Driving at night

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Cunobelin
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Joined: 6 Feb 2007, 7:22pm

Re: Driving at night

Post by Cunobelin »

It amuses me what manufacturer can and cannot do.

WE can install equipment in a car that can do everything for the driver, it can brake, predict collisions, play music, navigate, yet it cannot record the few MB of data that is the speed?

This is what we need next, most SatNav already record the route and speed, My Dashcam records my route, speed and even the acceleration and deceleration. My phone has an app the insurance company uses to ascertain my driving.

Make this compulsory, with a small download port available to the Police.

Then when you are stopped, Police plug their hand held computer in et voila... every speeding offence committed in the last 6 months. Make this evidential and issue tickets for the historic offences. Could be interesting, gets away for it for 6 months, then 30 or 40 points in one hit!

Then if the registered keeper cannot identify the driver at that time, they cannot show that the car was insured... confiscate it

Alternatively my phone has a recognition system... face or fingerprint that could easily be installed so the driver is recorded, making the offender at that time easily identified

Would that be tough enough?
pete75
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Joined: 24 Jul 2007, 2:37pm

Re: Driving at night

Post by pete75 »

Cunobelin wrote:It amuses me what manufacturer can and cannot do.

You may be able to install that little lot in a car but most of us can

This is what we need next, most SatNav already record the route and speed, My Dashcam records my route, speed and even the acceleration and deceleration. My phone has an app the insurance company uses to ascertain my driving.

Make this compulsory, with a small download port available to the Police.

Then when you are stopped, Police plug their hand held computer in et voila... every speeding offence committed in the last 6 months. Make this evidential and issue tickets for the historic offences. Could be interesting, gets away for it for 6 months, then 30 or 40 points in one hit!

Then if the registered keeper cannot identify the driver at that time, they cannot show that the car was insured... confiscate it

Alternatively my phone has a recognition system... face or fingerprint that could easily be installed so the driver is recorded, making the offender at that time easily identified

Would that be tough enough?


Good luck getting that little lot through parliament.
While you're at it though why not fit every individual with a chip, recording device and camera so the authorities can check where they were at any given time and whether or not they've committed any crimes.
'Give me my bike, a bit of sunshine - and a stop-off for a lunchtime pint - and I'm a happy man.' - Reg Baker
pwa
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Joined: 2 Oct 2011, 8:55pm

Re: Driving at night

Post by pwa »

MikeF wrote:
pwa wrote:
As I've said before, the only time I have gone into something in the dark was when cycling, and the object was a large black bullock that my eyes mis-read as a shadow.
The same could apply to someone driving a motor vehicle. A friend of mine did that. If the black bullock had been a person the result might be the same.

I thought it over at the time and came to the conclusion that in my car I would have had more light and would probably have recognised the bullock for what it was a bit sooner. But yes, the point really is that just because you go at a certain speed (I was not going that fast on the bike) does not guarantee that you will see objects for what they are. It is possible to drive at a speed where you think you can stop within the distance you see to be clear, and still misinterpret something that is to some extent lit up by your lights. If I had recognised that bullock for what it was within a second or two of my lights catching it I would probably have been able to stop in time. But very dark objects, even lit up, can look like shadows if the background behind them makes that seem feasible.
Bmblbzzz
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Location: From here to there.

Re: Driving at night

Post by Bmblbzzz »

pete75 wrote:
Cunobelin wrote:It amuses me what manufacturer can and cannot do.

You may be able to install that little lot in a car but most of us can

This is what we need next, most SatNav already record the route and speed, My Dashcam records my route, speed and even the acceleration and deceleration. My phone has an app the insurance company uses to ascertain my driving.

Make this compulsory, with a small download port available to the Police.

Then when you are stopped, Police plug their hand held computer in et voila... every speeding offence committed in the last 6 months. Make this evidential and issue tickets for the historic offences. Could be interesting, gets away for it for 6 months, then 30 or 40 points in one hit!

Then if the registered keeper cannot identify the driver at that time, they cannot show that the car was insured... confiscate it

Alternatively my phone has a recognition system... face or fingerprint that could easily be installed so the driver is recorded, making the offender at that time easily identified

Would that be tough enough?


Good luck getting that little lot through parliament.
While you're at it though why not fit every individual with a chip, recording device and camera so the authorities can check where they were at any given time and whether or not they've committed any crimes.

Parliament will ignore it or do it 20 years too late, as with electric vehicles. But as with electric vehicles, the industry will do -- is doing -- it for itself. Already many insurers require black boxes, and many cars in some markets (particularly USA) are fitted with them when they leave the showroom.
Bonefishblues
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Joined: 7 Jul 2014, 9:45pm
Location: Near Bicester Oxon

Re: Driving at night

Post by Bonefishblues »

Bmblbzzz wrote:
pete75 wrote:
Cunobelin wrote:It amuses me what manufacturer can and cannot do.

