Auto Driving Cars? Gimme a break...

[nivenmk1]

NYtimes article In this article, they talk about cars doing all manner of things up to and including driving the car for the driver. I don't think I'm alone when I say that the downsides of "new technology" in cars FAR outweigh the upsides. What fun is a car if you can't push the limits a bit around corners? What fun is it when the car corrects slides before you even know you're sliding, how about banging the throttle closed if the tire starts to spin? They day they remove the fun from driving is the day I buy an ancient MG-B GT and turbocharge the beast. What about the liabilities of the technology? You don't think the car is sliding because you can't feel it so you push the car too hard into the corner the next time and lose traction at all 4 corners... You're merging on the highway with your foot on the floor to beat a truck, you hit some gravel and momentairly spin, traction control bangs the throttle closed and you end up 30 mph below a semi who is 50 feet behind you? What if a weight sensor in your car misdetects the weight of your child in the front seat during a collision and deploys the airbag? High-end cars are already too damn complicated to rule out the fatal what-ifs. The minister of Thai got locked in his 7 series BMW for 5 hours because the car's OS (windows CE) crashed and locked the doors and windows while shutting the car off. What would happen if that happened on a dark, rainy night descending a mountain? Do you know how many people can stop a 4000 lb car going downhill in the wet without power assisted brakes? Instead of screwing around with cars that do more, they should start making more affordable cars that handle and have a little pep to em, then price them reasonably. Make a Civic-sized car with ~200 horsepower, rear wheel drive, all the bodystyles, a 5 or 6 speed, and price it at 20k. They'd sell 'em so fast they would have to open new factories. Am I the only one wandering around the face of this rock that thinks this way?

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[xX03EXx]

Yes...

putting more power into cars would just complicate the problem. Then you would have dumb@ss drivers who do not realize how fast they are going and do not know how to react. At least with traction control you do not have to have skill to use it. And the 30 mph truck thing...have you ever even been inside a car with traction? It does not do that at all, all it does is waits untill the car gets traction, then lets you push the gas like normal, without accidentally pushing it too hard and spinning out of control.

If you can find out how many documented cases there are of 7 series' careening down hills, sparatically losing all power, as opposed to the number sold that don't have that problem, let me know. I guarantee those cars are a heck of a lot safer than any cheap 20k civic type car.

And as far as the 200 hp civic sized car rwd will cause so many accidents it is not even funny.

[nivenmk1]

I was riding with my boss out to lunch in his 02 Jetta 1.8t. We were merging onto the highway. He was in third gear and punched it from 60 mph to beat a truck. There was a bit of sand left on the road, both front tires spun, the traction controll went apesh1t and banged the throttle closed. If there had been a guard rail where the shoulder was, we would have gotten rear ended doing about 55 mph by a semi doing 85 or better. Traction controll can suck it.

As cars get more complicated, the number of things that can go wrong will increase. With any complex system, the chances of a failure that endangers people rises exponentially with the number of things to fail. Thats just how probability works. How many people need to go careening down a hil in a hideously expensive car before the liability of technology is apparent?

With a bit of work, you can get your Miata up to about 200 ponies... It's smaller than a civic; So much smaller in fact, that 6'4" folks like myself don't fit in them.... at all. Ya don't hear about a ton of accidents with 'em...

[cambo]

you can say the same thing about cars.

How many accidents do you hear happening to horse drawn carriages?
i bet little to none.

Why dont we all go burn our cars and use horse drawn carriages now.

[nivenmk1]

Maybe I'm just a short sighted individual, but for some dire reason I can't see the relevace between horse drawn carrages and compicated vehicles. Nor the relevance between computer controlled engines and horses; not to mention traction control...

About the only thing cars and carrages have in common are the fact that most of them have four wheels. Other than that, the car will likely last longer milage wise and requires less maintainance.

There is always a risk with technology, when the benefits outweight the potential pitfalls, technology increases. All I'm attempting to point out is that the ratio is about to swap sides in favor of regression.

[cambo]

or not. if computers start controlling cars, then the likelyness of car accidents and speeding will be greatly decreased. That being said, it'll only work if the cars are tested and not available to the consumer until all the bugs are worked out of the programming.

[nivenmk1]

When technology increases, the chance of failure increases also, and not always at a rate equal to that.

I think things will work out for the better overall, but I fear the day when I climb behind the wheel of a car that will avoid accidents it thinks its going to get into.

Speeding is part of the joy of life, if I couldn't do 5 over without my car printing me out a ticket, that would suck!

Cars that slam on brakes, turn the wheel or drive themselves are unnerving... perhaps I'm too much of a control freak