What happens with street based racecars now?

Swank Force One wrote: Why do we NEED all of this crap? Does anyone here ACTUALLY want adaptive cruise control?

I love the backup camera and blind spot monitoring on my wife's car. The backup camera is great for the cat that runs out behind the car. I check behind it before I get in, but this stupid mofo hides in the bushes and flops behind the car at least once a week. The blind spot monitoring is good for the people who like to drive without their lights on at night. I still look, but there have been a few times that the light let me know a car was there I may have missed.

The common thing with both of these devices is that they are augments to human failings or problems with the visibility with high betline modern cars. I don't think I'd like anything that would take control of the car away from me. For example, the blind spot monitoring will sometimes register a guardrail or concrete barrier on an exit ramp as another car and beep like crazy even though I am not changing lanes nor is there a car next to me.

GameboyRMH wrote: Ideally, automatic braking shouldn't cause any problem. It should only activate when a crash is inevitable or very close to it. But in case it does...

The active braking I'm familiar with will sense that you applied the brakes to avoid a collision, and will apply the brakes 100% until the vehicle stops.

One of the OEMs did a study and found that a lot of accidents were because people weren't braking hard enough. Plow into someone but braking at only .5g instead of 1.2 or whatever a car can brake at max-effort.

In reply to Knurled:

You're thinking of emergency brake assist. What is being mandated now is fully automated braking. You get a warning and if you don't react, the car does it for you.

Example: https://youtu.be/xJZfYnZfGuM

In reply to CGLockRacer:

More examples:

https://youtu.be/aNi17YLnZpg

Apexcarver wrote:

Flight Service wrote:

G. P. Snorklewacker wrote: It seems like the US government is willing to try any and all technology EXCEPT better driver training to keep the highways safe.

States control that, not the Feds...complain to your Governor and State Legislature. I am serious about this too. I complain every time I run into a rep about revamping driver training in the state. Maybe that should be a GRM outreach project to push legislatures to pick up real driver training and not 15 minutes in the high school parking lot for $200.

Not quite right... In reality they both do. There are Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, which a car must meet in order to be sold in the U.S., but on top of that are what the States dictate. This is also how there are blanket EPA things in regards to emissions and there is also C.A.R.B. in California, where they have much more strict requirements. NHTSA is the group requiring backup cameras, automatic braking, event data recorders, TPMS, Stability Control, and all those things. As far as the Federal safety standards, they are controlled by NHTSA, who is controlled by congress. You (as a citizen)actually do have a chance to weigh in on what NHTSA is proposing. You can do that on www.regulations.gov Basically, look for what is called an NPRM (Notice of Proposed Rule Making) being put out by NHTSA. They have to put forth the case there. You can comment on pretty much any government regulation there. You could band together with a politician and approach it that way as well. Any valid comment (other than a comment lacking substance, like for instance, "Jesus says synthetic materials in car interiors is sinful") has to be replied to by the agency in question. For most big things they end up doing it in batch form as many comment on the same type of thing. Now, another thing to consider is that you can do whatever the hell you want to your car after you buy it (from a federal perspective). You just can't do it to someone elses car for profit. (seriously, if you run a shop converting cars to race cars you need to pay attention here) You cannot, as a business, take a car OUT of compliance with safety standards (unless you are exempted, which isnt going to happen for racers). NONE OF THIS APPLIES if the car is not going to be used on the road. This is why you cant go to a place when you have an airbag light and just have them remove your airbags. There are some significant fines associated with this type of thing. In short, do it to your own car, no problem. Do it to someone elses car for profit, problem, but only if its going to be used on the road. Honestly, the aftermarket will adapt. Everyone thought EFI was going to be the death of performance and it has ended up being a boon. Yeah, there are things like CARB to get around for tunes and such, but the aftermarket has adapted and solutions exist. If you go and read what your state requires, you will likely be amazed how light it is there. (well unless you live in CA)

Yes, everything you said was correct except for the fact that state laws, not fed laws, control what driver training is required in order to obtain a license. Feds make smarter cars, the state is responsible for making smarter drivers.

Back to my point if you want driver training to increase/change, complain to your state officials. If you want dumber cars complain to your federal officials. Sorry for any confusion in my quick retort.

Doh' sorry.. was writing a long report and my mind was clouded thinking you were referring to safety equipment

Flight Service wrote:

G. P. Snorklewacker wrote: It seems like the US government is willing to try any and all technology EXCEPT better driver training to keep the highways safe.

States control that, not the Feds...complain to your Governor and State Legislature. I am serious about this too. I complain every time I run into a rep about revamping driver training in the state. Maybe that should be a GRM outreach project to push legislatures to pick up real driver training and not 15 minutes in the high school parking lot for $200.

The NRA of drivers ed? I could get behind that. Especially with some of the E36 M3 that's been sprung on me driving down the freeway lately.

logdog wrote:

Swank Force One wrote: Does anyone here ACTUALLY want adaptive cruise control? .... Heated and cooled seats with built in massagers?

