Anybody who has ever had me as a trackday instructor has heard me repeat it over and over again: driving a car quickly and well is a teachable skill. I can take pretty much any healthy, competent adult and get them to within five or six seconds a lap of what Fernando Alonso could do in, say, a Civic Si. That’s why I fell in love with racing cars; after 20 years of competing in various cycling disciplines and being continually punished for everything from my torso length (too much) to my number of functioning anterior cruciate ligaments (one less than optimal) I was all like, “Wait, you mean that all I have to do is move my hands slowly and not be a wuss about corner entry speed?”
True, at the very upper echelons of the sport there are some non-negotiable requirements for physical size, strength, and endurance. In general, however, driving is pretty easy. My eight-year-old son can flick his kart into a nice drift at 45 miles per hour and then thread through a space that is just inches wider than his vehicle. He thinks hitting a baseball is harder than driving a go-kart, and I agree. His stepmother went from not knowing what a Miata was to winning a race in one across the space of 18 months. You get the idea.
Yet there is a species of creature that is generally unable to match my eight-year-old son or 30-something wife for either courage or competence, and that species is called the “modern millennial male.” In the case of Vahid Kazemi, this species is able to get a doctorate in “computer vision learning” but he can’t operate a RAV4 or whatever without pissing himself.
How do you solve a problem like Vahid?
You can read Alex Roy’s takedown of this dude at The Drive, but Alex focuses on Vahid’s inability to understand the subtle distinctions between levels of autonomous driving. I’d like to take a different, and possibly more controversial, tack.
What I want to suggest here is that ol’ Vahid is exactly what you get when you shelter young men and prevent them from ever “seeing the elephant” in the entire course of their pampered little lives. The same might be true for young ladies, but I don’t know because I’m not a young lady and I don’t have any daughters. That’s beyond my area of expertise. But what I can tell you is that if you get into your 20s without being to handle a plain-Jane passenger car in ordinary traffic, and you are not a native New Yorker, I’m going to make a few assumptions about what kind of man you are.
In my opinion, a man who is old enough to get his PhD should be able to drive a car, ride a motorcycle, understand most basic types of machinery, operate a firearm, calculate a tip, handle a confrontation with another man whether through diplomacy or force as required, and take a woman on a date (if that’s his bag, baby) without finishing the night either alone or under investigation for harassment. I’m not saying that you have to engage in the sort of nature-Zoolander cosplay that made former Jalopnik writer Wes Siler a laughingstock. It’s THE CURRENT YEAR and I doubt that any of us will be forced to subsistence hunt in the near future. But young men should be encouraged to learn and develop the skills they will need to be something other than helpless outside of Park Slope or Mountain View.
Were I Vahid’s father, I’d slap him across the face for deciding that the vast majority of humanity isn’t fit to drive a car just because he can’t handle the task. That way lies the dictatorship of the proletariat. And then I’d slap myself across the face for raising someone like that, because the faults of a son have to be traced to a father. End of rant. And it’s not helpful because I’m not Vahid’s father and I don’t know who Vahid’s father is. So, I repeat, and I implore you, dear reader:
How do you solve a problem like Vahid?
I don’t know that it’s limited to the “modern millenial male”.
I see a great number of people on Chicago’s roads from all ethic, income level and generation groups that are completely oblivious to their surroundings and their only driver aids are the horns and flashing lights of other motorists. Kazemi actually seems slightly more self-aware than others but no less dangerous for the same reasons.
You’re goddamned right – lazy, incompetent, careless driver belongs to no one group, they are us all.
“…and take a woman on a date (if that’s his bag, baby)…”
NICE GAY BASH reference, Jack!
Way to up your argument and game, brah!
In what world is “If you’re attracted to women, take a woman on a date” gay bashing?
Noticing gay men like men is gay bashing. You haven’t really thought this one through.
“NICE GAY BASH reference, Jack!
Way to up your argument and game, brah!”
Are you that stupid?
To me, “if that’s his bag, baby” is a reference to the Mike Meyers character of Austin Powers. His attitude was pretty much, “it’s all OK, as long as everyone is a consenting adult.”
Jack may have some conservative views but I don’t think fundamentalist Christian sexual mores are part of them. Just read any of his stuff prior to his marriage to danger girl.
