Featured TSS-P cuts accidents in half

You drive in Japan?
Their data is from Japan. I suspect US driving habits are different and more stressful.

 

One nit to pick: While it may reduce one specific kind of accident by 90%, I doubt it reduces all accidents by 50%.
Each technology reduces some accidents occurrence but none reduce ALL accidents occurrence.

 

Single car fatal accidents may be a poster child of the issue. Lets imagine that the car can watch you as the driver and determine you are too impaired to Drive (sleepy, alcohol or other drug impaired, too distracted by your phone or kids to watch for other traffic, etc)
This should actually be very easy. No manufacturer is going to voluntarily implement this as telling your customers they can't do as they want loses customers. So attempts to reduce Single car fatal accidents look outside the car, are you able to stay in your lane?, are you slowing when appropriate? It is politically safer to place blame outside the car, even if it is not as effective.

Some large part of 'self driving cars' is a weasel way of taking control from drivers who are already out of control.

 

Probably not.
According to the NHTSA 40% of accidents are rear end collisions. If your car stops 90% of these, and half are the result of the other car (which probably doesn't have this if you are reducing 90% ;-) then you only reduce 45% of the 40% or 18% of accidents. A 18% reduction of insurance would be nice, but ... I doubt the insurance companies will provide this for you without many years of data. rear end collisions account for about 5% of vehicle deaths in the US. Many are low speed fender benders. Definitely if some inexpensive sensor and chips and expensive software can prevent these accidents and deaths its a good thing, but .... better tech and decision making are needed for the other 95%. nvidia and intel/mobileye are working on making the chips less expensive. The sensors are here. The hugely expensive software is still being developed, but once its here, it doesn't cost more to put it on more units.

 

The Toyota study seemd to be for vehicles with TSS-P and BSM.
BSM was added to the Prius earlier this year (May?). My 2017 purchased last October does not have BSM or RCTA,.

 

The biggest expense is LIDAR. (Some companies are saying you don't need it). Overall, the initial costs for the next 5 years are suppose to be about $5000 for all the hardware, based on info I've seen from analysts reports.

Mike

 

I must have misremembered. Thanks for the correction.

 

The number of cars with collision avoidance systems is so low today that you will not see a good statistical sample in the 2015 data set, which IIRC is the last one available. Also I doubt that police departments are noting whether vehicles have such systems in reports that the NHTSA scans.

NHTSA does work to get more of these systems in cars. It would be wonderful if getting them in even 25% of cars reduced deaths by 1%. Such systems can overcome human factors such as hitting the accelerator instead of the brakes. I thought Toyota's shot across the bow of the NHTSA was when they hired regulators to lobby against brake accelerator interlocks. Akio Toyoda's rise to CEO killed those bad old days. Toyota's safety systems and quality has increased markedly with the change of top management. The country does have a lot of old and a lot of distracted drivers. These safety systems can help.

You are preaching to the choir here.
Hybrids safer for drivers, less so for pedestrians, study finds? - latimes
I think your problem is really with IIHS, which pushed and promoted this false story. NHTSA just created the raw data, then got wagged by the dog of the insurance institute. A shot across the bow of the IIHS has long been needed, as it has promoted heavier, more energy hungry vehicles, and worked against cafe standards.


Now if the hypothesis is hybrids hurt more pedestrians and must be belled - IIHS here - then why are so many pedestrians getting killed by non hybrid cars? IIHS I'm sure has a snarky answer.

With most car safety systems, we have seen the human element get worse, because they could with the car protecting them more. With these new technologies, when they improve enough, I don't think bad driving will hurt as much. In 2020 we should have 2018 data, and there will be enough cars on the road with these safety systems to see how well they are working. By that year, software should be very good, and sensors and chips cheap enough, so that all new cars may get the tech, if the stats are as good as we hope.

 

The technology prevents you rear-ending someone, correct? I wonder if some tech could give warning if you're about to be rear-ended? Rear facing radar that monitors approaching cars, does the math, sounds an alarm, and/or other measures.

 

This sounds like a GREAT idea, but the typical scenario in my experience is that you are stopped dead for a traffic jam on an Interstate and you watch the vehicle approaching from the rear come roaring at you at full speed with no sign that they are aware of the situation or trying to stop. So what could the automated system do in addition to a dashboard warning light?
Pre-tightening the seatbelts to reduce inside-the-cabin collisions would be one thing, but what else? What do you folks do when you are actually watching in the rear view mirror a potential rear end collision developing? If I have left enough space between our car and the car in front , I take my foot off the brakes hoping that easing the acceleration of my car during the crash will lessen the effective peak g-forces inside our cabin, but I am not sure this is a correct move. Other ideas?

 

Isn't #4, the Takata airbag idea a real-world implementation of the claymore mine?