Driver altertness

Roderick.

Truck technology steers drowsy drivers back into their lanes 30 January 2019.
Technology advances are steering drowsy drivers back into traffic lanes, as industry groups target zero fatalities on Australian roads.
While self-driving B-double trucks might seem like a futuristic fantasy, National Heavy Vehicle Regulator manager Peter Austin said technology was already available to make getting behind the wheel safer.
Industry groups spoke before a Queensland parliamentary inquiry into transport technology.Credit:Stuff
This included a "lane departure warning", which beeps or vibrates the seat or steering wheel when a driver starts to drift across the line marking to tell them to correct their steering, and a "lane keep assist", which automatically

steers the car back into its lane.
"What [lane keep assist] will do, unless you flick your direction indicator on, it will actually steer your vehicle back into the middle of the lane again," Mr Austin said.
"On highways in Australia, the technology would likely work quite well.
"That technology is readily available now, it's an option that truck operators can choose to spec onto their vehicle."
Mr Austin was among members of the heavy vehicle and freight transport industry to speak at a Queensland parliamentary inquiry into transport technology.
The inquiry is examining trends in fuel-type usage in person transport, freight transport and public transport, including electric vehicles; driverless cars; and how technology is affecting employment in the food delivery area.
Trucks coming onto the Australian market had the latest technology installed, including lane departure warning, lane keep assist, stability control and roll stability, Mr Austin said.
The measure has also been developed for light vehicles, including for Honda and Toyota.
Mr Austin said technology could only help fix specific causes of an accident, which would not always be caused by cars drifting out of lanes.
But National Road Transport Association adviser Richard Calver said technology played a role in achieving a target of zero road fatalities.
"Advanced safety features, like autonomous emergency braking and electronic stability control ... must become commonplace in heavy vehicles," he said.
"Newer safer technologies, moving ultimately to autonomous vehicles, will have a revolutionary effect on the transport task."
Mr Calver said heavy vehicles were not to blame for most crashes with cars.
"In 93 per cent of occasions ... where there's a fatality involving a heavy vehicle, it's the fault of the light [vehicle] driver," he said.
"That statistic hasn't been tested more broadly but a similar statistic a few years ago said 80 per cent."
Mr Calver said one of the most significant challenges facing the road freight transport sector was a critical shortage of truck drivers.
"The average age of heavy vehicle drivers is around 53 years, with a mere 15 per cent of truck drivers under the age of 30," he said.
"With the road freight task expected to double by 2030 and the simultaneous loss of retiring drivers from the workforce, this problem will be compounded unless urgent action is taken by industry and government.
"As well, women make up just 3 per cent of the truck driving workforce, representing one of the greatest gender imbalances, unfortunately, of any occupation."
Mr Calver said research by the Australasian New Car Assessment Program showed cars built in 2001 or earlier made up one in five cars on the road.
"Yet they account for more than one-third of the vehicles involved in fatalities," he said.
In contrast, vehicles built between 2012 and 2017 account for 31 per cent of cars on the road but are involved in just 12 per cent of fatalities.
< www.brisbanetimes.com.au/politics/queens...20190129-p50ud6.html >

That lane assist causes issues with the 3 chain roads (the single width of bitumen where both vehicles need to put their left hand wheels in the dirt to pass each other) as the technology keeps trying to guide the vehicle back fully onto the bitumen, often tugging quite powerfully at the wheel. Some people are already so reliant on the technology they stop in the middle of the bitumen and expect you to go around them. Not quite easy in a vehicle like my old Inter

I have lane keeping on my Mercedes and if I need to leave the road I just put my left indicator on and it over-rides the lane keeping so the car is just like a normal vehicle.

The car is semi autonomous in that it has radar cruise and lane keeping so it can (sort of) stay in a lane on the Freeway and not run into the car in front. I don't trust it enough to let it have its head!

I think both the above items have a place but they don't negate the need for the driver to be a bit awake.

The family Subaru will brake, but not steer - just beeps.
You can set the gap up to 3 seconds. Works fine until people are trying to merge in front and behind you at the same time - it hits the brakes and startles the bejeezus out of the driver trying to merge behind.

Jarrod.

Personally, I don't know about all this modern technology when it comes to motor vehicles.
Everyday, somebody comes out with some sort of "driver assist", be it self parking, auto braking, lane security whatever.
Until such time as it (driver assist) has been foolproofed, there is always someone who through inexperience, sheer ignorance, dumb luck or simple inattentiveness will still find some way of causing havoc on the roads.
Until they completely eradicate the "human element" out of the equasion, (you can NEVER rule out the dumbass things people will do, despite the "foolproof", or should I say , "idiot proof"devices) we will still see carnage on the roads. It's human nature.

and don't forget computers are programmed by people who need to think of every possible permutation and combination worldwide in advance so of course some combinations will be missed. They have enough problems with aircraft and they have 2 trained and alert people looing after it and have fewer things to run into (although when they do it tends to be aa lot more dramatic)

Volvo (the car people not the truck people) say they can make a car drive itself but have a problem in Australia in that the cameras and sensors have trouble detecting and interpreting the way a kangaroo moves/hops.

Apparently it will take them a while to perfect the car's systems to recognise the old Skippy!

Hoo reads manuals??

How thik can U get

Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma City bought a new Winnebago motor home, the newsletter says. While driving it home on the freeway, he set the cruise control at 70 and went into the back to make coffee.
“Not surprisingly,” the newsletter says, “the RV left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Mr. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not advising him in the owner’s manual that he couldn’t actually do this. The jury awarded him $1,750,000 plus a new motor home,” and the company rewrote the manual “in case there were any other complete morons buying their recreational vehicles.”

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
cya

Been waiting for driver less car so I can sent it on holidays with the caravan and I can stay home

Swishy

A good story but I think it is an apocryphal tale. Heard the same thing about a woman doing it back in the 80's.

When you think about it ,the vehicle would be off or across the road before he got out of his seat without a steering wheel attendant.

Still, it is entertaining and allows us to rage over stupid judges and juries in damages cases.

Lang