He’s just saying a guy should be able to close the deal with a lady without coming across as a creep, if he should be so inclined. If the guy isn’t so inclined, that part of the requirement is rescinded. If anything, it’s the opposite of gay bashing. The fact that he’s able to say all that with a few words really speaks to his ability as a writer, IMO.
Has anyone considered the possibility that he was – gasp! – joking?
Or is that not alpha-male enough?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/73/Roflcopter.gif
Not shown is a second tweet by Vahid, confirming that his previous tweet was indeed a joke.
But don’t let facts kill theatrics
A man can’t be a real man if he jokes about his lack of driving skills, after all…
Given the fact that he deleted both tweets, and there’s been nothing else to validate his driving skills or interest (i.e. track day footage) I’m going to say he was not joking.
Agreed, he only said he was joking after his first tweet (which was NOT a joke) got eviscerated.
I’m fairly certain that he did not, in fact, have 14 near accidents over the span of a couple days. It may not have been a good joke, but I consider it unlikely it was not a joke at all.
Schroedinger’s troll. Only decides to say he is joking after the audience does not respond well.
“I’m going to say he was not joking.”
That, or his employer didn’t consider it to be much of a joke…take your pick.
Either way, it’s at least highly conceivable that the guy was being tongue-in-cheek.
When I was twelve, if I or my friends said something that turned out to be ill-regarded by the kids around us, we would say
PSYCH!
Which ended up being
SIKE!
because, you know, the english language evolves.
The “I WAS JUST JOKING” followup to a Tweet is the modern “PSYCH!”
“I’m like an incompetent version of Baby Driver…not!”
When this was first reported my reaction was that he was (badly) trying to shill for Waymo and its autonomous vehicle projects. The follow up tweet and subsequent deletion of both seem like a reaction to the negative response, and was quite possibly ordered by his bosses at Waymo.
Rather than stating that ALL humans are not designed to drive cars, maybe he should just speak for himself.
Not that I would stand on a hill and declare myself a man, but when I was younger I thought about getting a bike. I have ultimately decided that I will never get myself onto a motorcycle. My short stint working as an insurance claims adjuster was enough to convince me that being into cars is enough.
I once owned a motorcycle for about 15 minutes. I took it in trade for another vehicle. A short drive up and down the block convinced me that while I was capable of operating it, I was never going to be competent enough at it to trust my health and well-being to doing it on a regular basis. I was able to sell it for cash the same day. Yet somehow, most people I’ve met consider me a man.
@Land Ark
Long ago, in my early 20s, when I was an avid bicyclist, I wrote an article about bicycle safety. In the process, I saw some statistics about m’cycle safety that made me feel exactly as you do.
“Derp derp millenials derp derp”
There is this type of person in every age group.
You want to blame someone? Blame the generation that caused our schools to lose funding for driver’s education, blame the generation that was his parents that didn’t educate him, blame our entire American culture for making driving a right and not a privilege that needs to be earned through tons of practice and education like in other countries.
In other words, blame everyone but the poor special snowflake himself. Typical millenial attitude. Sometimes I can really understand why some animals eat their young.
Do you have anything of value to add to this conversation? If so, then by all means, please, contribute. At least OP attempted to pinpoint the root causes of the original comment.
#boomheadshot
Doing whatever the heck you darned well please, is a right. Including driving. And crashing and burning. Some brain dead, tax feeding goon gang; claiming to speak for “America;” has exactly zero business awarding nor withholding “privileges” to/from anyone.
Yer damn right! And why do I need to spend $10k to get a pilot’s license either?
You have the right to harm yourself (it’s a rather silly right, but it’s still there), but when your self-harm puts a burden on the rest of society, then it becomes an issue. Preventable fatalities are definitely an issue.
Maybe there should be recurrent testing just like in aviation. Do it in a car supplied by the test facility that has no drivers aids. My last check ride we still had to use the circular slide rule and know how to read the steam instruments. I don’t mind having to know how the old stuff works because I don’t want to end up like AF447.
For the “engineer” above, he should learn how to ride in a cab. (Or Uber, that would be funny).
Just watch all the dashcam crash videos and then think about the issue a little. And learn to read between the lines. I don’t think Vahid meant it literally. The illusion of car control outside of a racetrack is just that — an illusion.
I just read Alex Roy’s article, and was expecting the car in question (that Vahid owned) to be something close to Tesla-levels of autonomous systems. Turns out is just an Infiniti Q50. You have to be kidding me. I drive a QX70 which has the same tech features, and there is no way I would think for a second that any of those features are equivalent to autonomous technology.
