Emergency braking on level crossing with no nearby cars

[Robf]

Seatbelts becoming mandatory wasn’t due to any advances in their technology.
They only became mandatory in 1991, seatbelt tech has been pretty static since tge 60s (inertia reel) and the 80s (pre tensioners)
What I’m saying is the government weren’t waiting for a point where they thought ‘right now they’re at a point we can make them compulsory’

Hi Bowfer

Seatbelts becoming mandatory wasn’t due to any advances in their technology.?
I think Volvo would have something to say about that, at the time that Volvo introduced them they were pretty revolutionary and a huge amount of testing went into their introduction. It took other manufacturers (and the public) many years to catch up. At the time there were many who said they would never catch on.. and they would rather go to jail than use them etc etc. First ones were fixed and the pre-tensioned inertia reel that you see now took years of technical development. My how the number of deaths and serious injuries have fallen as a direct result of their introduction.

 

[bowfer]

Hi Bowfer

Seatbelts becoming mandatory wasn’t due to any advances in their technology.?
I think Volvo would have something to say about that, at the time that Volvo introduced them they were pretty revolutionary and a huge amount of testing went into their introduction. It took other manufacturers (and the public) many years to catch up. At the time there were many who said they would never catch on.. and they would rather go to jail than use them etc etc. First ones were fixed and the pre-tensioned inertia reel that you see now took years of technical development. My how the number of deaths and serious injuries have fallen as a direct result of their introduction.

You’ve totally misunderstood what I said.
Never mind

 

[Martinonline]

The Euro NCAP assessment of the MG4 publish in December 2022 states:

Vulnerable Road Users Protection (Overall 75%)

Protection of the head of a struck pedestrian was mixed, being mostly good or adequate over the bonnet surface but with marginal or poor at the base of the windscreen and on the stiff windscreen pillars. The bumper offered good or adequate protection to pedestrians’ legs
and protection of the pelvis was also mostly good. The autonomous emergency braking (AEB) system of the MG can respond to vulnerable road users as well as to other vehicles. The system performed adequately in tests of its response to pedestrians and well in tests of its response to cyclists, with collisions avoided in most cases.
AEB Pedestrians: 6.0/9.0
AEB Cyclist: 7.5/9.0
Safety Assist (Overall 78%)

The autonomous emergency braking (AEB) system of the MG 4 Electric performed well in tests of its reaction to other vehicles. A seatbelt reminder system is fitted as standard to the front and rear seats and the car is equipped with a system to detect driver fatigue. The lane support system gently corrects the vehicle’s path if it is drifting out of lane, and also intervenes in some more critical situations. A driverset speed limiter is fitted as standard equipment and met Euro NCAP’s requirements for accuracy.

The document comes with pictures telling you what tests are considered.

 

[bowfer]

The Euro NCAP assessment of the MG4 publish in December 2022 states:

Vulnerable Road Users Protection (Overall 75%)

Protection of the head of a struck pedestrian was mixed, being mostly good or adequate over the bonnet surface but with marginal or poor at the base of the windscreen and on the stiff windscreen pillars. The bumper offered good or adequate protection to pedestrians’ legs
and protection of the pelvis was also mostly good. The autonomous emergency braking (AEB) system of the MG can respond to vulnerable road users as well as to other vehicles. The system performed adequately in tests of its response to pedestrians and well in tests of its response to cyclists, with collisions avoided in most cases.
AEB Pedestrians: 6.0/9.0
AEB Cyclist: 7.5/9.0
Safety Assist (Overall 78%)

The autonomous emergency braking (AEB) system of the MG 4 Electric performed well in tests of its reaction to other vehicles. A seatbelt reminder system is fitted as standard to the front and rear seats and the car is equipped with a system to detect driver fatigue. The lane support system gently corrects the vehicle’s path if it is drifting out of lane, and also intervenes in some more critical situations. A driverset speed limiter is fitted as standard equipment and met Euro NCAP’s requirements for accuracy.

The document comes with pictures telling you what tests are considered.

Them saying the lane assist ‘gently corrects the vehicle path’ in December 2022 is interesting.
Goes against what others were finding at that point, the updates came long after December….
A specially prepared car given to NCAP…tut tut…*

*I think all manufacturers do this

 

[Veryfatbloke]

I've had a couple of false alarms with the emergency braking, on both occasions when going between 2 cars parked asymmetrically. I assume that the system thought that I was going to hit one or the other.

As somebody who was knocked down by a car as a 4 year old I'm very pleased that these systems exist now. If it causes somebody to rear end me then that's likely to be a better outcome than me wiping out a child.

 

[Deleted member 10041]

Woolgathering, I assume, means not paying attention…. (No need for the history of the phrase. )
Fair enough, if you’re willing to put up with ghost events in the assumption (and it is an assumption) it will work in a proper emergency scenario, up to you.

There was a video on one of the social media accounts last week where fake people walking and on bikes were put in front of cars to see which ones succeeded in braking.

