10 Major Automakers Agree To Include Automatic Emergency Braking On New Vehicles 451
An anonymous reader writes: The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Department of Transportation, and Institute for Highway Safety announced today a landmark agreement from 10 of the world's biggest automakers to include automatic emergency braking on all new vehicles as a standard safety feature. The car manufacturers are: Audi, BMW, Ford, General Motors, Mazda, Mercedes Benz, Tesla, Toyota, Volkswagen and Volvo. "Automatic emergency braking includes a range of systems designed to address the large number of crashes, especially rear-end crashes, in which drivers do not apply the brakes or fail to apply sufficient braking power to avoid or mitigate a crash. AEB systems use on-vehicle sensors such as radar, cameras or lasers to detect an imminent crash, warn the driver and, if the driver does not take sufficient action, engage the brakes."
Translated (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean that automakers are allowing the police to stop people's vehicles at any time for any reason, remotely.
Re:Translated (Score:5, Funny)
That's a next step, but this one is just another way to interfere with a driver. My traction control system tries to murder me at least twice every winter.
Re: (Score:3)
I suppose that it'll be a net plus since most driving is done on OK roads and not everyone pays as much attention to other vehicles as one might hope.. But I agree with you. The poorer the driving conditions the less well ABS works. In heavy snow, having the wheels lock up more or less at random and not stay locked makes directional control when stopping really difficult. Not that driving more than a few mph on ice or in heavy snow is usually all that great an idea. But it IS annoying to have the car g
Re: (Score:3)
The poorer the driving conditions the less well ABS works. In heavy snow, having the wheels lock up more or less at random and not stay locked makes directional control when stopping really difficult.
If the wheels lock up, that's because you braked too hard. ABS unlocks them for you, giving you more directional control. If you want better directional control still, don't brake so hard.
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>What kind of crappy car has ABS that still allows you to lock up the wheels when stomping on the brakes?
The kind that's driving on icy roads. ABS can only detect lockup if there's a difference in wheelspin rates. When you're sliding across ice and slam on the brakes, they're all going to stop at once, even though the car will keep moving. So, as the parent said, if your brakes lock up like that, you braked too hard. These systems are a great help, but they aren't 100% foolproof.
Re:Translated (Score:5, Informative)
Even if you lock them up hard (which is easy to do when on glare ice) the traction control system still detects that the wheels have stopped.
Some systems used initertial sensors, but it was found that drivers will steer during a skid, and this fact can be used by the computer that it is in a 4 wheel skid.
Modern electronic stability control systems are an evolution of the ABS concept. Here, a minimum of two additional sensors are added to help the system work: these are a steering wheel angle sensor, and a gyroscopic sensor. The theory of operation is simple: when the gyroscopic sensor detects that the direction taken by the car does not coincide with what the steering wheel sensor reports, the ESC software will brake the necessary individual wheel(s) (up to three with the most sophisticated systems), so that the vehicle goes the way the driver intends.
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I had to disable it once, in mid slow-motion skid on snow as I was approaching a retaining wall. I'm not sure what the car was trying to do, but it was not working.
Re: Translated (Score:3)
Not confusingly at all. These systems are one and the same in mist modern cars. Once you have the hardware to do one, adding the other is dirt cheap. You will seldom see a vehicle sold wwit one bbu not the other.
Reread what I posted.
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The best way to accomplish that seems to be to be to lock all four wheels and use the steering to control direction while the vehicle slowly slithers to a stop.
Wrong
Not only do you have less control over direction when the wheels are locked than when they're unlocked, but your car will stop more slowly.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
In heavy snow and/or ice, when your wheels are not rotating, your vehicle is going to continue sliding in whatever direction it currently is moving, regardless of which direction you have the front wheels pointed.
ABS RELEASES your brakes, so the wheels can rotate, both giving you more control over which direction you go AND working to increase the friction between your tires and the surface they are on [as when the tire is sliding, the coefficient of friction between the tire and the surface is LESS than it
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes. And in that exact situation, non-ABS brakes would do exactly the same thing. And there are also situations where ABS activating is worse than if it didn't activate. Just like seatbelts and airbags will kill some people. But for the vast majority of cases where it does activate, it results in the driver having more control and being able to stop faster than if it did not activate.
