Driver-assisting technology, Good, Bad, or Evil Incarnate???

Rodan said:

frenchyd said:

I really hate absolutes. Holding a conversation with a passenger ( your wife?). Shhh dear I'm driving on this wide open freeway with no traffic here in the middle of nowhere  but you can't distract me with conversation.

Of course it's a balance, but each of us has a finite amount of mental capacity to devote to the tasks we are doing at any given time.  Wide open freeway/ highway, no traffic = low mental load = easier to converse.  Heavy traffic at high speed, I'll bet your wife is saying "are you listening to me?" because you need a lot more of that capacity for the mental load of driving. 

Same on track... driving 6-7/10ths, explaining lines and braking points to a student passenger... easy.  Now try it at 10/10s... not so easy.

Again, it's simply divided attention.  I would wager that a lot of us here on this forum have a pretty good ability to balance mental loads while driving... better than the average driving public, anyway.  We do it automatically.  A lot of folks don't, and those are the ones that don't remember the last 5 miles of driving because they were on the phone.  Hands free or not, it affects our ability to process information and react appropriately.

 

I have no trouble adhering to the no cell phone use policy when driving the school bus.  But there's that darn 2 way I'm required to listen to with 60-70+ kids on the bus, rush hour traffic, kids acting up and oh, the snow storm of the century going on. 
 

Bus driver I've got a bloody nose, bus driverJimmy said a bad word, some girl screaming because her friend said something mean.  kids excited because school is out and bouncing from seat to seat,  

Frenchy, some mother just called and wants to know when you're getting to 27345 Plymouth way, Frenchy the school lost track of Cameil Otawaniak  do you have her on your bus?  Frenchy don't drop Mikey twandajoki at his mother's  he needs to go to his aunt's place Ill get that address.  
 

Evil.

I have two stories, which is far more than I should have. Since I have only owned one car built this millennium and that one just squeaked by as being built this millennium.

On new years eve, my boss, was driving along a highway at an on ramp a car unexpectedly merged in front of her. This caused the collision avoidance warning to beep and light up on the dash.  She looked down to see what the warning light and beeping were all about as she never heard this before. Traffic came to a dead stop in front of her. First new car she ever bought (4 months earlier) is likely a write-off (2020 Corolla).

Last winter, I was in Lake Tahoe to ski. I rented a 2017 Elantra.  While driving along I-50 there were some temporary lines that were ground down but still visible to realign the lanes for earlier construction. I am going along suddenly the wheel lurched to the left to follow the wrong lines. The only way I could defeat the system was to put on my blinker until i was able to pull over in a safe spot. I then had to go thru the owners manual to figure out how to shut it off.

  

In reply to drsmooth :

As far as the first part of that, I have to keep reteaching myself to ignore most of the beeps and blinks every time I drive my wife's car but I haven't had a close call or accident. The second part however actually happened several times. (I don't change car settings in her car as I don't drive it all that often)

Both good and bad, IMO. As long as used with driver awareness it can help but don't rely on just the technology. Supposed to assist, not do for you. Just bought SWMBO a new 20 Accord EXL with all the bells & whistles on it. She wanted even more than was available. That adaptive cruise control is something I do like. The blind spot monitoring indicators are useful too. Don't really care if the lane keeping assist steering is turned on or not but kinda neat to play around with. Haven't had the rear cross traffic warning indication yet but think it will come in handy for SWMBO. She has a history of backing issues. SWMBO is an excellent candidate for self-driving cars.

*On a side note, didn't know Honda still made manual transmission Accords. Know about manual transmission Civics, Fit and Fiesta. There were a couple Accord Sports with manual transmission on the lot.*

In reply to wlkelley3 :

My gf has a 2019 with all the tech. The lane keeping assist is easy to overcome without disabling it because the nudge isn't strong at all. The adaptive cruise and hold feature is super cool though lol

Streetwiseguy said:

Rodan said:

Streetwiseguy said:

I would love to see a test of whether a hands free device makes any difference to the actual safety of the driver.  

 

It really doesn't make that much difference if you're holding the phone or not... divided attention is divided attention.  Your brain is trying to keep up with the conversation while doing driving tasks.  Even having a conversation with the passenger will affect the amount of mental focus you can devote to driving...  anyone who's done any track instruction should realize this.

That is certainly what I believe.  Curious whether I am correct, though.

There have been studies done that illustrate hands free does not make a significant difference, I seem to recall a study done in Canada.  Distracted is distracted.

My opinion:  Right now, evil incarnate.  In the future, they'll be good.

Not ready for prime time yet.

Does the BMWCCA still ban cars with collision avoidance from their track events?

I've instructed in a couple cars with rev-match downshifting. It's impressive how well that works. If I had one of those cars, I'd rip the synchromesh out.

In reply to yupididit :

Yeah, know that. Kinda fun to get the warning light on the dash when there is no traffic around.  Lightly hold the steering wheel and it will return to the center of the lane. And keep a light hold and there will be a warning flash about driver input required.  

Maybe better stop playing with the nanny's, after all that's what we're complaining about anyway.