safety as any rock climber / sky diver would.

You just drive the car? It’s not an autopilot, it’s just a driving aid, all that happens if it fails is you’re driving unassisted again

I was talking in general about electronic nannies taking over driver controls. But active cruise control is one of those aids that could bite quite badly if you got too complacent with it. When I first drove a car with it I covered the brakes and then you inevitably stop doing that all the time when you get confident that it will work. It’s not rocket science is it?

I also think that cars increasingly insulate from the risks of driving, whereas rock climbing the risk is obvious and tangible – and pushing personal limits whilst balancing personal risk is a conscious part of the sport. Sky-diving is just lunacy though 🙂

It’s Brake! who don’t have an argument. They are pontificating about a cars potential for speed while ignoring the fact that it would be safer than the majority of cars when driven at normal road speeds.

So, to put it another way – why buy a car that does 20mpg when you can’t get the benefit? You know there’s only so much petrol, don’t you?

Driving on the other hand is practised by pretty much everyone whether they like it or not and so inevitably some people are entirely clueless of the dangers involved. Particularly since modern Euroboxes are quite refined and remote from the world outside.

Like the person I heard complaining that he had an accident in his car because the (normal non active) cruise control hadn’t braked for him. Aparently he was incapable of ‘just driving’ the car.

molgrips – Member
So, to put it another way – why buy a car that does 20mpg when you can’t get the benefit? You know there’s only so much petrol, don’t you?

Because you get the benefit of being somehwere much nicer than your 3 cyl Clio.

Just like riding your (insert nice mtb bike here) is so much nicer than riding a ASDA BSO.

Like the person I heard complaining that he had an accident in his car because the (normal non active) cruise control hadn’t braked for him. Aparently he was incapable of ‘just driving’ the car.

Homer Simpson?

What an idiot! He should have had a more powerful car, it would have been safer.

It seems obvious that you need a powerful car to safely overtake. If I want to overtake 10 or 12 cars and a tractor on a country road, at night, in the rain with a bend coming up I wouldn’t want to do that with less that 400bhp.

Seems completely sane to me.

brooess
It’s noticeable how differently people approach risk when they rock climb and skydive – there’s nothing like the same level of nonchalance about the risks and dangers and an awful lot less over-confidence and unjustified self-belief.

I held an MSA “non-race” speed/hillclimb licence for a number of years and noted how much more dangerous driving home carefully from an event felt than going ten tenths on a closed, marshaled piece of tarmac. Other competitors echoed the feeling.

So, to put it another way – why buy a car that does 20mpg when you can’t get the benefit? You know there’s only so much petrol, don’t you?

Well that wasn’t Brake!’s argument was it. That’s an entirely different argument (I’m sure there is a phrase for presenting a different argument as a response to an unanswered original one?)

A Tesla S then – a very powerful, very safe car that runs on ‘leccy

moshimonster – Member

But active cruise control is one of those aids that could bite quite badly if you got too complacent with it.

TBH I think you’d have to be phenomenally stupid to be so unattentive- it’s not like you can switch off while driving on active cruise, you’re still managing everything bar speed.

Though, even if you accept there’s a potential for risk in the hands of unsafe drivers, the question then just becomes whether it outweighs the benefits. One safety aid that definitely does have the potential to fail quietly then be dangerous is ABS- but it’s been completely embraced, and rightly so.

I also think that cars increasingly insulate from the risks of driving, whereas rock climbing the risk is obvious and tangible – and pushing personal limits whilst balancing personal risk is a conscious part of the sport. Sky-diving is just lunacy though

Quite. There’s a risk of death from driving, just as there is for skydiving.I don’t have data to compare but it’s curious that with skydiving, everyone’s happy to admit there’s a danger and quite happily accepts they have to follow specific procedures to manage that danger.

You try and get your typical driver to admit there’s danger and try and get them to follow specific procedures to manage that danger… well.. .take a look at some of the comments on here!

TBH I think you’d have to be phenomenally stupid to be so unattentive-

Some people are though, that’s the problem. Like that woman a couple of years ago who didn’t notice the toll booths on the M6 Bham bypass. She tried to say her brakes failed even though the CCTV footage clearly showed her braking at the very last second.

… the other thing about skydiving/rock climbing, the risk is genuinely personal or at most shared with the belay partner etc, but certainly those actively involved.

Whereas driving involves unconnected others with the risk.

Yeah, but that level of incompetence is dangerous regardless. These sorts of systems can go some way to mitigate that and the worst case scenario in a failure is a resumption of normal incompetence.

Once you get up to the point where the driver can safely disengage from driving in normal use- driverless car basically- then yeah, failure becomes a concern. But driving aids always leave the driver in charge

But driving aids always leave the driver in charge

But they make a driver more complacent too. I can’t think of a better example than active cruise control to be honest. Do you seriously cover the brake pedal every time it kicks in on the off-chance it might fail and hand the responsibility back to you?

But they make a driver more complacent too. I can’t think of a better example than active cruise control to be honest. Do you seriously cover the brake pedal every time it kicks in on the off-chance it might fail and hand the responsibility back to you?

