devellis
Been here awhile...
- Joined
- Nov 20, 2017
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- 511
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- Location
- North Carolina
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- No Genesis Yet!
I guess you could say I'm an old school driver and a huge driver enthusiast (autocross, back roads, would love to track some day, go karting). While I'm only 30 years old, I believe that ultimately, these active safety features do indeed help overall, but at the same time, I feel that they detract from their original intention. I'm not pointing any fingers, but I really feel to the average driver who is just commuting from point A to point B and is not attentive is largely the reason for these active features in the first place. Why does TPMS exist? Because the large majority of car owners don't check their tire pressures until they have a flat or worse, a catastrophic blow out due to being low. Same thing with steering and emergency braking. A lot of those same type of drivers will then feel "blanketed" that they're protected from everything, and I hope I'm wrong, but I've already seen YouTube videos of people taking automatic steering too far and that it could promote more texting while driving.
I live in an area where I see both men and women with their phones in their hand on speakerphone wrapped up in conversation, in vehicles with Bluetooth. I've seen women doing makeup in their cars sitting at lights and then me missing the light BECAUSE they are doing everything but driving. I may sound pessimistic, but I've always told people I'm a realist. Were drivers like this back in the 70's and 80's (and earlier) before any technology minus seat belts? It makes me wonder. Just like "smart phones" have made things much easier, but I'll still have people ask me where something is, etc. I don't know, use Google Maps!
I'm all for active safety features (huge fan of ACC), but I still feel some of these features are promoting being more inattentive in the first place.
/rant
There is some evidence that as people adapt to the safety benefits that advanced systems provide, they offset the benefit by taking compensatory risks. So, since the advent of ABS, people brake later, for example.
Ultimately the problem is, and always has been, people being overly complacent or inattentive while driving. I sometimes think that people forget that driving is a way of transporting oneself over some distance and not a social occasion, mobile office, or living room. I've seen people painting their toenails, foot up on dash, while driving. Use of electric shavers is commonplace, as are eye make-up or lipstick touch-ups. People seem to think they're invisible when they're in their cars, as the frequent nose-picking suggests.
All the safety features do help, I think. but they probably help less in the case of the people who actually need them the most. In the beginning, these systems probably do reduce accidents. But as people acclimate to the added safety, their behavior seems to become less safe. They rely more on the cars than on themselves and eventually wind up at or near the point where they started with regard to overall safety.
Fortunately, in many situations, it takes two inattentive drivers to cause a mishap. If one messes up, the driver of the other car in the setting may be able to take some sort of evasive action to avoid an accident. But not always. And it's a shame that the attentive driver has to compensate for the errors of the inattentive one.
Bottom line: pay attention -- and assume that the other drivers aren't.