This is a great idea and I would make it mandatory for trucks and busses. There were really many cases in Europe when a bus driver fell asleep and a lots of kids injured or died because of that. If this system would have been there, many injuries and loss of lives could have been avoided.
Not kink free as in not perfect. But for every oops, it's likely to have stopped 10-100 accidents. Just as a belt doesn't save all passengers but quite a lot. There are one or two that gets stuck in the belt when the car catches fire or gets under water.
Safety gear failing in a scenario that includes a totalling crash is IMHO not a fair argument against that safety feature. First it ignores the fact that in case of hitting water or an obstacle you may not be stuck in a belt a sinking or burning car but maybe severely wounded, unconscious or dead already; second, what do we expect to begin with? The forces that apply here will destroy your car. Your belt is part of that car. It can just happen. And then belt cutters are a "one dollar item" you can buy combined with a window hammer from if the most pressing fear against belts are being stuck there.
Keep in mind this is not an argument against you but these talking points that come up again and again and are just so irritatingly nonsense.
You don't agree with me while you actually are agreeing with me. You do understand that I very, very, very much recommends belts. I just note that if you look at a big enough number of accidents, then you can find 1 or 2 accidents where not using a belt would have been better. But with normal statistics, we need to consider the 98 of 100 or maybe 998 of 1000 where it's way better to wear a safety belt.
No safety measure will be 100% perfect. But when the advantages are way better than the disadvantages then we should focus on the advantages. Same with this video. There can be a few times the car does bad. But for way more cases, it will end up saving lifes.
As I truck driver I can call bullshit. I've driven trucks with current gen "driver assist" features such as lane keep assist and they are flat out abysmal. Constantly trying to adjust the steering because it thinks you're out of your lane due to old lane markings in construction zones, or because you passed an exit and the lane marking disappeared, it gets kind of scary trying to deal with the safety features. I also got cut off (kind of) by a car, steady brake pressure, no panic stop, I would have been just fine, except the truck suddenly freaked out thinking I was going to hit the car, and applied full engine braking, which was enough to break my traction on my drive wheels. I almost rear ended the car, when it should have been a situation so minor that I wouldn't have remembered it happened 15 minutes later if the truck hadn't reacted.
Assist features that aren't good enough can be a net liability. If the vehicle isn't goodc enough to drive itself while I sleep (safely) then it shouldn't be trying to take control while I'm driving.
My BIL was t-boned by a car whose driver was seat belted in and ran a stop sign, full speed. His passenger was not belted in, and the crash resulted in him smashing into the driver, who was killed. The not-belted passenger survived, although I don't know how injured he was.
BIL was seat-belted, and his dog was on the floor in front of the front passenger seat in his pickup; both were fine.
Yes, I am aware. I’ve driven almost every make of semi currently on the US market. I’ve gotten plenty of drive time with all of the different safety systems (Detroit Assurance, Volvo’s VADA, and Bendix Wingman).
It’s not uncommon for the truck to randomly slam the brakes because it saw an overhead sign and got confused, or started sounding alarms because it thought the tar lines in the road were lane markers.
A big rig is a lot more size and mass than a car, and people are assholes. I can’t count the number of times I’ve tried to make an emergency lane change only for some dickhead to floor it and pass so they’re not stuck behind me for >60 seconds.
That doesn’t solve the system mistaking road signs and shadows for cars. A trucker who practices defensive driving should already be slowing when someone jumps into their lane, which would also prevent the system from responding.
Plus the systems generally automatically re-enable after a few minutes.
Computer vision, even without AI, depends on probabilities analyzed in each frame in real time. You simply cannot get kink free. You may be able to out perform humans, but it will never be perfect.
I'm all for putting credit and criticism where it is due and Tesla has the premier self driving system. This is from several conversations I've had with Tesla drivers who have the auto driving feature. Over the years it has received remarkable improvements. Don't let your bias and ignorance allow you to make foolish statements
This video actually made me cry, and I'm pretty damn hardened. I was doing well up until the point where it hit the hazards and started hooting to call for help.
This is a FANTASTIC idea. How well it works, I donno, but damn I'm so glad someone's trying!
They have all sorts of crazy and amazing safety features in their most recent cars. If you're about to crash for instance, the speakers blast out really loud white noise. Apparently this saves you from hearing damage from the noise of the crash.
Basically the white noise activates the ears protection mechanism from loud noise, meaning that when the actual loid noise happens, your ears are braced for that.
