Electronic Nannys in Cars

I road in a friends car yesterday and it was the scariest experience I have had in a long time.

He basically was not paying attention to his driving and completely relying on the electronic aids to keep him from backing in to things hitting cars as he came to lights and stating in his lanes. There were at least a half dozen times when the computer took control of the vehicle because he was not paying attention.

At what point will we not be driving our cars any more? At the moment we are mixing computers decision making with human decision making and I see it as a bad thing as the human can get completely dependent on the computer to make the decisions for them. I guess in some cases this may be good but it is only as good as those that program it.

I am convinced more than ever that these are making bad drivers even worse. He was oblivious to his complete lack of vehicle control. The computer was in control when making decisions (like stopping the car at a read light so we don't hit the car in front of us) It seamed to me as the passenger that the computer was in more control of the vehicle than the driver. I guess for some drivers this helps but soon people will be blaming there cars computer for an accident and I bet the law will agree. Then the car manufacturers will have a choice. To either take all control away from the driver or to eliminate some of these driving aids and put the responsibility of stopping your car or not hitting some one back in the hands of the human operator.

I am to the point now that I think if you need all that assistance to drive a vehicle then maybe you should be riding the train or the bus and let those that know how to drive do the driving.

We won't be driving our cars in about 10-15 years...as you can see some people want and need the change...the transition will be scary

What kind of car was this? I didn't realize we were at this technological point yet.

I've been saying for years that the sooner we get self-driving cars the better. My Google smartphone isn't perfect, but I trust it a lot further than I trust the serial nose picker/text messager in the next lane.

Must have been a Benz? They seem to be loaded with every electronic "safety driver aid" in the world, according to their commercials.

Yeah probably a Benz but it could be any "upscale" brand. Auto lane hold, auto brake, auto reverse brake...not terribly uncommon features on high-end cars.

When I'm on the highway near a car that has the "blind spot warning light" on its side mirror, I like to hang in the blind spot, then back off to find where the "edge" of the sensor beam is, and then just keep going slightly faster and slower to make the guy's light blink constantly on and off and on and off.

Ok, I just did that once. But it was fun. I don't think the driver even noticed, honestly.

ShadowSix wrote: What kind of car was this? I didn't realize we were at this technological point yet. I've been saying for years that the sooner we get self-driving cars the better. My Google smartphone isn't perfect, but I trust it a lot further than I trust the serial nose picker/text messager in the next lane.

Mercedes seems to be the worst offender so far. They have sensors all over their cars, especially the higher end. They can even tell when you're tired, by showing a coffee light on the dash, just in case you were too stupid to know you were tired. A few years ago they had a TV ad that catered to bad drivers. The whole commercial was how morons were saved because they had a Mercedes. "I didn't see the car in front of me stop, but my Mercedes did."

Wow, new M-B luxo-barges are so far from my automotive world that I didn't even know... No TV so I don't see many commercials... I wonder how they'll get around the liability issues of self-driving cars? It might be something that has to be developed in less-litigious countries before they can bring them over here.

I think they'll have a much easier time fighting a few suits where the car could be to blame vs. fighting every moron who mistook the gas for the brakes and vehemently denies they didn't, or died in a hilariously stupid accident of their own fault because the car wasn't APC-like enough.

I hate all this nanny stuff. Finding a newer car means finding ways to disable all of it.

In reply to GameboyRMH:

I hope you're right, the sooner we can take the wheel out of Joe Sixpack's hands the better.

In reply to Gearheadotaku:

Meh, my '07 Fit feels pretty new to me and it has... ABS? That's the only "nanny" i can think of. It's a "sport" (ha!) model too, so I think it's as loaded as they came.

EDIT: My GF's 2010 Civic has ABS and TPMS, I am not sensitive enough to be offended by TPMS though... so really no different that the Fit.

2014 top of the line land rover. Some sort of limited production model cost north of 150k if that helps.

dean1484 wrote: 2014 top of the line land rover. Some sort of limited production model cost north of 150k if that helps.

If you've got 150k for a Range Rover, and no sense to drive it, why not forgo driving at all, and go with a driver service?

The last 3 vehicles I have owned had ABS and ESC. Two of them have had a brake lock differential. All of them have been Dodge/Jeep products which are known for their overbearing electronic nannies. The Dodge Magnum RT was really fun but the non-defeatable traction/stability control really let it down. I bought a kit which was just a relay and timing circuit that plugged it between the TC button and the yaw sensor. It would shut power off to the yaw sensor, which would turn the TC/ESC 100% off. However, you would also lose the limited-slip function the brake lock differential provided.

On the Jeep, it is pretty much the same thing. You can shut the TC "off" but it is still on about 70%. Wanna have some fun in the mud? Nope, it cuts power and makes it bog down to the point where you get stuck. I found the yaw sensor and wired a normally-closed momentary switch inline the power wire. Now I can just hit the button and disable ALL of the aids, including ABS unfortunately. No ABS= no cruise control. But I only use it for offroad only.

