08-14-10 - Driver Aids

I think all the radar/laser automated cruise controls that are being put in cars now are extremely foolish and dangerous and should be illegal. It makes it possible for drivers who are already too lazy and distracted to completely stop paying attention to the road.

The whole situation with car safety (eg. raising door panels, Volvo's auto-stop research) is sort of like if you had a problem with people running around shooting each other, and your solution is to make everyone wear bullet proof vests. How about guns with built in digital cameras that detect if you're pointing them at a human and then run mood detection to tell if they're hostile or not and block firing. (of course arguing that cars shouldn't be safer is absurd).

I'm really rathered bothered by the whole idea of an "accident". It's almost never actually an accident, it's usually gross misconduct by one (or more) parties. The fact that you just exchange insurance and it gets paid for completely distorts the reality of punishment that would lead to different behaviors. In particular there should be a party at fault and they should lose their license. Though this fantasy is a bit unrealistic since we know well that punishment for rare events doesn't actually change behavior.