Eerie satnav boffinry claims it can predict THE FUTURE Do you hate driving in the city? Do you fly into a rage when you can’t find a parking spot after spending hours in heavy traffic on the way to your destination? Do you have trouble deciphering satnav directions while paying attention to your surroundings? Or do you get easily distracted while driving and become a safety threat …
I was thinking this
"Audi also found that driver frustration and distraction play a large role in both urban and rural accidents."
Tailgating and not leaving a braking distance play a large role in both urban and rural accidents. Something Audi drivers are guilty of mostly.
Perhaps if Audi stopped fitting large magnets to the front of their cars, or perhaps this Minority Report prediction thing will allow them to tailgate and brake just before an accident occurs?
Bearing in mind insurance works by spreading risks, I wonder if this could be taken too far...
- you are now parking in Cleveland, one of the highest rate theft postcode in the UK: please dial xxx to pay your extra insurance premium
- you are now driving at 90mph towards a multiple motorway pileup in thick fog. In order to continue your motor insurance for the next ten minutes please authorise payment of £75,000 immediately...
Agreed, I'd want it set to something like 3-4 seconds...
its something like 90 meters traveled in 10 seconds at 20Mph...
I actually think that 20Mph in a built up area is more dangerous that doing 100Mph on a motorway (not that we are actually allowed to do that speed...
Why? in a built up area, there are tons of hazards that are not predictable..
On a motorway, the hazards are known.. idiot drivers mainly, and in normal visibility, you can see far enough ahead to take action (assuming your sensible and leave plenty of space like your supposed to!
And only an very alert driver manages to react under 2 seconds. Few are able to do this even when prepared.
What more it requires is as good breaking power as the one in front of you. If you go with 2 sec and you have worse breaks than the one panic breaking in front of you, you'll have a crash even though you are alert.
The thing is, you need time for the brain to realize that the one in front is breaking (prepared that takes average 215 ms), time to realize you need to act. Test here www.humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime/.
Time to take your foot of the throttle, and put it on the break paddle, and time to press that break to it's maximum.
All of that average to above 2 seconds. 3-4 Seconds rule is much more realistic bet.
Yes.
Think about it it's not just a finger you need to move, you need to move one leg onto the clutch the other onto the breaks and press down at full power. If you do that under 2 seconds from that you notice a break light you where alert.
Test it out, data says you can get down to roughly 1 seconds, but then your alert and fast on it. If you aren't alert it easily goes to even above 3 seconds, just google it.
It's not just your brains reaction time here, your brains reaction time til a signal goes to any limb to move, may be as fast as 200 ms if your very fast some can get close to 100ms. But In a car where you have to do a synchronized movement involving two legs, that each have to do at least 2 different moves.
Your are fast if your under 2 seconds react and finished all the movements in a normal driving situation. It's not a computer game we are talking about. Where you click a button. Most people will not be able to perform much under 2 seconds. In everyday driving anything under 3 seconds is not to be considered safe, as people are not always alert.
One source states that 90% of the population will have a break reaction time within 2.5 seconds. Also states that some can get under one second, but other might need as much as 3.5 seconds.
You're totally misjudging your capabilities to react and get a car into full breaking power if you think you're faster than that in a everyday dull driving situation. I guarantee you, you're not.
Paris because you did not check the facts before ranting.
The problem with the two second rule is that's more than a vehicle length. What inevitably happens is that someone else slips into the gap, forcing you to establish a NEW two-second gap...which in turn gets filled by another car, and so on.
I honestly think that's the main reason people don't obey the two-second rule--they're afraid of other cars cutting in.
If all kept the 3-4 second rule, you won't even bother as they soon overtakes the one in front of you. Or are you thinking - Nobody should overtake me because I'm the king of the road?
Keeping a short distance is stupid driving for every reason, it prevents those who drive fast to make secure overtakes, causes traffic jams and more. Keep the distance and the traffic will flow well independent if you're one that overtakes a lot or if your the slow driver that never overtakes.
So many down votes here now, so I give you one of my sources. In adition to that I got the same information when I took my driving license, which is B, C.
http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/niatt_labmanual/index.htm
And if you want to just Google: Brake Reaction Time
I'm sorry Dave, I can't allow you to stop at that <redacted> fast food outlet. Your blood cholesterol level today is far too high.