You may be able to install that little lot in a car but most of us can

This is what we need next, most SatNav already record the route and speed, My Dashcam records my route, speed and even the acceleration and deceleration. My phone has an app the insurance company uses to ascertain my driving.

Make this compulsory, with a small download port available to the Police.

Then when you are stopped, Police plug their hand held computer in et voila... every speeding offence committed in the last 6 months. Make this evidential and issue tickets for the historic offences. Could be interesting, gets away for it for 6 months, then 30 or 40 points in one hit!

Then if the registered keeper cannot identify the driver at that time, they cannot show that the car was insured... confiscate it

Alternatively my phone has a recognition system... face or fingerprint that could easily be installed so the driver is recorded, making the offender at that time easily identified

Would that be tough enough?


Good luck getting that little lot through parliament.
While you're at it though why not fit every individual with a chip, recording device and camera so the authorities can check where they were at any given time and whether or not they've committed any crimes.

Parliament will ignore it or do it 20 years too late, as with electric vehicles. But as with electric vehicles, the industry will do -- is doing -- it for itself. Already many insurers require black boxes, and many cars in some markets (particularly USA) are fitted with them when they leave the showroom.

This.
fastpedaller
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Location: Norfolk

Re: Driving at night

Post by fastpedaller »

Bonefishblues wrote:
Bmblbzzz wrote:
pete75 wrote:
But as with electric vehicles, the industry will do -- is doing -- it for itself. Already many insurers require black boxes, and many cars in some markets (particularly USA) are fitted with them when they leave the showroom.

This.


Anyone who thinks electric cars will help the World may be being misled - I don't have the figures (I suspect nobody independent has?) but have a big suspicion that if ALL the energy used to manufacture the cars, the yukky chemicals etc has a worse impact on the World as a whole than remaining with fossil fuel cars. Yes, electric cars may minimise the impact of air pollution in towns, but so would more widespread cycling (or e-bikes)...... but of course that would reduce the income of the car manufacturers (the REAL reason behind electric cars)
pete75
Posts: 16370
Joined: 24 Jul 2007, 2:37pm

Re: Driving at night

Post by pete75 »

Bmblbzzz wrote:
pete75 wrote:
Cunobelin wrote:It amuses me what manufacturer can and cannot do.

You may be able to install that little lot in a car but most of us can

This is what we need next, most SatNav already record the route and speed, My Dashcam records my route, speed and even the acceleration and deceleration. My phone has an app the insurance company uses to ascertain my driving.

Make this compulsory, with a small download port available to the Police.

Then when you are stopped, Police plug their hand held computer in et voila... every speeding offence committed in the last 6 months. Make this evidential and issue tickets for the historic offences. Could be interesting, gets away for it for 6 months, then 30 or 40 points in one hit!

Then if the registered keeper cannot identify the driver at that time, they cannot show that the car was insured... confiscate it

Alternatively my phone has a recognition system... face or fingerprint that could easily be installed so the driver is recorded, making the offender at that time easily identified

Would that be tough enough?


Good luck getting that little lot through parliament.
While you're at it though why not fit every individual with a chip, recording device and camera so the authorities can check where they were at any given time and whether or not they've committed any crimes.

Parliament will ignore it or do it 20 years too late, as with electric vehicles. But as with electric vehicles, the industry will do -- is doing -- it for itself. Already many insurers require black boxes, and many cars in some markets (particularly USA) are fitted with them when they leave the showroom.


But it's voluntary. I've never heard of an insurance company demanding a black box is fitted though a lot do offer reduced premiums if one is.

There is a device called an EDR in most cars which have air bags. It records stuff like speed, deceleration and even pressure on the brake pedal when the airbag is deployed and just before. It's my understanding that the device is constantly recording this data but it is constantly overwritten and only stored after air bag deployment. Data from these devices has been used in prosecutions. There was a case near here some years ago where both the driver of the car and it's owner who was a passenger were successfully prosecuted and imprisoned over the deaths of two young people. The data from the EDR disproved their lies about speed and the way the car was being driven.

https://www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk/new ... h-1-117901

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/linc ... 688674.stm.
'Give me my bike, a bit of sunshine - and a stop-off for a lunchtime pint - and I'm a happy man.' - Reg Baker
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Cugel
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Re: Driving at night

Post by Cugel »

pete75 wrote:
Cunobelin wrote:.....
This is what we need next, most SatNav already record the route and speed, My Dashcam records my route, speed and even the acceleration and deceleration. My phone has an app the insurance company uses to ascertain my driving.

