Drivers Tend To Kill Pedestrians At Night. Thermal Imaging May Help.::Pedestrian automatic emergency braking (AEB), which may become mandatory on U.S. cars in the future, tends to not perform well in the dark.
Drivers Tend To Kill Pedestrians At Night. Thermal Imaging May Help.
Yes, I need more incentives to kill pedestrians.
LOL yes. Even the first sentence in this headline reads funny on its own.
Thermal imaging can help to shift those killings to daytime!
What if we reduced the size of cars, reduced speed limits and created cities and towns that are safer to walk in
Also, increase public transit options & availability.
No thats communism
Yep! America: Of the Cars, By the Cars, For the Cars
I mean, long term that’s a fantastic solution. Pretty sure this change can be implemented a lot sooner and a LOT cheaper, and save lives tho.
Limit the speed of private vehicles mechanically, the same way they do with ebikes.
100%
Funfact! Can’t be bothered to look it up but I remember reading that lower speed limits actually make people more prone to speed. In most cases, if speed limit is low, people will try their best to hit it and even slightly go over it. In higher speed limits people tend to actually drive slower than speed limit dictates.
This does, however, only apply to express ways and similiar, not city’s limits…I mean, people are still gonna try to max their speed but I really don’t think we can put it high enough for this to not apply and be safe anyway.
Also, how the hell do americans have this problem when their cities spend 2/3 of the day being locked in slow moving traffic? .-.
Adjusting a speed limit is not enough, road engineers need to implement actual traffic calming measures to slow people down…
Fun fact, US pedestrian deaths went up during covid because there were fewer drivers and people could speed more easily.
In my country speeding cams work kinda well. People cry af about them but it’s almost funny seeing traffic suddenly slow down in certain points.
Speed cameras on Brazil have a lot of warnings before the camera is placed, so people slow down before the camera and reduces crashes.
It will help with pedestrian accidents but it will also be terrible for driving since you cannot reduce the distance between cities/commute length
I’d rather commuting take longer if less people die. But that’s just me.
That’s the usual sentiment in social media comments but in reality most people don’t behave this way. We need to live in the real world if we want to change it. Living a delusion and expecting others to support it is not going to help in reality.
I mean until recently more people used to die in car accidents than by gunfire. It was the leading cause for kids. I am not advocating for lack of concern. But making cars less useful it’s not a solution since people still have to commute long distances in some countries. You have to weigh the benefits against the costs. If you believe that pedestrians should always be prioritized then you should be advocating for a complete ban on cars
If you believe that pedestrians should always be prioritized then you should be advocating for a complete ban on cars
Welcome aboard, sailor.
Can you even afford a car? I somehow doubt it. you have that typical attitude of wanting to ban the things that are outside your reach.
I could afford buying multiple in cash each year.
Why would I ever do something so dumb, though?
Good.
Maybe we’ll start designing our cities and lives for shorter commutes, benefiting ourselves and our environment? Might just be me tho.
Absolutely. ignoring the issue is not going to help. not sure how we can pressure “city designers” (no clue how it actually works) to effect the change.
It’s less city engineers and moreso American/Canadian laws that make it illegal to build objectively better (measurably safer/more efficient/better for peoples’ health & stress/better for the economy/better for individuals’ finances) infrastructure.
In IIHS’ latest tests of car headlight systems, fewer than half (43%) earned a good rating. […] “Vehicles that earn a good rating for visibility in our tests have 23% fewer nighttime pedestrian crashes than those that rate poor.”
That’s a lot of room for improvement without new technology.
It’s the kind of thing you assume would have been empirically tested and have minimum safety regulations, instead of the wild variability we see from dimly lit up close to blinding pulsar from alpha centauri.
There is a minimum and regulations, in the US IIRC the legal range is between 500 and 3000 lumens. And it results in exactly what you describe.
Exactly.
We need to have regs targeting specific performance metrics based on testing.
Europe actually has incredible adaptive headlight technology that AFAIK was illegal in the US up until very recently. It’ll be great to see this rolled out here as it’s better for everyone.
Do we? I think they’re really annoying, blinding the shit outta me, then finally adjusting correctly just right before we pass each other.
We have the tech, what needs to improve are regulations based on performance instead of tech.
That would leave room for innovative design that achieves the performance requirements.