Formula 1 didn't ban ABS brakes because they didn't work well. It was because they worked too well.
Try non ABS (Score:5, Interesting)
Speaking as someone who lives in WI, USA and, until recently, drove a car _without_ antilock brakes, you're nuts if you think that ABS is doing more harm than good. It takes very little to lock non-antilock brakes on a sowy road. ABS aren't part of some conspiracy. They're life savers. (FWIW I speak as an defacto American automotive Luddite with my manual transmission.)
Re:Translated (Score:5, Interesting)
Actual use could also be problematic. I occasionally have to reverse down a steep exit from a driveway onto a road and that always sets off the parking sensors because the sensors react to the approaching pavement without detecting the vehicle current disposition, being on a steep driveway. Will that mean the car will brake and leave me permanently perched on that driveway.
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Will that mean the car will brake and leave me permanently perched on that driveway.
1) Automatic emergency braking has been around for a few years already. If that was going to be an issue, we'd have already heard about it.
2) IIRC the emergency braking is disengaged below a threshold speed. How fast due you hit the street off your driveway?
Re:Translated (Score:4, Informative)
I've never heard of automatic emergency braking while in reverse, just when moving forward.
Re: Translated (Score:3)
It has gone off quite a few times when I am getting close to a car that is turning, because it can't detect the "rate of turn" and figure out that by the time I get there, the car won't be there anymore. It sometimes even does this on
Re: Translated (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing is, you are assuming that the car that is turning won't be there anymore. This is not given. The car might abort the turn for some reason, it might stall, it might take longer than you expect. Better to slow down.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"figure out that by the time I get there, the car won't be there anymore"
YOU IDIOT!
Please stop driving like this. I bet you also assume that a pedestrian crossing the road a 100 yards ahead of you is going to get out of the way in time?
What happens if the pedestrian trips and stumbles in the road? What if that turning car sees an obstruction to the turn and stops? They are focussing on the road/drive they are turning into and you aren't, so there's every chance you won't see the obstruction.
You MUST treat a
Re:Translated (Score:5, Funny)
You mean that automakers are allowing the police to stop people's vehicles at any time for any reason, remotely.
That technology already exists. It's usually called a police roadblock.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
You mean that automakers are allowing the police to stop people's vehicles at any time for any reason, remotely.
Even assuming that it isn't controllable remotely -- who is going to answer for accidents that happen when emergency break activate by accident?
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What accidents? The following cars will also have an emergency braking system, and as a result, stop in time.
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You mean that automakers are allowing the police to stop people's vehicles at any time for any reason, remotely.
Yes, if by "remotely" you mean "by putting something in their way."
Otherwise, no.
Re:Translated (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean that automakers are allowing the police to stop people's vehicles at any time for any reason, remotely.
Oh come off it.
This technology is already in lots and lots of cars, its being advertised heavily by at least a half dozen car companies, from Subaru all the way up to Mercedes.
When have you ever seen police stop anybody electronically?
The technology has been proven for years in options packages or standard equipment on higher priced cars, and these days on mid priced cars.
I've had it since 2012, and it has never once false alarmed and applied brakes inappropriately. It can detect and warn me of slower traffic AHEAD of the car in front of me, even when the car ahead has not yet realized it is approaching a crash.
I'm embarrassed to admit It has braked the car at least a couple times for me when I was distracted.
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the real issue is that the cost of cars is going to go up again.
Who cares about human lives when you can get the premium sound package for a discount!
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Re:Translated (Score:5, Insightful)
This safety feature mostly helps the person being hit, not the one doing the hitting.
Re:Translated (Score:5, Insightful)
i think people should be able to decide for themselves how much safety equipment they want to have
That would be fine if the only people who suffered were the people who made the bad decisions. In this case, however, it's not only the inattentive-and-cheap car owner who suffers, but also whatever (or whomever) he runs into.
