Comments on: 2007 Mercedes-Benz S-Class “the ultimate geek car?”

By: jamshid Nadimifard

jamshid Nadimifard — Fri, 03 Feb 2006 20:50:43 +0000

mercedes-benz-s-class or clk-class

By: Henry Wertz

Henry Wertz — Sat, 14 Jan 2006 02:04:00 +0000

Yeah.. per JC Denton’s post (#10) the German TV demo was faked. Yep! The engineers said the metal sheds they were very near would interfere with the radar.. so.. the driver was to hit the brakes when he ran over this piece of wood on the road. The Mercedes has such supple suspension, he did not feel the wood and rammed the car he wasn’t supposed to hit. How embarrasing for Mercedes and the reporter.

That said.. DON’T just not hit the brakes because you think a computer will do it for you. That’s REALLY stupid.

By: Emyrald

Emyrald — Fri, 13 Jan 2006 22:48:10 +0000

Honestly, it would be rather simple to make this system usable, safe, and yet something nobody will rely on. #1, put in a klaxon warning system when the braking system engages. #2, make it UNCOMFORTABLE TO USE. Make the brakes pulse at an uncomfortable rate. Nothing harmful of course, but something so unpleasant that people wouldn’t envision using it as a primary tool.

This way the system will be only used as a safety tool, when someone does not in fact have the awareness to brake themselves.

By: jwk

jwk — Fri, 13 Jan 2006 06:03:02 +0000

Has anybody seen “Canada’s Worst Driver” on Discovery? They had one bad driver and a Driving instructor in a car get up to a serton speed then the instuctor would turn on a light to tell the bad driver to stop. They did it twice but on the second time he didn’t turn it on, and they didn’t tell them this, so some whent though a “brick wall” represented by some cardboard boxes, some (but fue) figured it out and stopped, before. This is the future. Like automatics made it so almost any bonehead can get a license, now EVERY bonehead is going to be able to “drive” a car.

Be afraid, be VERY afraid

By: notabigot

notabigot — Fri, 13 Jan 2006 02:50:19 +0000

In response to #24 from Gomez, I’m offended at your offhand comment/stereotype of women as collision-causers. I have been rear-ended twice on the highway and *both* collision-causers who couldn’t be bothered with braking were men. Neither had children in their cars or makeup, but both sure as hell had cellphones. The worst part is waiting at a full stop with traffic and seeing the idiots approaching way too fast in your rearview mirror. There’s nowhere to go and you just have to brace yourself for their stupidity.

By: Alasdair

Alasdair — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 21:57:52 +0000

Auto-braking aside, how about a system that detects when the car has been parked on double yellow lines outside a shop with the hazard warning lights on ‘just for a moment’ and electrocutes its inconsiderate idiot driver upon his/her return?

By: Paul Snow

Paul Snow — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 21:36:33 +0000

In a perfect world, your car will always stop before it rams into the car in front of you. If we were all willing to drive in a fashion (proper speeds, proper separation, proper skill sets) you still would not obtain that perfect world. The fact that we will increasingly be able to automate our cars to approach that perfect world is just that, a fact.

There will come a day when we are not driving our own cars. I for one will welcome the day that I can play a game of cards or take a nap on my compute to work, or on a trip, or just to meet up with friends for a night on the town without any worry about other drivers hitting me, or getting lost, or getting traffic tickets, or the cost of auto insurance.

Or even having to worry about a parking place. In that golden day, my car will drop me off at the door, and go park itself.

If the first steip is auto breaking, then bring it on!

By: derek

derek — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 19:37:31 +0000

While I agree with the issue of people relying too much on automated safety systems, I would like to point out that the “failed” test mentioned here; http://www.leftlanenews.com/2005/12/02/video-of-mercedes-distronic-pile-up/

Was actually the result of the journalist FAKING the test, after the Mercedes engineers told him it wouldn’t work in the tunnel/building. He manually drove the test car, with the plan to brake all on his own. He personally crashed it into the stopped car, since he couldn’t see in the fog. So maybe there are plenty of crappy drivers out there now, sans the tech?

By: Gomez

Gomez — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 18:38:12 +0000

Too many poor drivers and women would become comfortable with not having to put the extra effort into braking. If and when the system fails, for whatever reason, they won’t see the collision coming, probably because they’re applying makeup or scolding an unruly child in the back seat.

