Toyota automatically stops car before it can hit pedestrian

http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/toyota-system-automatically-stops-car-it-hits

by buzzblog • 15 years ago

33 70 15 years ago

networkworld.com

Toyota automatically stops the car before it can hit a pedestrian

joejohnson• 15 years ago

Hmmm, but is there a way to override this? What if I'm trying to run my car into mannequins?

mashmac2• 15 years ago

That could be a really fun trend... start attaching mannequins and cardboard cutouts to random street signs and light poles as close to the road as possible and see when the Toyota reacts.

gmac• 15 years ago

... except that if it scuppers a life-saving innovation, it will thereby cost lives.

tryke• 15 years ago

What if I'm being carjacked and my car won't let me get away?

LeafStorm• 15 years ago

Perhaps there should be a button under the dash labelled "Manual Control" that disables all automatic driving features.

athst• 15 years ago

Whenever I almost get hit by a car while I'm walking around San Francisco, I'd say that 8 times out of 10 it's a Prius... so this is definitely welcome.

gte910h2• 15 years ago

I've had like 4 cyclists ride into my Prius. It's like a magnet for the unaware.

aplusbi• 15 years ago

Those things sneak up on you! It's surprising how much cyclists and pedestrians rely on engine noise.

ristretto• 15 years ago

Wow that sounds scary. Does the prius have some noise generator you can turn on?

DavidSJ• 15 years ago

That's because 8 out of 10 cars in San Francisco are Priuses.

mdasen• 15 years ago

Volvo has similarly come out with a pedestrian detection/braking system (http://www.boston.com/cars/newsandreviews/overdrive/2010/07/...) and Volkswagen has been showing off a self-driving car (http://www.motorauthority.com/news/1062073_volkswagen-shows-...) in addition to the Google Car. Cars are going toward driving themselves. The Google car is impressive, but it will likely be a while before people become comfortable with the concept and for the cost to come down. Mainstream auto manufacturers are inching their way toward these features (mostly on their more expensive models), but I keep hearing people say, "well, what if it stops me when I can go forward."

I think manufacturers are trying to get consumers used to the idea that technology might be the way to go for a lot of driving systems. People need to get the idea that self-driving technologies enhance safety. I think that's why they're starting with braking. As people become comfortable with and grateful for their car taking control in emergency-ish situations like that, they'll similarly become comfortable with the car taking control during normal driving. At least that's the thought.

encoderer4• 15 years ago

Volvo has this feature -- dubbed City Safety -- already on the road.

It may seem snobbish to some, but I'd never let myself, my wife, and my future children drive anything but a Mercedes or Volvo.

Between the two of them, they've been behind nearly every safety system developed in the last 40 years.

I feel good about knowing that our hard work has let us put my wife in a car, for her 30 minute commute, that has 12 airbags, that monitors her blindspot and will prevent her from changing lanes when it's occupied, that monitors her alertness and sounds alarms if she begins to fall asleep at the wheel, that vibrates the steering wheel if she accidentally begins to drift out of her lane, that watches for stopped traffic or obstacles in her path and will apply full force braking in microseconds in a way that her human reflexes just cannot, that has seats designed to prevent whiplash, and seatbelt pretensioners, and an extra firewall in the engine compartment to prevent intrusion.

Not to mention, compared to the often under-engineered competition, it has handling and performance capabilities that can plausibly prevent accidents where any of those things would be necessary in the first place.

Neither of us has ever yet, to our knowledge, counted on these things to save our lives. But knowing they're there, makes me feel much more comfortable when she leaves home.

jzycrzy• 15 years ago

Have you considered working for either Volvo or Mercedes Marketing department?

acangiano2• 15 years ago

I'll buy my first car in a few months (at the tender age of 31). I was eyeing Mercedes already, and your comment only confirms everything I've read about it. Do you know if these features are available in their class C cars, or do I need to get an E class?

encoderer4• 15 years ago

Actually, yes. Most of those will be available on the C class starting MY 2012.

If you live in North America you can probably expect 2012's to be available in September and October.

You can pre-order now, of course. Including a wonderful option where you go to Germany, pick the car up as it rolls off the line, drive it around Europe for up to 30 days, then drop it back off to them to have it shipped to the US: And you get the car at dealer invoice less 8%. That's a little involved for a first time Mercedes buyer, but I wanted to make you aware of it, it's a very great program they've got there.

The C is a great car. We've got one in our family. If you have any questions, http://mbworld.org/forums/c-class-w204-83/ is a great C Class forum. I'm active there under the same handle.

mostapha7• 15 years ago

That's interesting, because Mercedes's Traction Control system almost killed me one night. Apparently it's possible to accidentally induce a very slight but controllable oversteer slide by overshooting the exit to a fast curve and touching a rumble strip with the outside tires. No surprise there.