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I'm not sure the diminishing amounts of safety gained by these kinds of gimmicks is worth the massive distraction factor they cause. The solution isn't to enable people who can't be bothered to drive properly. The solution is to get distracted drivers off the road.
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Re:Translated (Score:5, Informative)
Very few of the rear end collisions that this type of system protects against have fatalities.
Whiplash injuries are really horrible, the damage is permanent and painful forever. They happen even in low speed collisions. You've completely neglected the fact that whiplash injuries will be greatly reduced.
Re:Translated (Score:5, Interesting)
the real issue is that the cost of cars is going to go up again.
But the cost of insurance will go down.
the truth is they will make more money per car sold, and raise the cost of entry level cars
Car manufacturing is an very competitive business. If they could just raise prices, and expect consumers to accept it, they would have already done so.
This is proven technology, that is already installed in millions of cars. In mass production, it will add little to the cost of new cars. The cost saved in avoided or less severe accidents will likely overwhelm the equipment cost.
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Re:Translated (Score:4, Informative)
oh but you see, they now have the blessing passing the buck, in the name of safety!
Except markets don't work that way. There is no requirement to "pass the buck" to justify price increases. If they want to change the price, they can just change it, and car retailers do that daily, as supply and demand fluctuate.
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back in the day they were a luxury. they cost more to install on the car so only high end models had them. Then the government mandated them, now all cars have them and prices go up
same has happened with airbags, ABS and traction control, even things like headrests.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year
You complain about costs, but look at the above page to see that these "expensive" items have saved many hundreds of thousands of lives.
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Miranda lambert (Score:2)
Glad to have it (Score:5, Interesting)
I bought a new car this year, and it has it. I'm very glad to have it, even though it has triggered once or twice when there was nothing there due to a sensor glitch. The reason I have a new car is that I failed to brake in time to avoid an accident.
Yes, the technology isn't perfect, but it's a lot better than not having it.
As we get more of these features, it should result in fewer accidents and lower insurance rates.
Re: Glad to have it (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Glad to have it (Score:5, Informative)
People become more reliant on it and could end up paying even less attention rather than pay fucking attention to the car in front of them.
the whole point here is that humans are really poor drivers, they kill tens of thousands every year. expecting them do to better is really just folly. they need help.
Re: Glad to have it (Score:4, Informative)
I think you misspelt "Americans" there.
No, Americans are actually among the better drivers in the world.
Maybe you should try looking at the accident death rates for different countries.
Re: Glad to have it (Score:4, Insightful)
the whole point here is that humans are really poor drivers
I think you misspelt "Americans" there.
Nope. Americans are not particularly bad drivers. Here is a list of traffic fatalities [wikipedia.org] by country, both per capita, and by distance driven. Americans are no where near the bottom.
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Yes, we are indeed shitty compared to the Germans. Who isn't?
Compared to everyone else (including the Italians; they're infamous for bad driving, and that's still mostly "1st world"), we're not that bad.
The mistake you're making is in comparing America to Germany in just about anything. America really isn't a 1st-world country culturally; it really resembles a 3rd-world country that won the lottery. Just look at the infrastructure in one of our major cities like NYC; it's abysmal. The traffic is atrocio
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Part of that is because the standards to obtain a drivers licence in the US is a joke. Go to Germany and see how much time, money, and effort is required, then come here and show up with a pulse and get a licence. (more or less)
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Where by "no where near the bottom" you mean "worse than pretty much all of the developed world", because that's what that table shows. I mean, you're looking at 4 times as many fatalities per person as the UK, and twice as many per mile driven.
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Why do you people keep trying to compare America only to developed nations? Have you looked at how America compares in education to other developed nations? It's at the bottom there too. Or what about childhood poverty and nutrition? Bottom. Overall standard of living? Bottom.
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Because America is trying to convince the rest of the world that it's a developed nation. If your argument for that is "well, we're marginally better than the 3rd world" then perhaps you're aiming too low.