I'm sorry Dave I can't permit you to buy Booze. You have had your 1.5 units limit for the month.
Then there are the billboards along the highway giving you personalized adverts.
all this along with Audi drivers (esp White A5's & TT's) who drive like demented idiots, this is all more than enough to persuade me never to even contemplate buying an Audi in the future.
Doesn't seem to me that they are such cocks these days - most of them drive like they think they are in a Rover.
The car of choice for the discerning arsehole with too much money appears to me to be moving towards Mercedes (although you can still not be true arse without a beemer). The car of choice for his Mrs who can't seem to understand the concept of there being other road users remains the Lexus.
No - in my worldview, anyone with a German car is an arse. VW tend to be the exception that proves the rule (although this is a concept that doesn't actually exist as anything more thatn a concept) - but - BMW - AUDI - MERCEDES - you know what I'm talking about.
Just becuase my Zafira was *built* in Germany - well that doesn't count, obviously :)
I find those who drive Volvo, Toyota as ignorant drivers, often unaware of their surrounding thinking they are the best drivers in the world owning the road. I guess they have to compensate for their bad choice of car.
The better a car handles with sustained comfort the better it is. Few car's beats the Germans to this. Volvo is considered a secure car... but the way they handle they really need their airbags, just as, the Mercedes A class, which is utterly dangerous. And people really likes these dangerous cars, all the SUV's and those alike. Ignorant are what they are.
I drive a Ford Focus, and it's an ok car, not good though. The design is way to "SUV" like. The hight to the window is at least 5 cm too high. A way for car makers to make you feel more secure, the less you see of the road close to you the more secure you feel, you don't get the feeling of what speed you actually drive. The height to the roof is 5-10 cm too high.
The seat position in lowest point is at a moderate height the top height and you almost have a standing position in it.
Electric power steering, which removes the feel of your driving. The break the same and under powered. My Audi 90 from 1985 that i had which had been driven for more than 400 000 km had a better gearbox in it than the ford, and better brakes, way better 50-80 acceleration where it actually matters. Way better clutch that you actually felt and functioned properly. Not so on the Ford that i got when it was driven for 25 000 km.
Due to it's stupid height up to the windows, it has less visibility than the old Audi, though the Audi was much lower.
Most people who think they buy a good car, that is secure think it's because of the illusion the designs of the cars today give you. But they are mere illusions. And all ignorant drivers buy into this illusion. They want to feel like the king of the road, while they actually are the most dangerous driver out there, causing traffic jams etc.
Staying behind a slower car rather than overtake, at the same time not keeping enough distance so that those behind who want to overtake can't. This is the drivers who call other's ass'es in the traffic, when they got enough of the stupidity and cuts them due to the fact they where not given the space.
Driving is cooperation with the other drivers. If someone goes faster than you give him space, if someone goes slower than you, don't get stuck in his behind but overtake them, and by that give them space and all those who come behind you.
It's not they speed one drives that defines a good driver, what defines a good driver is how much consideration that one gives all the other drivers, independent of how those drive. Use signals correctly, give space.
"I drive a Ford Focus, and it's an ok car, not good though. The design is way to "SUV" like. The hight to the window is at least 5 cm too high. A way for car makers to make you feel more secure, the less you see of the road close to you the more secure you feel, you don't get the feeling of what speed you actually drive. The height to the roof is 5-10 cm too high."
You've just drawn my attention to that car. See, my problem is the opposite. I'm TOO TALL, so unless I'm in a bigger vehicle like an SUV, my head is constantly against the ceiling, and I prefer driving upright because that raises my attention (leaning back tends to lull me).
Merc a nice car... well maybe in a garage that is securely looked up.
I used to like Audis, nowadays I'm not so sure, they sold their soul. My favorite that I never afforded is the RS2. After that Audi has gone bananas.
Ok the RS5 with it's torque vectoring maybe brings back a bit of that Audi philosophy that I so much miss with today's Audis. I can't just figure out why Quattro isn't standard on all Audis today. What's wrong with the management at Audi. Seems like they are not so much anymore interested in making great cars. But only great cars for the rich, to enrich them selves with. Ok I understand that, but where is the pride.
