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posted by chromas on Wednesday October 09 2019, @11:41PM   Printer-friendly
from the double-clutch-your-pearls dept.

Not only is the problem of cars killing pedestrians not going away, but the annual death toll over the last decade has actually increased by 35%. The proliferation of cars with automatic emergency braking (AEB) systems that detect pedestrians is therefore a good thing, right?

According to a study by the American Automobile Association, maybe we shouldn't count on AEB. The association has just tested the pedestrian-detection behavior of four popular mid-sized model-year 2019 sedans—a Chevrolet Malibu, Honda Accord, Tesla Model 3, and Toyota Camry—in a variety of different scenarios. Unfortunately, the results are not promising, particularly when it comes to anything but the least challenging scenarios.

[...] The testing was all carried out on dry asphalt in a testing area marked out as a four-lane highway with a solid white line dividing the two middle lanes. For one other test, one of the speedway's surface streets was appropriated: a right turn with a 57-foot (17.3m)-radius curve. Different tests involved adult or child pedestrian targets moving at 3.1mph (5km/h), from left to right across the path of the test vehicle. For each test, the longitudinal distance and the time-to-collision was recorded when each vehicle gave a visual alert that a collision was imminent, as well as once the vehicle began to automatically brake. Impact speed or separation distance were recorded, depending upon the outcome of the test.

Unfortunately, the results of the tests were very much a mixed bag.


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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 09 2019, @11:54PM (9 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 09 2019, @11:54PM (#904956)

    Didn't they use homeless people with dark skin to train these systems? The AAA's pedestrian targets may have been of European descent so the cars were confused.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 10 2019, @12:37AM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 10 2019, @12:37AM (#904968)

    Not sure about that, but I heard that more people are killed by cars than are killed by guns. We should just get all the cars, and lock them up. We could put a concentration camp for them on the Mexican border.

    • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday October 10 2019, @01:48AM (3 children)

      by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Thursday October 10 2019, @01:48AM (#904992) Journal

      Wheee, false equivalences are fun!

      --
      I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
      • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 10 2019, @03:02AM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 10 2019, @03:02AM (#905034)

        Guns and cars both kill people when used inconsiderately. So do knives, forks and other sharp objects, yet there is a strange focus on one of them.
        This is where Azumi breaks down and unable to reconcile their doublethink but instead projects it onto their opponent. Good job GP.

        • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 10 2019, @03:32AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 10 2019, @03:32AM (#905043)

          The difference is that guns are made specifically to injure the person or to damage the object on the business end. You'll also note that vehicles and knives designed to do the same are also heavily regulated.

        • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday October 10 2019, @10:26PM

          by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Thursday October 10 2019, @10:26PM (#905429) Journal

          Quite the contrary; this is a very simple and very commonplace utility calculation. You ask yourself one easy question: "How many uses does this object have, how much improvement to quality of life is made with them, and of those uses, how many of them are detrimental and to what degree and in what scope?"

          - Sharp edges have myriad uses, and notably, they are also very difficult to injure or kill someone else with at any considerable distance, with the possible exceptions of throwing knives, shuriken, and so forth. You could even argue that including these in the same noetic space as a utility knife or chainsaw is intellectually dishonest.
          - Cars and other vehicles, as much damage as they do, have been a large net positive, or at least have insinuated themselves so deeply into society that simple removing them at one fell swoop would cause incalculable damage.
          - I work in a pharmacy; literally everything we sell is poisonous at the wrong doses, and some of the meds have such narrow therapeutic ranges that there is very little distance between healing and killing.

          Whereas guns...are meant to kill. They can be used for other things, like intimidation or defense by threat of deadly force, but they have few uses and almost all of them are related to causing death, usually at a distance and with no real defense against them. There are far, far fewer uses for firearms in daily life compared to, for example, the humble kitchen cleaver or the common or garden 4WD pickup truck.

          You actually think you're fucking clever with that, don't you? You seriously think you caught me in some kind of internal logical contradiction. What a child you are.

          --
          I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
  • (Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Thursday October 10 2019, @12:44AM

    by SomeGuy (5632) on Thursday October 10 2019, @12:44AM (#904969)

    Didn't they use homeless people with dark skin to train these systems?

    That was Google, although it doesn't say exactly what it was for:
    https://www.cbs46.com/news/google-accused-of-exploiting-atlanta-homeless-for-facial-recognition-tech/article_7e7d908c-e949-11e9-b380-f39795d823f8.html [cbs46.com]

  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 10 2019, @01:35AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 10 2019, @01:35AM (#904987)

    While the data set may have something to do with it, I believe that the real issue is false alarms. It's just not acceptable for the car to screech to a halt the first time a plastic grocery bag blows off the curb (because it looks like a little kid?) Thus the decision to slam on the brakes is only made when there is the highest probability that a person is about to be hit. A lot of, "Maybe we should brake?" events are ignored.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 10 2019, @02:31AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 10 2019, @02:31AM (#905020)

    Does it work on charging winos?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 10 2019, @09:31PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 10 2019, @09:31PM (#905403)

      Only the endangered white wino