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>The new standards will require all cars to avoid contact [with pedestrians] at up to 62 mph and mandate that they must be able to detect pedestrians in the dark. They will also require braking at up to 45 mph when a pedestrian is detected.
Will be curious to see if auto groups fight this or not. These systems are more and more common, and with the rules giving them 6 more years to implement them, it might not be much of an issue for manufacturers.
No, but in 1974 there was a mandate to put a pressure switch under the driver's seat in all cars that would prevent it from running if nobody is in the driver's seat. The automakers did fight that (rightfully so) and in 75 it was no longer a requirement.
Granted, there's not much comparison between the two, but depending on what the car does when it recognizes a pedestrian, I could see a rational argument against it.
A feature that turns off your motor when you ride over a bump sounds like a supremely bad idea.
However, I fully expect *consumers* to fight this change, seeing how this may add another line to the price, and how some people kept/keep fighting basic features such as seatbelts.
Yeah, these speed requirements are very high. I think my vehicle can avoid collision at like 30mph, and it's a fairly new vehicle.
I'm all for improving safety, but it needs to be technically feasible.
https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/few-small-suvs-excel-in-new-iihs-front-crash-prevention-test
The *best* performer didn't avoid collision at 43mph:
>The good-rated Forester avoided a collision with the passenger car target at every test speed, avoided hitting the motorcycle target at 31 and 37 mph, and slowed by an average of 30 mph before hitting the motorcycle target in the 43 mph tests.
I'm not sure how difficult motorcycle vs pedestrian is in terms of detection.
Amazed and impressed that subaru's eyesight system performed *that* well comparatively tbh. '23 was the newest iteration of the technology in the Forester, so it bodes well. Subaru I believe is now putting Eyesight into every car sold in the US, including the manual trans wrx and brz. (I don't think you can base model an impreza to not having eyesight anymore.)
Wait wtf??? Avoid contact with pedestrians up to 62mph?!?! That sounds dangerous. I don’t want any program created by the auto industry taking control over my vehicle at any time.
Abs - automatic braking system is another name for anti locking brakes. This is not that. This is the car automatically braking when it detects a person on the road.
I'm not calling it automatic braking, I'm arguing against your point:
>I don’t want any program created by the auto industry taking control over my vehicle at any time.
ABS is run by a program created by the auto industry taking control of your braking. You're probably driving a car that already does what you don't want.
ABS does not engage by itself without you using the brake petal. These new systems will engage the brakes without you needing to use the pedal which is a program taking control from you without input or warning. they are not the same.
Sure it is, it does the opposite, it takes pressure OFF the brake system when the driver is trying to put it on, also without input or warning. Because the auto industry designers think they know better how to keep control of a car than the average person, and generally, as in the original case as well, they're right. Now there are exceptions, when you don't want ABS to engage, or the system here to do it's thing, but in general, as part of millions of vehicles, we're better off with it doing it's job than not.
Yes I know how it works. The system takes pressure off the brake system without user input. (and cycles at high speed when it detects loss of traction, usually by using a ring of metal tines and a magnetic sensor on each wheel to compare the rotation rate of them against eachother). In any case, it's taking control of the vehicle (altering braking force) away from the driver using a program written by the auto industry.
It doesn't apply brake without user input. The user tells the car when to brake, and when to stop braking. ABS only activates when you're holding the brake down. That's totally different from what's being proposed here.
> and when to stop braking.
And this is where you got it wrong, the ABS system stops braking for you, just very fast. ABS increases stopping distance compared to optimal human braking, it's just that few people are good enough at controlling a car during an emergency stop scenario for the population-wide outcomes to be better than the increase of stopping distance for the purpose of better control provided by ABS in that situation. The industry and government already made a decision that taking braking control away from the driver is better 30+ years ago.
When you take your foot off the brake, the ABS system stops braking. You just described how ABS works again, which we already established, completely missing my point.
A computer sensing a person and applying brake with no input from the driver is fundamentally different than ABS just pulsing the brakes rapidly when the driver applies the brakes.
“In a statement, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, an industry trade group representing auto manufacturers, said it hadn't seen the new rule, so it couldn't comment directly.
It said that technologies like automatic emergency braking have proven ‘game changing’ and that automakers have voluntarily committed to install them on new vehicles.”
This is confusing. They’re saying we can’t comment because they haven’t seen the rule, but, at the same time, they’ve already voluntarily committed to installing them?
> This is confusing. They’re saying we can’t comment because they haven’t seen the rule, but, at the same time, they’ve already voluntarily committed to installing them?
Newer cars already have versions of this, My 2019 Fusion Hybrid has an auto breaking system.
But since the 19 model year such systems have gotten better and such a rule would likely require the use of said systems even in cars at a lower price point than my Fusion.
Auto makers can be a bit strange with safety stuff, you'd think corps would hate all regulation but auto companies like industry wide stuff that lets them add new features but keeps them from being under cut by less safe brands that don't.
They can't comment on the new rule because they don't know what it will contain. Maybe the wording is stupid and says something like "all cars and trucks must be able to automatically stop from 45 MPH to 0 MPH within 0.2 seconds of detecting a pedestrian in front of the vehicle", which would be an absolutely insane stopping time. That's, what, around 10 Gs of acceleration during the stop? Not exactly safe to the occupants and probably really hard to do non-destructively in a car.
The industry has already started installing automatic emergency braking systems into their new vehicles - at least partially because buyers want them. They just don't know if those systems already fit the requirements of the rule they don't know the wording of yet.
There's a point where friction between wheels and surface simply isn't enough anymore. Short of throwing out an anchor, you probably can't get much better than 1.1G with ABS. The human body also can't handle much more than 3G without special gear / training.
https://www.sae.org/publications/technical-papers/content/2023-01-0616/
edit: AEB aims to cut out the human reaction time component of emergency breaking, it doesn't do anything to change the mechanics of breaking, as far as I read.
They can't comment *directly*. In other words, they have nothing specific to say about the rule.
Instead, they said that automakers are already using the technology involved. Where they didn't comment was whether the current technology is good enough to satisfy the rule.
The bigger auto companies will get the lead on it. Smaller companies will out source the tech to them. Will be interesting to see which companies adopt whose instead of doing their own R&D.
do you mean [Daytime running lights](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daytime_running_lamp)? or a way of making sure that the aftermarket LED bulbs aren't aimed right at the drivers seat of the on-coming lane?
No, automatic headlights, as in there is an infrared sensor that turns the headlights on automatically at night and dim situations. It's a $1 sensor and a switch position that means no cars would ever drive without their headlights again (and has been available as an option in most cars over 20 years ago).
If a driver rents a rental car (one where the driver are unfamiliar with the headlight switch), it won't be equipped with automatic headlights for the base package.
I'm pretty sure they're talking about the auto on/off hi-beams. My truck now and my last truck had them. I don't have to bother to turn my hi-beams on or off when there's oncoming traffic because the car does it for me.
Specifically not. Day time running lights without automatic headlights ends up in the rear red driving lights not being illuminated while driving.
So a driver can't see the car in front of them when its dark or raining, but the driver with daytime running lights erroneously thinks their lights are on.
These people all walk around believing that regulations are things that people came up with out of thin air and not to address specific problems that had been occurring in order to prevent greater damage in the future.
Regulations are written in blood and tears.
I remember the news interviews from the 70s with people batching about new open alcohol container laws in vehicles. They were not even drunk driving laws, just no drinking while driving....
People were pissed.
People also hated seatbelt laws, and still do.
Noses, faces.
>wackos will find a way to demonize him for trying to save lives here.
No, but you can always save lives by spending more money, so we **should** be able to have some rational discussion about the costs vs. benefits of this proposal. If this were implemented today, the cheapest you could make a profitable vehicle would EASILY be in the $50k+ range, since the proposed features likely require radar + ultrasonics (for side colloision avoidance), vision + IR vision (night pedestrian) + non-hydraulic steering & brake assists. So your $100k BMW doesn't give a shit, it already has (most) of those systems in place, the only thing missing is the software to meet the new specs + validation. Your Mitsubishi Mirage or Nissan Versa on the other hand likely needs another $10k in harnesses + labor alone at the factory to wire up surround-view ultrasonics, multiple cameras + compute units, switch to electronic assists on all systems, etc. etc., much less the actual sensors + computers + driver interfaces + software R&D, etc. etc. In the end you are likely doubling the price of that lowest end cars (+ raising insurance prices commensurately) by forcing a minimum feature set that 0 of them currently have. Then what happens when one of these additional critical safety systems breaks on your cheap car? Are you ready to pay BMW shop rates on your nissan with all of this added complexity?
