Electric Boogaloo

[Swindon Andy]

How does the lane assist work on country roads where you often clip the centre line on open bends? Presumably annoying enough to disable it?

[Phmode]

For me, whatever it does will be wrong.

I love most tech, among my favourites are:

the computerised telescope that just goes exactly where I tell it without me having to anywhere near it or to know where in the sky what I want to see actually is

cruise control which stops me from creeping over the limit by more than enough

ABS which stops me hitting things in virtually all conditions (except snow)

automated supermarket check out tills

Automated steering is just one more reason to not pay attention to what you are doing and how you are doing it. When I drive, or ride, I always want to go faster than the guy in front (present company excepted) which means I am always looking for overtakes, near-siding, off-siding, looking for opportunities, gaps, landing spots. No current tech can do that for me.

Now then, if auto-steering was coupled with night vision it 'might' just have avoided the enormous pothole that cost Glos CC a new tyre for the car. But then again, that would have meant contravening a white line so it might have actually prevented me from avaoiding it had I had night vision that could have spotted it.

[richtea]

At least when all cars are auto-steering the idiots won't be turning right in front of bikers.

SMAIDSY

Sorry mate, AI didn't see you.

[Matt]

How does the lane assist work on country roads where you often clip the centre line on open bends? Presumably annoying enough to disable it?

I only tried this in empty New Zealand roads:
Lane keeping default on thing: as you correctly suspect, a massive pain in the ass for actually driving progressively. Disabled.
Auto steering: I'd enable it occasionally when faffing with nav or otherwise distracted. It wasn't great on anything more than a slight bend in the road. Radii smaller than the moon and it wanted to steer into a corner too aggressively and then as it crosses the line either steer back or just disable itself with a "k good luck" beep

The more I think about this set of aids, the more I think that in the UK I'd probably get little value from it.

[Phmode]

It worries me that other road users are thinking all this stuff is great cos then they can get on with watching porn/texting their mother/placing their supermarket order. Scary!

[black-k1]

It worries me that other road users are thinking all this stuff is great cos then they can get on with watching porn/texting their mother/placing their supermarket order. Scary!

Only scary if you think the average driver can drive better than the computer. I'm not sure that's the case as many of them are already watching porn/texting their mother/placing their supermarket order without all of the driving aids!

As a PS, I've also never seen a computer drunk or stoned!

[Matt]

Ack what's worse is there's devices on the ebays to allow android auto or Apple badger play to play movies on the car screen whilst driving :/.

But I agree whilst this stuff is in its infancy it is scary.

[GlynH]

Ack what's worse is there's devices on the ebays to allow android auto or Apple badger play to play movies on the car screen whilst driving :/.

But I agree whilst this stuff is in its infancy it is scary.

Hey Matt…what’s an Apple badger?

Is that a furry black & white animal in an orchard?

-=Glyn=-

[Belco100]

I would be happy with the auto park function though, never really got the hang of that 

[richtea]

As a PS, I've also never seen a computer drunk or stoned!

Yeah, but I have seen a software developer drunk, stoned or just plain incompetent [p17 sec 7.3].
SiSo: Sh*t , sh*t out.

However, I agree the computer-controlled car will be a better driver than a human in a controlled environment.

It's the edge cases I worry about where there's a mix of automated and non-automated traffic - like a non-automated small-detection-area motorcycle filtering through auto-driving motorway traffic.
Will the auto autos notice it? Will they auto-change lane regardless? Or maybe they will scatter, and set off a ripple of emergency manoeuvres across the lanes?

[black-k1]

I agree Rich that the edge cases are going to be a problem for self driving vehicles and we motorcyclists are definitely going to be some of those edge cases with some potentially very significant consequences. I'll also say that, as someone who enjoys driving and really enjoys riding my motorcycles, I, personally, am not looking forward to being in self driving cars

That all said, I am looking forward to cars being driven in ways that are much more likely to reduce the risk to me on the road. My commute into London showed me too many drivers who were watching video, smoking joints, texting or otherwise avoiding the requirement to concentrate on the road, to tell me that while self driving cars will be far from perfect, they will likely be significantly better than what we have at the moment.

[Phmode]

It's going to be 'different', that's for sure.

For those erm, shall we say assertive drivers who do not sit at a paint-spot roundabout waiting for the first driver to appear to make the first move (you can spend a lifetime waiting for the ninnies to make a decision) the auto cars are going to have to give way to me because they have no 'assertive' mode. They will always capitulate and that makes me happy. For now...

[Matt]

As I walked to the shops this morning an electric MG thing was reversing off its driveway on the opposite side of the road. As I walked past it appears its pedestrian safety thing kicked in as it stopped dead mid manoeuvre. I had this happen with the Kia too. As I was on the opposite pavement it could quite safely have completed reversing onto the road but it seems they assume the drive will forget to steer and go straight back up the opposite kerb.

I wonder how many road deaths have happened like that.