In a normal car, you keep your front wheels on the line you want to follow, release power, then smoothly add power to "shift weight" to the rear wheels and increase traction (acceleration causes the rear suspension to compress, making the rear tires push harder on the ground, increasing the normal force and increasing rear wheel traction). Doing that stops the oversteer (rear wheel skid).

In a Mercedes, the car assumes that you're an idiot for doing that, cuts engine power to the drive (rear) wheels, and applies breaks to the OUTSIDE REAR WHEEL. That procedure has the effect of decompressing the rear suspension and decreasing traction to the rear wheels, which are already skidding. The slide that resulted was unrecoverable. Yank the parking break and shift into neutral while in a hard corner at 40mph if you want to know what it felt like. For a few seconds, my instincts and the car's Traction Control fought each other as I tried to correct for the skids that improperly braking the rear wheels was causing.

Finally, I came to rest having skid across the double yellow…and then somehow the automatic transmission stalled.

It was a "mistake" that could have been fixed in less than a second driving a 1908 Model T. After a hundred years of innovations, Mercedes has completely removed the driver from direct control of the vehicle, WITHOUT an option to turn off those so-called "features."

I spent the next several months talking to people who did tuning for Daimler-Chrysler for a shop in Montana, cracking ECU encryption to reprogram the fuel injectors and intake system to perform well at high altitudes. And apparently there's no good way to turn off that Traction Control system except removing large chunks of code from the ECU, which voids the warranty and might have serious side effects. When I learned more about how the Traction Control system actually works, I sold the car.

I will never own another Mercedes. They breed laziness and irresponsibility without giving competent drivers the control they need to drive safely.

I'm currently an avid BMW fan because of two major factors: first, it's possible to buy manual transmissions without special ordering a new car from Germany; second, it is possible–by holding a button on the console for a few seconds–to COMPLETELY disable traction control. I have driven in snow and ice, torrential downpours, and heavy traffic in the last year. I haven't driven with Traction Control on since Mercedes almost killed me in 2006.

Frankly, I think EVERY SINGLE ONE of the safety features you suggested is a horrible idea. Pay attention to what you're doing, and don't drive if you're not physically and mentally capable of driving. I don't want my car to wake me up if I fall asleep driving…I want to be smart enough to not drive that night.

Frankly, the more I hear about Mercedes safety features, the more distance I like to keep between me and them on the highway.

enjalot• 15 years ago

I think you should keep in mind that you appear to be an intelligent, skilled and avid driver. For you driving is an experience you take seriously and also seem to enjoy. I'm not worried about what you do on the road, but I am worried about the millions of less intelligent and skilled drivers that are pushing 3000lbs of metal around at lethal speeds.

I think you are justified in wanting and buying a machine that suits your needs, but please don't assume that everyone is or even should be as adamant about driving as you are. I for one will happily let the computer take the wheel and allow me to focus on things I care about like conversation or coding. If I want a joy ride hopefully I'll be successful enough to own a classic gasoline powered driving machine ;)

gfodor4• 15 years ago

You may not want the car to wake you up, but you'll certainly want the car of the incompetent driver next to you to wake him up before he careens into you on the highway.

encoderer4• 15 years ago

I'm sure you feel very strongly that you're correct and that the systems were incorrect. And that's fine. But the fact that you disable the TCS in your BMW indicates that it's the technology you dislike and not the Mercedes implementation.

I'm happy for you that you've found a car you like. For me, I don't feel BMW has the same track record of safety innovation, but even before I grew to value that, what disuaded me most from owning a BMW is the fact that they use runflats only. And even if you've got a salesman willing to swap them out with conventional tires, there is no place in the trunk for a spare without it just sitting in there rolling around, taking up space. But I respect that BMW makes some fine cars and they feel very different on the road than does a Mercedes.

The criticisms you have about making drivers "lazy" is the same thing some people said about antilock brakes. And in fact, I have an uncle who swears as you do that if he had full control over the brakes, he'd have avoided an accident.

For me, knowing that these safety systems -- able to react in fractions of a second -- are there to help save my life and keep safe the woman I love, is invaluable. And I believe that for every one of your stories, there's dozens or hundreds of stories where these things led to a person walking away from an accident than they may not otherwise have survived.

I think the average person would agree. A system that beeps if you fall asleep at the wheel? Yes. A system that nudges your steering wheel fi you drift over the centerline? Yes. None of these things even augment your driving, they just direct yoru attention to the road.