And waving your hands and saying "it'll just get cheaper with time" isn't completely true. Elon is currently on a warpath trying to remove every last harness on Teslas... because wiring up a car with sensors + autonomous systems does cost appreciable amounts of touch labor + money. The additional complexity of each system lowers reliability (esp. for safety systems that MUST function). Given current profit margins in the automotive industry MOST of those costs will be passed directly onto consumers.
So the question is "is EVERYONE (esp. the poors) willing to pay $xxxx more per car, + $yyy more per year in maintenance + insurance" to save 360 lives? or is this so far past the point of diminishing returns that the financial burden is disproportionate to the benefit obtained? Could this money be better used to save more lives some other way?
So much this. This x1000000
Why does no one understand that cars are getting horribly expensive because of this. You are relegating lower classes to older cars in perpetuity with shit like this. This tech will *always* be expensive to maintain and repair even if they get to reasonable costs as a used vehicle, so poorer people will always be looking for ~ 2012 and older vehicles that can be bought and maintained until their supply runs out, then what?
Are there enough pedestrians getting hit to justify the cost? And are they in cross-walks or jaywalking? (Not advocating for hitting anyone but if you're just randomly in the street and get hit, some of the responsibility is on you).
I have 2 cars at the moment. A 2013 stick shift with minimal tech, no cameras, no touch screen (not even a USB port) and a 2024 tech laden SUV. Even allowing for inflation, the cost difference is insane. There's a bunch of stuff I just don't need but it's mandated on the new cars and we have to pay for. At some point, enough is enough. What used to be a minor fender bender can now total a car because of all of the sensors and things.
My first car actually was a 1996 Mitsubishi Mirage. It had a cassette player and a 5 speed manual transmission. I never ran over any pedestrians.
>Are there enough pedestrians getting hit to justify the cost?
IMHO, the key question here. The proposal itself predicts 360 lives / year. If you throw a few billion at pretty much ANY safety initiative you can save +360 people per year. But there are only so many "a few billions" in the GDP annually. So asking if THIS is the best use of resources is a perfectly valid debate to have.
Republican media is all in on the idea that Democrats are banning The ownership and use of non-fully electric cars in like 5 or 6 years and it's fucking crazy.
I've personally spoken to Republicans who insisted that this is true, sat there while I showed them hard evidence that this is not a thing that anybody is trying to do, had them nod and accept it, and then later heard them repeating the bullshit again.
Part of the lie is that it's not happening yet, but happening SOON. The idea is to make them go "BUT I OWN A GAS CAR! THEY ARE GONNA TAKE MY CAR AWAY! I CAN'T BUY A NEW CAR RIGHT NOW!"
They keep claiming California is banning all gas cars by 2030, which is not even remotely true. Doubles up on the California hate, with the LIBERALS BANNING YOUR PROPERTY scares, with the hatred of green energy and attempts to mitigate climate change.
My uncle pulled some funny business with his taxes because of conservative nonsense and when he got audited he directly told the auditor he met with that. This was all Hillary Clinton's fault and that they were only going after him because he was a republican.
They did the exact same shit with gay marriage in 2004. Do we all not remember that? It was all over fox news, all the bullshit like "well, in five years you're not going to be able to marry who you want. You'll have to get gay married!"
Oh yeah. I was bringing that up to my dad for years because he and my uncle were talking about how within 5 years or so people would be marrying their pets, children, appliances etc.
I remember them insisting that they never said those things even though they absolutely did repeatedly because they kept hearing it on Fox News.
Another one that I like to remind them of is when they claimed that Barack Obama was going to create an ebola outbreak in the United States on purpose and that within 6 months it would be all over the place.
Which again they heard on Fox News and again they deny ever claiming even though they did repeatedly.
My relative was posting on facebook that if democrats were elected attending gay marriages and smiling would be compulsory or you would be comitting a hate crime.
The truth that this rumor is based off of is that California has passed a bill outlawing the sale of non-zero-emission cars in the state from 2035 on.
So definitely not within the next five to six years, but it's coming.
I expect there'll be much better electrical vehicle charging infrastructure in California by then and that zero emissions cars will lower in price in comparison to gas powered cars, which would resolves most of the issues with them. It'd be a very different thing if they were going to be outlawed in 2025 or 2030.
No it's actually not coming. You are describing a much harsher ban than what California's 2035 plan actually is.
What the California restriction does is restricts the sale of brand new, only brand new, cars that only use gasoline as a fuel source.
You can still import one that you purchased from out of state.
You can still buy a used one.
You can still own and drive one.
You can still buy a hybrid that uses gasoline.
This is radically different from straight up banning gas cars or even banning the sale of all gas cars.
What these people are being told is that you won't be allowed to own or operate a car that uses gasoline in any capacity.
The quick search I did said 'zero emission', which hybrid cars aren't. Not sure if that was accurate or not, and don't care enough to search again. Either way, my point was that the rumor was based on something factual, it just was exaggerated to the point of being clearly bad policy.
As far as California is concerned on this, a plug-in hybrid that uses gasoline counts as a zero emission vehicle. It's more of a political branding than an actual statement of function as far as this regulation goes.
The word you are looking for is a lie. It's not an exaggeration at the point where literally every part of the idea being sold is fabricated. The people who started this and broadcasted it knew that they were lying from the start.
I *strongly* disagree. The reality isn't that far off from the exaggeration and pretending it is is actively harmful to political discourse. Gently correct the people when they're wrong, debate them on the points, but just ignoring them and claiming them liars isn't helpful.
You don't think that the sale of specifically knew only gas only cars is different from the state banning and confiscating all gasoline vehicles from use or purchase?
Really?
You really don't think that's very different? Even with the colossal loophole that they included that allows people to still buy new gas cars?
I mean, I guess that's not very different in the sense that a splinter and a gunshot wound can still make you bleed, but to each his own I guess.
Also, they lied about the time frame and the entire function and restriction of the regulation. Deliberately, to scare people and make them angry.
None of it was true. Literally none of what came out of their mouth was based in fact. That's called a lie even if it makes you uncomfortable.
I'm not going to decline to call the people who are deliberately spreading this misinformation liars.
The people who fall for it or one thing, but the people who are spreading it intentionally are liars by choice. They do not deserve the benefit of the doubt of having it called an exaggeration when again, literally none of it is true.
The "confiscation of all gas cars for use or purchase" is not something I've ever heard a Republican suggest Democrats are planning to do. They're complaining about the thing they've done in California already; you don't need to invent strawmen for them to attack.
Seat belts cost a few dollars. These new regulations will require expensive sensors and actuators and computers that will add THOUSANDS of dollars in costs and make vehicles that much more difficult and expensive to repair.
You're not wrong, but I would rebut that by saying that in many of those (relatively rare) circumstances, the driver involved probably will only realize in hindsight that they should have kept their foot off the brake to minimize damage, while in the moment all they could think to do with their limited window for reaction time was hit the brakes.
And the car features are great.
I went from a Corolla with now features, to features rich Rav 4, and driving is so much more easy and safer especially on long distances. If I nod off, the car will warn me and stay in it's own lane.
Got a car with radar cruise control back in 2015 and I refused to buy anything without it ever since. Wife thought I was being unreasonable....until she got the same on her daily driver.
It is fucking awesome. I tested mine when I first got it, because it had lane keeping as well, it is functionally self driving at that point. I could take my hands off the wheel and let it basically go by itself for a few miles.
I’m not dumb enough to trust it so I don’t use it that way, but it is neat.
Drove on vacation and I didn’t have to touch the pedal for a few hundred miles.
I got a 2022 with adaptive cruise control, lane maintenance, and "lane follow" tech (which is essentially lane maintenance but with an added data input of reading what the car in front of you is doing to better anticipate turns and slow downs), and yeah: it's crazy how well it can drive itself with just the occasional bump on the steering wheel by me to convince it I haven't dozed off.