Some one build me a new car as the old Lancia Delta and reasonably priced, I will que for that one.
Doesn't it ever get old? I mean TomTom already sells systems which measure how much congestion there is.
Most of those problems could be easily solved by decent public transport. If you can get 100 commuters into a bus, you save 100 parking spaces plus a certain amount of stress and accidents.
And no, you will not be able to get our cities completely car free, that's not the point. Even a 50% reduction on the number of cars would be a huge success saving cities large amount of money and making them a more worth while place to live. That's why some cities all over the world even have free public transport.
success saving cities large amount of money??????
Orly?
Take a look a Colchester, Essex, recently (still in the death throes) of an ever so clever experiment to ban cars from the town centre.
not buses, or taxis, or motorcycles, just cars.
All the inconvenience and expense of a pederstrianised town, none of the advantages. see, i did say it was clever.
on local news last week the traders in the town held a mock funeral for the town (cost << £10M) due to the trade they have lost in the few weeks this lunacy has been in place. the county council backed down (ish) and have declared they will abort the abortion... at the end of the month.
so no cars, more public transport than you can wave a stick at, and a 25% increase in business failure. Some way to save money that!
Have you thought about a career as a town planner? or let me guess you already are one!
People must be really dead-set about their cars if they insist on driving there instead of parking outside, opting to avoid town centers ALTOGETHER. I mean, it's understandable if you're going to a big-box with intent to buy a lot (the big concern is getting everything home), but I don't think that's the norm for places like this.
"all that data"
what data?
As far as I can tell the only extra data is not being collected from the driver or other individuals, it's data from the infrastructure (smart meters) and who gives a fuck if some big database knows whether or not a parking meter is in use? Surely that's a *good* thing? It's not as if it needs to know who is parked at the meter.
Provided this is done properly, designed only to be useful for its intended purpose not some insidious requirements creeping spying I see no problem.
Things like monitoring the driver's attention, there's no reason for the data to be stored, although it could be and honestly I think it'd potentially be a good thing when investigating an accident to know that the driver had been busy fondling his iThing.
Cars currently log certain things on a "blackbox", I don't remember what exactly, I guess it includes speed.
Again there is the potential for requirements creep and maybe they will start logging driver heart rate or other measures of excitement level and whether or not it would be fair to blame someone for a crash because they were driving in a more excited manner I don't know.
The Black box knows where you are, what car you drive and probably by the way you drive who is driving.
It matches your car to a free parking spot.
Bingo
All the local pubs/restaurants etc then know that another sap (sorry customer) is coming into the area and their systems will start the adverts as you drive towards said parking spot saying 'Eat at Joe's Sids down the road is a roach infested hovel' etc etc.
There really are no limits to how little privacy we have these days especially from the Ad-men
Yours, Grumpy-old git, and proud of it because no ad-man would dare target me for fear of getting a real dose of verbals back.
The black box does not know where you are.
Your phone however does know where you are, it knows who you are and what kind of phone you have. It knows who your friends are, it knows what kind of porn you like, what time you wake up every morning, what music you like, how fast you're going, how hard you're accelerating or braking or cornering and whether you drive faster when listening to drum and bass.
All the local pubs/restaurants etc then know that another sap (sorry customer) is coming into.. oh no.. no they don't.
well shit.
Yours, a realist.
1. The car does know who you are, not only by way of things like transponder keys but also by the GPS record of your driving (and the car MUST have GPS to perform navigation), which other boffins have shown to be as distinctive as fingerprints given enough data.
2. The car and the phone talk to each other. That's how its pedestrian guidance works, via an app.
3. ANYTHING for an edge in a competitive neighborhood or industry. Just watch.
Yes. Yes it is. Insurance is supposed to work by spreading / averaging the risk, and it's not supposed to be allowed to cherry-pick and tax more whoever they _suspect_ might crash more readily. I refuse to get categorized as a high-risk driver based on my car's make, driving style or whatever else - those who really _are_ worse drivers are supposed to be taxed because of the crashes they _actually had_, that's what the bonus / malus system is supposed to be for. I refuse to be labeled guilty until proven innocent by any other statistical and / or personal-data-mining metric, sorry.