Make this compulsory, with a small download port available to the Police.

........


Good luck getting that little lot through parliament.
While you're at it though why not fit every individual with a chip, recording device and camera so the authorities can check where they were at any given time and whether or not they've committed any crimes.


You're already fitted with a tracking and activity-recording chip. It's called "a mobile phone". Or do you do without one?

I do - not because of the spy-in-the-chip but because I have no need of one. This was true in 1965 and it's true now.

Of course, soon it won't be true. Every simple social and commercial transaction will require a smartphone. That's effectively the compulsory spy imposed on us all right there.

*********
As to Cunobelin's suggestion - it's one limited to car use, not a general activity proposal. Driving is a licensed activity, not a right. The license and it's surrounding rules & penalties are a recognition that the bluddy things are dangerous and the bluddy drivers of them often self-centred and uncaring little skinbags. The old-fashioned rules and penalties are insufficient, as witnessed by the constantly high rates of death and serious injuries. New rules, controls and penalties seem appropriate, especially if there are insufficient road-rozzers to catch the loonies at it or, better, prevent them loonying in the first place.

CUgel
“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence are usually the slaves of some defunct economist”.
John Maynard Keynes
pete75
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Re: Driving at night

Post by pete75 »

Cugel wrote:As to Cunobelin's suggestion - it's one limited to car use, not a general activity proposal. Driving is a licensed activity, not a right. The license and it's surrounding rules & penalties are a recognition that the bluddy things are dangerous and the bluddy drivers of them often self-centred and uncaring little skinbags. The old-fashioned rules and penalties are insufficient, as witnessed by the constantly high rates of death and serious injuries. New rules, controls and penalties seem appropriate, especially if there are insufficient road-rozzers to catch the loonies at it or, better, prevent them loonying in the first place.

CUgel


It's people that are dangerous not cars.
'Give me my bike, a bit of sunshine - and a stop-off for a lunchtime pint - and I'm a happy man.' - Reg Baker
Cyril Haearn
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Re: Driving at night

Post by Cyril Haearn »

pete75 wrote:
Cugel wrote:As to Cunobelin's suggestion - it's one limited to car use, not a general activity proposal. Driving is a licensed activity, not a right. The license and it's surrounding rules & penalties are a recognition that the bluddy things are dangerous and the bluddy drivers of them often self-centred and uncaring little skinbags. The old-fashioned rules and penalties are insufficient, as witnessed by the constantly high rates of death and serious injuries. New rules, controls and penalties seem appropriate, especially if there are insufficient road-rozzers to catch the loonies at it or, better, prevent them loonying in the first place.

CUgel


It's people that are dangerous not cars.

Some cars are more dangerous than others
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Bonefishblues
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Re: Driving at night

Post by Bonefishblues »

Cyril Haearn wrote:
pete75 wrote:
Cugel wrote:As to Cunobelin's suggestion - it's one limited to car use, not a general activity proposal. Driving is a licensed activity, not a right. The license and it's surrounding rules & penalties are a recognition that the bluddy things are dangerous and the bluddy drivers of them often self-centred and uncaring little skinbags. The old-fashioned rules and penalties are insufficient, as witnessed by the constantly high rates of death and serious injuries. New rules, controls and penalties seem appropriate, especially if there are insufficient road-rozzers to catch the loonies at it or, better, prevent them loonying in the first place.

CUgel


It's people that are dangerous not cars.

Some cars are more dangerous than others

I've nicked myself cleaning them from time to time, but broadly speaking I've found them pretty inert and benign companions whilst at rest :D
Bmblbzzz
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Re: Driving at night

Post by Bmblbzzz »

pete75 wrote:
Bmblbzzz wrote:
pete75 wrote:
Good luck getting that little lot through parliament.
While you're at it though why not fit every individual with a chip, recording device and camera so the authorities can check where they were at any given time and whether or not they've committed any crimes.

Parliament will ignore it or do it 20 years too late, as with electric vehicles. But as with electric vehicles, the industry will do -- is doing -- it for itself. Already many insurers require black boxes, and many cars in some markets (particularly USA) are fitted with them when they leave the showroom.


But it's voluntary. I've never heard of an insurance company demanding a black box is fitted though a lot do offer reduced premiums if one is.