All this must have been factored in to the risk assessment for the tech. If it’s available in the US they must be pretty happy that it is very much balanced towards safety given the risk of litigation.

But as these systems become more sophisticated and driving requires less driver input – is that the end of driving for enjoyment and so the market for performance cars? In the end will Governments start making this stuff compulsory and un-switch-off-able if it genuinely and materially reduces the risk of accidents?

There seems to be a real dichotomy of opinions here.

Wouldn’t it be easier for every woman, old person and sanctimonious person to have a power limited car that’s restricted to 70mph? The rest of us can have sufficient power to ensure we aren’t frustrated by them?

I don’t often speed – but I do like power. But then I just drive an ickle Focus Estate (ST3).

But driving aids always leave the driver in charge

I’ve pondered on this before, a lot of new drivers have never driven a car without power steering, brake servo, or without ABS, or without traction control, stability control etc.

They may be left ‘in charge’, but in a case of a failure of those aids left in charge of a vehicle which is handles so differently from what they’re used to it might as well be something they’ve never driven before.

It’s all well and good if you have, and you can the fall back on previous learned experience, but I remember having to have a quite bizarre discussion with my GF the first time she drove my hilux about the fact that it didn’t have ABS so to be aware of it if she needed to stop in an emergency, and that a boot-full of go pedal on a wet roundabout when it was in RWD mode was not a great idea. I also had to explain about the difflocks and when NOT to use them for fear of winding the transmission up, she thought she should stick it in 4WD all the time because it would have more grip and therefore be safer.

She’d also never skidded a car, or properly lost traction and was consequently terrified of having to drive in ice and snow, she at least had the awareness to realise she might have problems. Many don’t, and I really don’t think driver training in this country goes far enough, getting to the bare minimum standard necessary to pass the test is step 1, but to most it’s treated as the end goal.

Aids are fine and dandy when they are working, and should rightly be used, but there does still need to be awareness of the fact that it IS an aid and mustn’t lead to complacency.

I’m not sure what my actual point is exactly but just throwing my thoughts out there.

Strasbourg University tested drivers in a simulator and found the cruise control made them less vigilant.

French statistics show that whilst the overall accident rate is going down the accidents due to people falling asleep and making errors whilst distracted is increasing.

All this must have been factored in to the risk assessment for the tech. If it’s available in the US they must be pretty happy that it is very much balanced towards safety given the risk of litigation.

There are no end of lawsuits in the US due to malfunctioning cruise controls. There have been some large manufacturer recalls over it too. I’m not saying cruise control is inherently dangerous (I use it myself) just that if you extrapolate these “simple” driver aids into a largely automated vehicle then the whole industry will need to change in terms of regulation, servicing etc.

As a result I don’t think mass car driving automation will happen any time soon. Makes a good story for the likes of Google though.

It seems obvious that you need a powerful car to safely overtake. If I want to overtake 10 or 12 cars and a tractor on a country road, at night, in the rain with a bend coming up I wouldn’t want to do that with less that 400bhp.

Seems completely sane to me.

I wouldn’t want to do that in any car to be honest so nice troll but not really a valid example. However with good visibility ahead, the right road conditions, with sufficient distance before bend/junction ahead etc (allowing for someone fast coming the other way) then 400hp does allow you to safely exploit overtaking opportunities (sometimes multiple) that would leave too much room for error in a lesser powered car.

I’m guessing this is exactly the dilemma Molgrips faces. An opportunity that might be marginal for his Passat could be completely safe in a much higher powered car (or for a driver who’s given himself a greater degree of forward visibility because he’s hanging back slightly from a tightly bunched group of cars ahead).

Lets not feed the troll hey.

It’s good when it’s working, but what about when it fails and you’re not ready for it?

Identifying system failure will be one of the first things taken away from the operator and connected to the web. It will be on a car near you very soon.

TBH I think you’d have to be phenomenally stupid to be so unattentive- it’s not like you can switch off while driving on active cruise, you’re still managing everything bar speed.

It may be an urban myth, but I remember a tale from a few years ago about a bloke in the US who tried to sue Winnebago after his careered off the road. He’d stuck cruise control on and then nipped in the back to make a brew.

it’s curious that with skydiving, everyone’s happy to admit there’s a danger and quite happily accepts they have to follow specific procedures to manage that danger.

Interesting analogy, not least because it’s wrong.

In skydiving, whenever there’s an accident there’s an incident report (it has a catchy name which I can’t immediately remember). Back when I used to hurl myself out of perfectly good aeroplanes I got into the habit of reading them as learning from others’ mistakes struck me as a Really Good Idea.

Skydiving has a piece of safety kit called an AAD – an Automatic Activation Device. Simplistically, it detects whether you’re below a certain altitude above a certain velocity, (ie, near the ground and not under canopy) and deploys your reserve. It’s unpopular in some circles as it’s not without drawbacks; complications due to misfires (you really don’t want your reserve out if you’ve just deployed your main) and thrill-seekers choosing to intentionally pull lower than the AAD would have fired.