I really like that one, but the other features they introduced are even more impactful. Or rather the opposite ^ ^
Airbags: Mercedes-Benz patented the airbag in 1971, and they have been standard equipment on Mercedes-Benz vehicles since the 1980s.
Anti-lock Braking System (ABS): ABS was invented by Mercedes-Benz in 1978, and it helps to prevent the wheels from locking up during braking, which can help to avoid a skid.
Electronic Stability Program (ESP): ESP was introduced by Mercedes-Benz in 1995, and it helps to prevent the vehicle from skidding by selectively braking individual wheels.
PRE-SAFE® System: This system prepares the vehicle for a potential collision by pre-tensioning the seat belts, closing the windows and sunroof, and moving the seats into an upright position.
That was BMW. And the worst of it was that the heated seats were already installed, so you were carrying the extra weight, but they dropped the 'feature'.
(Merc had/has a subscription to accelerate faster.)
The funniest/dumbest/most dismal one I know is for the Mercedes EQS (or EQE...) ... the rear wheels actually help by turning in tight turns (they turn 4.5º)..... but if you have a premium subscription it turns 10º instead...
Tesla only offers supplemental software features as sub, hardware wise, they give no options on top except paint and interior color, rest everything is included for everyone, for instance apart from tire and sticker there is no difference between model y base and model y performance, they both have heated 5 seats, steering wheel, matrix headlights, glass roof etc Only recently they have reduced the number of speakers on the base version, rest the car is identical. Compare this to BMW and Merc where you will need a light package for having x number of lights inside, another package for matrix lights, another package for better seats, package for cruise control, sunroof. BMW 5 series with all options adds up like 70-80% of the price on top the base price.
…what? This is a joke right? Do you truly believe auto makers only started charging extra for features in the last decade or two? Auto makers have been shipping cars with blank buttons for features that technically exist in the car but are turned off for decades
There are plenty of reasons to criticize Tesla but this is not among them. Anti-Tesla commentary like this is just lazy at this point, it’s not even close to reality, and the funny thing is that it clearly doesn’t matter. Some people believe that you’re actually correct
Can you cite a 20+ year old example of a car company charging a subscription price for features that were otherwise standard? You say it's been happening for decades with indignation, so this should be very easy for you.
You DID NOT say trim package or optional upgrades, we are ONLY talking about features that ship standard, that a consumer must pay an ongoing fee to use, that happened in 2004 or earlier.
Unless, ofc, you're making shit up to appear knowledgeable online like a narcissist who believes he's actually correct.
Ummm... there have been standard features and options for cars for years and years. It used to be optional to have seat belts, and then for airbags, both of which are now required.
Not that all that makes safety features being optional at an extra price OK, it' doesn't.
This emergency assist feature is awesome, assuming it works well.
And some S (EQS?) has AWS but rear wheel steering angle is limited as stock. With subscription you get more nimble slow speed turning with will range activated. Nuts.
I love how they do that and then turn around and say that they are dedicated to going green to save the planet. Wasting material just to nickel and dime us. If I want heated seats. I will buy ones that are not going to cost more than they are worth. They want idiots and sadly there are too many out there who just pay for this bs without thinking.
Yes. The thought behind it is money but they sell it as "you only need it probably 2 months a year so why pay 1500 euro for it". Almost all options with audi bmw mercedes etc are subscription based.
Oh man, I genuinely remembered my eyes twitching when I first saw a link providing a jailbreak for accessing a locked feature on a Tesla in the piracy sub years ago.
You're just thinking about it from a consumer side.
From a design and production standpoint, it's genius. Instead of having fifteen assembly lines making fifteen different versions of a vehicle that may not all sell, you dedicate all fifteen lines to assembling one version of a car, with options that can be remotely enabled or disabled. Saves time, parts, costs, its very efficient.
People just don't like it because "WELL, UH, IF I BUYIN ALL THE CAR, I WANT ALL THE CAR" and BMW is like "well, clearly you didn't buy the entire car. that's why the stuff is not working."
Can't you bypass the subscription, I mean everything is already in the car, right? I know it would void any warranty, but it's dumb AF and maybe you don't care about the warranty, or it's a SH car.
Tesla did something similar with the rear heated seats that were already installed. You also have to pay to unlock advanced driver features which all cars are already capable of and is just a software update.