There is a device called an EDR in most cars which have air bags. It records stuff like speed, deceleration and even pressure on the brake pedal when the airbag is deployed and just before. It's my understanding that the device is constantly recording this data but it is constantly overwritten and only stored after air bag deployment. Data from these devices has been used in prosecutions. There was a case near here some years ago where both the driver of the car and it's owner who was a passenger were successfully prosecuted and imprisoned over the deaths of two young people. The data from the EDR disproved their lies about speed and the way the car was being driven.

https://www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk/new ... h-1-117901

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/linc ... 688674.stm.

It's voluntary at the moment and -- in the UK -- you would know (or the vehicle's original owner at least would know) if one was fitted. That's not the case everywhere and might not always be the case here. And for my 19-year-old nephew, and presumably thousands of other young drivers, it was the only way to get insurance (or at least at a reasonable price). So it doesn't need to be compulsory to become widespread.
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Cugel
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Re: Driving at night

Post by Cugel »

pete75 wrote:
Cugel wrote:As to Cunobelin's suggestion - it's one limited to car use, not a general activity proposal. Driving is a licensed activity, not a right. The license and it's surrounding rules & penalties are a recognition that the bluddy things are dangerous and the bluddy drivers of them often self-centred and uncaring little skinbags. The old-fashioned rules and penalties are insufficient, as witnessed by the constantly high rates of death and serious injuries. New rules, controls and penalties seem appropriate, especially if there are insufficient road-rozzers to catch the loonies at it or, better, prevent them loonying in the first place.

CUgel


It's people that are dangerous not cars.


If this is what you think then you've failed to grasp the essential nature of design. The design of a thing will prompt you to use it in a certain way. For example, you won't drive your car everywhere at a safe 8mph. Most cars are designed, advertised and sold to we their buyers as a fast and powerful thing with which to amplify one's status and (in the case of the males) macho posture. Many do so..... to excess.

But perhaps you think that you live completely independently of all the influences that affect the rest of us? You stand back making purely rational decisions and acts, ignoring the suggestions and prompts supplied by a thousand cultural artefacts...? Ha! You would be the first human ever to have done so, despite the siren call of various seductive things, including the very seductive motorcar.

Cugel
“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence are usually the slaves of some defunct economist”.
John Maynard Keynes
pete75
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Joined: 24 Jul 2007, 2:37pm

Re: Driving at night

Post by pete75 »

Cugel wrote:
pete75 wrote:
Cugel wrote:As to Cunobelin's suggestion - it's one limited to car use, not a general activity proposal. Driving is a licensed activity, not a right. The license and it's surrounding rules & penalties are a recognition that the bluddy things are dangerous and the bluddy drivers of them often self-centred and uncaring little skinbags. The old-fashioned rules and penalties are insufficient, as witnessed by the constantly high rates of death and serious injuries. New rules, controls and penalties seem appropriate, especially if there are insufficient road-rozzers to catch the loonies at it or, better, prevent them loonying in the first place.

CUgel


It's people that are dangerous not cars.


If this is what you think then you've failed to grasp the essential nature of design. The design of a thing will prompt you to use it in a certain way. For example, you won't drive your car everywhere at a safe 8mph. Most cars are designed, advertised and sold to we their buyers as a fast and powerful thing with which to amplify one's status and (in the case of the males) macho posture. Many do so..... to excess.

But perhaps you think that you live completely independently of all the influences that affect the rest of us? You stand back making purely rational decisions and acts, ignoring the suggestions and prompts supplied by a thousand cultural artefacts...? Ha! You would be the first human ever to have done so, despite the siren call of various seductive things, including the very seductive motorcar.

Cugel


It seems some people are seduced by their own hyperbole.

As for design it's making cars safer not less so.

My current car warns the driver if it thinks he's too close to the vehicle in front. Go closer and it barkes by itself. Wander off to the right or left it steers the car back to where it should be. It reads speed limit signs and nags the driver if they're exceeded. It can be set not to allow limits to be exceeded. The setting can be password protected to make sure drivers don't alter it. The car will brake by itself if there's something in front the driver doesn't respond to. It indicates by a red triangle in the door mirror when there is another vehicle in the blind spot. If you're in a collision the seat belts will pull occupants away from the direction of impact. If you're being followed too closely it If sensors detect no movement inside for a certain amount of time after a collision the vehicle will contact a control centre with details of where it is. They then contact the emergency services.
This is just an ordinary family saloon actually the bottom model in it's range. Many vehicle these days are being fitted with many of the features which will allegedly make autonomous cars safer than driven cars. Some of them can be switched off by the driver. Perhaps they shouldn't be.
'Give me my bike, a bit of sunshine - and a stop-off for a lunchtime pint - and I'm a happy man.' - Reg Baker
Cyril Haearn
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Re: Driving at night

Post by Cyril Haearn »

What does it do if someone is following too close?
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