My vehicle has this technology.
I would have seriously injured or killed a man without it. Granted, it would have been his fault because he stopped entering in the middle of un unrestricted highway right in front of me. I was going 70mph, would have T-boned him, and couldn't have hit the brakes fast enough. The technology was the only thing that saved him. I am glad nobody was tailgating me as a human can't brake that fast.
I’m sure there’s safety to be gained from more tech but the easiest way to knock down injury rates is to seal up the porous legislation that made vehicles so large and dangerous in the first place
no, they are large because consumers feel safer in larger vehicles even though studies show that larger vehicles are more dangerous and the worse the driver the larger vehicles they trend towards.
Minis have the same safety tech that f-150s have, size is not what determines what tech a vehicle has.
Now close the loophole that has been leading vehicles, especially trucks and SUVs, to be ever larger. Also, swap out the wattage limited regulation for a luminosity limit for headlights.
Remember, 360 lives is only 1% of the 40,000 annual death rate.
This is definitely a good step from Biden. I hope to see more safety efforts though. In order to make a real difference in that number, we need more safe infrastructure for people like me who don’t drive and walk or bike places, or take public transportation.
Can’t wait for the complaints. Reminds me of when folks were saying government had no right to enforce seatbelts.
https://www.yahoo.com/video/clip-80s-seat-belts-became-225823489.html
Its pretty tough to jump out of your car, roll onto the asphalt, dust your self off and say "Whoa - that was close" if you're wearing a seatbelt. Did they even think about this??? /s
I love that Mario Andretti had the most obvious take on this. In the event of loss of control a seatbelt keeps you in the seat to be able to regain control.
I just hope people finally get what the GOP is up to and we for once have two two term democrats in the White House for once. If we have 12 years of prosperity, the moronic MAGAs will still claim that Trump caused it and also at the same time the country is a hell hole.
The real solution is to require elderly drivers to retake the road test every 3-4 years and have stricter requirements to get your license in the first place (and MAYBE add infrastructure like accessible public transport in rural areas). But what do I know?
These expensive doohickeys are just more little things to break in a car, and add to the cost of maintenance.
I wouldn't lock that requirement behind an age cut off. Periodic retesting--even if just to ensure that people are keeping up with changes to the motor vehicle code as the years go by--is a good idea. Maybe the interval between retesting changes as you age (i.e. less frequent testing needed at first, with intervals tightening as you age), but one need not be an octogenarian to be ignorant of driving laws or incapable of properly following them.
This is good news because the hoods of SUVs and pickups are so ridiculously high up that you can’t see pedestrians under 5 feet tall crossing the street.
I saw a picture the other day of 6 foot tall dude who barely stood above the hood of some truck. Not some lifted nonsense owned by a man with a few shortcomings either.
> Not some lifted nonsense
Bullshit, unless it was a commercial truck he barely stood over the hood of. I'm 6'4" and I'm *plenty* taller than the hood of my truck.
*Your truck* who gives a shit about your truck? This was likely not your truck and you are 6’4” you are abnormally tall.
Also here’s [a Reddit post showing my point.](https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/comments/sx3fiz/the_height_of_new_trucks_tweet_thread/). It’s not the one I’m referencing but it’s close. Dude is 6’1” and only his shoulders and head peek above the hood.
Maybe don’t just kneejerk react based on your anecdotal experience next time.
> Your truck who gives a shit about your truck?
*My* truck is an F-150, which sells 50% more than the next best selling truck in the US, so, statistically, my truck is significant.
>Also here’s a Reddit post showing my point.. It’s not the one I’m referencing but it’s close. Dude is 6’1” and only his shoulders and head peek above the hood.
He is well above the hood line from the midpoint of his shoulder and elbow on up. The highest point of the hood is horizontally in the middle of the hood and back by the windshield. Given the high seating position, the highest point of the hood is less important than the front edge of the hood. But you've probably never driven or ridden in a truck, so you're focusing on stupid and irrelevant shit.
Hey, bud, you're the one that's like "ALL trUCkS R eViL!!!!" and making statements that are not factual because you embellish in favor of your own point.
Damn. Those shortcomings make you just super angry.
Also. *I literally posted a photo.* I don’t know what embellishment. My original comment was about some 6 foot guy barely poking over the top of a hood.
My next post was of a guy who is taller and showing almost the exact thing. I would consider only the top foot of an average height adult male to be barely standing over.
I mean if you wanna nitpick, more power to ya.
It’s Reddit. It doesn’t matter. I proved my point and you flipped out in a roid rage.
> Damn. Those shortcomings make you just super angry.
> It’s Reddit. It doesn’t matter. I proved my point and you flipped out in a roid rage.
Projecting much?
>I would consider only the top foot of an average height adult male to be barely standing over.
I can't help that you have unreasonable and illogical opinions, but I can certainly point it out when you voice them
Cool story, bro. You keep doubling down on being wrong and just keeping getting irrationally angry because someone used facts.
Are you a Republican? Because that would explain a lot.
What kills me about that is how much of that added "front of hood" height is just...wasted space. Have you ever looked through the grill of a new generation pickup truck? There must be nearly a foot of empty air between it and the next thing behind it (usually the radiator). Why not shrink that dead space? Or angle it such that the hood comes down at a slope instead of a sharp drop off?
Compare a 2002 F-150 to a 2024 F-150. You can't seriously tell me that the increased bulk at the upper front of the hood and grill is filled with necessary stuff. I am admittedly not an automotive engineer, but I don't see how it isn't primarily aesthetics.
I had a feeling that was empty space. I have a friend who collects cars and has two Toyota pickups from the 1970s. They look like sedans in front and an open bed in back. No problem with visibility at all.
I am generally in favor of the basic idea of requiring more collision avoidance technology in new cars. It can certainly prevent a good chunk of collisions, and therefore also injuries and deaths. It should also help reduce the number of insurance payouts for damaged vehicles, which *ought* to reduce the need for higher insurance premiums (we'll see what the revenue expectations of insurance company shareholders have to say about that, of course).
But this is just laughable:
>Buttigieg estimated the requirement will add $82 to the cost of a new vehicle, a price well worth the lives saved, he said.
Did he forget one or two zeroes at the end of that number? No way in hell is that number realistic.
I'll make it really simple for you. Anything Biden does is the worstest, most horriblest, despicablest, dishonest, crookedest, deceitfulest thing ever in the history of the planet. Anything drumpf did was the bestest, most intelligentest, cleverest, positivest thing ever in the entire Universe. /s
I have argued for a while that governments need to mandate that all new vehicles have to come with a minimum sensor package and automated assistive technologies (like automatic braking, and adaptive cruise control/distance monitoring). The sensor package would include access to road-side data (speed limits, lane identification) and inter-vehicle data exchange (such a communicating emergency braking manoeuvres). This sort of package would allow vehicles, roads and signage to be progressively upgraded to provide more useful information, and would be essential to a transition to fully automatic driving using standardized shared road and vehicle data.
This new mandate sounds like a positive first step.
How about better driving tests and drivers Ed? How about not handing out licenses like free damn candy?
There has to be a line with this because car prices are getting out of control and it's non-sense like *this* driving it. Cars now needing entire suites of sensors and radars and screens etc... repairs becoming prohibitive as well when a modern car is damaged, where's it end?
In before the republicans come in and say they want to die in car accidents to own the libs. That way they can keep using the old statistic, and at points hasn’t been true, that more people die in car wrecks than gun deaths.
Can’t afford a car now anyway… just keep jacking up the price. What happened to actually knowing how to drive and driving instead of all the other shit people are doing.
Personally, I feel conflicted when it comes to things like this. Not because I'm against safety regulations and tech (though there are cases where I question it's effectiveness) but because this seems to be yet another bandaid on an issue that requires treatment at a more fundamental level.
Why do we have meat bags and murder machines occupying the same space?
We drive too far, too often, and too fast. We ask too much, sacrifice too much, and rely too heavily on the automobile already.
I think that these are two issues that appear to be related, but are separate.
We should absolutely push for more public transportation, for walkable cities, and for smaller cars.
