Its culture jacking,.  leave my words alone.  I do not trust crusaders. Not a fan of shame based societies having witnessed the rise and fall of the christian right.

Let just let google fix it.



Google patents 'sticky' layer to protect pedestrians in self-driving car accidents

Auto-edited on 2020-08-02 to update URLs

Johnny_Rotten wrote:

Its culture jacking.

Is that rubbing one out with yogurt?

I am so glad you are enjoying it thus far.

Last edited by Johnny_Rotten (2016-05-23 17:53:15)

While I agree that car crashes are increasing at a terrible rate, I think that changing the wording of "accident" into "crash" just gives the tort industry a toehold to absolutely ensure that there is no such thing as a blameless incident. So I'm OK with it as long as they get to lose the "act of God" loophole from their coverage limitations. It amounts to the same  thing; an acknowledgement of chaos in the universe. The legal industry can't stand the idea that someone, somewhere can't be made to pay.

But what do they expect about crashes? In the last 40 years we have made cars twice as powerful, ten times as insulated from exterior noise, they have half the 360 visibility, they are driven by drivers that are so distracted by drink, food, phone usage and fiddling with the dashboard they might as well be drunk while showing them 10 times as many signs and advertisements, including 40 foot tall animated brilliant billboards and slow moving billboard trucks and only half as many street signs as we used to. We license drivers earlier and with less testing and let them drive later and with less restrictions than we used to and we don't care. As long as the insurance industry can agree on the cost of a life, they can work it all out on the balance sheet. It's cold hearted, but it works.

So don't whine about the number of crashes while still wanting all of those perfectly legal and applauded "advancements" in vehicular engineering. The last major improvement in crash safety was stability control which is still a luxury line item even on cars with anti-lock brakes so no additional equipment is required, just programming. Last mandatory safety improvement: Air bags, in 1998.

And on the note of distracted drivers, can we institute a European traffic signal with the Red-Yellow-Green transition here? It would give people that extra second to finish their Dog-Damned text and get ready to drive before the light turns green.

hedgewizard wrote:

GooberMcNutly wrote:

But what do they expect about crashes? In the last 40 years we have made cars twice as powerful, ten times as insulated from exterior noise, they have half the 360 visibility,

That right there is what I like about driving a clapped out 1979 wife infuriater.  Why did you buy THAT when you have a much better car? It does nothing to fix my mistakes, I can see when backing out of a parking space, I can hear when something is next to me, and it's downright scary to drive at medium speeds.  I only drive it when getting there today isn't the least bit important.  Some day I'll throw enough money at it to make it reliable and only scary at high speeds, most of it's charm will remain intact.

I can see when backing out of a parking space too, it's called a backup camera.  It can also see animals and small children that are below the back window/trunk line and I have distance and arc guidelines to show my path and how close I am to obstacles.  Welcome to the 21st century.  It's not all toys and scary technology.

Baywolfe wrote:

I can see when backing out of a parking space too, it's called a backup camera.  It can also see animals and small children that are below the back window/trunk line and I have distance and arc guidelines to show my path and how close I am to obstacles.  Welcome to the 21st century.  It's not all toys and scary technology.

Yup, got one on the new car.  I can see better out of the old car all the way around.  Smaller A pillars, taller windshield, bigger back glass, lower trunk, more glass down the sides.  The big advantage to the camera is the small children, mine are big enough that I can see them, but we have nieces and nephews over once in a while.  That's assuming you're not backing out of the garage where the screen is too dim to see because the sensor on the dash is telling the car it's dark outside when it really isn't.  Don't get me wrong I like all the new brake stuff, electric windows and locks, never having to take the key out of my pocket, magnetic fluid in the shocks, ungawdly quick shifting, temperature control without having to touch anything, exhaust that's loud or quiet depending on my mood, pulling better than a G through a turn, puttering along in stop and go traffic without wearing out my left leg.  It's all very pleasant to drive, but there's something about the pure it does whatever you cause it to do right or wrong, windows rolled down, blip the throttle downshifting, overrun snapping and crackling, bouncy, noisy, hard to drive, mess, that's fun.

choad wrote:

Maybe, when my printer extrudes one these, something I can fucking fix myself...

That's definitely part of the charm.  I actually know what all those pieces are, and can replace them without taking two dozen other things off first.  A lot of the time I even know why it doesn't work, without plugging in a code reader and asking the Google.  If fixing it requires crawling underneath, or is something I just don't want to do,  I can even find a mechanic that won't rape me.  If you're serious about being able to get places, and be comfortable doing it, you're much better off with something new.  If it's an appliance, buy a new one.