They switch street signs around the wrong way, change traffic patterns, and the like....which makes it difficult to learn your exact route right away. The only sure way to defeat their efforts is to continually chant a 'Spell of Clarity' while you're driving - which makes it hard to hear the radio.
Depends on whether you're considering just a basic offline satnav system which can only provide directions, or whether you're considering an online system which can also provide realtime updates on traffic flows, accidents etc. etc. It doesn't matter where I'm heading to, I've always got my satnav (Android phone + Waze app) running to at least keep me informed as to the route conditions even if I don't need routing advice, so having the ability to predict traffic buildup by looking at things like sports schedules seems like a sensible next step.
Agreed. I've been very tempted a couple of times to walk up to one and snap off said stalk, as the pillock who drives it clearly has no use for it, while he drives along with the window down, yakking on his mobile phone. (The driver I'm thinking of has a blind spot for pedestrian crossings too)
OOohhhh goody. Now we are going to have the Nanny Car especially for those morons (Audi/BMW drivers) who struggle to pay attention to anything that isn't shiny-shiny. Why not just automate their cars entirely? The current batch of Self-Driving cars can hardly be as bad at driving as most of the current Audi/BMW sales reps and distracted School-Run Mums. As part of the driving test they need to test people for their ability to maintain situational awareness. Those who are incapable of ignoring a ringing phone - fail. Those who can't tear their eyes away from a cute butt - fail. Those who don't see the Police car approaching from behind with flashing blue lights - FAIL (like the moron I sat behind on the A127 on Saturday morning).
@ Wize: This morning, before I left the house, Google Now alerted me that my usual route to work was congested so I took a different route to work and arrived on time having avoided 30 mins of my life wasted in a traffic jam. Thanks Google. I was dubious as to Google Nows usefulness but am becoming convinced,... slowly.
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And how would the current be delivered, given the average car seat is nonmetallic, as are the layers of clothing around said privates? I don't think anyone would be interested in a car seat with taser prongs built into it...unless you were of the kinky type that actually got off on that kind of stuff (another potential problem).
Just three things wrong with the "shock" idea (yeah I get it's a joke, let's pretend it isn't for a second):
- Who said the driver isn't wearing gloves?
- Dunno about others, but after getting a shock my reaction would be to LET GO of the thing that shocked me - hardly the targeted response given the circumstances...
- There's no such thing as a safe electric shock that's large enough to be felt, especially STRAIGHT ACROSS YOUR HEART, from hand to hand. Hell hath no fury like the deluge of lawsuits sparked by (relatives of) people with and without pacemakers who would die / have a heart episode caused by one of the shocks...
"- There's no such thing as a safe electric shock that's large enough to be felt, especially STRAIGHT ACROSS YOUR HEART, from hand to hand. Hell hath no fury like the deluge of lawsuits sparked by (relatives of) people with and without pacemakers who would die / have a heart episode caused by one of the shocks..."
Actually, there are scientific measurements of the effects of electric current on people. It takes about 1mA of current for us to even sense its presence (the point where we start to feel the tingle). As long as the current stays below 5mA, you can feel the shock and it can hurt, but little would come of it. There are actually toys that deliver these levels of shock. Start to climb a bit higher (say, to the 10-20mA range), and you get to tazer levels. They hurt, and they'll cause you to spasm, but since the shock is delivered to the exterior muscles, the heart generally gets bypassed (the current will follow the outer skeletal muscles instead). It's only when you climb above 30mA that you start getting into serious life-threatening shocks.
As for pacemakers, the outer cases are usually metal and act as a shield, so a shock will tend to wrap around it (it's designed this way to be able to take the shock from a defibrillator).
According to today's paper, Telefonica is actually planning to introduce a system that measures your driving style - presumably via your in-car mobile phone - and offers you to use an adaptive insurance premium for that. And it's not planned for some faraway future - it's planned for this year. Apparently, AIG (the insurance company) and Vodafone have similar plans.
Expect insurance premiums to go waaaay up for Audi drivers then! *chuckle*
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