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The Brain's On Cruise Control, Too
from the i-can't-drive-55 dept
For some time, but with mixed success, auto makers have been trying to add new features to cars like adaptive cruise control, which slows a car down if it gets too close to the one ahead of it, or systems that alert a driver when they wander out of their lane. But while these features are touted as making cars safer, could they be having the opposite effect by making drivers more lazy? The thought is that drivers will simply use automated systems as a crutch, and count on them to pay attention to the road, freeing the driver up to play with the radio, put on makeup or eat a burrito. While it may sound unrealistic, it's pretty believable, judging by how blindly some people will trust their GPS units. But like laws banning cell-phone use by drivers, these systems really create the appearance of safety without actually doing anything to make people better drivers.
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Cruise Control
Then of course they turned around and sued the car maker for not clearly stating cruise control != automated driving.
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Outlaw automatic transmissions!
This goes for all devices, the more automatic they are, the less people know or care how they work, and the less they pay attention. But it keeps us engineers employed!
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That's fine...
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Daydream Cruising
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Im worried about someone who thinks their car can drive itsself whether or not they have an extra gizmo
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Seriously Though
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Bad safety measures! Bad!
Don't blame the technology for the moron who manages to circumvent it. Odds are, the same guy who -- Homer Simpson-like -- believes that his car will drive for him would have been an equal dumbass without those features, only in different ways. In a world where I see people taking notes on their PDAs while driving at highway speeds, I welcome every innovation that takes more of the responsibility to drive out of their hands. They'll be just as stupid, but maybe I'll be less likely to die as a result.
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Driving IQ
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PUT A STICKER ON IT!
In fact it should be required that every slick-ass beamer sporting the 20 inch rims and every doohickey piece of junk you can dumb your car up with be required to sport a big blue HANDICAP sticker on the back. Or maybe you could pimp it out with a gold plated handicap ornament. bling!
Why not? I mean dont you want to know the guy in front of you is too busy getting road head to check his rear-view while you still gotta kick it old school pocket pool inbetween shifting?
Tom aka white devil
"I SAID WHAT???"
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Re: Outlaw automatic transmissions!
Something tells me you had to walk in the snow barefoot uphill both ways when you were a child....
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Re: PUT A STICKER ON IT!
Yeah... I'm trying to figure that out, too.
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Re:
Absolutely, any burrito worth eating REQUIRES two hands. Or a knife and a fork.
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Re: Re:
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Re: Re: PUT A STICKER ON IT!
Tom aka white devil
"MAYBE I WET MY PANTS, OR MAYBE WE JUST WENT OVERBOARD."
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One
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Driving in Our Society
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Re: Bad safety measures! Bad!
Yes, some people may come to rely on it more than they should, but as others have noted, these people would have been bad drivers anyway. And should we prevent driving from being safer because the safety measures don't try to "teach bad drivers a lesson"? It is not the intent of safety measures to improve the skill of individuals using a product, it is intended to make a product safer, regardless of who is using it.
I say, bring on whatever technology makes driving safer for us all! :-)
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Re: Seriously Though
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Re: Outlaw automatic transmissions!
You'd decimate the financial institutions workforce,
since they're the only ones left wearing neckties.
Oh, and politicians... It's a plan I could support.
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Everybody should just drive crazier!
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Darwinism
Excellent.. Cleaning the gene pool.
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