Hope the rest of the US follows soon:

Level 3 Drive Pilot

 

That’s awesome! I sure hope it’s approved in a lot more states in the not too distant future.

 

Not me. To each his own, but I love to drive. I've turned off most of the nannies in my car already. YMMV.

 

I think this subject might be a generational/age thing. I grew up thinking of driving as a freedom to get away and go anywhere I wanted to and still do. I love to drive and have turned off most of these options on four of my cars and trucks. It’s about the drive not the destination……

 

I cannot imagine driving in a car that was driven by a program.

 

I enjoy driving, but after a while it gets tedious. Just as with flying, I enjoy it, but it is more relaxing when I engage the autopilot and reduce the workload.

 

It's cool that technology can do this, but for me, I can never see myself being comfortable enough to let the car fully take charge -- even if it's just level 3. Software has bugs. Sensors get dirty. Sensors and wires break. Unanticipated (and therefore unprogrammed) situations arise. If ALL other vehicles on the road were to be operated by computers rather than humans one day, then I might be inclined to give it a try - but not until then.

 

But, "relaxing" isn't the goal when commanding a vehicle. In both cases, on the ground or in the air, this would lead to a loss of situational awareness, keeping skills at their optimum, more likely for loss of control in an unexpected challenging situation, etc. Ask the pilots of Air France 447.....oh, wait....

Lots of articles similar to this one, which would also reasonably apply to cars. In a study done by a Tier 1 supplier to OEMs of steering systems, it took ~20 seconds for drivers in a lab setting to regain effective control of a test-event surprise "problem" on a simulator. To the point, they suggested decoupling electric steering from engaging the wheels for moments when an emergency arises while ADAS is engaged but cannot respond to the situation so a driver can get past the reflex reaction to gain intended control. A bad solution to a bad problem. I am not an ADAS advocate. Don't want it and won't use it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local...18d_story.html

 

One must always maintain situational awareness whether one has hands on the controls or not. Using an automated control system in a vehicle of any kind does not relieve the operator of any situational duties. IMO a relaxed person in control is better than a stressed person person in control. Perhaps you misinterpreted the meaning of relaxed (characterized by slower breathing, lower blood pressure, and a reduced heart rate) which is the opposite of stressed.

 

In thinking about it, though, there might be an advantage for us old school guys. If most of the other cars were computer controlled, I would not have to be constantly adjusting for them accelerating/decelerating with no discernable reason, changing lanes without looking, braking for a text, etc. It might actually make things better for those of us who love to drive. Trying to find the positive here......

 

If that is how you intended it, perhaps I did, taking it as contrasted to attentive. However, all the data I've seen in regard to automation suggests most humans do not or cannot live up to the standard you may set of being both relaxed and fully attentive or neurologically capable of maintaining a prior level of skills and responsiveness without atrophy from disuse. Failing to meet a standard of care or a required duty is so prevalent, we have tort laws to compensate the ongoing failures. ADAS just encourages more of these, as Tesla drivers have repeatedly demonstrated. I'm not in favor of lulling more humans into opportunities to fail, often at the expense of others. The technology is nowhere near effective enough to completely replace humans and the interim overlap period of up to ADAS L4 is fraught with failure modes. And, this doesn't even begin to decide how to address the "trolley car problem" for ADAS programming for the a priori decision to sacrifice the vehicle/driver or the pedestrian/other driver in cases of unavoidable impact. No thanks...

 

I appreciate optimism, but this may be overly so.

https://theintercept.com/2023/01/10/...age-autopilot/

 

yeah that’s Tesla and not Mercedes. There is a video of this and it’s quite obvious that while the car was at fault, the real cause of the accident was the Idiot driver in the car.
Tesla is a lvl 2. The topic we are discussing is lvl 3 so this has no place here.

 

The fundamental issue is that the technology from all global suppliers to all OEMs is not ready for people to be handing over control of their cars to ADAS and it naturally and inherently causes people to slack off in controlling their vehicles. Until L5 is perfected, this issue affects all ADAS levels and the inherently flawed humans who operate them.

