Loved Ones - Toyota

[jinman]

It is a testimony. People are human. She said she called and took an oath before congress. She is re-living a terrifying moment in her life.

Oh, I believe she called. I just don't know what we are supposed to do? Must Toyota repair cars and also compensate people for fear? I believe her fear was justified, but the outcome she feared did not happen. If a child wanders off and gets lost in the supermarket, is their fear not real when they cannot find their parent? Isn't it more important to teach them what is proper rather than compensate them for their fear?

Did you hear the recorded 911 calls of the Lexus crash that people died in? They had time to call, right before they died.

Yes, and I heard them ignore the 911 operator asking if they could shut off the car. Would it be insensitive of me to say that people seem to operate their cell phones better than their cars? If so, I apologize.

This is going to be a hard thing for families who have had injuries and/or lost loved ones. I think the most important thing to concentrate on now is the solution. Compensation will come later and we'll probably never agree on what the proper level should be. That's just the nature of people.

 

[Bird]

For someone to place a call on their cell phoine at a time like that is just incredible to me. If I have to place a call while driving, even emergency calls, I get off the road and park somewhere. I have, on rare occasions, answered the phone while driving, but I'm more likely to ignore the phone until I can get off the road and park somewhere, then see what the missed call was and call back.

 

[firefighter jim]

For someone to place a call on their cell phoine at a time like that is just incredible to me. If I have to place a call while driving, even emergency calls, I get off the road and park somewhere. I have, on rare occasions, answered the phone while driving, but I'm more likely to ignore the phone until I can get off the road and park somewhere, then see what the missed call was and call back.

I totally agree. If I'm in a panic situation going 100 mph, the last thing I see myself doing is reaching for the cell phone.

 

[SpringHollow]

I agree about the calls but very very slightly in their defense, they might have voice activated speed calling or a button on the steering wheel and might be very adept at using it. Even then, i would not do it but....

Ken

 

[dcyrilc]

For me, my concentration would be on the vehicle and trying to get control. I just can't see myself even thinking about the phone. My focus would be elsewhere.

 

[aczlan]

For me, my concentration would be on the vehicle and trying to get control. I just can't see myself even thinking about the phone. My focus would be elsewhere.

I agree. If you have time and concentration to initiate a phone call while trying to regain control of a car that you are driving in an "emergency situation", you have your priorities mixed up.

Aaron Z

 

[riptides]

For someone to place a call on their cell phoine at a time like that is just incredible to me. If I have to place a call while driving, even emergency calls, I get off the road and park somewhere. I have, on rare occasions, answered the phone while driving, but I'm more likely to ignore the phone until I can get off the road and park somewhere, then see what the missed call was and call back.

She said she was on a bluetooth device.

I totally agree. If I'm in a panic situation going 100 mph, the last thing I see myself doing is reaching for the cell phone.

If you have exhausted all options? Yes, maybe the phone is your last option? Why not try?

I agree about the calls but very very slightly in their defense, they might have voice activated speed calling or a button on the steering wheel and might be very adept at using it. Even then, i would not do it but....

Ken

Yep. I agree. Hands free devices, I think on-star types have the panic mode.

For me, my concentration would be on the vehicle and trying to get control. I just can't see myself even thinking about the phone. My focus would be elsewhere.

Again, possible last resort option.

I agree. If you have time and concentration to initiate a phone call while trying to regain control of a car that you are driving in an "emergency situation", you have your priorities mixed up.

Aaron Z

Think of the hands free, wireless, Bluetooth devices. The phone could be a tool of last resort.

In the Lexus incident, it was their last option, and they let authorities know that they had a big problem, before they died. Had they not done that, what would the outcome have been? Simple driver error I imagine. But with their phone, they alerted their car had a problem and they were out of control. I'd say that took some clarity to do that.

 

[Bird]

Think of the hands free, wireless, Bluetooth devices.

Yeah, that would make a difference, and somewhere around here, I've got one of those gadgets that you hang on your ear. My wife thought that was a good idea and it really did work well, but I use a cell phone so seldom that I got tired of wearing it real quick.

 

[patrick_g]

Some of our modern vehicles are like some modern aircraft in that the control inputs, i.e accelerator pedal and brakes, are not always direct manual mechanical connections but instead are requests to the "drive by wire" computer(s) and sometimes unanticipated combinations of circumstances or multiple low probability malfunctions occur which have not been allowed for in the design.

TAR (Terrain Avoidance Radar) is used by pilots to fly close to the ground at high speed. It is a sort of daredevil's cruise control. When that system has a glitch in hardware or software the last thing that goes through the pilots mind is not making a "phone" (radio) call it is more likely that the last thing to go through his mind is the tail of the aircraft as he and the plane impact some cumulus granite (a stone cloud AKA Terra firma.)

Testing software is both an art and a science. It is difficult (in some instances impossible or nearly so) to test all possible combinations of input parameters against output parameters. It is industry standard practice to test subsets of all possible input-output conditions and to make "educated guesses" as to combinatorial failure modes.

Unfortunately, given these expediencies and the pressures of economics in testing, it is unlikely you can preclude fielding systems that are not immune to some very low probability undesirable events in certain circumstances. Said another way, given a sufficient sample size (enough of a model on the road) eventually someone will experience an unintended outcome that is the fault of the equipment, not the user.

To be absobloominlutley sure there is no glitch possible (if possible) would require that either we devolve the complexity of our systems to a level that will permit 100% guaranteed reliability testing or vastly increase the complexity (read as COST) of testing. At some point, still short of 100% assurance, the cost of testing would very seriously impact price point of the finished product. At some point a cost effective measure might very well be a large red panic button on the dash that disconnects all automated systems and leaves you with a marginally controllable vehicle that is NOT accelerating to a more destructive speed. (Handy for folks who can't seem to make the mental connection of turning the key off... key what key? Our car doesn't take a key, you just have to have the key fob near the vehicle to run it... )

Who would want to pay for (and who would be able to market) a car that cost oodles of $ more due to testing? For complete reliability you can't just test the design and declare success. You have to test each system (every car on the assembly line) as the individual components (especially "chips" may be defective or go bad over time.)

Finding and eliminating most faulty chips prior to their being incorporated into any vehicle's systems is relatively easy as automated part handling/testing is a well established activity widely used in manufacturing. What is much more difficult is robust self defensive designs that fail gracefully into modes of operation that are not a threat to the user (driver.) For example you can have a subsystem that monitors certain conditions and automatically sets the throttle to idle when the combination of conditions it monitors warrants that action and if unable to assure the throttle is set to idle to then power down the ignition and so forth. All this adds complexity, more expensive engineering and testing and less competitive retail price points. This additional complexity taken on in the name of reliability and safety makes for a more complex less reliable system and to a degree, can be counter productive.

At some point economics rears its ugly head and acceptable risk vs cost of risk reduction calculations begin. Eventually someone will ask what is a human life worth and cloud the discussion with emotion. For decades we have been driving on roads that are designed to reduce traffic deaths to an ACCEPTABLE level, not eliminate them. Few will willingly pay 10 times the road tax to decrease traffic deaths 10% (example numbers, not intended to reflect reality) and at some point most folks accept the risk/cost tradeoff. Real life can not be made risk free. What do we have a right to expect? We can expect to be offered goods that perform to our minimum requirements (do we know what they are?). We can demand better than is currently offered but we have to be willing to pay plenty to get much better. I don't expect to see a long line forming filled with folks with money overflowing their pockets demanding to pay more for a slightly more safe car.

Pat

 

[two_bit_score]

Gee, Pat, I guess you are absolutely right. Hoping to have a safe car to drive is just a lost cause. :laughing: