Crashes and Carnage on M27 & A27

[Bmblbzzz]

Platooning can't happen until cars are talking to each other, and that's not going to be for some time.

[[XAP]Bob]

[youtube]WBjY3QGNdAw[/youtube]

[661-Pete]

Back to the A27 topic - not sure whether this really is a more dangerous road than any other. We drive along it quite often. I wouldn't recommend it for cycling, anyway one stretch (Southwick Hill Tunnel) is barred to cyclists.

One treacherous bit is just west of Arundel. For traffic going east, the road, after several miles of D/C, reduces to S/C and goes downhill through thick woods as you approach the town. There is a 40mph limit but how many observe that? Anyway, one particularly nasty-looking pile-up I saw there, some years ago, involved two cars that had rolled off the road and got tangled up amongst the trees. I don't know if there were casualties.

Regarding the software debate - well, embedded software is my métier (like others on this forum) but I don't think I want to add anything to what's been said already. I'll just quote a little jingle I made up some time ago (you will recognise the source):

Ten software bugs, lurking in the code,
Ten software bugs, lurking in the code,
And if you fix one bug, and re-compile the code,
There'll be eleven software bugs, lurking in the code....

And so on....

[Cyril Haearn]

Back to the A27 topic - not sure whether this really is a more dangerous road than any other.

...

One treacherous bit is just west of Arundel. For traffic going east, the road, after several miles of D/C, reduces to S/C and goes downhill through thick woods as you approach the town. There is a 40mph but how many observe that? ...

Roads are not dangerous or treacherous Drivers are criminals. I do not know the place, how many keep under the maximum speed, do you?

.....

Everything that is supposed to create more safety creates more danger, and everything that is supposed to create more danger creates more safety - J S Dean

[BakfietsUK]

This post was meant to be about what is happening right now. Not what is going to happen or what could happen. I wanted to see if there was an appetite here to discuss the real issue I think I can see with media awareness. As yet I have been given little insight, moreover it just seems like more denial and an unwillingness to face up to and take responsibility for our own behaviour. Which in a strange way however, seems like a reinforcement of my original thinking.

The post seems to have been hijacked by widespread anxiety about driverless cars. That's real enough, but it was not what was asked and the subject appears elsewhere on this forum usually under a heading containing the string: "Driverless Cars".

Lets talk about crashes and carnage and how to address it right now, not wait for the "inevitable" to paraphrase one poster and let that solve our problem for us.

If this is the way we debate stuff in this country, no wonder we're in trouble.

[hamster]

Crashes are inevitable as long as we rely on humans to do the driving. Give it ten years, when presumably cars will have safety features that prevent them driving too close together, and things may well improve.

Absolute rubbish, I'm a software developer. No code is completely bug-free and no security is hack-proof. Disaster waiting to happen.

I think that is a pretty negative view. As a single example, A320 Airbus is a software-driven, fly by wire aircraft with over 30 years service and one of the best safety records of any airliner. Doubtless the software still has bugs, but extensive testing and a completely different design culture shows it's possible. On cars it is critical to design the CANBUS architecture differently for an autonomous vehicle.

[tykeboy2003]

I think that is a pretty negative view. As a single example, A320 Airbus is a software-driven, fly by wire aircraft with over 30 years service and one of the best safety records of any airliner. Doubtless the software still has bugs, but extensive testing and a completely different design culture shows it's possible. On cars it is critical to design the CANBUS architecture differently for an autonomous vehicle.

Dealing with fairly predictable events in a fly by wire system is a different kettle of fish to the more or less random movements of traffic on our roads. I'd say at least a whole order of magnitude more complex.

[[XAP]Bob]

This post was meant to be about what is happening right now. Not what is going to happen or what could happen. I wanted to see if there was an appetite here to discuss the real issue I think I can see with media awareness. As yet I have been given little insight, moreover it just seems like more denial and an unwillingness to face up to and take responsibility for our own behaviour. Which in a strange way however, seems like a reinforcement of my original thinking.

The post seems to have been hijacked by widespread anxiety about driverless cars. That's real enough, but it was not what was asked and the subject appears elsewhere on this forum usually under a heading containing the string: "Driverless Cars".

Lets talk about crashes and carnage and how to address it right now, not wait for the "inevitable" to paraphrase one poster and let that solve our problem for us.

