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by grogenaut 2922 days ago
I have noticed that fast drivers are starting to realize that if there is a nice new car you can just cut it off. They're very likely to have adaptive on and it will just back off instead of riding your bumper. I see people taking advantage of this. Ive also at least seen someone fuck with another driver by getting over in front of them, then going back and then getting back in front a few times. Real close too. So just a new form of trolling.

I also see lots of cars on the way into seattle every day who are leaving what would have been absurd distances in manual driving constantly. These all seem to be auto-driven. This latter definitely makes my life easier getting through traffic as there are so many 200ft+ gaps now at 20 mph on the freeway.
2 comments
lotsofpulp 2922 days ago
They're probably erring on the side of safety so staying far enough so that the car can come to a complete stop if the car in front slams their brakes. The way most people drive, if the car in front slams their brakes, they don't have enough distance to stop, but driving closer to the person in front of you reduces traffic so it's a decision we make to increase risk a little to save time.

The companies making the software of course want to avoid lawsuits so they're going to ignore time savings.

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grogenaut 2922 days ago
yeah I get why they're doing it, it just feels mis-calibrated. Everyone talks about self driving cars packing in as tight as train cars but what I'm seeing currently is them using 4x the space at least. And yes I know it's not L5 driving, but at this rate, 90% of cars in 10-15 years will be this spaced out by default. Rip commute times.

Also get off my lawn.

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seanmcdirmid 2921 days ago
The packing can only occur if all cars are self driving. It is unlikely to occur in the USA for awhile but we will probably see it happen in China where traffic is really bad.
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seanmcdirmid 2922 days ago
I wish they would shorten the gap as traffic slows. It makes adaptative useless for any kind of driving under 60.
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diggernet 2922 days ago
Subaru does that, though not as aggressively as I would prefer. Fortunately there is a button on the steering wheel that cycles through 3 distance settings, making it very easy to switch to a closer following mode in slow traffic and switch back at faster speeds.
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