First of all, ACC is annoying because it leaves way too much space in front of you, allowing every other jacka** on the road room to get in front of you. The only time I use it is on single lane 55 mph roads with limited passing. Great for keeping me from losing patience with slower rural drivers. The other time is on empty interstate stretches with minimal traffic. It doesn’t work as intended in slow moving traffic, where it would be of most use in my opinion, because of the space requirement, and limitations on how fast traffic is going. There is a minimum of 5 mph (I believe) to function). It will not fully brake you without your intervention, and will not take you back up to the traffic speed. Further, if the sensor on the front bumper gets dirty, or I don’t know, covered with snow, it does not work. Period- it just shuts off and gives a fault light. Also, same thing in the rain. Raining too heavy for its liking, it shuts off. Overall, I would give it a 3/5 for usefulness because it does work as intended for highway cruise control, but not how most people would use it in practice.
LKA (lane keep assist) is another annoying feature because it is overly sensitive, and relies on several cameras. A millimeter too close to the line, it beeps and attempts to push you back over. This causes passengers to worry, inquiring if everything is ok. As with ACC, only really useful on long interstate trips. And as also with ACC, falls apart in the snow and rain as the cameras cannot read the lines. I would rate this 2/5 for though it works as intended, it is practically useless everywhere except the highway.
IBA (intelligent brake assist/AEB) is a feature that I do think is ok. At least in the basic implementation. Going too fast, and the car in front starts slowing, the system will override the gas and lightly brake the car to do its best to prevent you from hitting them. Going way too fast, quicker than it can react, and you will still come close to hitting the car if you do not intervene and full force brake. In that implementation, I do not see how that is autonomous. This system relies on the same forward sensor as the ACC, and turns off if covered in snow/ice/too much rain. I would rate this 4/5, because it is not overly intrusive and works well for its purpose.
Being a so-called “millenial” and having rented several lower end vehicles on a recent vacation, I can confidently say that not once did I fear about crashing or running someone over because the cars lacked these features.
I recently drove a 2018 Camry SE, and it had BLIS, LKA (with or without steering assistance, driver-configurable), and PCS (Pre-Collision System, Toyota’s autonomous braking). It reminded me a few times that PCS didn’t work below 23mph (37kph). So, useless in slow bumper-to-bumper traffic.
Where do you instruct and how do I sign up?
I’ll drop you an email.
Jack needs $1,800 to pay for web hosting services (by his own admission), by the way, so it’s not like he’s in deep with the sharks.
I wanted to clear that up to be objective and fair to Jack.
Sounds good, thanks!
Jack needs the $$$. He’s crying poverty elsewhere.
I really will try and send you business, Jack.
Sir, I am not ashamed to be dirt poor.
You should be ashamed for pointing it out.
Next time you’re throwing money into the furnace like ScroogeMcDuck you can send it my way, I have a tailor’s bill to cover.
On a serious point, why are you paying rent to have your servers in cages in a colocation hotel?
Why can’t you just host the site using WordPress on your own servers?
By asking this, I’m not taking issue with your decision to allow ads to generate revenue (you’ll see that I did not even comment in that particular thread). I would allow ads regardless of how much or little hosting costs are Bout not pop-up autoplay ads, which should be criminalized).
Since you asked, and since I try to be fair to every reader no matter what they say…
I learned to my own substantial cost years ago never to host anything where you are personally the first responder for problems with the hardware or software. I was in Germany in 2006 when I had two — count ’em — TWO — previously bulletproof servers fry their network cards in the racks I maintained in my basement. For the next four days, my phone rang day and night with people screaming at me. Meanwhile I had two of my employees, whom I barely knew, ransacking my house looking for spare network cards.
When I got home from Europe, I went colo for EVERYTHING and never looked back.
As automous cars slowly erode whatever driving skills people have (if they ever had them), I’m more convinced than ever that it’s time to finally move to a graded license system. Let those who want to drive and invest the effort to do it well, be rewarded with greater privileges, and those who are happier letting the car do the driving for them, be content with that.
This. Most of my entire family would be perfectly happy with autonomous vehicles doing the driving, and I know it will (not would, will) be a great thing for farmers. And those that don’t wanna give up their licenses wouldn’t have to.
My family too (wife excepted).