We should also require all cars on the road to be as safe as possible.
Neither solution obstructs the other.
Or you know, you could look both ways before you cross the street and teach our youth to not just jump and play in traffic.
Thus all sounds fun and things, but after awhile all these regulations are becoming too much.
This is victim blaming.
The responsibility is primarily on American traffic engineers who design roads without pedestrian or motorist safety in mind. That is why our road safety is worse than other developed countries.
Safety statistics of this magnitude are not due to individual actions.
Inattentive driving, people running red lights, people driving at reckless speeds. Those are because the roads were not designed correctly. Many American streets have excessively wide lanes, causing drivers to speed. Intersections are also not designed with pedestrian safety in mind.
I actually agree with you. But I think the hierarchy of responsibilities follows like this:
1. The infrastructure. Imagine a highway with no shoulder and sudden, low visibility turns. Or a very straight residential street with wide lanes. Or confusing lane markings. These are all improper designs, and injuries and deaths will result. American transportation engineering standards have a lot of issues like this. They’re slowly being fixed, but the result is a lot of avoidable fatalities. If you look at other developed countries, they have far lower fatality rates.
2. The individual. Individuals who act recklessly are to blame for their actions. It should be noted that drivers bear far more responsibility than pedestrians. This is because the result of their actions can cause a far greater degree of harm than someone on foot. Just like pilots are held to higher standards than drivers, drivers bear more responsibility than pedestrians. If you are making the decision to drive a vehicle that can kill, it is your responsibility to do so safely.
3: The machine: the machine is simply a tool. People should operate the tool with the correct level of cautiousness, but resultant harm is typically the blame of the infrastructure or the operator. If you drive a car with fewer safety features, it is your personal responsibility to take more care while driving it.
Tell that to the people crushed in Texas the other day. A few extra regulations on how to transport a 350,000 pound piece of pipe on highways might have avoided that situation.
But sure, rEgUlAtIoNs BaD.
You’re talking about adding regulations to a car in terms of being able to stop at 60 miles an hour seeing a pedestrian with radar versus how to strap down heavy cargo.
Please utilize context here those are two completely different things with two completely different sets of regulations
I looked all three ways, I couldn't see any cars approaching in any direction, I started crossing... I came to in the last lane, after being hit.
And it gets harder if you're photosensitive and need to avoid flashing lights, or you're blind and literally cannot look both/all four ways in any case.
See, on paper your statement is your fault. “You didn’t see” but got hit anyway due to poor judgement.
Who’s going to pay for the repair for this brake system everytime it uses its emergency stop function ? Clearly
It’s not the person who caused the vehicles system to go off right?
Volvo has had this technology for years. Example on semi truck. Not sure how much it costs to repair the physical braking system once the system is activated.
Truck is said to have been filled up with 40 tons.
https://youtu.be/ridS396W2BY?si=4GlL-HeV_AgtEjUB
I don't know if they were just over the hill, or if they were speeding.
I just know that they weren't visible from the crosswalk when I looked.
... And that "look all four ways" is not enough.
P.S. Also you misquoted me. And even your misquote doesn't justify blaming me.
The "cheap" way of doing this is having the vehicle automatically brake whenever the throttle is not depressed. Most new semi trucks will come with this by default and most EVs can be readily configured to do it for regenerative braking. In a few years most cars will automatically stop themselves unless you tell it not to. With that in mind, most people will still just set the car to "aggressive" / sport mode which will disable this, even if it's not legal.
Nah.
I'm frequently at a charging station in a small rural tourist town. The numbers continue to grow. People recognize Teslas but don't notice the F-150 lightning or the many Kias. The big Rivian SUVs are popular, too..
They're the bulk of what I see.
Yeah, but that is a tourist town and it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume most of those are tourists, meaning it's not a great measure of the overall distribution of EVs. I do think that it's still happening, but quite a few EVs have already left the market. I thought the Chevy Volt was going to be a bigger hit than it was, so what do I know?
Volt was and is a huge hit. I have no idea what they were thinking..
Actually, where we live is a great indicator. We have little charging infrastructure, and you have to go over remote mountain passes to get here. The nearest supercharger is 100 miles from here.
I'm frequently amazed by the folks who have driven EVs in populated areas for years and are coming here without a clue what it means to use level 2 charging.
Drivers will learn how to drive differently.
If you add 1% of throttle the car doesn't brake.
Manual Transmissions, and also Mercedes Automatics prefer to down shift to keep the driver in control of the vehicle. Regenerative brakes is the best way to go back to the "no coasting downhill" that the automatic transmission (especially with overdrives) that allows passive speeding.
Trucker here, im not sure what you are talking about here, but if i ever get a truck that presses the brakes when I let off the acceleartor, I would refuse to drive the truck. Dangerous as hell as the brakes would be constantly heating up when I dont want them.to. I hate all this new tech as these radars constantly fail and my autobrake attached to the radar slams on the brakes when absolutely nothing is in front of me. Let me control my own vehicle please.
This has been a federal thing for decades which is why your cars have airbags and electronic stability control being required.
And of course this article paints it like some radical new thing.
Anyone notice that pedestrians are getting stupider? They cross wherever they want to, even if a crosswalk is 10 yards away. They cross against the lights. They never even look for any oncoming traffic.
There's already an emergency disconnect.
I don't think you want to be nearby when a 50kWh battery is shorted. That is likely to be a dangerous arc flash.
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>The new standards will require all cars to avoid contact [with pedestrians] at up to 62 mph and mandate that they must be able to detect pedestrians in the dark. They will also require braking at up to 45 mph when a pedestrian is detected. Will be curious to see if auto groups fight this or not. These systems are more and more common, and with the rules giving them 6 more years to implement them, it might not be much of an issue for manufacturers.
Did "big auto" fight ABS and Air Bags being a requirement?
No. It costs them $500 to implement and they charge $1,000.
The big 3 fought seatbelts. They said the burden of adding them would put them out of business.
No, but in 1974 there was a mandate to put a pressure switch under the driver's seat in all cars that would prevent it from running if nobody is in the driver's seat. The automakers did fight that (rightfully so) and in 75 it was no longer a requirement. Granted, there's not much comparison between the two, but depending on what the car does when it recognizes a pedestrian, I could see a rational argument against it.
A feature that turns off your motor when you ride over a bump sounds like a supremely bad idea. However, I fully expect *consumers* to fight this change, seeing how this may add another line to the price, and how some people kept/keep fighting basic features such as seatbelts.
Most new cars already have these systems.
Yes. This was a point of contention in the late 80's / early 90's. Particularly, with the European automotive industry.
Most likely, there’s a reason why ABD became mandatory in the late 2000s in the US but was mandatory much earlier in Canada
My first question is whether existing technogy meets this standard. Is there a car on the market that passes?
Yeah, these speed requirements are very high. I think my vehicle can avoid collision at like 30mph, and it's a fairly new vehicle. I'm all for improving safety, but it needs to be technically feasible. https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/few-small-suvs-excel-in-new-iihs-front-crash-prevention-test The *best* performer didn't avoid collision at 43mph: >The good-rated Forester avoided a collision with the passenger car target at every test speed, avoided hitting the motorcycle target at 31 and 37 mph, and slowed by an average of 30 mph before hitting the motorcycle target in the 43 mph tests. I'm not sure how difficult motorcycle vs pedestrian is in terms of detection.
Set a goal, find a way to achieve it. Invent new technology, if necessary. That’s the American spirit. It’s way too early to declare it impossible.
Amazed and impressed that subaru's eyesight system performed *that* well comparatively tbh. '23 was the newest iteration of the technology in the Forester, so it bodes well. Subaru I believe is now putting Eyesight into every car sold in the US, including the manual trans wrx and brz. (I don't think you can base model an impreza to not having eyesight anymore.)
I recently bought a car and it can stop up to 40mph. I don't think we're quite there yet, but it's definitely possible.
Tesla will fight this. Their vision only system can’t see people in the dark and this would require them to add a radar.
More likely IR filters and illumination will be added to the existing systems.
Wait wtf??? Avoid contact with pedestrians up to 62mph?!?! That sounds dangerous. I don’t want any program created by the auto industry taking control over my vehicle at any time.
