This is an important point as cars nowadays have more and more electronic overrides - everything from traction control to stability control to anti-lock brakes to lane departure warnings (and recovery) to emergency braking and speed control.
Most of the later ones (emergency braking, speed control, lane departure) are only on expensvie cars, but within 10 years will be standard equipment on all cars. If not by legislation, probably by insurance companies offering discounts on vehicles so equipped.
It's already an issue with ABS braking in that people run into things even though they could steer around them - simply because they become fixated on pressing the brake harder and harder rather than trying to steer the car away from the impending object.
As people learn to drive with these aids and rely on them, they will become dangerous when one or more become faulty. I can see a point where people start to rely on automatic braking and don't bother putting their foot on the brake. Or take their hands off the wheel on the freeway because the car keeps it in the lane for them.
All this is great until something stops - a camera gets a squashed bug, a wheel sensor breaks from a stone, anything. And the car will be under partial human control and the inputs will be badly exaggerated.
This will become a large issue in the design of vehicle interfaces and driver training in years to come. The solution, of course, is mandatory emergency situation training in an unassisted car. But driver training is routinely ignored worldwide for cost reasons.
Getting a drivers licence in Germany costs roughly 2000€ (2673$), assuming you pass theoretical and practical exams on first try. You need to take 14 theoretical lessons at 90 minutes, 2 of them on technical stuff, you need at least 12 practical lessons, 5 outside of a town, 4 on the autobahn, 3 at night and you will need a couple regular lessons just to get started so most people end up with 20 practical lessons or so.
After all that you will have neither training nor experience with emergency situations, in fact you will barely be able to brake a car so that it stops as fast as possible, which the majority of drivers are simply incapable of.
As nice as it would be to have that training, your assumption that you have to add it is fundamentally flawed in that already nobody can manage his car in such a situation with or without assistance. Apart from that most Americans probably consider what Germans have to do to get a driver's license insane, I doubt they would even seriously consider implementing something similar.
I was recently thinking that they should introduce driving simulators as part of the training, in order to expose drivers to dangerous situations like they do with pilots.
Incidentally go-karting is a pretty good way to get some "on the edge" experience. I pretty much passed my (Swiss) driving license on the quality of my braking, which I picked up on a couple of go-kart outings.
In motorcycle racing nowadays the vehicle is governed by the computer to a surprisingly large degree. Yet this has allowed levels of performance thought unachievable not too long ago.
The same technology is now trickling down to street legal sportbikes. It's interesting to watch the public's reaction to it. Some disagree vociferously, saying that it will take the fun out of the hobby. Others acknowledge the life-saving intervention of throttle control when you're leaning in a turn on wet asphalt and mistakenly give it too much gas.
as a cranky old car owner (old? I'm 27 damn it!), I live in fear of the day that I'll have to give up one of my fun 80s/90s hobby cars and get a self driving toaster :/
Most of the later ones (emergency braking, speed control, lane departure) are only on expensvie cars, but within 10 years will be standard equipment on all cars. If not by legislation, probably by insurance companies offering discounts on vehicles so equipped.
It's already an issue with ABS braking in that people run into things even though they could steer around them - simply because they become fixated on pressing the brake harder and harder rather than trying to steer the car away from the impending object.
As people learn to drive with these aids and rely on them, they will become dangerous when one or more become faulty. I can see a point where people start to rely on automatic braking and don't bother putting their foot on the brake. Or take their hands off the wheel on the freeway because the car keeps it in the lane for them.
All this is great until something stops - a camera gets a squashed bug, a wheel sensor breaks from a stone, anything. And the car will be under partial human control and the inputs will be badly exaggerated.
This will become a large issue in the design of vehicle interfaces and driver training in years to come. The solution, of course, is mandatory emergency situation training in an unassisted car. But driver training is routinely ignored worldwide for cost reasons.