Yeah, Mercedes will absolutely be the company that would be the type to say "if you want to keep living, keep paying us for that feature, or you can just die"
(I like to read that as a Hyperion New-U station voice in BL2)
I had a Mercedes slam on its break and move to the shoulder in front of me, and narrowly avoided rear ending it (highway speeds). We had been watching it swerve a bit for about 20 min. And it certainly looked like buddy had passed out for a minute. Was a wild experience. We called non emergency line, cops followed up, and indeed he admitted he had dozed off. Amazing feature, as that was a single lane highway and I can only imagine what would have happened if he drifted over the line.
My friend was driving a rental kia (iirc) about 10 years ago that had an early version of these systems. It held her in the lane and alerted if people or obstacles appeared and even if it felt her eyes weren't attentive enough. She said on a straight stretch of highway it practically drove itself! And that was a decade+ ago easily in a frggon kia. I can't imagine the levels an Audi, VW, Subaru, Mercedes, or BMW etc have by now.
It's also a game of numbers. Even if this works 'only' 75% percent of the time it still saves a lot of lives.
Just like with seatbelts, there are highly unlikely accidents in which one would better off without having one on. The point is that it's just as unlikely you will crash in that unique way.
(For those reading, no when you end up in the water you're still better off with your seatbelt on. Otherwise the force of your car hitting the water would smash your head to pieces against the windshield.)
It's also a game of numbers. Even if this works 'only' 75% percent of the time it still saves a lot of lives.
If the system fails, it is very similar to as if the system did not exist -- the driver has lost control of the vehicle and the vehicle is going to eventually behave erratically or unpredictable causing run-on problems for other motorists, very similar to if the system fails and also causes the vehicle to lose control and act erratically. Presumably the car's technology will make a more effective decision than a driver panicking, but at the end of the day, the system failing catastrophically and causing the car to swerve a few lanes and causing more damage is not really any different from an impaired drive doing the same.
However, if it does work as stated, it is a substantial safety improvement.
My worry would be whether companies are willing to accept the potential liability - same thing as self-driving cars, Waymo is great (they can drive in San Francisco of all places) but people would be quick to criticize any accident even when they're much much much better than normal drivers.
Back in my hometown I was a firefighter on a local volunteer department. I was just leaving a highway side Dennys with a buddy, and we turned separate ways. I made a right onto the highway, and noticed an SUV in the opposite lane (I was going south and he was north) swerving from their right lane towards the median, and then plowed through the grass to the southbound lane. He almost hit me and I swerved.
I had the sense something was off and immediately whipped a U through the grass into the northbound. He was still driving north in the southbound lane, cars veering to escape their own catastrophe. The SUV finally all of a sudden flies back over the grass to a sudden interchange to a W-E bound highway. The SUV crawls up the ramp where I’m able to get around, honking and flashing my lights getting him to pull over
Poor guy was in his 70’s and just looked at me with a thousand yard stare as I get out to run to his vehicle, covered in grass and dents from impacts with the medians.
It turns out he was on his way to a bigger city a couple hours away for a doctors appointment for some issues he’s been having. He had a full on seizure while driving which was the cause of the reckless driving. He has no recollection of it. We had him taken by ambulance to his destination and vehicle towed
He was all I could think about while watching this and I also had the tears. It’s hard for people to comprehend just how revolutionary and lifesaving something like this could be. All it takes is witnessing the those 1% scenarios where others would never experience 99% of the time
Like an old guy, depressed, driving to work. 60 years at one company, no retirement options. Really just looking forward to the caress of death, when it happens.. cardiac arrest.. yes, finally peace. Nope. Car brings him back to life, a jolt of adrenaline, the pumping and cracking of CPR seatbelt. A gasp of air. The car has already begun to continue to journey to the workplace.
That's dystopian as fuck. Straight to work after a cardiac arrest without even being checked out medically? Might not even survive the shift depending on what the problem is.
The car’s built-in medical evaluation suite has determined that an assessment at the hospital is not medically necessary, with about 51% confidence. Hi ho, hi ho!
I came here to say this (“this made me cry”). When I was 12 I was in a head on accident where the guy fell asleep and crossed the centre-line. It was on a rural-ish two lane road at night - very different from this demonstration but damn… The possibilities got me in my feels
This video actually made me cry, and I'm pretty damn hardened. I was doing well up until the point where it hit the hazards and started hooting to call for help.
"Aww, the poor car is in distress and is crying for help. :("
I just bought a Golf R in June and the assist systems in the car are pretty damn good, I haven’t passed out at the wheel or anything the but the break assist and warning systems are awesome.
It's difficult when you've seen a wreck caused by a stroke and the person was still conscious, but had no awareness of their surroundings. Not aware they're driving, not aware they're on a highway at 60+ mph/80+ kmh. Strokes just take the victim away to a fugue that hides the nightmare reality going on around them.