If this is the way we debate stuff in this country, no wonder we're in trouble.

Yes - but one thing that is happening right now is the development of autonomous cars.
Was pointed at a report from the NTSA this morning that the AutoPilot feature on the Tesla has resulted in a 40% reduction in incidents...
That's a staggering number of lives that could be saved and injuries that could be prevented if it could be rolled out across the board.

[Phil Fouracre]

An interesting post! Got to agree with the OP though, why wander off into future technology - stick to the topic having got that 'off my chest' I don't know what the answer is. Everyone knows that 'most people think that they are better than average drivers' which sort of says it all! Then you've got the ingrained status symbol of owning a car and the hierarchy that that reinforces. From my own experience of drivers when I'm cycling there does seem to be more of a sense of entitlement than there ever used to be. Perhaps it's the 'because I'm worth it' culture, but, then you can get conflict with older generations of drivers, so.......?

[hamster]

I think that is a pretty negative view. As a single example, A320 Airbus is a software-driven, fly by wire aircraft with over 30 years service and one of the best safety records of any airliner. Doubtless the software still has bugs, but extensive testing and a completely different design culture shows it's possible. On cars it is critical to design the CANBUS architecture differently for an autonomous vehicle.

Dealing with fairly predictable events in a fly by wire system is a different kettle of fish to the more or less random movements of traffic on our roads. I'd say at least a whole order of magnitude more complex.

Auto landing in a gusty airport with lots of windshear and turbulence is predictable?

What worries me most is the over-reliance on the technology. The Tesla accident was due to the driver using the thing as an autopilot. The MAIB has countless examples of similar over-usage of GPS on ships and lack of sensible watchkeeping.

[kwackers]

An interesting post! Got to agree with the OP though, why wander off into future technology - stick to the topic having got that 'off my chest' I don't know what the answer is. Everyone knows that 'most people think that they are better than average drivers' which sort of says it all! Then you've got the ingrained status symbol of owning a car and the hierarchy that that reinforces. From my own experience of drivers when I'm cycling there does seem to be more of a sense of entitlement than there ever used to be. Perhaps it's the 'because I'm worth it' culture, but, then you can get conflict with older generations of drivers, so.......?

I guess the argument is that it's not future tech, it's here and now.

Personally I think the OP's point is par for the course I can't see it improving and the way car drivers seem to think these days is that it's the duty of everyone to stay out of their way rather than them avoiding others.

I watch cars nearly hit each other pretty much daily because they think 'green means go' at the lights even when there are cars still in the junction.

I had a 'discussion' on the local area Facebook page about a section of local road which is dark and often has pedestrians on - the person complained about there being pedestrians because she'd nearly hit one, other people came on complaining too include a few who claimed they'd had "several near misses".
They were to a 'person' outraged when I suggested that if they knew there are pedestrians on that road and it is dark then perhaps the problem is they were going too fast? And to have "several near misses" suggests they don't learn either.
(The road in question doesn't go anywhere, it just feeds a collection of a few hundred houses so there's no throughway. There are also houses that front onto the road so pedestrian access to them requires peds to walk in the road).

[Vorpal]

The much higher traffic density means that small errors are much more likely to lead to accidents and more drivers are frustrated and taking their frustration out on other road users.

Smeeds Law says otherwise: higher density leads to lower accident rates. Traffic density has increased, accident rates have fallen.

To a point. We don't know if there can be a too high density; if there is a threshold. If Smeeds law stops working at some point. And we only track injury crashes. The government do not collect data on the overall number of crashes. Just because the number of injuries and fatalities is lower, doesn't mean the overall number of accidents is lower. Do you have data that says there are fewer crashes?

[[XAP]Bob]

The insurance industry might...

[Vorpal]

The insurance industry might...

I'm sure they do. And there was an inquiry about the rising cost of motor insurance in 2013, where such things were likely reported. I had a quick look for information and didn't find anything.

[661-Pete]

One treacherous bit is just west of Arundel....

Roads are not dangerous or treacherous

I didn't say it was 'dangerous'. I said it was 'treacherous' - a stretch that might catch the less careful and alert driver unawares, for reasons I've explained. Unfortunately there are some motorists like that. And of course it's people's driving that makes a road 'dangerous'.

Drivers are criminals. I do not know the place, how many keep under the maximum speed, do you?

I don't know what point you're trying to make, but leave me out of it please.