Toyota's Anti-Collision Pedestrian Tests Are the Stuff Of Nightmares
You know how it's easier to enjoy fast food when you don't have any idea what goes into making it? It turns out the same holds true with vehicle pedestrian collision systems.
This life-sized marionette jauntily crossing the street helps Toyota develop cars that automatically avoid people, but does it have to be so featureless and creepy?
During Toyota's CES press conference the company revealed that its Collaborative Safety Research Center—or CSRC—had spun off a new company to produce and sell these articulated pedestrian mannequins it had developed in collaboration with Indiana and Purdue Universities.
Affectionately referred to as Steve (and Steve Jr.) the flailing limbs of the animated crash dummies help provide a more accurate real-world simulation of a pedestrian-in-motion's movements so sensors can be tuned to better detect a human in the car's path. And soon every automaker on the planet will be able to buy and use Steve to test their own pedestrian collision-avoidance systems—or just freak out fatigued tech bloggers. [Toyota]
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It's true, haters gonna hate.
Bless you! That's the first thing in my head when I saw this.
Haha, it gets me every time.
Well done!
I was expecting to see this:
Or..you know...Don't go fast enough where you can't see a pedestrian jaywalking.
And what do you do when you see a pedestrian jaywalking? Brake!
Sometimes people jump out, my uncle killed* a teenager last year who ran out onto a 6 lane road in the dark jaywalking. *Uncle was not at fault
I'm glad they decided to take your uncles side - As a teen...you should have the mental capacity to not run out into a 6 lane road in the dark. I surely would never want to experience something like that - but I don't think it happens often enough to justify the added cost onto the vehicle. I'm always vigilant when I go though a residential neighborhood to make sure no kids end up in front of my vehicle...for a large majority of my time driving...that seems to work well enough.
The real intent of this system is to protect idiots. And I don't mean the Teenagers walking into a 6-lane road (they are dumb), or the Uncle that hit them (he was unlucky because the teenager is dumb). This is designed to protect the twit driving down a suburban street, txting their ass off, and running into people. This is to stop that twit from going to jail for man-slaughter because they can't put their phone down for for the 10 minutes it takes to drive somewhere.
You see ads all the time for "Collision Avoidance Detection". Damned near every one of them show a driver turned around to talk to passengers, looking for something on the floor, swerving lanes, or driving so close to the vehicle in front of them that they have no time to react on their own.
Unless the car behind you also has this feature equipped, you are looking at getting slammed into from behind.
How is that different from normal, human-activated brakes?
They would just run the person over and wonder what that bump in the road was.
I'd rather get slammed into from behind (provided it is not at fatal or serious injury speeds) than kill or maim a pedestrian.
Computers do not get distracted.
Computers can apply the brakes much faster and with greater precision.
That is creepy. And with unemployment still high in many parts of the country, couldn't they have used real humans?
Goddamn robots, coming across the border (to bipedal locomotion) and stealing our jobs.
I am programmed to never harm a human or let a human come to harm, to always obey humans unless this violates the First Law, and to protect its own existence unless this violates the First or Second Laws
Stealing my 'walk in front of this out of speeding car' job definitely violates the First Law
I can't wait to see people "testing this out" once it goes live.
"Honey, go run in front of my car while I cruise down the cul-de-sac! I gotta check this baby out!"
"The 2020 Darwin Games, sponsored by Toyota!"
Bubble boy is game.
Top Gear did it, it was hilarious. Mainly because it worked for bushes and James May but then allowed Clarkson to smash into Mays car.
Courtrooms will be filled with lawsuits blaming Toyota and 'malfunctions' in 10, 9, 8....
This system will have unintended consequences if it becomes common:
1) some people start walking out in front of cars just to make them stop and anger the drivers.
1) some people start walking out in front of cars just to make them stop and anger the drivers.
2) Some people become complacent thinking all cars automatically stop in short distance and then step out in front of a 50 year old car with 4 wheel drum brakes and of course no auto stop gizmo.
That pretty much is the solution to #1, isn't it?
Problem solved, a good day's work!
Except for the grill and other parts you can't find replacements for.
Yeah, so in the future, cars can pull in front of you or bully you out of your lane due to the sensors and now pedestrians can do whatever.
Dude what?
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