Future Toyota Integrated Safety Systems (2015 Edition)

Watch Live reveal: Scion iA & iM. Toyota USA Newsroom

 

2015 NYIAS - 2106 Toyota RAV4 Hybrid Bird's Eye View Camera

 

It would be nice to stop cars from running over pedestrians or crashing into each other, but will this open a window of opportunity for carjackers and the like to immobilize you by merely standing in front of your car, which will then politely halt so his friends can grab you? There are times when you need to GO AND GO FAST, and damn the consequences. A car that denies us that escape opportunity is not making us safer; quite the opposite.

 

Even in the sci-fi films of yesteryear, the auto-cars still allowed manual over ride just as with todays basic systems. My wife's Subaru Outback will, in your scenario, stop for the bad guy and even though you floor the accelerator again the car won't move. I know I've tried this with an empty large box in a deserted parking lot (very cool experiment BTW). Anyway, you just push the systems' off button and drive right through the box/bad guy if you need to. If the system detects any operating error, it disengages. The subaru/camera based system will do this in heavy fog or heavy rain (basically when you can't see, it can't either).

On a second note, we can always dream up some nightmare scenario but something as rare as that can't and doesn't outweigh the massive good it does the remaining 99.9999% of the time. If so, we wouldn't have life saving drugs or surgical operations; neither of which work 100% of the time.

 

It is our job to dream up nightmare scenarios, because if we don't, then I promise you the bad guys will, and they'll create a bloody new industry. That's the rotten reality we're stuck with. I can remember when getting on a passenger aircraft was as quick and easy as getting on a bus. Then some stinkers figured out ways to advance their evil agendas by taking over a plane.

I hate what has been done to what used to be a pleasant service industry, but the vermin took advantage of our lack of imagination. I doubt there are any Luddites among the Prius crowd; we appreciate the benefits of new technology. But somebody's got to keep an open eye on how the monsters of the world will turn our creations against us.

 

Perhaps you are thinking about all of the pedestrians and bicyclists mowed down by our quiet Prius?

Flying in the 1960s, it was common to see the cockpit through the open door. Even after hijacking planes to Cuba, the doors and flimsy bulkheads still made the flight crew accessible. After 9/11, aircraft doors and bulkhead were fixed only to have at least three aircraft lost when a suicidal flight crew locked out the other and committed a mass-killing crash.

If you think driver assist and self-driving systems are a risk, search for 'traction control' in PriusChat. You can read about all those Prius (i.e., one) stranded in the snow because someone could not turn traction control off 'like those Jettas.' The rest of us just drove through the snow and ice but without stomping on the accelerator.

Making things 'idiot proof' leads to finding a better class of idiot. But for every idiot, a hundred others are quietly saved.

Bob Wilson

 

YES!

. . . This includes traffic signal information and information about the presence of vehicles and pedestrians in blind spots. . . .​

Perhaps "blind" pedestrians too?

Bob Wilson