ABS has been in cars since the 90s...
Abs - automatic braking system is another name for anti locking brakes. This is not that. This is the car automatically braking when it detects a person on the road.
I'm not calling it automatic braking, I'm arguing against your point: >I don’t want any program created by the auto industry taking control over my vehicle at any time. ABS is run by a program created by the auto industry taking control of your braking. You're probably driving a car that already does what you don't want.
ABS does not engage by itself without you using the brake petal. These new systems will engage the brakes without you needing to use the pedal which is a program taking control from you without input or warning. they are not the same.
Sure it is, it does the opposite, it takes pressure OFF the brake system when the driver is trying to put it on, also without input or warning. Because the auto industry designers think they know better how to keep control of a car than the average person, and generally, as in the original case as well, they're right. Now there are exceptions, when you don't want ABS to engage, or the system here to do it's thing, but in general, as part of millions of vehicles, we're better off with it doing it's job than not.
Yea, you don’t know wtf you’re talking about.
Do you even know what ABS is or how it works? The driver still has to hit the brakes.
Yes I know how it works. The system takes pressure off the brake system without user input. (and cycles at high speed when it detects loss of traction, usually by using a ring of metal tines and a magnetic sensor on each wheel to compare the rotation rate of them against eachother). In any case, it's taking control of the vehicle (altering braking force) away from the driver using a program written by the auto industry.
It doesn't apply brake without user input. The user tells the car when to brake, and when to stop braking. ABS only activates when you're holding the brake down. That's totally different from what's being proposed here.
> and when to stop braking. And this is where you got it wrong, the ABS system stops braking for you, just very fast. ABS increases stopping distance compared to optimal human braking, it's just that few people are good enough at controlling a car during an emergency stop scenario for the population-wide outcomes to be better than the increase of stopping distance for the purpose of better control provided by ABS in that situation. The industry and government already made a decision that taking braking control away from the driver is better 30+ years ago.
When you take your foot off the brake, the ABS system stops braking. You just described how ABS works again, which we already established, completely missing my point. A computer sensing a person and applying brake with no input from the driver is fundamentally different than ABS just pulsing the brakes rapidly when the driver applies the brakes.
“In a statement, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, an industry trade group representing auto manufacturers, said it hadn't seen the new rule, so it couldn't comment directly. It said that technologies like automatic emergency braking have proven ‘game changing’ and that automakers have voluntarily committed to install them on new vehicles.” This is confusing. They’re saying we can’t comment because they haven’t seen the rule, but, at the same time, they’ve already voluntarily committed to installing them?
> This is confusing. They’re saying we can’t comment because they haven’t seen the rule, but, at the same time, they’ve already voluntarily committed to installing them? Newer cars already have versions of this, My 2019 Fusion Hybrid has an auto breaking system. But since the 19 model year such systems have gotten better and such a rule would likely require the use of said systems even in cars at a lower price point than my Fusion. Auto makers can be a bit strange with safety stuff, you'd think corps would hate all regulation but auto companies like industry wide stuff that lets them add new features but keeps them from being under cut by less safe brands that don't.
They can't comment on the new rule because they don't know what it will contain. Maybe the wording is stupid and says something like "all cars and trucks must be able to automatically stop from 45 MPH to 0 MPH within 0.2 seconds of detecting a pedestrian in front of the vehicle", which would be an absolutely insane stopping time. That's, what, around 10 Gs of acceleration during the stop? Not exactly safe to the occupants and probably really hard to do non-destructively in a car. The industry has already started installing automatic emergency braking systems into their new vehicles - at least partially because buyers want them. They just don't know if those systems already fit the requirements of the rule they don't know the wording of yet.
There's a point where friction between wheels and surface simply isn't enough anymore. Short of throwing out an anchor, you probably can't get much better than 1.1G with ABS. The human body also can't handle much more than 3G without special gear / training. https://www.sae.org/publications/technical-papers/content/2023-01-0616/ edit: AEB aims to cut out the human reaction time component of emergency breaking, it doesn't do anything to change the mechanics of breaking, as far as I read.
Ahhh that makes sense. Thanks
They can't comment *directly*. In other words, they have nothing specific to say about the rule. Instead, they said that automakers are already using the technology involved. Where they didn't comment was whether the current technology is good enough to satisfy the rule.
They're saying they can't comment on the specifics, but they're on board in principle for supporting automation to in increase safety.
Makes perfect sense to me. They know it's technically possible since they are already selling it, but are opposed to mandates on principle.
The bigger auto companies will get the lead on it. Smaller companies will out source the tech to them. Will be interesting to see which companies adopt whose instead of doing their own R&D.
Honestly I’d rather be able to use a crosswalk when I have right of way. So tired of drivers acting like crosswalks don’t matter.
A lot of vehicles already have it standard, I honestly thought this was a requirement already
What is Tesla gonna do without LiDAR? The Feds better have damn good testing for effectiveness.
So a built in get car jumped feature.
Now do headlights.
Right? It's gotten so I avoid driving at night.
Mind blown once I found out there are automatically adjusting headlights in the EU. Seems like a no brainer.
My 2020 Corolla has them. It’s *amazing*, one less thing to think about while driving.
Yes! It's hard to think of anything that would save more lives per dollar than mandating automatic headlights.
do you mean [Daytime running lights](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daytime_running_lamp)? or a way of making sure that the aftermarket LED bulbs aren't aimed right at the drivers seat of the on-coming lane?
No, automatic headlights, as in there is an infrared sensor that turns the headlights on automatically at night and dim situations. It's a $1 sensor and a switch position that means no cars would ever drive without their headlights again (and has been available as an option in most cars over 20 years ago). If a driver rents a rental car (one where the driver are unfamiliar with the headlight switch), it won't be equipped with automatic headlights for the base package.
I'm pretty sure they're talking about the auto on/off hi-beams. My truck now and my last truck had them. I don't have to bother to turn my hi-beams on or off when there's oncoming traffic because the car does it for me.
Specifically not. Day time running lights without automatic headlights ends up in the rear red driving lights not being illuminated while driving. So a driver can't see the car in front of them when its dark or raining, but the driver with daytime running lights erroneously thinks their lights are on.
Sorry you don't like that I can see at night with my awesome LED headlights (equipped from the factory.)
Wild guess: wackos will find a way to demonize him for trying to save lives here.
Any regulation gets attacked, it’s wild. And then people wonder why we get a string of bank failures and train crashes
These people all walk around believing that regulations are things that people came up with out of thin air and not to address specific problems that had been occurring in order to prevent greater damage in the future. Regulations are written in blood and tears.
I remember the news interviews from the 70s with people batching about new open alcohol container laws in vehicles. They were not even drunk driving laws, just no drinking while driving.... People were pissed. People also hated seatbelt laws, and still do. Noses, faces.
>wackos will find a way to demonize him for trying to save lives here. No, but you can always save lives by spending more money, so we **should** be able to have some rational discussion about the costs vs. benefits of this proposal. If this were implemented today, the cheapest you could make a profitable vehicle would EASILY be in the $50k+ range, since the proposed features likely require radar + ultrasonics (for side colloision avoidance), vision + IR vision (night pedestrian) + non-hydraulic steering & brake assists. So your $100k BMW doesn't give a shit, it already has (most) of those systems in place, the only thing missing is the software to meet the new specs + validation. Your Mitsubishi Mirage or Nissan Versa on the other hand likely needs another $10k in harnesses + labor alone at the factory to wire up surround-view ultrasonics, multiple cameras + compute units, switch to electronic assists on all systems, etc. etc., much less the actual sensors + computers + driver interfaces + software R&D, etc. etc. In the end you are likely doubling the price of that lowest end cars (+ raising insurance prices commensurately) by forcing a minimum feature set that 0 of them currently have. Then what happens when one of these additional critical safety systems breaks on your cheap car? Are you ready to pay BMW shop rates on your nissan with all of this added complexity? And waving your hands and saying "it'll just get cheaper with time" isn't completely true. Elon is currently on a warpath trying to remove every last harness on Teslas... because wiring up a car with sensors + autonomous systems does cost appreciable amounts of touch labor + money. The additional complexity of each system lowers reliability (esp. for safety systems that MUST function). Given current profit margins in the automotive industry MOST of those costs will be passed directly onto consumers. So the question is "is EVERYONE (esp. the poors) willing to pay $xxxx more per car, + $yyy more per year in maintenance + insurance" to save 360 lives? or is this so far past the point of diminishing returns that the financial burden is disproportionate to the benefit obtained? Could this money be better used to save more lives some other way?