Re: Glad to have it (Score:5, Insightful)
The same argument has been made about ABS, traction control, electronic stability programs and similar changes that mitigate or hide the forces at work until they overwhelm the system or that take away part of the work like cruise control and so on. At least so far the conclusion has been that even though people push the limits, overall it does good. Particularly if they limit the scope to hard/emergency braking or even just damage reduction, so you normally want to brake yourself. I mean, clearly if you do the math of distance and speed you at some point cross the threshold where a crash is inevitable, but there's still time to turn a high-speed impact into a low-speed impact. And that matters a lot, it's still an accident but they're not all equal.
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Speculation is moot. Show me trials before it becomes federal law or some ilk like that.
I've discovered this really useful web site called "The Google", it lets you type in a search term like "studies of the effectiveness of automatic braking systems", and it will show you what you're looking for [esurance.com]. It's really cool!
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I've discovered this really useful web site called "The Google", it lets you type in a search term like "studies of the effectiveness of automatic braking systems", and it will show you what you're looking for. It's really cool!
What is shocking is that this is a tech site, and it is full of Luddites!
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Good luck getting the police to actually patrol and look for that.
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I guess you don't want to fly in any airplanes either; they're all run by software too. But I guess you've never worked on avionics software either.
This is good (Score:2, Interesting)
My last 2 accidents came from being rear ended by jackoff distracted drivers. One of them was quite serious.
List of "major automakers" (Score:5, Interesting)
I like that all of the Big Three American automakers are included: Ford, GM, and Tesla.
The biggest names missing are Fiat/Chrysler, Honda, Hyundai, and Kia. I'm not surprised that the Koreans aren't included, as they are going for the bottom of the market where there's not as much padding for added costs.
Re: (Score:2)
By that same logic, it explains why fiat and honda are also not agreeing to it. They target those same consumers.
Tesla is not a Big Three company (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry to be so pedantic and punchy in correcting this, but I think it's a little annoying - bordering on delusional - how often slashdot people, reddit people, etc. give Tesla and SpaceX credit for things far, far beyond what they've actually accomplished so far. Those companies have impressive potential, but they're **far** from replacing Chrysler, NASA, Lockheed, or any other the other entities in their markets.
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Replacing NASA? WTF are you talking about? No one's replacing NASA, especially since NASA doesn't even actually make rockets, and never has. They contract it out to companies like Rocketdyne. SpaceX is trying to replace them, or Orbital.
Re:Tesla is not a Big Three company (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, from a market cap perspective, the big three are Ford, GM and Telsa. Fiat-Chrysler was eclipsed by Telsa back in '13:
Ford - $54.4B
GM - $47.7B
Tesla - $32B
Fiat-Chrysler - $18.8B
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Honda offer it on all models in Japan, so I'd be surprised if they didn't join in anyway. Kia are trying to become a major player too, e.g. releasing an EV that's actually quite good, so I bet they will offer it as well.
Re:List of "major automakers" (Score:4, Informative)
It is also easy for Tesla to "volunteer", since all of their cars already have this technology. So they are agreeing to do nothing.
Here's an Idea... (Score:5, Interesting)
Why don't we put some effort into human factors and get people to put their hands on the wheel and pay attention?
If you're going to get fancy and throw technology at the problem, how about spending some effort to force people to shut their fucking cell phones off while driving? There has to be a way that you can brick cell phones while it is in the vehicle. Get some people on this, find a way. I see idiots fumbling on their phone and drifting off the highway or across lanes of traffic all the time. Let's fix this, OK?
Automating car response like braking is not going to work well on a snowy day with slick roads. Might be dandy in sunny, dry California, but the rest of the world actually has weather and precipitation. Having cars slamming on the brakes randomly because the computer mistook a drift of snowflakes or blowing leaves for a car bumper is going to cause more accidents, not less.
Re:Here's an Idea... (Score:4, Insightful)
Why don't we put some effort into human factors and get people to put their hands on the wheel and pay attention?
