Featured Requirements analysis - traffic accident mitigation

While I agree to you Bob, Toyota could do with standardising the whole TSS-P thing for the rest of the world, not just the US of A.

SM-G900I ?

 

Tragic example of texting while driving:

LISTEN: 911 calls regarding erratic driver minutes before deadly bus crash | KXAN.com

 

autonomous vehicles are the only answer, and the texting generation will welcome them. for now, as bob always says, don't let perfect be the enemy of good enough.

 

I would humbly submit that this problem will only be mitigated when people treat distracted driving like they presently do drunk driving.

In the 50s and 60's drunk driving wasn't treated as a crime as much as it was a civil infraction that was dealt with by ticketing and maybe a lawsuit if you squished somebody's kid.
Then?
Moms got madd, and now even first offender DUI's are treated as a more serious crime with lifelong consequences.

Today, most people do not treat DD with the same contempt that they have for 'drink driving' as the Europeans call it......but eventually that WILL change.
I would submit that some drunk drivers have a much better excuse than people poking on glass, because one could argue that alcohol and other drugs interfere with higher brain function, causing one to lose the ability to make decisions.
People who read, shave, eat, and diddle with their phones and NAV screens just don't give a rats, and are mostly unaware of the assholery that they're engaging in.

Additionally, there's a school of thought that the alphabet-soup of new car safety features are exacerbating an already dangerous disconnect between driver and car - a process that is already being looked at in the aviation community.
At least one time, pilot(S) have flown a perfectly healthy airliner into the sea following a relatively minor sensor issue.

This is a problem that will be solved initially through education and legislation......NOT technology.
Eventually?
Yeah, we'll have the George Jetson self-flying car........but remember, that's going to cause some interesting ethical problems of its own.
I gave an example recently of an "intelligent" car trying to decide whether or not to drive itself off a cliff to save a school bus full of kids stopped in the road.....and there will be MANY shades of right and wrong in between.

Me?
I still want to be in the decision loop somewhere, until infirmities catch up with me and relegate me to a trike.....and then a walker.
Circle of life.
Of course.....if I have a granddaughter on the school bus, then maybe I want Robbie the Robot to make that call....

History doesn't repeat itself, but it sort of rhymes every now and then.

Maybe I'll create a new career for myself!!!!!
Transportation Ethicist!

 

Hollywood is no help: just do an informal poll as you're watching movies/shows, an alarmingly common lack of seatbelt usage, and a lot of smoking "role models".

 

We watch a lot of British "police procedural" series (and Scandinavian, German, Dutch, Belgian) and it seems like most everyone "belts up", just by comparison.

 

I've heard police are exempt from California's seatbelt laws.

 

My wife and I took the bus the other day, and I suddenly had an "awakening" moment, about the fact we're hurtling down a highway with no seatbelts. Maybe in another decade that'll change, and the current situation will seem nuts?

 

Police are apparently exempt from all laws. Red lights, stop signs, speed limits... Why should they wear a seatbelt? Don't forget, it slows them down when buying donuts at the drive thru....

On a serious note, my wife is still complaining about how the seat belt broke her sternum. She still has pain or at least discomfort frequently, 2 years later. I am always telling her that if it wasn't for the seatbelt, she wouldn't be alive. but then the broken bone almost pierced her heart, so it's still a difficult call. To show you how things change, when we met, I was the one who never wore a seatbelt and she would ridicule me for it.

But I think it's more the attitude than the distraction. Nobody gives a crap anymore. There's no respect or courtesy. Everybody is going too fast and damn the torpedos everybody else needs to get out of their way...

 

Not if you have a cell phone......

 

Around here nobody comes to a full legal stops, pretty much ubiquituous I guess. I started doing it, gets me honked at, no less.

 

I am very reluctant to use my phone while driving. Too distracting in the NASCAR demolition derby environment!

 

Some days you don't even get a seat. Same thing on the train. As the Conductor said, "We promise you a ride, not a seat."