 

 

A nicely prepared carefully done video, no doubt.

https://www.azmirror.com/blog/there-...nce-july-2021/

As well, ever notice how these "tests" are conducted in the sunny south in geofenced areas for that particular vendor/program? Cold, rain, snow, ice, and unforeseen random road events in other areas etc. are all obstacles yet to be conqured by the available technology.

I think this discussion has run its course. Some of you are ADAS advocates and others of us are not. Hope we don't "run into" each other unintentionally. Meanwhile, have a good day.

 

There is still a driver behind the wheel to take control in case of a malfunction. As someone else stated, driving for hours and hours on interstates can be quite tiring. Level 3 autonomous driving can be of great help in these cases.

 

You seem to be addressing the bottom of the barrel lowest 5 percentile of drivers. Unfortunately the US doesn't seem to require driver proficiency for new drivers or demonstrating an ongoing driving proficiency for experienced drivers. I've not had a driving test since I got my first license in Iowa when I was 14 years old. I haven't had license vision test for at least 16 years (perhaps 24 years). I renew my drivers license by mail for 8 years at a time. Driver qualification exams seem to be concentrated in "parellel parking skills" rather than actual driving skills. AFAIK there are no "on the road" driving tests in my metro area. They use a course in a small testing park for a driver to demonstrate that they can stop at a stop sign, turn corners and parellel park.

IMO drivers should be required to demonstrate actual driving proficiency including emergency manoevers every 2 years or whenever they are cited for a moving violation.

 

As pointed out above, it's well recognized that increased automation decreases the human skill to operate machines. It is kinda fascinating that we think a relatively inexperienced and poorly trained human driver can just jump in at a moment's notice and handle a situation that confuses the technology. As said above, this has lead to an increased rate of loss of control accidents in the airplane industry. It's well proven that startled human beings in such situations end up doing the wrong thing and are not prepared to take over at a moment's notice. Even highly trained pilots apparently, so how do you think the average American driver is prepared for this?

That's not to say that I'm against ADAS. I love the level 2 system in my current car for mundane situations such as endless highway cruising or stop&go traffic, but I drive the car enough myself, attend frequent driving events (just got back from an AMG winter driving event in Austria), that I'm a well above average driver. Interestingly, studies have shown that ADAS leads to more attentive drivers, because the brain has to multitask less. So instead of focusing on the operation of the vehicle, when ADAS is active, most drivers use more of their brain power for situational awareness. That obviously doesn't include all these Tesla drivers on YouTube. But I can tell you from long road trips that I've done (up to 12 hours in a single day), these systems successfully reduce driver fatigue on long journeys.

As far as Drive Pilot is concerned, be aware that it is highly limited. It can only be used on approved road sections and only below 37 mph in traffic congestions and only if there's a lead car that it can follow, and that's probably the ironic part. It requires a lead car driven by a human that it can follow. It's not gonna do anything for normal highway journeys. I've seen the system in action and it's actually pretty disappointing as it frequently requires the driver to take over, so you can't really relax and do something else as you have to be ready to take over at a moment's notice. I believe you get 5 seconds or something like that to take over, so that's not enough to pull up your pants while making out with your mistress in stop & go traffic .

 

I agree with you completely about the poor state of qualifications for drivers in the U.S. We disagree on the prevalance of the problem, even if the technology could be relied upon. Far from my point being about the 5th percentile, the problem of atrophying of unused skills affects most humans. Those who develop their skills and maintain attention would be the upper tail of the distribution, a small unrepresentative segment, such as a subset of forum members...maybe. When the steering system supplier did their research to see how humans recover from a startle to take over from ADAS, the ~20 second result was from a random sample of the general population. That is who we are dealing with and whose skills we are ready to let slumber.

 

On the state of autonomous driving, today in San Francisco. This is not the first time BTW. The keyword in their explanation is "unexpected".

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/artic...l-17739556.php

 

Another good reason to stay away from SFO.

In the better days, my parents loved the Mark.

 

They should change their company name to Wayless.......................sorry, couldn't resist!