Has automation in the automotive industry made drivers lazy?

It's been a beautiful summer here in the UK this year. We've been treated to day after day of blue sky and sunshine making the commute to work an absolute dream. 

However, I woke up the other morning to find the world wrapped in a thick blanket of mist and fog for the first time in what feels like a decade (but in reality is probably only a few months Blush)

So, on the commute to work that morning, I popped on my fog lights (both back and front) while driving along the country road that winds from my village and out to the main highway to help my fellow travellers see me in this fog soup, only to come up rapidly behind a small silver grey Peugeot with no lights on! Then on the other side of the carriageway, more cars coming head on out of the mist with again with no lights on... Fearful

I would safely estimate that 3 out of every 10 cars I encountered on my journey into work that morning through the thick fog and mist, was not sporting any lights on their car at all let alone the very useful fog lights that are purpose made for driving in situations of reduced visibility.

I'm aware that many modern cars have automatic lights that come on when light levels are low BUT I'm finding that many drivers are not taking matters into their own hands when it comes to deciding when their car lights should actually be illuminated. Again the other day the sky went black and there was a sudden downpour on the way home from work and again, many drivers did not have their lights on probably opting for the decision to be taken by the onboard light sensors instead. 

A friend of mine also has automatic main beam on her car so she doesn't have to decide when to use it and when not to. The car makes that decision for her. 

It got me thinking... have we gone too far with automation in vehicles? Should we be encouraging drivers to make more decisions for themselves when behind the wheel of their car? Have we in fact through automation, removed too much responsibility from the driver themselves? 

Parents
  • I went back out last night in my wife’s car to pick her up again and was driving up the A449 dual carriageway with the headlights on full beam both sides of the road are lined with reflective signs, I immediately counted sixteen visible signs, but realised it was actually over twenty as there’s additional smaller signs on some of the posts.

    It is a dual carriageway with junctions including vehicle crossings in the central reservation, it now has chicanes and other traffic management to slow the speed of traffic and to try and make it safer to pull out of junctions, plus average speed traffic cameras.

    There is far to much involved in driving on that road to be able to be fiddling about with controls, that are not utterly and completely intuitive.

  • It is a dual carriageway with junctions including vehicle crossings in the central reservation, it now has chicanes and other traffic management to slow the speed of traffic and to try and make it safer to pull out of junctions, plus average speed traffic cameras.

    That's where automation is a good thing. With automatic headlights, illumination is optimized, but oncoming traffic is not dazzled. With adaptive cruise control, you won't get done for speeding and you won't run into the back of anybody.

Reply
  • It is a dual carriageway with junctions including vehicle crossings in the central reservation, it now has chicanes and other traffic management to slow the speed of traffic and to try and make it safer to pull out of junctions, plus average speed traffic cameras.

    That's where automation is a good thing. With automatic headlights, illumination is optimized, but oncoming traffic is not dazzled. With adaptive cruise control, you won't get done for speeding and you won't run into the back of anybody.

Children
  • The last fatality was due to someone turning onto the wrong carriageway and driving head first into an oncoming vehicle, it really is a road where drivers need to keep their wits about them.

  • Won't happen when vehicles are fully automated!

  • More likely things like that  will still happen with depressing frequency, but only for some models of car running a particular version of the firmware that turn into the roadworks instead of around them on wednesdays or something odd. What will be lost is the truly random element.

    Have you never been delivered to the wrong place by satnav ?

    Mike.

  • No 'cos I don't use it.

    However, there is a road locally which had (may still have) a sign saying don't trust your satnav 'cos the road was blocked at one end years ago. At one place of work, clients were given a different postcode so that they didn't arrive by the back gate, which has not been used regularly for decades (ever?). Best of all were the huge lorries bearing construction materials which used to attempt to gain access to the building sites in HMS Daedalus via the main gate. That is all very well, but the main gate was shut when the RN left in 1995.

    So yes, you have a point.