I do! I know these opinions will make me an outcast in the GRM world but I genuinely find they make the drive less stressful. I average about 1000 miles a week and I LOVE adaptive cruise and heated/cooled seats. They are awesome.

GameboyRMH wrote: I like cruise-control for long highway commutes and cooled seats sound nice. I once put a seat cover with fans built into it into my Samurai, it broke within a year though...

I like cruise-control also .. but I'm pretty sure I DON'T want adaptive cruise control

NOHOME wrote: Within 50 years nobody will be driving cars on the street anyways. That task will be dealt with by computers and Google. The good news is that car racing will probably experience a rebirth as a link to the romantic "Old days" when people actually touched a steering wheel. Not real sure how we are going to get our races cars to the track, but I'm sure it can be sorted.

50 yrs ago, we were told that by now we'd have flying cars … I won't be around 50 yrs from now, but I really don't see how google or anyone else will have mapped the entire US … all the little lanes and back roads .. much less every parking lot and driveway in the country

not going to happen … there may be super highways that you can drive onto and push a button that connects you to the network of that highway… then sit back and ride to your exit … but once you get onto the service roads you'll be on your own

The roads don't all have to be mapped for an autonomous car to drive on them. They just need to make an autonomous car that's good enough at recognizing roads.

Although if you look on Google Earth, damn near all of the roads ARE mapped.

Autonomous cars will need to have some kind of manual parking though. Maybe something where you point at where you want the car to park and an AR display shows a rectangle on the ground there, and then you choose which way you want the car to face.

wbjones wrote:

logdog wrote:

Swank Force One wrote: Does anyone here ACTUALLY want adaptive cruise control? .... Heated and cooled seats with built in massagers?

I do! I know these opinions will make me an outcast in the GRM world but I genuinely find they make the drive less stressful. I average about 1000 miles a week and I LOVE adaptive cruise and heated/cooled seats. They are awesome.

GameboyRMH wrote: I like cruise-control for long highway commutes and cooled seats sound nice. I once put a seat cover with fans built into it into my Samurai, it broke within a year though...

I like cruise-control also .. but I'm pretty sure I DON'T want adaptive cruise control

Its pretty sweet. Admittedly Ive gotten pretty spoiled by it. When I drive a car with single speed cruise I find it a bit of a pain in traffic. With adaptive, once I set the cruise and distance the traffic speed fluctuations are less annoying. As always, YMMV.

GameboyRMH wrote: The roads don't all have to be mapped for an autonomous car to drive on them. They just need to make an autonomous car that's good enough at recognizing roads. Although if you look on Google Earth, damn near all of the roads ARE mapped.

I live in the second largest city in the state of Maryland (2010 Census) and there are streets in the city that are not on Google Maps or Google Earth. In fact, some of them don't show up on any mapping/navigation software.

Some of the roads I occasionally drive on west of the city also are not named on a map (locals have names for them). And I think we are a very long way from an autonomous car that can follow 2 wheel tracks thru the woods.

CGLockRacer wrote: With all of the electronic nannies being mandated or becoming standard, how are we going to turn standard street cars into showroom stock racecars in the future? How are NASA and SCCA going to deal with this?

Not sure if this is mentioned yet or not, but the engineers that design / implement these nannies are often SCCA and/or NASA members. Plus there are factory affiliated groups like Mazdaspeed, HPD, Nismo, Ford Racing, etc. that support amateur racing. I can't imagine them not having some tricks to share.

logdog wrote:

wbjones wrote:

logdog wrote:

Swank Force One wrote: Does anyone here ACTUALLY want adaptive cruise control? .... Heated and cooled seats with built in massagers?

I do! I know these opinions will make me an outcast in the GRM world but I genuinely find they make the drive less stressful. I average about 1000 miles a week and I LOVE adaptive cruise and heated/cooled seats. They are awesome.

GameboyRMH wrote: I like cruise-control for long highway commutes and cooled seats sound nice. I once put a seat cover with fans built into it into my Samurai, it broke within a year though...

I like cruise-control also .. but I'm pretty sure I DON'T want adaptive cruise control

Its pretty sweet. Admittedly Ive gotten pretty spoiled by it. When I drive a car with single speed cruise I find it a bit of a pain in traffic. With adaptive, once I set the cruise and distance the traffic speed fluctuations are less annoying. As always, YMMV.

My buddy's Hyundai has it. And will even bring the car down to a stop in traffic, then start again.

He did it with me sitting in the passenger seat once, then had the audacity to yell at me for putting permanent finger indentations in his door panel in the middle of my complete and utter anxiety-driven mental meltdown.

Hal wrote: I think we are a very long way from an autonomous car that can follow 2 wheel tracks thru the woods.

No. We're not.

"Terminator" Vs Range Rover - TerraMax - Top Gear - Series 19 - BBC

I am going to make another post about cruise because I know around here its generally not liked but my new car has all this stuff and except for the lane departure stuff (it was too sensitive) it's pretty nice to have while it doesn't intervene with normal driving.

That being said I have no doubt the aftermarket will find ways to get around this stuff and emergency braking type things would not generally be triggered at a track day anyhow because its not wheel to wheel.