CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Events, rides etc.

Designing the driver out

(11 posts)

No tags yet.


  1. SRD
    Moderator

    Designing the Driver out of the Equation: America's response to traffic fatalities

    Speaker: Dr Jameson Wetmore (Arizona State University)
    Date and Time: 11th Nov 2013 15:30 – 17:00
    Location: Conference Room, David Hume Tower

    Abstract

    This seminar will explore the attempts by automobile safety advocates in the United States to redesign the relationship between people and machines to address the problem of automobile injuries and fatalities. It will focus on a series of events in the 1970s when government regulators, insurance company executives, and many safety advocates focused on “designing the driver out of the problem” by developing technologies that would ensure safety regardless of the actions of the drivers and passengers. By examining air bags, seat belts, automatic seat belts, and a variety of other strategies, it will trace how the goal of delegating responsibilities to artifacts instead of human beings was debated, attempted, revised, and at least partially abandoned

    http://www.stis.ed.ac.uk/events/stis_seminars/2013_2014/designing_the_driver_out_of_the_equation

    Posted 12 years ago #

  2. SRD
    Moderator

    sorry. yesterday.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  3. neddie
    Member

    Well, if Google are to be believed, driverless cars are just around the corner...

    they could be here in 2020:

    http://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2013/oct/11/driver-less-cars-coming-bike-blog

    I think that driverless cars would be widely accepted, as long as the automated drivers prove to be better than their human counterparts on average...

    Having driverless vehicles brings some interesting possibilities for cyclists, for example:

    - a lone cyclist could cycle deliberately & directly in front of an automated HGV, forcing it to slow to the cyclist's pace.
    - one could imagine vast platoons of vehicles, all 'held up' by a single cyclist...!!!

    Posted 12 years ago #

  4. splitshift
    Member

    or an automated hgv could develop a glitch and read the kerb , but 2 feet to the left !
    We had automated vehicles in a micro chip factory a few years ago, they were about the size of a large dog, they were rubbish, they read their locations from laser points all over the factory, a piece of silver reflective tape caused all of them to die and shunt back and forward until the tape was discovered, and then all of them had to be reset, and origined manually. automated hgv..................no thank you !

    Posted 12 years ago #

  5. holisticglint
    Member

    Been involved in a few "self driving car" type projects recently at work and it is on it way and it is getting better at an amazing rate.

    The evolution is going to come from Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) which are currently informational, pedestrian highlighting, lane departure etc, but are gradually moving to being active starting with active cruise control which will adjust speed to keep a safe distance with the car in front and a stop-start traffic variation of the same so you can eat your cornflakes in peace.

    Coming soon will be active braking to avoid collisions in many situations but again this will focus on preventing the driver from exceeding the speed limit or driving to close rather than slamming on the brakes.

    So more of the car preventing the driver from making mistakes rather than the car doing the driving itself - a virtual dual control learner mobile if you will.

    Annoyingly this sort of thing would be really effective if preventing HGV-on-bicycle collisions but are not be pushed enough.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  6. Snowy
    Member

    It raises a few interesting questions. If you pass your driving test in an automatic, you aren't qualified to drive a manual. So, will there be a new category of being qualified to be 'in charge' of a driverless car, but not allowed to drive anything manually? I suspect this will be the case sooner rather than later.

    Which, consequently, begs the question of driver experience. A person in charge of a driverless car, who has only ever used that sort of car, is simply never going to develop the road sense to read situations correctly and the judgement to take the correct emergency action to avoid problems. If they're watching the road in the first place, that is, not eating their cornflakes.

    Driverless cars are proving to be remarkably successful when tested on well marked and well laid out roads. I await with interest the first tests in a congested old-world city centre during festival time...

    Posted 12 years ago #

  7. splitshift
    Member

    some interesting well made points,does this also mean that mobile phone use would then be permitted while you use the self drive option, are there nott some fords, other makes are available, which self park already ? Cruise control in various hgv now use sat nav info to speed up, drop a gear etc just before steep hills, the opposite when approaching downward gradients, very disconcerting !
    are self drive cars, not called buses ?
    and hgv, freight trains ?
    While the development of most safety systems in vehicles has taken some time, look at seat belts etc, I predict that these active driving aids will be met with similar , if not greater obstacles.I still know of someone who carries a special seat belt cutter, should his car ever end up in a river and he cant operate the thingy !
    collision avoidance,the words Volvo and you tube spring to mind ! however, abs anti skid brakes were going to kill lots of people,so many drivers "knew " how to cadence brake so didn't need them ! They are taken almost as a given now !
    Camera recognition,we used to constantly have to reset sensitivity of various cameras,in a previous industrial life,I am not sure how good they are now, but we always managed to get sensitivity spot on , only for several thousand products to be seen as good , but were actually not, the cameras had failed, and it took the good old human eye to fix it !
    poss a camera fixed to bycicles , so that the bottom bracket locked electronically when at a red light , or bumped over a kerb onto a pavement...................
    scott the cycnical, but not quite a luddite !

    Posted 12 years ago #

  8. steveo
    Member

    Automatic cars are coming, taking human failure out of the equation is the only way to make roads safe.

    I expect people will resist them but insurance companies will love them, getting insured on a manual car will get increasingly expensive as the vehicles get cheaper.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  9. Smudge
    Member

    As Scott says it's a slow process and full of flaws, however already all the cars in my workplace have trackers fitted, exceed the speed limit by more than a set amount or time and the detail pops up on the fleet managers computer, one formal warning coming up(!) Exactly the same for a choppy/aggressive driving style. (Obviously this tech has yet to reach the Royal Mail!)
    Whilst it is far from foolproof it is in (very) widespread use already. I was reading an article in the IAM magazine a month or two ago about insurance companies offering lower rates to oung drivers who have the "spy in the cab" fitted and have the data periodically reviewed.
    IIRC one of the new Fiestas can have the "spare" key coded to limit both the top speed and the max volume of the stereo.. (though why limit the speed on only the second key? "don't do as I do?")
    Automatic aids, and restrictions I think will be widespread in the very near future, "fully" automatic cars will be a while longer but it wouldn't surprise me to see them comonplace in my lifetime (assuming I enjoy long life lol).

    Posted 12 years ago #

  10. neddie
    Member

    Of course we could join all the automated HGVs together to reduce wind resistance. Then give them a set of low friction steel wheels to improve efficiency further. Add some guidance rails & signalling to prevent collisions. An overhead wire could then be used to supply cleaner(?) electricity for the motors...

    Why has no one thought of it before...

    Posted 12 years ago #

  11. Smudge
    Member

    <grins> that solution already has capacity issues, however vehicle "trains" for motorway driving is a topic being given serious consideration by some engineers...

    Posted 12 years ago #

RSS feed for this topic

Reply

You must log in to post.


Video embedded using Easy Video Embed plugin