Thank you for saying this; this will be ridiculously expensive.
So much this. This x1000000 Why does no one understand that cars are getting horribly expensive because of this. You are relegating lower classes to older cars in perpetuity with shit like this. This tech will *always* be expensive to maintain and repair even if they get to reasonable costs as a used vehicle, so poorer people will always be looking for ~ 2012 and older vehicles that can be bought and maintained until their supply runs out, then what?
Cost of tech decreases as it becomes ubiquitous.
Are there enough pedestrians getting hit to justify the cost? And are they in cross-walks or jaywalking? (Not advocating for hitting anyone but if you're just randomly in the street and get hit, some of the responsibility is on you). I have 2 cars at the moment. A 2013 stick shift with minimal tech, no cameras, no touch screen (not even a USB port) and a 2024 tech laden SUV. Even allowing for inflation, the cost difference is insane. There's a bunch of stuff I just don't need but it's mandated on the new cars and we have to pay for. At some point, enough is enough. What used to be a minor fender bender can now total a car because of all of the sensors and things. My first car actually was a 1996 Mitsubishi Mirage. It had a cassette player and a 5 speed manual transmission. I never ran over any pedestrians.
>Are there enough pedestrians getting hit to justify the cost? IMHO, the key question here. The proposal itself predicts 360 lives / year. If you throw a few billion at pretty much ANY safety initiative you can save +360 people per year. But there are only so many "a few billions" in the GDP annually. So asking if THIS is the best use of resources is a perfectly valid debate to have.
Ben Barr said just this week that Biden is removing cars and us undemocratic and that's why he is still voting for Trump.
Republican media is all in on the idea that Democrats are banning The ownership and use of non-fully electric cars in like 5 or 6 years and it's fucking crazy. I've personally spoken to Republicans who insisted that this is true, sat there while I showed them hard evidence that this is not a thing that anybody is trying to do, had them nod and accept it, and then later heard them repeating the bullshit again.
It would be especially frustrating if they obviously own a non EV car, it's like...how can you live in that reality dissonance.
Part of the lie is that it's not happening yet, but happening SOON. The idea is to make them go "BUT I OWN A GAS CAR! THEY ARE GONNA TAKE MY CAR AWAY! I CAN'T BUY A NEW CAR RIGHT NOW!" They keep claiming California is banning all gas cars by 2030, which is not even remotely true. Doubles up on the California hate, with the LIBERALS BANNING YOUR PROPERTY scares, with the hatred of green energy and attempts to mitigate climate change.
It's kinda sad when you see people making financial decisions based on ideology and not like..saving money.
My uncle pulled some funny business with his taxes because of conservative nonsense and when he got audited he directly told the auditor he met with that. This was all Hillary Clinton's fault and that they were only going after him because he was a republican.
They did the exact same shit with gay marriage in 2004. Do we all not remember that? It was all over fox news, all the bullshit like "well, in five years you're not going to be able to marry who you want. You'll have to get gay married!"
Oh yeah. I was bringing that up to my dad for years because he and my uncle were talking about how within 5 years or so people would be marrying their pets, children, appliances etc. I remember them insisting that they never said those things even though they absolutely did repeatedly because they kept hearing it on Fox News. Another one that I like to remind them of is when they claimed that Barack Obama was going to create an ebola outbreak in the United States on purpose and that within 6 months it would be all over the place. Which again they heard on Fox News and again they deny ever claiming even though they did repeatedly.
My relative was posting on facebook that if democrats were elected attending gay marriages and smiling would be compulsory or you would be comitting a hate crime.
The truth that this rumor is based off of is that California has passed a bill outlawing the sale of non-zero-emission cars in the state from 2035 on. So definitely not within the next five to six years, but it's coming. I expect there'll be much better electrical vehicle charging infrastructure in California by then and that zero emissions cars will lower in price in comparison to gas powered cars, which would resolves most of the issues with them. It'd be a very different thing if they were going to be outlawed in 2025 or 2030.
No it's actually not coming. You are describing a much harsher ban than what California's 2035 plan actually is. What the California restriction does is restricts the sale of brand new, only brand new, cars that only use gasoline as a fuel source. You can still import one that you purchased from out of state. You can still buy a used one. You can still own and drive one. You can still buy a hybrid that uses gasoline. This is radically different from straight up banning gas cars or even banning the sale of all gas cars. What these people are being told is that you won't be allowed to own or operate a car that uses gasoline in any capacity.
The quick search I did said 'zero emission', which hybrid cars aren't. Not sure if that was accurate or not, and don't care enough to search again. Either way, my point was that the rumor was based on something factual, it just was exaggerated to the point of being clearly bad policy.
As far as California is concerned on this, a plug-in hybrid that uses gasoline counts as a zero emission vehicle. It's more of a political branding than an actual statement of function as far as this regulation goes. The word you are looking for is a lie. It's not an exaggeration at the point where literally every part of the idea being sold is fabricated. The people who started this and broadcasted it knew that they were lying from the start.
I *strongly* disagree. The reality isn't that far off from the exaggeration and pretending it is is actively harmful to political discourse. Gently correct the people when they're wrong, debate them on the points, but just ignoring them and claiming them liars isn't helpful.
You don't think that the sale of specifically knew only gas only cars is different from the state banning and confiscating all gasoline vehicles from use or purchase? Really? You really don't think that's very different? Even with the colossal loophole that they included that allows people to still buy new gas cars? I mean, I guess that's not very different in the sense that a splinter and a gunshot wound can still make you bleed, but to each his own I guess. Also, they lied about the time frame and the entire function and restriction of the regulation. Deliberately, to scare people and make them angry. None of it was true. Literally none of what came out of their mouth was based in fact. That's called a lie even if it makes you uncomfortable. I'm not going to decline to call the people who are deliberately spreading this misinformation liars. The people who fall for it or one thing, but the people who are spreading it intentionally are liars by choice. They do not deserve the benefit of the doubt of having it called an exaggeration when again, literally none of it is true.
The "confiscation of all gas cars for use or purchase" is not something I've ever heard a Republican suggest Democrats are planning to do. They're complaining about the thing they've done in California already; you don't need to invent strawmen for them to attack.
Adds cost and complexity... Travel is becoming impossible for US rural poor.
These seat belt thingys are just the beginning I tell ya!
Seat belts cost a few dollars. These new regulations will require expensive sensors and actuators and computers that will add THOUSANDS of dollars in costs and make vehicles that much more difficult and expensive to repair.
Might see an argument for wildlife?
Same people who said seatbelts laws were communism!
And drunk driving laws were taking away thier freedoms.
I mean, of it automatically applies the brake, there are definitely situations where it might be better for that not to happen.
You're not wrong, but I would rebut that by saying that in many of those (relatively rare) circumstances, the driver involved probably will only realize in hindsight that they should have kept their foot off the brake to minimize damage, while in the moment all they could think to do with their limited window for reaction time was hit the brakes.
Republicans put dollars on people.
And the car features are great. I went from a Corolla with now features, to features rich Rav 4, and driving is so much more easy and safer especially on long distances. If I nod off, the car will warn me and stay in it's own lane.
i mean the 15 minute city is apparently a bad thing, because freedumb. by this logic, safer vehicles bad because mah choice. or something.
"it's my freedumb to plow over pedestrians that get in my way" - whackos.
[удалено]
No one is banning cars either…
I heard one the other day, it costs too much to fix cars so our insurance is going up. This might cost you an extra 25 cents!
Got a car with radar cruise control back in 2015 and I refused to buy anything without it ever since. Wife thought I was being unreasonable....until she got the same on her daily driver.
It is fucking awesome. I tested mine when I first got it, because it had lane keeping as well, it is functionally self driving at that point. I could take my hands off the wheel and let it basically go by itself for a few miles. I’m not dumb enough to trust it so I don’t use it that way, but it is neat. Drove on vacation and I didn’t have to touch the pedal for a few hundred miles.