The very simple fact is that if you make a system to automate the braking process, there will be plenty of people who will entirely rely on it for braking. No amount of warnings otherwise will prevent 100% of drivers from relying on it. This is by no means simply a “supplement” to the manual brake lever.

By: Brian

Brian — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 16:26:04 +0000

I had read about this previously, they didn’t develop this to replace the brake so much, it was originally made to be anti a$$hole technology, to keep people from driving to close to other cars, it would automatically deaccelerate. Of course this type of thing shouldn’t replace the brake pedal

By: Don Chaloupka

Don Chaloupka — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 15:37:24 +0000

This system sounds as though it is based on a predefine ability to brake in a given condition. So what happens when actual conditions no longer match this. Probably would not work in snowy, icy or heavy rain conditions where the friction between tires and the road have been greatly reduced. Too much reliance on technology == “accidents” This is best suited as a backup to manual braking. It would make an excellent backup.

By: Kelly Gray

Kelly Gray — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 14:24:34 +0000

I wonder how well the system will handle accidental jamming of the radar system. On a two lane road full of rush hour traffic, every oncoming car will be aiming its radar almost exactly at your car. This is the perfect recipe for jamming the radar system as the signal from the oncoming car will be far stronger than reflections from traffic ahead of you and if the oncoming car is the same model as yours, then the radar frequency will also be identical..

By: Alex Beamish

Alex Beamish — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 13:56:26 +0000

A friend of mine used to sell cars for Honda, and he talked about grabbing the keys for one of the two Prelude test cars, one with, and one without ABS. Driving the car off the lot, he accelerated, spun the wheel and said to the startled prospect, this is why you need ABS, then slammed on the brakes.

Except he’d mistakenly taken the wrong Prelude out, and there was no ABS to save him, almost requiring the customer to take his leave to find some clean underwear.

This kind of feature is a disaster waiting to happen, and I’m sure the personal injury lawyers are salivating at the prospect of mountains of billable hours. To misquote someone, when you build cars for idiots, only idiots will drive cars.

By: Andy Thompson

Andy Thompson — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 13:55:18 +0000

The above post is spot on. This is meant as a SUPPLEMENT to normal everyday driving. Think of it like an airbag. It’s a safety measure introduced for emergency moments, not so you can drive without a seatbelt. Anyone who got in an accident and blamed it on the fact that their automated brake didn’t work should have their license revoked for a good 5 years. We all know this will just give another moron a reason to sue corporate when the blame should fall on the stupidity/ignorance of the human race.

By: Shawn Tolidano

Shawn Tolidano — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 13:16:28 +0000

Before making harsh statements about a developing technology, consider the needs that drive that technology to be developed in the first place. Consider all the high-speed car races on public roads, people who don’t use their turn signals, people who floor it because someone is driving half the speed limit in the left lane, people who smoke, eat, put on makeup, and read the news, simultaneously, while driving (I would include cell phones, but apparently, in New York, having a hands-free kit makes it perfectly alright). With all of these road obstacles, not even mentioning the groggy people in the morning (a /. article states waking up is worse than being drunk in some cases!) or the exhausted people at night (you don’t even want to know what scientists say about them!), any system in place that can *support* a driver are both worth developing and should be welcomed into the driving community. If everyone drove properly, we wouldn’t constantly be looking to remove the burden on the drivers. A test is just that, a test. There is more than enough time to make the necessary refinements to account for what the designers didn’t think about. I especially liked the point about going around a curve and perhaps the car needs to have some kind of basic trajectory calculation in place to combine with the GPS system and the radar to properly determine when to apply the brakes. Of course, if you’re driving around a mountain, the radar isn’t exactly going to penetrate 100 feet of rock. And at that point, guess what? The car tells you the radar cannot see 360 degrees anymore, and to brake manually! Mercedes isn’t telling you to stop using the brake pedal, just like cruise control doesn’t mean stop looking at the road or accelerating and automatic transmission doesn’t mean you shouldn’t consider the ramifications of flooring it from every red light. It’s human nature to abandon as many of our cares as possible as soon as something else comes along which may appear to handle it, and before we complain about the technology not working, we should wonder about why the technology was necessary in the first place and evaluate our own carelessness (perhaps in allowing such a technology to be offered in the first place). I’d have some catchy link like previous posters, but why not just search for statistics on number of car accidents due to driver error vs. car error last year and get a good idea of where the problem really lies.