Meanwhile as a thought experiment, I’d agree to annual certification and a “1 strike you’re out for life” at-fault accident policy in exchange for significantly reduced insurance premiums and exemption from Interstate speed limits.
As the 3 strikes you’re out nonsense in other fields has amply demonstrated, all 1 strike your out will accomplish, is make people run for it, increasing danger to everyone.
Just as walking is a right, so is climbing onto a horse, getting behind the wheel/bars of a car/bike, behind the controls of a plane, at the helm of a boat, and in the nosecone of a liquid fuel rocket.
Regulating (in the traditional meaning of making regular, not the currently fashionable one of banning) how you go about doing so in the presence of others, may be a legitimate function of a legitimate government. Banning people from doing so outright, is not. IOW, preventing you from driving on the left side of the road, is acceptable, as long as the fairly equivalent right side provided for you to drive on. Any attempt to ban you from driving on either side, nor anywhere else providing pretty much the same utility; simply legitimizes you driving on either side, on sidewalks, off road, through people’s yards and living rooms etc. ‘Cause you still have the right to walk, ride, drive, fly and do all the other things God and/or Nature gave you the inherent right to do. No matter what some gaggle of self important tax feeders, and their well indoctrinated sycophant armies, may feel about it.
” I’d agree to annual certification and a “1 strike you’re out for life” at-fault accident policy…”
This assumes you’re never going to f**k up. Be careful what you wish for.
Since it seems to have been misunderstood, I meant one strike you’re out for the upgraded license, not from driving in general. You are at fault in a crash, or you get a DWI, back to a regular license for you.
Is bringing up Jack’s driving history out of bounds in this debate?
Not at all.
In fact, it would be especially relevant in this case. This winter, I should rent out a racetrack with a similar turn (Turn 11 at Mid-Ohio would do it), spray it with an eighth-inch of water, and see if any autonomous car (or TTAC reader) could keep a Town Car on-track in those conditions.
You do understand that the other driver crossed the yellow line to hit us, right?
Jack – did the Town Car have stability control?
No sir.
The Panther platform was traction control only.
The best way for me to stay out of that crash would have been to use my human brain to say… you know what, it’s not worth taking my kid out in that weather.
I’d like to think I’ve learned from my mistakes. I don’t take unnecessary trips with my child in the car, particularly not in bad weather.
It’s a sarcastic (and now deleted) tweet, why are people getting worked up over this?
Ask Justine Sacco.
What Justine tweeted could be perceived more as offensive, but still, that’s many “professional” journalists getting wet over a few tweets.
As for the question at hand, let’s revoke Vahids electrical engineer certificate, because I have a general disdain for modern engineers. They can never program stuff right these days.
This is just what I thought about while reading Jack’s post. We’ve entered an age where any casual off-handed tweet or Instagram post can utterly ruin your life. Much like Justine, Vahid’s career has probably taken a massive hit due a poorly considered tweet, a comment that in earlier times would have been noticed by a tiny group of people. And unless that group included a boss in his chain of command, it would have, at most, marked him as a clod. I’ll never understand the urge people have to over-share everything in their lives.
Given that he was sharing doubleplusgoodthink, I’m sure he will be fine.
The differing treatment given Justine Sacco and Sam Seder shows the absolute power you have when you are on the Right Side Of History ™
Sam Seder’s experience is more due to MSNBC’s bone headed knee jerk reaction without studying the matter, much like what happened to Shirley Sherrod, which gets corrected as the bigger picture is recognized. Vahid doesn’t have the same sort of larger context to help redeem him. I doubt that Waymo has any better opinion of Vahid’s tweet than the auto writers have. Just like Justine this will follow him around as he tries to change jobs since it will pop up in any online search of his name.
As to your final question in the original post, barring a bad driving record that we haven’t seen, Vahid’s problem is not solved with more technical skill training. It is solved by deleting his Twitter account until he learns to use better judgement before speaking/writing/sharing.
Because people like Vahid want to misuse the power of government to take away our ability to drive. That’s why we’re getting worked up over this.
Get rid of the Government.
There will always be scumbags around. Without the scumminess force multiplier that is government, the non scummy will just route around them.
Vahid will never ban you from doing anything. And even if he tried, just knock him out. Or lose him in the first s-bend… The jackboots are less easy to route around. Hence are the problem than needs to be eliminated to allow a decent, worth vile society a chance to flourish.
Arguments like “people like Vahid want to misuse the power of government to take away our ability to drive” ignore one critical point: car buyers have to buy into this.
