[tejaswiy]

> The driver might almost forget the help he’s getting, and attribute the success to his own powers

I really like this idea but I feel this is the key in getting it right. Several video games achieve this feeling of seamlessness when translating raw input from a controller to in-game actions. However this does occasionally go wrong and can be a frustrating experience in video games (especially if you're playing online competitively) but in the real world it can have much more drastic consequences.

Also, given the complexity of the real world, it's somewhat scary to think of a scenario where you're actually trying to take a drastic action on the road but are prevented by the system from doing-so because it feels that the action is unsafe.

[jghn]

The lane assist in my VW can get a little troublesome in areas of road construction where lane markers have been painted over and such. At times the car picks up the wrong lane area and encourages me to stay there instead of the real lane. It’s more of an annoyance than anything but it’s still a distraction when at highway speeds

[Xylakant]

I once had lane assist on a rental car (so one unknown to me) hide that one of the front tires had a flat until things got too bad to hide and then suddenly give up and dump the problem on me. Luckily no accident, but I'm certain that on a car without electronic support I would have felt earlier that something is odd.

[chime]

Next version should detect whether a site is under-construction (# of cones per 100m, GPS-tagged construction zone from publicly available DB, sudden speed change, unexpected traffic etc.) and turn on the soft-mode for lane-assist where it says 'You might be driving through a construction zone, so lane assist will not fight'.

[matt-attack]

I feel that until a car can ascertain that it’s in a construction zone using only vision (like you and I do) we’ll never achieve what we need. Any autonomous system that relies on (or even incorporates) stored databases of any kind is implicitly worse than a teenage first time driver and should therefore not be considered acceptable.

[saiya-jin]

Indeed, we don't get basic things like GPS signal 100% right 86400 seconds per day. Relying on some remote DB which can crash, be hacked, cut off from internet, down for maintenance etc will be a problem. Or car just losing data connection (like it happens with phones).

Its nice to dream about ideal future, but if lives rely on reliability, it either works 100%, or shouldn't.

[bluGill]

100% is stronger than we need - humans are not 100%. If we were there would be no crashes. Even sudden mechanical failure could just affect the one car and not cause others if humans were perfect. We just need to be better than humans.

[dzhiurgis]

Thinking about it at some version of Tesla autopilot it won’t let you to correct your inputs. Creepy. Probably correct way to go.

[jon-wood]

I often see the argument that you might need to floor the throttle and swerve pulled out in these threads but I'm dubious that this is a real problem. My gut feel (and no, I don't have data to back this) is that far more accidents are made worse by people deciding to use that response than would be made better by the car overriding that decision and putting the brakes on to come to a somewhat controlled stop.

[nradov]

The latest generation of automatic collision avoidance systems will automatically swerve to prevent certain types of crashes.

https://www.automobilemag.com/news/2018-volvo-xc60-arrives-s...

[jon-wood]

I'm sure there are certain types of crashes that can be avoided in that way, but I trust a collision avoidance system to make that judgement far more than I trust a human driver who was only half paying attention to the road five seconds ago.

[adrr]

Speaking of video games. They need to get this system setup for race tracks like Nurburgring where the car doesn't let the driver go to hot into the corner by controlling the throttle response and braking. Also, control steering to prevent spinouts including auto counter steer.

[vesrah]

What is the point of a race track if you even further abstract out the driver skill than we already have? (asks the person that races a fairly analog car)

[chrisseaton]

> What is the point of a race track if you even further abstract out the driver skill than we already have?

People like to go fast in their cars without having to be as skilled? It’s not exactly a mystery.

[vesrah]

You're never going to get skilled if you don't learn how to actually drive the car in the first place. A car that 100% sticks to the road with no slip is not as quick as a car that is being pushed to the point of carrying a slight slip angle through corners, and you're not going to find out how that works with constant intervention. It is about carrying speed through corners, not negotiating them with the help of some electronic aids and pinning the gas down the straights.

[chrisseaton]

> You're never going to get skilled if you don't learn how to actually drive the car in the first place.

Do they want to be skilled or do they just want to have some easy fun?

[lozaning]

This is real world DLC I would pay for.

If I could show up at the Nürburgring and hot lap a 911 on nanny driver mode I'd do it in a heart beat. Until then I'll just stick with not getting into Berghain.

[aedron]

There are many excellent roller coaster rides in amusement parks across the nation.

[adrr]

It's like go-carting. People like to race cars without having to be skilled or deal with the risk of being in a car. Most cars already have a bunch of electronic nannies(eg: stability and traction control, abs brakes) to prevent people from spinning their car out into a tree. Also, nannies to prevent them from ruining their car like rev limiters.

[rurp]

Developing skill is hard, buying a product is easy. What you're saying makes total sense if you want to become an excellent driver but most people just want to buy some related equipment and watch events from their couch. Nothing wrong with that if it makes them happy, though I think that advertising pushes people towards making less fullfilling choices.

[ceejayoz]

People enjoy roller coasters. It's not a big stretch to imagine it being fun for plenty of folks to whiz around a race track with some of the work being handled by a computer.

[stochastic_monk]

> However this does occasionally go wrong and can be a frustrating experience in video games (especially if you're playing online competitively) but in the real world it can have much more drastic consequences.

Even a manual override would be insufficient because by the time you realize it won't behave correctly, it's too late to apply the override and then take corrective action. I would probably not trust this system, in my hubris.