I’m curious what their “good” rating entails. Hopefully not just brighter lights, that just makes oncoming traffic blind. That could end up being more dangerous overall, even if it’s not the car with “good” headlights doing the killing. Realistically, if you’re going to walk at night somewhere there are cars, wear a light, high vis vest, reflectors, SOMETHING.
hmm thermal imaging in cars… or just more public transit and street lighting… give me the expensive capitalist hellcreating thing
That only works in more urban areas.
Its impossible to covered every road in lights and it can get very dark when you are far away from a city. Same with public transit. I am all for it, but it’s only reasonable in more densely populated areas. There just won’t be enough people using it in th middle of nowhere to just something like that much less staff it.
Meanwhile helping cars see people even in those less common and more difficult situations is a good thing. Why would you NOT want your car to be safer for others around you?
80% of the US population, and about half of the world population, lives in urban areas.
By 2050, those figures will be 90% and 75%, respectively.
Planning better urban areas won’t help everyone, but it will help the supermajority.
Awww shit bois the huge country with plenty of money cannot afford to do it
IMO, I don’t think it matters whether we can or can’t. I don’t think we should even if we could. Light pollution from cities is bad enough. Adding that many more lights would make it so much worse.
Conical shades on streetlights and yellow light to reduce interference with sleep.
Also: fewer fucking cars.
Imagine how much less light pollution there would be without all the cars…
Where do you think people lived during westward expansion when every town was connected by rail? There weren’t too many urban places out there.
It’s a myth that it only works for urban areas. Switzerland has their trains travel to basically every town on time and frequently, and those towns in the alps are sure as hell a lot harder to reach than whatever rural place you’re thinking of. Admittedly, getting from the station to your destination will be harder without a car until things are built or changed to replace car dependence, but car dependence was manufactured, not intrinsic.
Right. I can’t wait for the thermal camera on my ridiculously expensive car to break so it can become a lawn ornament until I spend thousands on a new camera.
I’m all for more public transport but I’m also all for improving safety features for pedestrians. Not sure why anyone would be against putting the cost on car owners.
People could also wear something other than black clothes when they go outside at night.
Dude. For real. The number of jump scares I’ve had on a dark fuckin back road, and some bastard in all black seemingly materializes in front of me… Same thing with people who drove at dusk without lights on, MAKE YOURSELF VISIBLE
It is your responsibility as the operator of a car to see pedestrians even if they are wearing black
Sure is, but sometimes our brains don’t work perfectly.
Then we should make safer roads for everyone with better designs and lower speeds
This is not particularly controversial.
No, it’s not. I’m the most responsible driver there is and even I draw the line here. When driving next to park cars I pay extra attention because someone may want to cross the road and walk out from behind a car even in places where it’s illegal but if someone hides behinds a bush and jumps out right in front of my car it’s not my fault. At night it’s my responsibility to drive below the speed limit and pay attention to the road but if some black ninja hides on the curb there’s not much I can do about it.
Uh, no, pretty sure it is legally your responsibility to be safe to everyone around you when driving. If you can’t do that, don’t drive a car.
Even to suicidal people that jump in front of cars on purpose? BS
Yes.
If you’re operating a piece of heavy machinery at high speeds, “But they ran into road!” is not an excuse.
Are you trolling? Absolutely no one would agree with that. You can’t simply absolve pedestrians of all responsibility. It’s so stupid I can’t even argue with that.
Said the non car driver.
Oh, nice! Victim blaming!
yeah I just murder people based on the color of their clothes. if they didn’t want to be murdered they wouldn’t have dressed like that
Whew, I’m not alone.
Fuck you, that is obviously not what I said. You people should really learn how to read, instead of just making shit up and then believing I actually said it.
I read it just fine, that’s your implication.The pedestrian is responsible for protecting themselves against the tyranny of the SUV. I guess if that’s the world you want then vroom vroom mf
Everyone has a responsibility for their own safety. We should do what is reasonable to reduce harm and risk to others, but there is only so much that can be reasonable. If a person wears dark clothing, doesn’t use crosswalks, doesn’t check for cars etc at what point does their safety become their responsibility?
Drivers Tend To Kill Pedestrians At Night. Thermal Imaging May Help.
Thermal imaging will definitely help spot those dirty walkers so I won’t miss as many. Those bastards can blend in sometimes and some of them are deceptively quick. The little ones especially are tough to take out. Of course, sometimes those guys just run right in front of you which are easy points but it takes the sport out of it.