And I’m not sold that they’re willing to do that.
Are drivers willing to have autonomous enhancements to their cars? I love driving as much as anyone, and I’d be more than willing, as long as I could turn the autonomous features off. I did a Denver-to-St. Louis road trip this summer, and the ability to have my car “fill in for me” while I was fiddling with my radio, using Google maps, or “rearranging myself” (or knowing my car
had my back” while I was driving drowsy) while I was blasting down I-70 at 90 mph would have been great.
But are people willing to just give up their ability to drive? I don’t think so. And that means they’re not going to buy cars that they can’t drive.
In the end we all vote with our dollars.
The most prolific mathematician of the last century, Paul Erdős, relied on other people to do the mundane tasks of his life for him. It was a common joke (in at least my math department) that he could not dress himself or use the bathroom properly on his own.
I was going to mention Godel starving to death once his wife could no longer feed him…. Although his condition was a bit more tragic than just a clumsy inability to do mundane stuff.
In general, if the average tough, practical alpha types doesn’t make the effort to provide a safe space, for those who are very narrow sector focused to shine at the thing they are insanely good at, everyone will lose out in the end. Vahid may not be Erdos or Godel, but Google/Waymo doesn’t exactly hire incompetents for their positions requiring Ph.Ds, either. If only their corporate culture weren’t so We-are-the-Mandarins serious, Vahid and colleagues may well have responded to Jack and Alex by offering to race them in a botdriven prototype. 6 seconds off Alonso’s pace doesn’t sound that impossible a task….
It would depend on the track, but I don’t think anybody has created a autonomous system that is competitive against any decent human driver yet.
This test had a 9 second difference over a lap of Sonoma.
http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a27200/819-roa-2015-12-01-the-analysis-man-vs-machine-67-5/
It’ll be interesting to see whether there is an automotive Deep Blue within my lifetime.
My money would be on Jack as well. For now.
I’m less certain about predicting the winner of a time trial “race” between Waheed and Waheed’s/Waymo’s best-effort robot. Which may well be more relevant from a societal, transportation planning, POV.
I really feel the guy was somewhat being sarcastic or trying to joke in his post. I get that he does not have a very autonomous car himself so he could have worded things different, better?
If someone truly had a mostly autonomous car and used it exclusively and a lot, and then got in a normal car where they had to pay attention to other drivers; they would “see” all the close calls they never noticed while “IN” there own car as a passenger basically.
As an almost 70 year old who got back on a motorcycle after over 30 years away, I truly wish all 4 wheeled vehicles were autonomous!
The drivers who scare bikers are just as inattentive and stupid as they were 30 years ago. There are just a lot more of them out there now.
At least autonomous vehicles should be somewhat predictable where a lot of drivers are not. Well actually drivers are predictable, to stay safe you just assume they will do what they shouldn’t and plan for it.
Generally agree with JB here, with a few nitpicking exceptions.
1) Too many of the current generation have little to no parenting contribution from their biological father,
2) The rules for what we ‘need to know’ change. There was a time when a female needed to know ‘how to ride, how to play a musical instrument, how to draw, and how to knit’ and that was basically the extent of the knowledge/skills required to be a ‘lady’. Now, having some skills in electronics and/or technology is probably much more useful than some of the traditional skills that Jack listed. And surely if society ‘devolves’ how to fish and how to skin/butcher an animal are at least or more important than most of the skills JB listed.
Your either a task complete or observation correction driver. Taskers are concerned with the immediate area around the cage to get from point to point. Observation drivers use their own radar, scanning 360 working their way through stationary and moving mass. My favorite is rear viewing a 740 beemer sharking through traffic while I lift throttle opening a gap to my right…just enough to entice him to make his move and then slight pressure to pedal closing it. Do that in a rented bread box without your passengers knowing it, and the look on Han’s mug is priceless. Other times I just let them through knowing they’ll screen the states finest.
As for Vahid…is he really a problem? Not at all, just another lump easily dispensed with slight movement of steering wheel.
Slow clap…
There should be a skill set that men are simply expected to have.
Which does not exclude my daughter from needing to have some of the same skills – I expect my daughter to be able to change a tire and parallel park by the time she’s allowed on the road. My grandfather had 4 daughters and would not allow them to take their driver’s test until they could smoothly shift gears in his 1967 Ford Bronco and change a tire on said vehicle unassisted.