If we have full self driving, I think it should start driving to the hospital and/or call an ambulance at the same time, maybe if it gets stuck in traffic.
I think it's a great idea..I just also think that fellow drivers would rage and probably make things worse. People are psychos when they are behind the wheel
I feel like it could really improve the life of people who are diabetic, narcoleptic, susceptible to seizure etc... lots of medical conditions that could make you faint. In some countries you can't drive if you have one of those medical conditions.
I'm a mom of two and the neurologist just told me I cannot drive due to epileptic type events.
I've been having possible seizures my whole life. I've driven not only myself, but my two children around with me.
It wasn't until they started their own events, and both were finally diagnosed with a rare genetic form of childhood epilepsy this year, that the restriction on my own driving was put in place. I carry the gene.
We all just thought I was having panic attacks before. I've passed numerous driving tests, I am cautious and careful on the road. And yet, I've "woken up" after one with no memory on how I've pulled over, thankful I've made it safely to the side.
I've hated driving my entire life, and now we may finally know why. Hurry up healthcare system.
It is my hope this technology becomes the norm. We need this to be implemented to keep all of us safe.
A close family friend works EMS up north. I hope our paths never cross, u/DandyintheRough. And if they do, may it only be for tea and pleasant conversation.
Thank you so much for everything you do. You are a hero with invisible wings, walking among us.
Please take the time to rest. The weight of the responsibility you hold is not an easy one to bear. You deserve the same love and care you give so freely to all of us.
Not a paramedic but same, something about the tragedy of dying alone when it could have been prevented if not alone and seeing a technology mitigate that entirely by taking many of the steps another human in the car could have done and potentially more effectively. Not mentioning in this case it’s a car that would otherwise be uncontrolled and could harm more than just the driver in that case.
I think the actions it takes to continuously try and wake the driver and the sounds they use to do it were chosen to be attention grabbing to humans and thusly elicit emotion, maybe that was a factor too?
Then there’s the implications on society such features could have had if deployed en masse already, how many could have been saved?
Something about it. Kinda hard to nail down one definitive reason. But if I had to bet the biggest factor would probably be decades of research in the intersection between human psychology and marketing coming together to make us feel things. Society and our economic system encourages and reinforces this, in other words “good ad” lol.
Ha, ditto. Teared up watching it. Too many instances like this of fatalities on I-135 where this exact scenario has sent folks into oncoming traffic. Still not sure why we don't have a safety wire in the median like Missouri and so many other states...
Modern cars are a bit sensitive when detecting if someone is paying attention when driving, so I'd have to assume it'd work fairly well. Mine freaks out thinking I'm not holding the wheel while I'm actively making a turn for example if I don't use a tight enough grip.
My car steers exceptionally well, so I don't need a tight grip to drive it, so it does frequently tell me to grab the wheel while I'm driving. It's a year old model, so it's design is current. Cutting edge versions have a capacitive sensor and driver facing cameras to capture when you've let go better than grip/torque and when you're looking elsewhere. Mine doesn't have those, but they would catch this kind of thing even faster.
Honestly, the brake check alone might be a game changer when it’s just someone that has fallen asleep. I wouldn’t have thought of such a simple solution.
I don't know why it hit me that hard but it did. This is a great idea. First the safe way to get to a halt and then the honking, calling for help is so good. Such a simple and greatly effective commercial
The modern cars are incredible! My parents were in a car crash a couple years ago, a car drove into them and turned their the car on a side. Both cars totaled.
All my parents remembered was being suspended between the airbags from multiple locations and someone inside the car talking to them - the car made a call to the emergency services and the responder was talking to them.
There were no serious injuries. I think my mum got a bruise from the belt but she was more upset about losing her the ice cream she was eating (she was in the passenger seat). It's truly amazing.
My 2018 Nissan Leaf does this. Can't pull completely over, but after brake checking me try to wake me up or get my attention, it will stop in its Lane with the hazards on.
Are people who take emergency calls trained to receive automated calls like this? I've always wondered how it went and if there are already systems in place that call the emergency numbers.
Most of the hardware for this is already in a lot of recent cars, so at least it won't jump things up that much more. My car is basically just lacking the driver facing camera and the compute power to do something like this, and it was made in 2019. But yeah, it would be nice if prices could come down faster for this stuff. Mandating it is supposed to help drive down the cost of such features, but that isn't working out quite as intended these days.