Anyway, it’s about time someone put the right tools in the hands of us hunters. I can’t wait to have an evening cruise with my lights off and really get a good stalk on, you know?
As a pedestrian, this is why wearing high viz/lighted clothing at night is so important.
A high percentage of the people who are hit at night are on drunk, drugs, or mentally ill. Not exactly the type to heed this advice. Maybe homeless services could pass out reflective clothes.
I would absolutely love a source on that one, still not a great look to disregard safety and life so nonchalantly
Are you saying I’m disregarding their lives somehow? If so I think you are adding your own interpretation to my comment.
Regarding the data, I don’t recall where I first read that. But here’s what I found from google. Obviously the new numbers will vary greatly by location. And it doesn’t exactly support what I said because this just specifies homeless, not their mental state.
A high percentage of drivers are drunk, on drugs, or mentally ill* especially those hitting people
Most drivers wouldn’t exactly take the advice of “pay attention to the fucking road so you dont kill people” and should have their licenses stripped from them. America’s dependence on cars had made the bar for getting permission to drive a 4000 lb death machine far too low
Sounds like your trying to have an argument but I agree with you.
This has been a thing for decades now at least in Mercedes (S & E) and BMW (5+).
And it’s not just the camera alone, car headlights have a special projector that selectively illuminates pedestrians (or just does a double flash at them). Works as intended, but few people opt for it … and gov are still not mandating it (like automatic breaking).
My parents gotba relatively new Merc and I’d to turn that auto braking off. Its far too sensitive and nearly had me rear ended driving around a bend. My guess is its picking up the retroreflective spots on the markings as there usually isn’t a car on that bend but the Merc is beeping at me like I’m about to be in a collision
ghost breaking
Only 344 days left till Halloween!!
xd
Something must be wrong then.
Or its just a (now) standard emergency braking feature (not meant as a substitute, but to lessen crash outcomes), not radar cruise control. If it is tho, look in the settings, maybe you can adjust something there. But radar breaking on all new-ish cars is smooth. But it does tend to sightly mimic the driving (accelerating and braking) style of the car in front, especially in cities as it tries to be polite & not make others impatient.
Also afaik radar braking/cruise control is something to turn on, can’t be on by default.
They didn’t get the car brand new but it wasn’t very old. Perhaps the previous owner turned on the setting
I have been in the settings and adjusted it but in the end it was just easier to turn the function off
Its probably awesome on the Autobahns but its a danger on windytight roads that I drive on. Probably 3 or 4 times it braked on me when there was no reason to do so. There’s one bit near my approaching a roundabout and it beeps like hell at me to slow down at least 50% of the time. Fortunately I’m back in my own car now as I don’t need the automatic (I injured my left leg)
Yeah, you should take that to a dealer and have the system re-calibrated. It’s not supposed to act like that. If I had to guess, the previous owner got into a fender bender and had someone do the repair work on the cheap. Either that, or there’s something in the front grill area blocking the radar setup intermittently.
Every automated car I’ve driven behaves like this. I don’t buy it’s a calibration issue (there’s nothing to calibrate from what I’ve read on wiring diagrams, as that’s not how auto manufacturers roll - they build components for things like this to be replaced).
For example, I haven’t heard of headlight aiming in forever, though it’s something that used to be done with a relatively simple tool. And it’s way simpler to do than calibrate a complex radar system for a car.
This automation simply isn’t quite ready for the real world, and I’d bet manufacturers are collecting data from many of these cars (so many have a connection back to the manufacturer via cell).
I’m only trained to calibrate the camera systems that tell you when you’ve drifted out of the lane, but the tool I use is capable of calibrating radar systems if you buy the more expensive accessory package. I’m certain because I have to scroll past the instructions for radar when pulling up instructions/parameters for Lane watch.
Also, for what it’s worth the sensors CAN be replaced, but they still have to go through an initial calibration/programming once installed into the car.
It was a company vehicle and if it was crashed, we’d have known about it
Oh, I don’t have a comparative experience at all. But also once you touch the brakes all cruise control should turn off anyway so I’m not sure if we are talking about the same thing.