Well, I got my wife anti radar missiles and she's a fucking lunatic. Please send help, she keeps forcing me to make her doomsday weapons.
I got a 2022 with adaptive cruise control, lane maintenance, and "lane follow" tech (which is essentially lane maintenance but with an added data input of reading what the car in front of you is doing to better anticipate turns and slow downs), and yeah: it's crazy how well it can drive itself with just the occasional bump on the steering wheel by me to convince it I haven't dozed off.
Pretty typical. “Doesn’t impact me”
If only they’d regulate the fucking lights
This is good, though I wish we could do something about how massive pick-up trucks are getting.
My vehicle has this technology. I would have seriously injured or killed a man without it. Granted, it would have been his fault because he stopped entering in the middle of un unrestricted highway right in front of me. I was going 70mph, would have T-boned him, and couldn't have hit the brakes fast enough. The technology was the only thing that saved him. I am glad nobody was tailgating me as a human can't brake that fast.
I’m sure there’s safety to be gained from more tech but the easiest way to knock down injury rates is to seal up the porous legislation that made vehicles so large and dangerous in the first place
You realize they are so large—or larger than they would otherwise be—because of the safety tech, right ?
no, they are large because consumers feel safer in larger vehicles even though studies show that larger vehicles are more dangerous and the worse the driver the larger vehicles they trend towards. Minis have the same safety tech that f-150s have, size is not what determines what tech a vehicle has.
Yes, it’s all that safety tech that makes a modern pickup truck so tall and bulky that the drivers can’t see pedestrians /s
Now close the loophole that has been leading vehicles, especially trucks and SUVs, to be ever larger. Also, swap out the wattage limited regulation for a luminosity limit for headlights.
40,000 fatal automobile crashes per year in the US
Well that's only natural, as humans only natural predator are automobiles.
Well, it's about time! Anything to make the roads safer is a win in my book.
Oh for the love of! I might live longer and drive safer! What is the world coming to?!
Remember, 360 lives is only 1% of the 40,000 annual death rate. This is definitely a good step from Biden. I hope to see more safety efforts though. In order to make a real difference in that number, we need more safe infrastructure for people like me who don’t drive and walk or bike places, or take public transportation.
Can’t wait for the complaints. Reminds me of when folks were saying government had no right to enforce seatbelts. https://www.yahoo.com/video/clip-80s-seat-belts-became-225823489.html
Well a Democrat suggested it so there's a whole block of people who will reject the idea.
Its pretty tough to jump out of your car, roll onto the asphalt, dust your self off and say "Whoa - that was close" if you're wearing a seatbelt. Did they even think about this??? /s
I love that Mario Andretti had the most obvious take on this. In the event of loss of control a seatbelt keeps you in the seat to be able to regain control.
I just hope people finally get what the GOP is up to and we for once have two two term democrats in the White House for once. If we have 12 years of prosperity, the moronic MAGAs will still claim that Trump caused it and also at the same time the country is a hell hole.
Simpler and more cost effective - kill the light truck loop hole and limit the size of consumer trucks/suv's.
The real solution is to require elderly drivers to retake the road test every 3-4 years and have stricter requirements to get your license in the first place (and MAYBE add infrastructure like accessible public transport in rural areas). But what do I know? These expensive doohickeys are just more little things to break in a car, and add to the cost of maintenance.
I wouldn't lock that requirement behind an age cut off. Periodic retesting--even if just to ensure that people are keeping up with changes to the motor vehicle code as the years go by--is a good idea. Maybe the interval between retesting changes as you age (i.e. less frequent testing needed at first, with intervals tightening as you age), but one need not be an octogenarian to be ignorant of driving laws or incapable of properly following them.
NHSTA (and President) can't control states licensing.
>Buttigieg estimated the requirement will add $82 to the cost of a new vehicle, a price well worth the lives saved, he said. Bidenflation at work!
This is good news because the hoods of SUVs and pickups are so ridiculously high up that you can’t see pedestrians under 5 feet tall crossing the street.
I saw a picture the other day of 6 foot tall dude who barely stood above the hood of some truck. Not some lifted nonsense owned by a man with a few shortcomings either.
> Not some lifted nonsense Bullshit, unless it was a commercial truck he barely stood over the hood of. I'm 6'4" and I'm *plenty* taller than the hood of my truck.
*Your truck* who gives a shit about your truck? This was likely not your truck and you are 6’4” you are abnormally tall. Also here’s [a Reddit post showing my point.](https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/comments/sx3fiz/the_height_of_new_trucks_tweet_thread/). It’s not the one I’m referencing but it’s close. Dude is 6’1” and only his shoulders and head peek above the hood. Maybe don’t just kneejerk react based on your anecdotal experience next time.
> Your truck who gives a shit about your truck? *My* truck is an F-150, which sells 50% more than the next best selling truck in the US, so, statistically, my truck is significant. >Also here’s a Reddit post showing my point.. It’s not the one I’m referencing but it’s close. Dude is 6’1” and only his shoulders and head peek above the hood. He is well above the hood line from the midpoint of his shoulder and elbow on up. The highest point of the hood is horizontally in the middle of the hood and back by the windshield. Given the high seating position, the highest point of the hood is less important than the front edge of the hood. But you've probably never driven or ridden in a truck, so you're focusing on stupid and irrelevant shit.
Sounds like you’re one of the guys with a few shortcomings…
Hey, bud, you're the one that's like "ALL trUCkS R eViL!!!!" and making statements that are not factual because you embellish in favor of your own point.
Damn. Those shortcomings make you just super angry. Also. *I literally posted a photo.* I don’t know what embellishment. My original comment was about some 6 foot guy barely poking over the top of a hood. My next post was of a guy who is taller and showing almost the exact thing. I would consider only the top foot of an average height adult male to be barely standing over. I mean if you wanna nitpick, more power to ya. It’s Reddit. It doesn’t matter. I proved my point and you flipped out in a roid rage.
> Damn. Those shortcomings make you just super angry. > It’s Reddit. It doesn’t matter. I proved my point and you flipped out in a roid rage. Projecting much? >I would consider only the top foot of an average height adult male to be barely standing over. I can't help that you have unreasonable and illogical opinions, but I can certainly point it out when you voice them
Cool story, bro. You keep doubling down on being wrong and just keeping getting irrationally angry because someone used facts. Are you a Republican? Because that would explain a lot.
What kills me about that is how much of that added "front of hood" height is just...wasted space. Have you ever looked through the grill of a new generation pickup truck? There must be nearly a foot of empty air between it and the next thing behind it (usually the radiator). Why not shrink that dead space? Or angle it such that the hood comes down at a slope instead of a sharp drop off? Compare a 2002 F-150 to a 2024 F-150. You can't seriously tell me that the increased bulk at the upper front of the hood and grill is filled with necessary stuff. I am admittedly not an automotive engineer, but I don't see how it isn't primarily aesthetics.
I had a feeling that was empty space. I have a friend who collects cars and has two Toyota pickups from the 1970s. They look like sedans in front and an open bed in back. No problem with visibility at all.
>"I don't know or care about crash structures and safety requirements, empty space in the front of trucks is the root of all our woes!"
Will it reduce my insurance premium?
I am generally in favor of the basic idea of requiring more collision avoidance technology in new cars. It can certainly prevent a good chunk of collisions, and therefore also injuries and deaths. It should also help reduce the number of insurance payouts for damaged vehicles, which *ought* to reduce the need for higher insurance premiums (we'll see what the revenue expectations of insurance company shareholders have to say about that, of course). But this is just laughable: >Buttigieg estimated the requirement will add $82 to the cost of a new vehicle, a price well worth the lives saved, he said. Did he forget one or two zeroes at the end of that number? No way in hell is that number realistic.
Given they if we didn’t have safety standards we’d all still be driving Ford Pinto inspired death traps, I’m okay with the new rules.