Out of quite a few cars, the only one they succeeded was a Tesla.
I can’t recall if the 4 was in that test. Let me see if I can find a link to the vid.

The 4 was in it, it failed the test the same as the others, as you said apart from the Tesla

 

[djenson]

The other point is actually proving that the car braked and not you - this is almost impossible in most situations.

Dashcam recording audio would do it id imagine

The 4 was in it, it failed the test the same as the others, as you said apart from the Tesla

Very interesting - The tesla vision system (fully camera based) seems to have a huge advantage over the antiquated system in other cars - volvo first introduced the current radar based system in 2009!

I suppose the vision system in the tesla can be trained to see "human walking out" vs "solid object within x radius of car" that a radar would give - that leads to a lot of these false activations

The cameras in our (mg's) cars are usually mono black and white cameras that are used almost solely for line (road markings) detection and speed limits - processing that camera feed like tesla does requires a large amount of computing power - which tesla has developed proprietary silicon to do.

Indeed, tesla used to have radar, but got rid of it somewhat because of false activations - maybe we can see a vision style system start to propagate into other brands.

 

[GlasWolf]

The full MG4 video is here. As you might expect, the Tesla Owners UK account has cherrypicked the tests where the MG4's auto-braking failed, while discounting those where it performed well.

 

[Martinonline]

What is interesting is the collection of comments below the video. It just shows that no automatic system is perfect. The test should also have been carried out with a human driver going around a circuit and the obstacle coming out at a random time. That's to see if all these add-ons are worth it

 

[CarlMG4]

The 4 was in it, it failed the test the same as the others, as you said apart from the Tesla

The Tesla is even more impressive than it gets credit for, and it does get a lot of credit.

I'd say it reacted even quicker than a human could have, to the cyclist-behind-parked-car test.

What is interesting is the collection of comments below the video. It just shows that no automatic system is perfect. The test should also have been carried out with a human driver going around a circuit and the obstacle coming out at a random time. That's to see if all these add-ons are worth it

The add-ons are a fail safe, not a replacement for human proper-control of the vehicle.

When you look at it this way, I'd say they are worth it, especially if they work as intended and don't cause more accidents than they prevent.

 

[bowfer]

The Tesla is even more impressive than it gets credit for, and it does get a lot of credit.

I'd say it reacted even quicker than a human could have, to the cyclist-behind-parked-car test.

An unobservant human, maybe.
Undoubtedly riding a motorbike for 40 years has made me more observant than the average car driver, you have to be (!) and there have been tests using retina tracking systems that prove motorcyclists scan the road in a superior manner to car drivers, but I think a decent driver will spot tell-tale signs of danger long before these systems.
You’ll see a head over the roof, you’ll see feet under the car etc etc
I don’t go past a stopped bus without looking under it or through the windows for example.
Watch the video and these systems all need the cyclist to be fully in vision, to a ludicrous degree.
No nuances, no ‘what the hell is he doing’
Nope, they’re all ‘ok he’s fully in the road now, let’s stop’ duuuuuuuuuhh
What’s the driver doing in a scenario like this, looking at his phone??
So far, in years and umpteen cars I’ve not had these systems trigger in a genuinely helpful way, just annoying ways.
It would be stupid to suggest I’m able to drive around without events happening to me, so am I just spotting and dealing with stuff without having to rely on these things?

 

[CarlMG4]

I don’t go past a stopped bus without looking under it or through the windows for example.

It must take you hours to walk through a bus station..

An unobservant human, maybe.
Undoubtedly riding a motorbike for 40 years has made me more observant than the average car driver, you have to be (!) and there have been tests using retina tracking systems that prove motorcyclists scan the road in a superior manner to car drivers, but I think a decent driver will spot tell-tale signs of danger long before these systems.
You’ll see a head over the roof, you’ll see feet under the car etc etc
I don’t go past a stopped bus without looking under it or through the windows for example.
Watch the video and these systems all need the cyclist to be fully in vision, to a ludicrous degree.
No nuances, no ‘what the hell is he doing’
Nope, they’re all ‘ok he’s fully in the road now, let’s stop’ duuuuuuuuuhh
What’s the driver doing in a scenario like this, looking at his phone??
So far, in years and umpteen cars I’ve not had these systems trigger in a genuinely helpful way, just annoying ways.
It would be stupid to suggest I’m able to drive around without events happening to me, so am I just spotting and dealing with stuff without having to rely on these things?

No in all seriousness, I'm the same, I learned to look even further ahead when riding a motorbike, you have to always be watching what everyone else is doing, more so when you're as vulnerable to idiots not watching what they're doing. It stays with you.

In real life, an attentive human driver should have been alert enough to preempt there might have been a hazard behind that blind corner/vehicle, slowed down just in case. It's basic hazard perception.

