BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

Dude.. I now believe all those idiots hitting cyclists that say they "didn't see them". This guy would drive into the broad side of a barn if he thought the road went that way.

This is on the Deals Gap Tail of the Dragon in Tennessee.

It is particularly unnerving if you understand how technical this road is to start with. Police are very serious about enforcement--they don't hesitate to ticket people who drift into the double yellow lines.

Oh, this is on the Dragon? Daaamn. Good luck to those guys.

And yet they continue to consider putting broadband Internet into cars. More distractions!!

They need to really start thinking about putting that self-driving technology that CMU was developing a couple of years ago into cars. And not as an expensive option on the Lexus, but as standard safety equipment.

Good grief, what a moron !! I would have liked another rock to fall atop the car and crush it but I like animals too much. This kind of stuff is frightening.

Love this blog (and highly recommend "Traffic" by the same author).

They need to really start thinking about putting that self-driving technology that CMU was developing a couple of years ago into cars. And not as an expensive option on the Lexus, but as standard safety equipment.

I'll have to vehemently disagree (and not just because, as a software dweeb, I know how little I'd trust that system to work 100% of the time). The LAST thing we need is more excuses to not pay attention to the road. "It wasn't his fault; the car's collision avoidance system couldn't detect the cyclist's carbon-fiber frame."

Less safety equipment, more safety consciousness.

@dan. Excellent point. I was just listening to that guy say "I was looking at y'all and the next thing I know..." and thinking if only his car had been looking.

How about proximity alarms?

I agree with reddan. The solution is simple--learn to drive. Pay attention.

Oh, crap. I am not related to that guy, honest.

volvo has been working on pedestrian detection and automated breaking for a while....very promising.

here are some examples

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ5-psAb2vE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCJ5_Y3bzYQ

automated breaking of pedestrians? Sounds gruesome...

reddan - the existing human control system works less than 100% of the time.

self-driving cars will happen (although i won't venture a guess as to when), and it will be a good thing.

i don't think self-driving cars will happen in our lifetime (or probably ever) in an environment where they have to interact with cyclists, its just too much. I do think we'll see this on car-only highways developing soon though.

Geez, when self driving cars happen, I guess I'll have to keep driving my antiquated mini, I can't stand the automated features they have NOW. Seat belt buzzers, automatic locks, lights, bleh. Annoyances.

salty-I'll have to respectfully disagree. We need cars to be less of a focus of our transportation strategy, rather than placing even more responsibility for their control out of the hands of drivers. Or, to put it another way, if we have drivers who are doing a poor job of controlling their vehicle, the solution is to get them out of the vehicle, not expect the vehicle to solve the problem for us.

I do agree with mark that the technology could potentially work for highway-only driving, but I doubt it's going to be practical in the foreseeable future for any mixed-mode transportation environments.