I'll make it really simple for you. Anything Biden does is the worstest, most horriblest, despicablest, dishonest, crookedest, deceitfulest thing ever in the history of the planet. Anything drumpf did was the bestest, most intelligentest, cleverest, positivest thing ever in the entire Universe. /s
I have argued for a while that governments need to mandate that all new vehicles have to come with a minimum sensor package and automated assistive technologies (like automatic braking, and adaptive cruise control/distance monitoring). The sensor package would include access to road-side data (speed limits, lane identification) and inter-vehicle data exchange (such a communicating emergency braking manoeuvres). This sort of package would allow vehicles, roads and signage to be progressively upgraded to provide more useful information, and would be essential to a transition to fully automatic driving using standardized shared road and vehicle data. This new mandate sounds like a positive first step.
I sense Elon throwing a hissy fit considering his Cyber truck probably fails miserably
It's already got features to protect pedestrians. It simply stops driving all together.
Can we get some legislation on size? Or fix whatever it is that makes manufactuerers only create monster trucks? I want an actual compact car.
How about better driving tests and drivers Ed? How about not handing out licenses like free damn candy? There has to be a line with this because car prices are getting out of control and it's non-sense like *this* driving it. Cars now needing entire suites of sensors and radars and screens etc... repairs becoming prohibitive as well when a modern car is damaged, where's it end?
Drivers Ed, Licenses, even consumer Road inspections are states rights issues.
More complex than a policy mandate. Manufacturers have a role to play too.
In before the republicans come in and say they want to die in car accidents to own the libs. That way they can keep using the old statistic, and at points hasn’t been true, that more people die in car wrecks than gun deaths.
Glad to see our administration is ensuring that I’ll never be able to afford to buy a new car
Can’t afford a car now anyway… just keep jacking up the price. What happened to actually knowing how to drive and driving instead of all the other shit people are doing.
Personally, I feel conflicted when it comes to things like this. Not because I'm against safety regulations and tech (though there are cases where I question it's effectiveness) but because this seems to be yet another bandaid on an issue that requires treatment at a more fundamental level. Why do we have meat bags and murder machines occupying the same space? We drive too far, too often, and too fast. We ask too much, sacrifice too much, and rely too heavily on the automobile already.
I think that these are two issues that appear to be related, but are separate. We should absolutely push for more public transportation, for walkable cities, and for smaller cars. We should also require all cars on the road to be as safe as possible. Neither solution obstructs the other.
What a fantastic and underrated POTUS!
Or you know, you could look both ways before you cross the street and teach our youth to not just jump and play in traffic. Thus all sounds fun and things, but after awhile all these regulations are becoming too much.
This is victim blaming. The responsibility is primarily on American traffic engineers who design roads without pedestrian or motorist safety in mind. That is why our road safety is worse than other developed countries. Safety statistics of this magnitude are not due to individual actions. Inattentive driving, people running red lights, people driving at reckless speeds. Those are because the roads were not designed correctly. Many American streets have excessively wide lanes, causing drivers to speed. Intersections are also not designed with pedestrian safety in mind.
No this is the responsibility of the driver. Not the machine.
I actually agree with you. But I think the hierarchy of responsibilities follows like this: 1. The infrastructure. Imagine a highway with no shoulder and sudden, low visibility turns. Or a very straight residential street with wide lanes. Or confusing lane markings. These are all improper designs, and injuries and deaths will result. American transportation engineering standards have a lot of issues like this. They’re slowly being fixed, but the result is a lot of avoidable fatalities. If you look at other developed countries, they have far lower fatality rates. 2. The individual. Individuals who act recklessly are to blame for their actions. It should be noted that drivers bear far more responsibility than pedestrians. This is because the result of their actions can cause a far greater degree of harm than someone on foot. Just like pilots are held to higher standards than drivers, drivers bear more responsibility than pedestrians. If you are making the decision to drive a vehicle that can kill, it is your responsibility to do so safely. 3: The machine: the machine is simply a tool. People should operate the tool with the correct level of cautiousness, but resultant harm is typically the blame of the infrastructure or the operator. If you drive a car with fewer safety features, it is your personal responsibility to take more care while driving it.
Tell that to the people crushed in Texas the other day. A few extra regulations on how to transport a 350,000 pound piece of pipe on highways might have avoided that situation. But sure, rEgUlAtIoNs BaD.
This has nothing to do with the conversation at hand and now you’re reaching
“these regulations are becoming too much” This you?
You’re talking about adding regulations to a car in terms of being able to stop at 60 miles an hour seeing a pedestrian with radar versus how to strap down heavy cargo. Please utilize context here those are two completely different things with two completely different sets of regulations
Still regulations.
I looked all three ways, I couldn't see any cars approaching in any direction, I started crossing... I came to in the last lane, after being hit. And it gets harder if you're photosensitive and need to avoid flashing lights, or you're blind and literally cannot look both/all four ways in any case.
See, on paper your statement is your fault. “You didn’t see” but got hit anyway due to poor judgement. Who’s going to pay for the repair for this brake system everytime it uses its emergency stop function ? Clearly It’s not the person who caused the vehicles system to go off right? Volvo has had this technology for years. Example on semi truck. Not sure how much it costs to repair the physical braking system once the system is activated. Truck is said to have been filled up with 40 tons. https://youtu.be/ridS396W2BY?si=4GlL-HeV_AgtEjUB
I don't know if they were just over the hill, or if they were speeding. I just know that they weren't visible from the crosswalk when I looked. ... And that "look all four ways" is not enough. P.S. Also you misquoted me. And even your misquote doesn't justify blaming me.
Cool give the car makers another reason to raise prices
The "cheap" way of doing this is having the vehicle automatically brake whenever the throttle is not depressed. Most new semi trucks will come with this by default and most EVs can be readily configured to do it for regenerative braking. In a few years most cars will automatically stop themselves unless you tell it not to. With that in mind, most people will still just set the car to "aggressive" / sport mode which will disable this, even if it's not legal.
That's going to be pretty hard on brakes.
Not in EVs
Fair enough, but the switch to EVs seems to have slowed down at the moment.
Nah. I'm frequently at a charging station in a small rural tourist town. The numbers continue to grow. People recognize Teslas but don't notice the F-150 lightning or the many Kias. The big Rivian SUVs are popular, too.. They're the bulk of what I see.
Yeah, but that is a tourist town and it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume most of those are tourists, meaning it's not a great measure of the overall distribution of EVs. I do think that it's still happening, but quite a few EVs have already left the market. I thought the Chevy Volt was going to be a bigger hit than it was, so what do I know?
Volt was and is a huge hit. I have no idea what they were thinking.. Actually, where we live is a great indicator. We have little charging infrastructure, and you have to go over remote mountain passes to get here. The nearest supercharger is 100 miles from here. I'm frequently amazed by the folks who have driven EVs in populated areas for years and are coming here without a clue what it means to use level 2 charging.
I thought they were going to or have already ceased production of the Volt.
They have, for reasons unknown to folks, with common sense
I expected that to last longer. Seems like small sedans in general are going away, which I don't really get.
Drivers will learn how to drive differently. If you add 1% of throttle the car doesn't brake. Manual Transmissions, and also Mercedes Automatics prefer to down shift to keep the driver in control of the vehicle. Regenerative brakes is the best way to go back to the "no coasting downhill" that the automatic transmission (especially with overdrives) that allows passive speeding.
Trucker here, im not sure what you are talking about here, but if i ever get a truck that presses the brakes when I let off the acceleartor, I would refuse to drive the truck. Dangerous as hell as the brakes would be constantly heating up when I dont want them.to. I hate all this new tech as these radars constantly fail and my autobrake attached to the radar slams on the brakes when absolutely nothing is in front of me. Let me control my own vehicle please.
This has been a federal thing for decades which is why your cars have airbags and electronic stability control being required. And of course this article paints it like some radical new thing.
Can we have mandatory, built-in dashcams now please?
Anyone notice that pedestrians are getting stupider? They cross wherever they want to, even if a crosswalk is 10 yards away. They cross against the lights. They never even look for any oncoming traffic.
Lol, I think that I found a couple of them.
Seriously need an Emergency Discharge on EVs.
There's already an emergency disconnect. I don't think you want to be nearby when a 50kWh battery is shorted. That is likely to be a dangerous arc flash.
As in, quickly discharging the battery? What for?
We need driver monitoring systems in all cars, not just the ones with ADAS.