By: Left Lane News

Left Lane News — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 12:48:37 +0000

Speaking of the pile up… http://www.leftlanenews.com/2005/12/02/video-of-mercedes-distronic-pile-up/

By: LG

LG — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 12:33:39 +0000

How does the radar system know what’s *ahead* of you if you’re going around a sharp or even gentle corner and there’s a car stopped ahead.

By: truman

truman — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 11:10:11 +0000

I wouldn’t call it ‘the worst idea’ as Benz people are not stupid to position it as a brake pedal replacement. It has its application area .. think of it as a cruise-control extension that can cope with traffic slow-downs and such or a thing to have when drivnig in less alert state (mornings anyone ?).

By: Ashley Brown

Ashley Brown — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 11:02:02 +0000

From the autospis link:

“The test had been done in a hall which was made of steel. This confuses the radar…”

OK, so what about in tunnels? They have lots of those in Germany, Italy, Switzerland etc etc. And you probably wouldn’t want to rely on it when driving onto a ferry or train.

By: Robert Cameron

Robert Cameron — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 10:43:33 +0000

I think this is one of the worst ideas I have ever seen on a car, ever. If it isn’t 100% totally reliable (and it isn’t, I saw Top Gear too) then it’s dangerous.

I for one would not like to be the person at the back of a line of traffic who is in a small car/motorcycle when some idiot comes steaming up behind at 90mph, and who has put his trust in his car to brake for him.

By: Egon

Egon — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 10:31:51 +0000

There was something in a German TV show a few weeks back, where they set up a test of this system for journalists. Not sure if its the same show as mentioned above but here they actually mounted a wooden bar to the floor so the driver knows when to break manually.
When a Mercedes representative was asked about it he admitted that it didn’t work there because the system was confused by the envirenment (a crash test site).
This might be an additional system in case you really breake too late, but Marcedes is advertising this as if you don’t actually have to break yourself. If people believe this it’s getting dangerous.

By: Rob Gerhardt

Rob Gerhardt — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 10:30:33 +0000

Sounds nice, but I hope the system never fails because people will not have time to assume the fact that they must brake manualli.

By: JC Denton

JC Denton — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 10:29:44 +0000

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/29/mercedes_brake_test_fiasco/

Regards

By: Flash¹³

Flash¹³ — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 10:28:29 +0000

Wasn’t that the car Top Gear showed running into another car in a controlled demo of the auto’ braking?

By: Aaron

Aaron — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 10:21:55 +0000

A good point that the manufacturers should take from this “Top Gear” test is this: obviously changes need to be made to the on-board compter to account for road conditions. I’m sure that the device would have worked better if the road hadn’t been slicked from moisture.
Good point on post #1 – I, for one do not, plan on ever having a device such as this nor will I allow my children such a foolish purchase as long as I can help it. It’s bad enough driving in major cities in the US when people lay on the brakes out of fear, but here they probably wouldn’t even be paying attention.
Then this goes right back to the 11 JAN article ‘Today’s drivers suffer without high-tech systems’ – what happens when the device that’s being relied on fails? Death, my friend; grisly, juicy, noisy death.

By: Chris Kelley

Chris Kelley — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 09:28:17 +0000

“Kinda worked”

Not exactly sure i’d like to rely my life on the word “kinda”…

By: Leowyatt

Leowyatt — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 09:23:14 +0000

Yes but they also showed that in the fog the vehicle did slow down and was not going at the original speed when it ploughed into the back of the stationary vehicle, so it kinda worked.

By: Ashley Brown

Ashley Brown — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 08:57:06 +0000

The British TV show Top Gear showed a demonstration of this system which was set up for a TV station in Germany. The car, in fog, was driven at speed (by a human) towards a stationary car some distance in front.

It ploughed into the back of the stationary car (admittedly, stopping after the collision!).

By: Payrok

Payrok — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 08:42:53 +0000

So who’s at fault if you get into an accident where the automated braking failed?

By: seerak

seerak — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 01:41:59 +0000

I just read the “Today’s drivers suffer without hi-tech systems” post, then read this one with this line in it: “But in time I learned to trust the Distronic system “…..

in another twenty years,contemporary drivers will flat-out get killed in “classic” cars with response patterns like that.

By: Bart

Bart — Wed, 11 Jan 2006 20:50:01 +0000

So pretty soon everyone will be relying on technology to stop them from 90mph to a dead stop when they come up on a traffic jam…. Now that is ONE SCARY THOUGHT!!!!