In fact, the only thing I mentioned that does intervene in your driving is the blind spot intervention.

Anyhow, glad you didn't have any serious issues. And I hope we both know how fortunate we are to be able to sit here and debate the relative merits of one German sports sedan vs another.

Julie188• 15 years ago

Yikes. I like safety features like airbags and strong cages that won't collapse on the driver in a crash. I don't want my car making driving decisions for me. It may be done in the name of safety but until they invent a car that can't break, I don't trust it not to cause more problems than it helps.

lutorm3• 15 years ago

I somewhat sympathize with your thinking. However, why do you like airbags then? Accidental airbag release can kill you a lot easier than sudden brake application can.

Daniel_Newby2• 15 years ago

Volvo has this already and it cuts low-speed collisions by 25%.

http://blogs.wsj.com/drivers-seat/2011/07/20/safety-group-sa...

drcube• 15 years ago

Luddite. :P Seriously, would you prefer a car that was built by a robot or a human?

Personally, while I see where you are coming from and share your reservations about unproven technologies, I also foresee a time - within our lifetimes and hopefully sooner than later - where cars are 100% computer controlled and roads are at least an order of magnitude safer.

Imagine if every drunk at the bar could just press "home" on the dashboard of their car and then sleep it off during the trip?

mhb• 15 years ago

But what does it do if five pedestrians jump in front of the car and it has to turn and kill a different one in order to save the five?

jrockway• 15 years ago

It explodes, killing only the environment-ruining automobile driver.

(Please note: tongue-in-cheek.)

epochwolf2• 15 years ago

Only on the electric models, the gas ones will fly over the pedestrians using a rocket booster.

Daniel_Newby2• 15 years ago

People will need to be RFID tagged with their net present value.

seles2• 15 years ago

Alerting driver of potential pedestrian = good

Automatically making a decision (that the human is better at making) and potentially causing an accident due to a random sudden stop = bad

lutorm3• 15 years ago

Are you saying it's worse to potentially cause an accident due to the sudden stop than to certainly have an accident as you run someone/thing over? I'm not sure I agree with you there.

ceejayoz2• 15 years ago

Especially considering the difference in injury for a rear-end accident versus mowing down a pedestrian. Even if we assume that 100% of the time the car behind you will hit, the death toll is still likely much reduced.

fr0sty• 15 years ago

This line of argument hinges on the assumption that braking input is the only means by which to avoid an accident. Cars have steering wheels and swerving is often an effective maneuver when attempting to avoid an accident.

Incidentally, heavy breaking reduces a car's ability to corner which may end up causing accidents which could otherwise be avoided.

seles2• 15 years ago

This would be "certainly" only if the system worked perfectly. I think there will way more false positives than actual preventions (at least in the near term).

Tuna-Fish• 15 years ago

> Automatically making a decision (that the human is better at making)

What about when the car really is better at making that decision? IMHO, we are few scarce decades away from cars that will just be plain better drivers than the median meatbag.

pavel_lishin2• 15 years ago

We need some empirical data on this - run tests, get results, interpret them, etc. Until then, it's all a bunch of pointless what-ifs - "But what if I'm being carjacked and I need to get away, BUT Adolf Hitler is blocking my way, BUT ALSO he's carrying the baby Einstein, BUT ALSO it's actually evil Einstein!"

awj• 15 years ago

> IMHO, we are few scarce decades away from cars that will just be plain better drivers than the median meatbag.

...except that we've been a few scarce decades away from this for a few decades now. For the most part the history of this thought process is that we dramatically underestimate the problems involved.

alexitosrv• 15 years ago

Does anybody else remember this demostration of a Volvo featuring a similar characteristic and utterly failing?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNi17YLnZpg

These technologies need to gain the trust of the drivers before they can become mainstream.

galenward• 15 years ago

Toyota has clearly never considered the parable where one is required to run over 1 pedestrian in order to stop another car that is about to take the lives of 5 other pedestrians.

moheeb• 15 years ago

Yeah this would have definitely been the least popular vehicle in Carmageddon.

bh42222• 15 years ago

This is great! But why does this (as well as Volvo's) car AI require no special permission from the law, but Google's car AI did?

Is it because we welcome an AI which breaks, but not one which drives? Why?

Because passive AIs are less scary than active ones? And active breaking is still perceived as a passive action?

tinman• 15 years ago

I don't get it. Why is there a giant "Lexus" on the side of the car if Toyota is making this technology?

bradleyland4• 15 years ago

Toyota owns Lexus.

orijing• 15 years ago

Will insurance companies adjust rates in response to this, as it will likely lower expected costs?

Toyota automatically stops car before it can hit pedestrian

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