Cars getting too smart

obi_waynne

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With innovations like brake assistance, lane control, system that monitor driver alertness, self parking, anti roll back on a hill start and other safety systems we have to ask the question if our cars are getting too smart.

Surely when drivers start relying on these systems they cease to be useful and start to create a generation of lazy inobservant drivers?

Has anyone used brake assist on a car? How do you cope going back to a regular car?
 
Brake Assist works very well indeed. I triggered it once in the Peugeot. It's operating principle is a quick throttle lift and swift brake push will invoke full brake pressure. Many drivers don't brake hard enough in an emergency.
 
But what if your just braking for a corner and suddenly it jams the anchors on full? all of a sudden you're upside down in ditch, does the system take into account the conditions you might be driving in? i guess it works with the ABS that most cars have nowadays but these systems aren't infalable
 
Brake assist is only found in ABS and EBD equipped cars. It would be very dangerous otherwise, as you point out. The BA in the 406 and BMW were/are both very well calibrated and I've never had it trigger erroneously in either car.

You can provoke it by instantly removing the throttle and then attacking the brake pedal immediately and quickly. It's a strange feeling, as if the brake pedal has literally been yanked from under your right foot. You also stop incredibly rapidly.

Personally I'll keep all the driver aids. They extremely rarely intervene in normal driving and if they do so it's an indication that you're overdoing it a bit.
 
Are cars getting too smart?
Maybe!
In earlier cars we have had I was happy to have power steering. Now we have ESP, ABS and so on.WE have computer readouts for mpg,trip mileage, miles left before refill. There is facility for a phone connection with handsfree etc etc.
BUT.....
Just how many of these enhance my driving:confused:
Like phones with 500,000 apps do I need all these things? How many times, if at all; will they get used?
OK, it IS nice that I can see how many miles I still have left after the warning buzzer has indicated 50mls because I might be on a Mway and have distance to next Services!
ESP can help prevent skidding in ice or snow but if it is constantly in operation otherwise then you are travelling too fast for the conditions.
THEREFORE, by having more and more computer aided devices/driving aids it ends up with the car doing the driving and the 'thinking':amazed:
Top Gear showed a vehicle that, once programmed; drove itself without the drivers' assistance or participation.
Some might argue that, with the idiots who we see daily on the roads; an AI car is the way forward but if you want to go from A to B without being alert to conditions and surroundings get on a train or take a bus/taxi.
By the by.
Could we have AI in cars which stops people using a phone at all?? IF drivers cannot have sense to use handsfree!
With innovations like brake assistance, lane control, system that monitor driver alertness, self parking, anti roll back on a hill start and other safety systems we have to ask the question if our cars are getting too smart.

Surely when drivers start relying on these systems they cease to be useful and start to create a generation of lazy inobservant drivers?

Has anyone used brake assist on a car? How do you cope going back to a regular car?
 
As far as I know you really have to plant the pedal to trigger brake assist.

For the rest of it, I can just about bear with passive systems but not active - e.g. I'd hate a car that beeped at me every time I changed lanes on the motorway.

I work with mission critical systems vital to Uk national security, they are of course fully resilient and redundant but I know how often the individual components can fail. So I would NEVER, EVER, EVER want systems that take over control from me, like collision avoidance radar. I simply would not trust it.

There's too much of this crap throughout society. You buy a birthday card and on the bit of plastic film that holds the envelope to the card it says "discard before sending." How imbecilically stupid do you have to be that you need to be told that?

People should be taught to think for themselves and take some responsibility for once. The govt is considering making booze more expensive to stop binge drinking. NO!! Why the hell should I have to pay more - I can manage to get dunk without wanting to beat someone else senseless or smash a window or throw up everywhere. I should not have to pay because other people can't.

What REALLY cracks me up about this is that according to current law I am a criminal because I let my 5 year old girl have little sips of our wine when we're all having dinner, the idea being that I want her to view it a social thing, as part of life, not drinking White Lightning round the back of the Coop, so it's not a mysterious, taboo thing that she wants to find out about. But because I am trying to bring her up right, the asinine laws we have here brand me as a criminal for doing so.

The whole thing winds me up no end!
 
Yugguy said: "People should be taught to think for themselves".

That's the problem - people don't think for themselves. They shouldn't need to be taught to think.
 

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