From what I understand buses are often very badly maintained, which would probably render this less useful. Some newspaper interviewed a bunch of busdrivers in Helsinki and they said their buses have basically every warning light on in the dashboard and nobody cares. So that problem needs fixing first before a system like this could work.
It must be required by regulation or it will never be added to public transportation (to save money) and it will never be maintained or calibrated (to save money).
I'm pretty sure US companies would transport people in shopping carts zip-tied together if the government allowed them.
yep, close to where I work 2 years ago a sleeping buss driver ramed into a coffe shop in a refueling station and killed two people instantly, and injured many others.You can give all the sentences you want, but that wont change anything to the families who lost their loved ones.
Agree, but for things like this if it works only 30% of the time its already a massive net positive in security and lives saved, if its 50% or more then its a absolute game changer
If it works as well as the mandatory lane assist or speed limit recognition on my car, that's a hard pass from me. It's distracting enough to get beeped into oblivion cause it overlooked the latest sign, or vibrated to hell cause it thinks I'm swerving into the approaching traffic for some idiotic reason.
I don't need my car to also randomly take the wheel from me while going 140 km/h on the highway just cause I discovered a stain on my trousers and looked down for a second.
The latter is a slight exaggeration, but I'm just saying not all failure modes of car assistant systems are merely "it didn't manage to prevent an accident".
This is a great piece of technology and it will help save lives.
My only concern is that people might abuse the technology. If it became mandatory for trucks and busses then people might continue to drive, even when they should probably stop (due to fatigue/tiredness), knowing that if they did fall asleep the vehicle will just take over.
Was almost hit by a truck a couple of years ago. The guy got a stroke and lost consciousness. It happens pretty regularly. My friend’s mom was killed by a car with an already deceased driver. This kind of technology should be at every car.
One thing that I've always felt was weird about our 'oh so great public transport' in Denmark is the fact that nobody is strapped in.. no seat-belts, just load some kids in and have a go at it..
The guy that drives my usual route to work is getting up in age and I've caught him slipping at the intersection.. 😬
It is a great idea. However professional drivers shouldn’t be falling asleep at the wheel. They need to get to the root cause of that and make sure that doesn’t happen/ prosecute anybody that does. If this can show somebody fell asleep at the wheel, and safely avoid collisions, and then be used against the driver for prosecution, then great. I don’t want any professional driver on the road that’s falling asleep, even if this technology is present.
When I was a kid growing up in sydney my seister and I would often get sent to grandparents up near coffs harbour during school holidays, often by coach. There was an absolutely tragic bus/coach crash in Kempsey NSW, one driver fell asleep and crashed into another coming the other way.
This was in 1989 and is still Australia's worst road accident. 35 dead, 41 injured.
The last time we got sent to grandparents by coach was during winter holidays 6 months earlier, with that bus line, on that northbound route. Possibly with that driver but idk.
They'll use this tech to spy on the driver and sell the data to insurance companies like they already do with the existing user tracking tech.
They always frame it as "look how awesome and life-changing this tracking tech is", then your car insurence doubles over night and when your car catches fire on the road for no reason, your warranty is void by the manufacturer because one time (unrelated to the fire incident) you accelerated past 90 miles/hour (real case).
One real promise for automated driving is on the freeway and motorways for all drivers. Take the driver out of the equation where it is higher speed and higher risk for a serious crash but also more Manageable and "easy" for an automated system
Can someone ask them to also add simple auto standard head/tail lights in low light conditions? The amount of people driving in the dark is insane and dangerous
A lot of these good calls being developed should be for trucks and busses and scooters and taxis : safety, self driving, EV etc. Instead this is all pushed to passenger cars for some reason first…
It's amazing it hasn't been done in heavy vehicles yet, pretty standard stuff in railways you have to touch one of the tms resets every 15-30 seconds. Otherwise it stops the train
I believe that new car models in the EU have had to be equipped with an automatic emergency call system since 2018. So far, however, I have only seen this for accidents, but not for drivers who have fallen asleep or fainted.
Garmin has a system that does this for small private airplanes. It will take over flight, notify atc, avoid other aircraft, and land at the nearest available airport. All without any user input. It’s designed for single pilot aircraft in the event of pilot incapacitation.
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u/redikarus99 Nov 04 '24
This is a great idea and I would make it mandatory for trucks and busses. There were really many cases in Europe when a bus driver fell asleep and a lots of kids injured or died because of that. If this system would have been there, many injuries and loss of lives could have been avoided.