Humans are proven to be terrible drivers, they kill tens of thousands of people every year. "Human factors" are not going to get rid of the screaming child in the back seat and they are not going to solve the argument you are having with your spouse. Humans can and will get distracted and kill people. It happens every day. Rearraging the controls on the dashboard is not going to solve any of these problems.
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I think humans have proven to be amazingly excellent drivers in general. Every time I have occasion to visit a wall-mart parking lot I look at the people and think "Man! Kudos to that freak of nature for getting all the way from their house to the parking lot without swerving off the road!"
When I think of how the average person manages to make hundreds of trips in a row without a collision despite the fact that we have evolved zero traits to support safe driving I get all teary with pride. 200 years ago the
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This is the abstinence only approach. Doesn't work.
I'm also glad that in two seconds of things, you've come up with reasons that the thousands of engineers involved in implementing things like this haven't thought of. I hope they read your post!
You may be an irate engineer because you're surrounded by reasonable engineers.
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Why don't we put some effort into human factors and get people to put their hands on the wheel and pay attention?
Because that is not going to work, and it is unrealistic to expect it to.
Make driving exiting to make it safe. (Score:2, Flamebait)
The problem is the low speed limits. They make driving so boring. If you could actually drive as fast as conditions allow I would spend time enjoying the drive and paying attention not dozing off because someone decided 45 mph is the safe speed.
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The problem is the low speed limits. They make driving so boring..
People like you are why human drivers will soon be outlawed.
and what stops (Score:2)
they guy with the older car behind you from rear ending you instead? Or are these systems going to optimize between the risk of crashing into the guy in front of you vs the risk it will stop too quickly for the guy behind you to respond (yeah I know we all leave sufficient space between us and the car in front to brake)?
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All this does is do what you should be doing anyhow. If the guy behind you is going to rear-end you because you stopped safely to avoid a collision, he was doing to rear-end you after you rear-end the car ahead of you. This isn't rocket science. The only thing that understandably scares people is that if computers are making decisions for us, even if it makes a significant reduction in accidents, we feel like we could have done better had the computer not intervened. It's a blame thing. But any accidents in
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they guy with the older car behind you from rear ending you instead? Or are these systems going to optimize between the risk of crashing into the guy in front of you vs the risk it will stop too quickly for the guy behind you to respond (yeah I know we all leave sufficient space between us and the car in front to brake)?
I have taken to larger and larger gaps up to the point that fool slip in and remove the gap.
Break horsepower on some vehicles is astounding today. This one reason I sold
my old Ford 71' 4x4 truck. I do miss the visibility... If auto drivers could see what even small
truck drivers see many car lengths ahead they would drive with more care.
33,000 automobile deaths per year in US (Score:2)
Source from CDC (as of 2011). [cdc.gov]
Source from IIHS (as of 2013). [iihs.org]
This will save lives. Even with excellent drivers behind the wheel.
Maryland just abolished the parallel parking requirement [baltimoresun.com], because of the growing moron population. Automated safety systems can come none too soon.
They used to call that "illegal collusion" (Score:2)
They used to call such agreements "illegal collusion" or "a trust" under anti-trust law.
"Voluntarily" adding an expensive new system as "standard" (i.e. you can't not buy it and still get the car), in unison across a broad swath of the market, keeps the consumers from making their own tradeoff of cost vs. functionality and voting with their dollars.
I guess it's not supposed to be illegal if the government is pressuring the
Modern technology (Score:2)
Out of all of the accidents I have been involved in over almost 30 years of driving, technology like ABS, automatic emergency braking and stability control would have prevented just about all of them. In most cases it was the other driver's fault (the one case it was my fault I was young and had a parent screaming at me when traffic suddenly stopped (AEB would have prevented that one if both my car and the one behind me had it). I've been rear-ended twice (both times totaling the car) because I had to stop
awesome (Score:2)
awesome.
Ramming speed? (Score:2)
Have they considered there may be a reason I'd like to intentionally hit an obstacle. Maybe I want to push a stalled car off railroad tracks. Maybe I don't want my road rage options to be so limited.
speed improvement (Score:2)
This will enable drivers to go faster and to drive more reckless, since they know their car will automatically break if the driver makes a mistake.
