But the sensors and actuators that are keeping him in his lane would surely fire the brakes far faster and harder than he would while reading his magazine. If all the tech does is keep you in your lane, it's certainly dangerous, but I seriously doubt that's what they are building.
But the sensors and actuators that are keeping him in his lane would surely fire the brakes far faster and harder than he would while reading his magazine.
In fact, since human reaction time is on the order of 200ms, the car could likely see what's going on, double-check, and then hit the brakes before he noticed what was going on, even if he were paying rapt attention and expecting you to slam on the brakes.
What is the reaction time of these systems? There are papers on the Internet but they are behind paywalls (that I could probably get through if I were an automotive engineer).
Fair enough; I believe they do include this, or maybe it comes standard with the car. Still, should we be "enabling" bad driving? Are these systems actually capable of letting people safely read while they "drive"? Does a driver have a right to do that? Is it prudent? Who is morally/legally responsible when something goes wrong and damage is done?
I guess as always, we'll figure it out as we go, but I'm not the only one who's a bit nervous.
Playing with phones, shaving, applying makeup, dozing off, etc., are all common. I ride a motorcycle. I'm dreaming of the day when technology makes those thing immaterial to the safety profile of a ton of metal moving at 70mph.