There was an Allstate ad recently (or State Farm) where a teenage boy (driving age, 18-20sh) is stranded by the side of the road, but then whips his handy Allstate App out on his smartphone and they get a tow truck out to him, and then it shows his relieved parents on the other end of the line.
Why in God’s name wouldn’t the idiot parents just teach their idiot son how to change a flat??? Why is the “best case scenario” solution relying on a phone to call someone to come do it for you? Gotta say that ad really got to me.
You should call them and give them a piece of your mind, then! Open a dialogue with Allstate in the hopes of improving their ads in the future, rather than just complaining on the Internet. Be the change you want to see in the world.
People being self sufficient and not relying on an add-on service from AllState wouldn’t make AllState any money, now would it?
My plan for change in the world will mostly be relegated to my offspring. You can bet they’ll know how to put on a spare, boy or girl.
Before she took off cross country in the pre-cellphone/gps era my father-in-law made my future wife change a tire in the driveway.
+1 both PrincipalDan and Jack have it right; all my kids learned to drive in a ’64 Chevy truck, stick shift, power nothing. And they all know how to ride bikes, shoot, take care of themselves, both my sons and daughter.
Track driving and street driving are completely different bags in almost every possible way, and I think those differences outline why terrible drivers like Vahid exist.
Everyone at the track wants to be there. By contrast, next to nobody wants to be on public roads. We use them because we have to. People at the track by default have an interest in driving. Again people on public roads, for the most part, don’t. People at the track are willing to invest in their driving skills and knowledge of handling cars at their limits. People on public roads…. you get where I’m going with this? Not to mention American roads, traffic and drivers are for the most part terrible, adding to/fueling this malaise.
To be frank, if I could get to a track with any kind of regularity, I’d give up street driving too. It’s awful, and it’s only going to get worse. And my commute isn’t even that bad in the grand scheme of things.
Driving on a track is exhilarating, but it doesn’t replace a good highway drive. Though it does tend to make a convincing argument for a multi-vehicle highway trip.
I read a good little PJ O’Rourke article on speeding in Car and Driver this morning. It really got me thinking about how I miss the frequent and speedy road trips of my youth, on relatively quiet Western Canadian highways. Of course, the destination always added to the excitement, as the trips were usually to reach things things like concerts, mountains full of powder, and girls. Long northern summer evenings are a particularly nice time for a drive.
“Yes, you can go to the track. And the hamster can go to its wheel. And the gym rat can go to his treadmill and dial it up to “the Flash”. It’s fun. But it’s not freedom.”
https://www.caranddriver.com/features/speeding-an-ode-to-our-favorite-form-of-civil-disobedience-feature
I’m glad the population density is still low enough around here that driving is generally enjoyable. But it’s getting more congested all the time.
My last highway trip for a Headstones show was just a 2.5 hour drive each way that I take fairly regularly. These days I like to just relax and set the cruise slightly below the speed limit to discourage highway buddies, but I was running a bit late and had the wind at my back so I stepped it up a bit. This then required that I frequently shed speed so that the people who caught up to me would return to their previous speed instead of cuddling up to my car for extended periods. This was a relatively empty divided highway, by the way. No reason to slow down at all rather than just using the left lane.
It got me thinking that it would be nice if future vehicles that communicated had a function where you can just set the cruise to operate at around the speed limit while making constant minor adjustments to equally space everybody out who wants to participate in such a thing. I suppose the unobstructed view would make some drivers uncomfortable about being outside of a herd and they’d still revert to a manual setting to tag on to your rear bumper though.
I never had that problem back when I just drove however fast I thought I could get away with. My only concerns, aside from radar detector noises, were things like whether I could pass that 15 car train behind the RV in one shot before an oncoming car appears in the distance. The answer was almost always, “it’s worth a try”. A 98 hp Iron Duke will get you to 100 mph by the time you get to the front. I could always sneak into the train anyway if a vehicle shows up, though I never understood why they don’t just leave more room to accommodate those who are willing to make passes if none of them want to pass.