Normally I would applaud... (Score:2)
Another idea (Score:3)
Three short blasts of the horn when its doing this...
Gets everyone around you alerted to the fact your car thinks an accident is likely.
Re:The first fuse I pull (Score:5, Insightful)
bullshit, no way I'm letting the car brake for me.
if you have ABS, the car is already deciding when you can brake and when you can't.
if you have an automatic transmission, the "gas" pedal is merely a "suggestion" to the system that actually controls the throttle.
if you are driving on public roadways you have already agreed to follow whatever regulations the government has decided to impose on you
Re: (Score:2)
if you have an automatic transmission, the "gas" pedal is merely a "suggestion" to the system that actually controls the throttle...
It doesn't have to be an automatic transmission. on my BMW with a 6-speed stick, the "gas" pedal is nothing more than a potentiometer that feeds the master computer and said computer controls everything including a stepper motor connected to the throttle body...
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the "gas" pedal is nothing more than a potentiometer that feeds the master computer
In the old days before computers the gas pedal still was not directly connected to the throttle. There is a linkage from the transmission that overrides the pedal input and backs off the throttle when the transmission shifts gears. It's all mechanical.
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You've got it backwards. The linkage between the throttle and the transmission was how the automatic determined 'demand' or load. Light input, upshift occur sooner. Put it into the floorboards and it'll wait to upshift until the last moment. Unloading the transmission was done via an ignition cutout triggered by the transmission.
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Have you driven a stick shift car? You know how you have to momentarily back off on the throttle as you shift? This has to happen in an automatic, also. This is what the mechanism does.
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No, it doesn't. (And yes, I drive stick, and also road race motorcycles and am familiar with clutchless shifting using the throttle there.) The ignition cut out is what temporarily unloads the transmission making for a smoother shift, the linkage doesn't 'pull back' on the throttle. Think of it this way, have you ever felt the throttle pedal 'push back' more during a shift? You actually don't need to unload a traditional planetary gear automatic to shift anyways, the gear change is accomplished by bands
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You're thinking of electronic fuel injection
no, the oldest automatic transmissions from the 1950s and 1960s worked this way.
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you mean its linked directly to the servo mechanism bolted to the side of the carburetor
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Nope, what ABS does is rapidly pulse the brakes for you (and much faster than you can)
so in other words the car is deciding the braking action, not you
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God you are dense.
Following your line of logic, if you have electric windows, the car is deciding to open and close them, not you. If you have power brakes, the car is deciding to brake, not you. If you have cruise control, air conditioning, etc.
ABS modulates the brakes. That is more than fine hair away from deciding when you can and can not brake. Those of us who grew up without ABS still reflexively take our foot off the brakes when the wheel goes numb, and reapply because, get this, ABS only allows you t
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Actually, re modern ABS, it's much much smarter than that. It's lifting the brakes when it detects that the wheels have locked, just enough to unlock them, and then finding the ideal traction spot for you. Pulsing was just the first (fairly naïve) implementation.
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it is the same because the computer is controlling the brakes, not you
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Yes, but they don't have bony long legs like deer, and windshields are made of laminated safety glass so you should be safe.
Re: How dare they? (Score:2)
Re: How dare they? (Score:4, Insightful)
And you also have the responsibility of paying for poor decisions. .
How precisely does one bring back the dead? Do you really think that perpetrators are actually capable of restoring the damage they've caused? huh?
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yeah, it's better if you don't call your wife to apologise.
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Eh, I'll take technological solutions over political solution any day. At least that way I have some control.
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Technological solutions to social problems never work.
Stop saying this. It is a stupid meme. Technology has solved many social problems.
Besides, rear ending other cars is not a "social problem".
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Besides, rear ending other cars is not a "social problem".
OK, well don't call it social. How about a human issue? The person in back was following too close for the circumstances. That is a human being issue, not a technological problem. Unless the brakes fail, which they do in like 1 in a million rear end accidents.
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You're not smart. You will never believe this, but it doesn't change the fact.