No, I’m not talking about having cruise control on in any of my comments. Just driving with the pedals myself
Oh, yeah, I see that now - I’m just in awe that issues like that are a thing (so I assumed the other system).
But I’m intrigued what makes for such difference (cars/tech, environments, legislation? - like adaptive lights were a legislation issue in US).
Every newer car I’ve driven so far has had one installed and enabled by default. These things work fairly poorly, especially in snowier conditions (in my experience).
Yeah, iirc it became or about to become a requirement in EU. But I was not aware that it has false positives like that, that just makes ppl not use them.
However these are indeed two different things - one is emergency braking (on by default, breaking only, radar, camera of radio-wave sensors), the other one just for comfort that you can keep both pedals alone and it’s an extension of crouse control (radar based, accelerates as well, for regular situations). I thought we were talking about the second system being harsh.
I get why the first one would be tho, it’s designed to function only when the driver already falls to, but it’s useless or dangerous of it’s not working properly.
Auto-brake and auto-cruise likely rely on the same radar system. Mine seems to, as they both over-react to the same things. Really they’re just different applications of the same data.
Oh, yeah, they both really on radar in my case too, but you can also get my model w/o radar (and it still has that emergency braking feature).
I’m just baffled how come I never heard of it having so much issues, even irl I never heard about it being like that. The closest my system got to a “false” positive was on a narrow road (one car max) where a car coming towards me stopped on a slightly wider spot and went a bit offroad to allow me to pass by. As I accelerated directly towards the other car (to later turn to go a bit off-road only when already very close to it) my car beeped but didn’t brake.
Overall the system activates for me probably less than one time per year, and I have it set on the most sensitive option (all of such safety features). Previously it was in a situation where a car coming from a side road stopped (rapidly) only when already half on my side of the road, so that was valid, tho I saw it way before that & nothing happened.
They are a great example of how far away we are from automation in many spaces.
The auto-cruise control barely works right for me, the lane assist complains constantly because I don’t hang on the steering wheel like an ape as most people do. And don’t get me started about the auto-brake system that tries to stop when the lane next to me slows down, on an interstate.
this is gonna be super bad for lizard people 😱
mark Zuckerberg is crying right now…
ITT: “What was the victim wearing at the time? Was the car acting in self-defense? Do cars have qualified immunity? Did the pedestrian pose a threat or instigate the car? Were they wearing their officially state-sanctioned Pedestrian uniform and helmet? Did the pedestrian have any pre-existing conditions?”
Remember when Biden said that pedestrian could use beacons to alert autonomous cars of their location?
No I don’t remember that. Any chance you have a link?
I remember Tesla fanboys crying when Biden appointed Cummings to the NHTSA, but I can’t think of anything else connecting Biden to self-driving cars.
Ah see this is the problem with political discussion. It turns out he never actually said that.
According to the article, one tiny piece of the $1.2 trillion dollar infrastructure bill he signed committed two federal agencies to be conduct a study on that as a potential solution.
The Forbes article editorializes that significantly to say that beaconing has received the “federal stamp of approval”.
It’s like a kid asking their parents for McDonalds for hours and the parent says “I’ll think about it”.
Well yea, more chances of witnesses during the day, so obviously night time is better for… oh wait, we’re talking about accidental deaths?
People often don’t help themselves either. I remember this time, I was driving on a country road in the fog. Suddenly I saw my foglights light up a dog walking in the road. So I drove around, then as I got closer I saw a man walking this dog, dressed all in black, on an unlit country road, walking away from traffic, in dense fog.
If he made it back home alive, it’s purely down to luck (or his dog being seen before him again).
How about not driving while on dense fog?
I would love to never have somewhere I needed to be when weather made driving dangerous.
Unfortunately most people don’t have that kind of freedom to always be able to leave early enough before bad weather starts, or to stay where they’re at during bad weather until it ends.
Best most people can do is drive more carefully and slow down as appropriate for the visibilty.
Anything but slowing down when it’s difficult to see ahead. We’ll just victim blame dead pedestrians, deer and raccoons for wearing dark colors at night.
Oh good, anything to help me kill more at night!
Like the case with the paintball guy a few years ago. Someone was driving on a road in the woods at night when he suddenly hit a guy - dressed in dark camo, face blackened, etc, anything not to be seen - who came running out of the woods onto the road. He was a paintballer being persued by members of the opposite team. The car took him out of the game, though.