Every one of the incident reports has a little tick box, “would an AAD have saved the parachutist’s life?” and in almost every fatality case the answer is “yes.”

So yes everyone knows there’s a risk, however not everyone follows recommended procedures to mitigate that, occasionally with tragic results. There used to be a poster at our DZ, “take not thine altitude in vain, for lo the ground shall rise up and smite thee” which is a quasi-biblical way of saying “don’t be a dick.”

Identifying system failure will be one of the first things taken away from the operator and connected to the web. It will be on a car near you very soon.

It’s already here, I saw it on a report on it a couple of years ago. Cadillac? Maybe. Chap was stopped at the roadside, a mechanic from the dealer turned up, said “your car’s told us there’s a fault,” fixed it, when on his way.

Identifying system failure will be one of the first things taken away from the operator and connected to the web. It will be on a car near you very soon.

Great, so you can get on the web from your hospital bed to see what went wrong.

It’s not about balls-out BHP, it’s about balance and the ability of the chassis and the brakes to handle the power. My brother works as a chassis and powertrain engineer in Detroit (he it was who engineered and built Hummer 11) and on a recent trip to the UK he hired a VW Passat Tdi estate. He was massively impressed with the car, saying it was not exciting to drive but was the most balanced car he had ever driven. I reckon he’d have said the same if he had driven a Mondeo or several other modern European executive cars.

Are we doing this again, really ? We just had 9 pages of it….. 🙄

I like having a bit of oomph under my right foot. It’s more fun.
Whether it’s just a quick, pointless bit of accelerating or overtaking quickly, I enjoy it.

Good enough reason for me to want an above average powered car.

I’m guessing this is exactly the dilemma Molgrips faces. An opportunity that might be marginal for his Passat could be completely safe in a much higher powered car

Of course – but I’ll just relax and go when it is safe.

or for a driver who’s given himself a greater degree of forward visibility because he’s hanging back slightly from a tightly bunched group of cars ahead

I’ve no idea where this idea came from that I stay too close to the car I want to overtake. I’ve never said I do that, none of you have seen me do it. FFS I used to overtake in a 950cc Fiesta, you had to hang back in that thing to get a run up.

So yes everyone knows there’s a risk, however not everyone follows recommended procedures to mitigate that, occasionally with tragic results. There used to be a poster at our DZ, “take not thine altitude in vain, for lo the ground shall rise up and smite thee” which is a quasi-biblical way of saying “don’t be a dick.”

I think we’re on the same place here – there’s no general acceptance of ‘don’t be a dick’ in driving culture.

AAD was an optional piece of kit, at least when I was jumping (2000-2002). When I say known and accepted procedures I mean more things like packing your parachute the same way every time to minimise the risk of a malfunction, checking each other’s reserve pin just before you got into the plane etc, tightly managed exit order, spotting etc – no-one ever complained about needing to do those things or accused anyone of being sanctimonious when they insisted on doing it.

Almost the polar opposite of attitudes to speed limits, highway code, red lights etc

It’s already here, I saw it on a report on it a couple of years ago. Cadillac? Maybe. Chap was stopped at the roadside, a mechanic from the dealer turned up, said “your car’s told us there’s a fault,” fixed it, when on his way.

That’s it, its offered in a few new cars and can be retrofitted by using a OBD device, the value is in the analysis of the vehicles fault codes to correctly predict failure before it effects the vehicle and then get that message to the driver.

I would expect not having it will be the exception very soon.

modern driving enthusiasts are too ridiculous for UK roads

moshimonster – Member

But they make a driver more complacent too. I can’t think of a better example than active cruise control to be honest. Do you seriously cover the brake pedal every time it kicks in on the off-chance it might fail and hand the responsibility back to you?

You should always be in control of the car. That doesn’t mean covering the pedal, though, just being ready to act if you need to. Nothing to do with failures really, there’s other reasons that you might want to brake independentaly of acc, just as when you’re driving normally there’s other reasons to vary speed other than maintaining a gap

ABS is totally a better example, because it can fail invisibly then not be there in an emergency or other hard braking situation. Is your ABS working? I assume mine is, no warning lights or fault codes but I’ve not used it for a looooong time. ACC can’t fail without being immediately obvious.

Cougar – Moderator

It’s already here, I saw it on a report on it a couple of years ago. Cadillac? Maybe. Chap was stopped at the roadside, a mechanic from the dealer turned up, said “your car’s told us there’s a fault,” fixed it, when on his way.

I have a man from Ford follow me around, it’s more efficient

People generally tend to enjoy doing stuff that they for some reason think they’re good at – so this might explain it to some degree.

FTFY

molgrips
FFS I used to overtake in a 950cc Fiesta, you had to hang back in that thing to get a run up.

Yup, that sounds safer than say, having an adequately powerful car for example. And seems in no way at odds with

molgrips

but I’ll just relax and go when it is safe.

It’s not at odds, no. I overtook when it was safe. It just took more planning. See the Clio example earlier.

Simply overtaking slowly isn’t an issue if there’s enough road.

It’s easier with a pokier car, but you’re right; overtaking is all about forward planning.