 

[tsedge]

I think the point is that the average driver is unobservant, distracted and doesn't react well - so these systems can beat the average and therefore in general are better, even if those who are well above average still perform better.

This is why it will eventually be illegal to drive manually, except on private circuits.

 

[CarlMG4]

I think the point is that the average driver is unobservant, distracted and doesn't react well - so these systems can beat the average and therefore in general are better, even if those who are well above average still perform better.

This is why it will eventually be illegal to drive manually, except on private circuits.

Exactly this, how many times over the years have you heard/said - "I'm a good driver, it's other people you have to watch out for", and it runs true, the average driver nowadays is too busy texting/scrolling/on the phone/doing makeup and just generally not paying that much attention, they can't cross a road safely let alone drive a big metal box on wheels with due care and attention.

I've said for a long time, all of these safety systems are just in preparation for the end goal, completely automated driving. We're the Alpha/Beta testers ultimately.

We attentive drivers will use/need these safety features very rarely in real life, however (when they don't throw up false positives) it can only be a good thing that they're there for that one time you might need it.

The key is though, they have to work properly, and not be the cause of a potential accident either.

 

[bowfer]

FWIW, fully automated driving I’m all for.
Bring it on.
This halfway house pish that’s filtering through…nah…switch it all off.

 

[Rolfe]

It's interesting what you say about motorcycle driving. I'm also an ex motorcyclist, did the ACU training (in the middle of winter) and got my badge and so on. I can see exactly what you mean, I do carry over that training to car driving too - it's more or less unconscious.

One of the things that conflicts at the moment is the training to brake before a bend so that you never have to brake going round the bend, versus trying to get the regenerative braking to handle the whole thing.

I think that underlines what happened to me in Keighley. I saw a man walking between two parked cars heading for the road. I could tell from his general demeanour that he wasn't going to come right into the path of my car, but he was heading in that direction. I don't blame the car for not recognising what I could see, not at this stage of development. I'm prepared to give it a pass on that one. People who aren't can turn the system off.

Eventually it will get good enough that only the terminal Luddites won't use it, but it's not there yet and it will never get there unless it's allowed to work its way through the development process in real life use.

 

[CarlMG4]

It's interesting what you say about motorcycle driving. I'm also an ex motorcyclist, did the ACU training (in the middle of winter) and got my badge and so on. I can see exactly what you mean, I do carry over that training to car driving too - it's more or less unconscious.

One of the things that conflicts at the moment is the training to brake before a bend so that you never have to brake going round the bend, versus trying to get the regenerative braking to handle the whole thing.

I think that underlines what happened to me in Keighley. I saw a man walking between two parked cars heading for the road. I could tell from his general demeanour that he wasn't going to come right into the path of my car, but he was heading in that direction. I don't blame the car for not recognising what I could see, not at this stage of development. I'm prepared to give it a pass on that one. People who aren't can turn the system off.

Eventually it will get good enough that only the terminal Luddites won't use it, but it's not there yet and it will never get there unless it's allowed to work its way through the development process in real life use.

OpenPilot comma.ai is very interesting, it uses Ai learning to predict and react. And can be retrofitted to the cars with the capability to accept it.

The few videos I've watched on it are well ahead of most cars.

 

[Cocijo]

The Tesla is even more impressive than it gets credit for, and it does get a lot of credit.

I'd say it reacted even quicker than a human could have, to the cyclist-behind-parked-car test.



The add-ons are a fail safe, not a replacement for human proper-control of the vehicle.

When you look at it this way, I'd say they are worth it, especially if they work as intended and don't cause more accidents than they prevent.

Tesla have binned the ultrasonic parking sensors too. They now favour the Tesla Vision system for parking also. No sensors in bumpers etc. I prefer the ultrasonic - the vision system is not great for parking - it gets distances wrong and doesn’t detect objects at lower levels that well.

 

[Rolfe]

I like the ultrasonic system for reversing in the SE.

 

[bowfer]

It's interesting what you say about motorcycle driving. I'm also an ex motorcyclist, did the ACU training (in the middle of winter) and got my badge and so on. I can see exactly what you mean, I do carry over that training to car driving too - it's more or less unconscious.

One of the things that conflicts at the moment is the training to brake before a bend so that you never have to brake going round the bend, versus trying to get the regenerative braking to handle the whole thing.

I think that underlines what happened to me in Keighley. I saw a man walking between two parked cars heading for the road. I could tell from his general demeanour that he wasn't going to come right into the path of my car, but he was heading in that direction. I don't blame the car for not recognising what I could see, not at this stage of development. I'm prepared to give it a pass on that one. People who aren't can turn the system off.

Eventually it will get good enough that only the terminal Luddites won't use it, but it's not there yet and it will never get there unless it's allowed to work its way through the development process in real life use.

It’s interesting that you want it to develop in real-life use, but don’t want to report it triggering in a non-dangerous situation.
How can it develop if people cover it up?
It would take less effort to email the dealer and report it than to discuss it in here.