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Pre-Collision Braking Almost Killed Me Today

Discussion in 'Prime Main Forum (2017-2022)' started by PiPLosAngeles, Feb 6, 2020.

  1. PiPLosAngeles

    PiPLosAngeles Senior Member

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    You would think a life-or-death system would at least check the input from two sensors before engaging. Did the radar or the camera trigger the braking? There's no way both of them falsely detected an obstacle at the same instant. If the system would have consulted both sensors it would have noticed that something was wrong.
     
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  2. PiPLosAngeles

    PiPLosAngeles Senior Member

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  3. Bill Norton

    Bill Norton Senior Member

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    I question this part.
    Isn't the car that does the 'rear ending' always at fault?
    You don't run into a car that is ahead of you, period.
    (I'm talking to you, tailgaters....)

    I don't know what various state laws are like concerning this.
    OP, please keep us posted.
     
  4. PiPLosAngeles

    PiPLosAngeles Senior Member

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    Not in California. Generally the driver with the "last best chance" to avoid the collision is the responsible party.

    It's easy to imagine a scenario where the person rear-ended is at fault. What if they cut in front of you and slam on the brakes before you can do anything?
     
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  5. m8547

    m8547 Senior Member

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    I hate these ethical "dilemmas" when it comes to new technology in cars. Neither the car nor Toyota nor Congress is "deciding" to kill you. It's all about risk. They are trying to reduce the risk of accidents caused by human error, which accounts for about 95% of car crashes. As a side effect there is now an increased chance of machine error. But the chance of machine error should be much smaller than the chance of human error before these systems are allowed to be on the road.

    Any time there's talk of autonomous cars, some people debate whether autonomous cars should be programmed to "decide" to crash into a school bus or sacrifice the driver. But it won't decide, it will just take pre-programmed actions to avoid an accident as much as possible. Which is probably just slamming on the brakes faster than an human could react.

    While suddenly stopping can cause an accident, it won't always. It's the safest pre-programmed action. Crashing into something in front of you (when it's not a false alarm of course) is guaranteed to cause an accident.

    Obviously human drivers usually have better situational awareness than the current level of driver assist technology. But you can't ignore all the times that humans become distracted or tired, and our slow reaction time.


    Toyota supposedly has the ability to get data from the car after events like this. I think there is a line in the manual that says they can get video from the camera in the event of an accident. You should push for them to get this data, and whether you are allowed to review it or not hopefully they can figure out the cause of the false alarm and prevent it from happening on future models.
     
  6. Trollbait

    Trollbait It's a D&D thing

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    If mandated, the car behind the car that brakes on false activation will also have pre-collision braking.
     
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  7. PiPLosAngeles

    PiPLosAngeles Senior Member

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    Which is a decision to risk causing an accident in order to avoid what the car is programmed to perceive as a greater threat. To say there is no decision is to say that the engineers and programmers are wholly ignorant of the risks involved in slamming on the brakes in traffic.

    1. It's not the safest pre-programmed action unless you know all of the circumstances and risks involved in taking that action in that specific situation. Otherwise it's just a blind guess, knowing full well that guess will get some people hurt or killed for no reason other than their particular situation didn't match the assumptions used to program the car's actions.
    2. Crashing into something in front of you can still be the safest option in a particular circumstance, and if Toyota programs their cars to forcibly prevent the driver from taking such an action they have made the decision that taking that risk is worth whatever befalls that driver.

    Of course not, but the answer is most definitely not to seize control from ALL drivers in ALL cases.


    I sincerely hope their interest is high enough to do that, but based on past experience I expect to get more of shoulder shrug from the dealer and "all systems test ok" on the invoice.

    In 10 -15 years after the whole public fleet has been replaced, so maybe in or around 2040.
     
    #27 PiPLosAngeles, Feb 6, 2020
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 10, 2020
  8. illumiN8i

    illumiN8i Active Member

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    Interesting article showing videos of common automatic emergency braking false positive events
    It seems metal plates on the road or overhead signs are common false triggers.
     
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  9. bresna

    bresna Active Member

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    This is a scary topic. I am seriously thinking about turning off my 2017 Prime's collision avoidance. I drive 130/day on mostly highways so if this kicks in on my commute, I may be killed.
     
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  10. Jon Bloom

    Jon Bloom Member

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    But that's not the scenario here. Supposed the OP had manually applied the brakes because a pedestrian really did step out in front of him and then got rear-ended. The driver of the following car would have been held responsible for following too close, right? Seems to me if a car in a line of traffic brakes, whether the driver or the system does the braking, the following cars are responsible for having enough space/time to respond by also braking.
     
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  11. PiPLosAngeles

    PiPLosAngeles Senior Member

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    Even so, being in the right doesn't make you not dead.
     
  12. PiPLosAngeles

    PiPLosAngeles Senior Member

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    Is there any way for me to access and save the data from the car so the dealer can't accidentally or intentionally delete all record of the incident?
     
  13. Salamander_King

    Salamander_King Senior Member

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    If you are asking about the "black box" in the car, I don't think even a dealer has access to it.
     
  14. smyles

    smyles Active Member

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    Anyone else thinks OP is bullshitting us?
     
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  15. PiPLosAngeles

    PiPLosAngeles Senior Member

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    I don't think the black box is activated unless there's a collision. I'm just think camera data (if stored) and anything from ODBII
     
  16. PiPLosAngeles

    PiPLosAngeles Senior Member

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    Only someone who's sense of importance is measured by how many people they can get to pay attention to them on the Internet would imagine such a thing. For those of us with a sense of self-worth that is derived from reality there is nothing to be gained by making up stories.
     
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  17. Salamander_King

    Salamander_King Senior Member

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    As you know, there are a lot of talented people on this site. The fact I have not yet read anyone cracking the code to retrieve camera data and/or any other driving record such as braking record from the car make me think it's not accessible by any owner of the car. But I maybe wrong.
     
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  18. triggerhappy007

    triggerhappy007 Active Member

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  19. m8547

    m8547 Senior Member

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    These are reasons why I have a dash cam.

    Here's a page from the manual about data recording:
    upload_2020-2-6_13-38-3.png
     
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  20. m8547

    m8547 Senior Member

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    The second post in the "related thread" the forum suggests has a page from the manual with many situations where they say you should disable PCS.
    Just to be clear with PCS (Disabling) | PriusChat

    They do admit that in situations where it doesn't operate properly it could possibly lead to an accident leading to death or serious injury.