And don't get me started on trying to get the TPMS sensors to play nice with the lower pressure of my 33" Duratracs

I understand the need for electronic aids but I think it is producing worse drivers that rely on them as a replacement for skill and experience.

Stanger Missile:

THANK YOU!!

It makes me happy that when the manufacturers didn't give you a button, you ran 2 wires and MADE YOUR OWN. It really bothers me that people complain and complain about stuff that is really easy to get around. I respect and acknowledge the caveat that it also defeats things you wish it didnt, but frankly most people dont GET TO make that complaint because they dont even try hard enough to get that far. They just complain.

I am a big fan of safety aids. I am a somewhat smaller fan of defeatable safety aids. Id rather have safety aids with no OEM off button (i can always make my own) than no safety aids ever, at all. And of course the ideal is safety aids with various options for control/adjustment for enthusiast drivers. But frankly, that ideal is way less important to me than the fact that the safety aids exist.

While the ride was scary, were you at least a little relaxed by the heated massage in the Range Rover?

mndsm wrote:

dean1484 wrote: 2014 top of the line land rover. Some sort of limited production model cost north of 150k if that helps.

If you've got 150k for a Range Rover, and no sense to drive it, why not forgo driving at all, and go with a driver service?

because I'd bet that if you asked the driver, he'd tell you that he was a great driver … with the record to prove it

Just one of his toys. Same friend as a Bentley super sport. It is the car the convinced me that twin turbos on a v12 are compleetly the rite thing to do. Ohya and those exaust flapper things that open up when the throtal is pressed so far? I am a fan as well. I was giggling like Jeremy Clarkston after driving that thing.

I compleetly understand what an automotive "crisis" is now.

The land rover is a great car. Fast!!! And has fantastic handeling. For what it is.

GameboyRMH wrote: We won't be driving our cars in about 10-15 years...as you can see some people want and need the change...the transition will be scary

There was a social experiment a while back where machines were making a choice for people, i forget what it was exactly but basically every time people would be openly defiant towards the machine after not too long. When cars are driving and people want to go above the speed limit or drive more aggressively this auto-car thing isn't going to last too long. I don't think there will be any legislation to force them on us either. With machines like this the "rule" has always been assisted human input, not total machine control. Drones, autopilot, etc. That way a person has final liability.

This fantasy of auto-drive cars driving 100mph on public roads and no traffic incidents or backups is our generations fantasy like flying cars was decades ago.

Another aspect of all those driver aids, is how good are they. That can make a huge difference. My friends old Volvo V70 had a very good traction control that was a real help in winter. So when I bought my 2012 Mazda5, I thought it was great that it came with traction/stability control. But then, the first snowfall happen, and it performs so poorly, that it does more harm than good. It's too slow to react, and then it over-reacts. So on days like today (snowing pretty hard right now), I'll get in the car and turn it off. It doesn't defeat the stability control, but it's slow enough to react that I can still do some sweet handbrake turns.

Gearheadotaku wrote: I hate all this nanny stuff. Finding a newer car means finding ways to disable all of it.

Bull Crap!

I see this sort of ill informed post quite often on modern car forums. Along the lines of 'A real man drives his own car and doesn't rely on computers to help him"

The Solstice (and most current GM products incorporate some pretty sophisticated aids including traction and stability control and anti-lock braking. Like some (but not all) cars that have such capabilities, they also allow you to switch them out.

Basically, the traction control and stability control work simultaneously. If the BCM senses a threshold difference in rotational speed between the front and rear wheels, then it detunes the engine and will even put on the brakes to bring the rear back "under control". This manifests as a sudden deceleration when you bang from 1st to 2nd and the wheels break loose.

If you hit the button once, the TC light will come on and you will be able to spin the tires a fair amount without the car putting on the brakes.

The stability control system senses differences in wheel rotational speed from all four wheels and has thresholds set for when the car is experiencing a significant difference in speed from side to side, or I suspect if the steering input exceeds certain paramaters as a function of speed. If the car senses that the tires on one side are rotating above a set threshold faster than the tires on the other side, it will apply the brakes to the "faster" side to slow it down and attempt to straighten out the car.

If you hit the TC button twice in succession, then the first push turns "off" the traction control and the second push puts the car into competition mode. In competition mode you still do have stability monitoring and correcting software working but it increases the thresholds significantly so you can slide around quite a bit but if you exceed the higher thresholds it will still try and bring the car back into "control".

If you go one more setting and switch it all off, and you are not on a track, you are an idiot and will likely end up picking weeds out of the grille. At least that is what we have seen many times from 'real men' that do this in the Solstice/Sky community. As a long time race driver, I often use competition mode when on a road with no friction issues (water, ice) but would never remove all safety measures unless I was on a circuit.

Meh, find the fuseblock.

I hate electronic nannies that bandaid over bad mechanical design.

Rhetorical question (it's all about the money): Why don't carmakers get it right mechanically first (LSDs, brake proportioning, actual suspension tuning, maybe speccing decent tires) BEFORE they bring in the nannies?

91 4cyl 5 speed crank windows, etc. That's about as aided as I'd like to be. I'll keep it that way, thanks.