The Headstones. Sweet. I have a few stories about those boys. Anyhoo, my daily commute is just under 100 Kms. We live South of YYC and I work out in the country so my main daily problem is deer on the road. I so rarely go into the big city that a trip in last Friday in the late afternoon ( bad idea ) was eye-opening, to say the least: The fast lane was the slowest lane, with everyone brutally tailgating each other at 60 mph; I was nearly sideswiped twice and only avoided the two crashes by being in at least one lower gear than usual AND having my head on a swivel and my eyes on stalks; and I was tailgated by a woman who was so close that I could see her holding her phone up on the steering wheel and staring at it – green eyeshadow and fake lashes and all. I gave up driving defensively for the last two miles up Glenmore Trail and simply hooned it as that was more safe. I didn’t even taste the first two beers at my friend’s studio and it took me the pair of Beck’s and 20 minutes to calm down. I can’t believe that people operate like that on a daily basis. Having moved out of the city 10 years ago I realize that I’m now unused to the frenetic pace but that trip last week was hair-raising.
Those guys know how to rock.
I think driving in that way must be like a daily casino trip for them. They just roll the dice and hope they don’t get “unlucky” and lose on any given day. They must derive some sort of pleasure from the rush of making it home without incident. Or at least they did, until it became routine. Once that happens, it’s just too dull to drive without that rush.
I loved Calgary in the 80’s and 90’s. But it’s too busy for me now.
I’m pretty sure he was making an exaggerated joke, and he did not actually have a dozen near-accidents in two days.
And it IS true that features like adaptive cruise control can handle highway coasting much better than humans. (The ACC won’t tailgate, won’t be fiddling with the radio dial or staring at the rearview to see who’s hitting who, etc.)
I view the current crop of autonomous features as excellent driver assistance aids that DO make driving safer. They let computers handle tedious busywork (like lane-keeping, distance and speed maintenance) while you handle the stuff humans are WAY better at, like spotting brake lights a couple hundred yards ahead; noticing the deer next to the road staring at you and contemplating a suicide run, seeing an 18-wheeler coming up to speed on an entrance curve, etc.
What I’d really like to discuss is the recent NYT article where the idiot seemed to view Caddy’s latest autonomous suite (which tracks your gaze) as a challenge for the maximum number of boneheaded things he could do without having the car yell at him vs. recognizing why the eye-tracking feature was there.
ACC also doesn’t have to constantly tap the brakes to regulate speed, unlike most drivers out there.
If he works on visual perception and obstacle detection for autonomous cars, I would not be surprised if he got into a dozen situations, that a necessarily defensive bot would need to treat as a “heightened alert, near accident, prioritize safety” type situation.
Humans typically gloss over low-but-non-zero probability of disaster events. Right up until that moment when one of them does occur. Then, most insist on believing there was something meaningfully different about the particular event that did end tragic. Rather than it being just part of a black box distribution of randoms: All undifferentiable, most ultimately harmless, one out of every million of them tragic. Which is, I digress, the exact lapse of clear reasoning that “at fault” ambulance chasers exploit, to the detriment of all….
Once you have to think through the stuff clearly, which you have to do to codify it, many more situations suddenly starts appearing as potential accidents. Which is where all Vahid’s near accidents came from. Not from any meaningful deficiency in his driving skills.
Autonomous cars are coming and Vahid is the reason. There is a measure of honesty and humility
in his claim to be a pisspoor driver; driving in traffic iS difficult and not for everyone. But I think he is just baiting us. He knows autonomous mobility is coming, and as a techie wants to be part of then new wave.
Who among us cannot admit to many close calls? An 81 yr. old man was killed by an 18 yr. old by my nearby senior center. The 18 yr. old had not yet put on his lights as he was just starting his journey in the dark. But from our overpowered leviathan SUVs who can see a shriveled old man trying to cross a busy street? I cannot believe there are not many more accidents than there are. EVERYONE is going 10 mph over the speed limit. EVERYONE is on “medicatons”. EVERYONE is overworked, overstressed, and preoccupied. Driving turns EVERYONE into an impatient halfraged asshole, myself included.
I took bus driver training a few years ago and realized how lax I had become with my habits. My wife passed her MC test recently after only a few hours on her bike, and had NOWHERE near the skills she needed to go out on the street.
What frosts my miniwheats about Jack’s article is that he equates the ability to drive fast with the ability
to drive safely in heavy traffic. Please come back to Earth now Mr. Baruth.
When damned statistics “prove” that cameras a comuters can drive better than a person with two eyes and a nose, the insurance and government people will come for your old shitbox. Manufacturers will rejoice because these new cars will not be cheaper. My cousin has a motorhome with autobraking, 900K and that is not 900k miles.
My older brother has never had an accident, so he thinks he is immune to the possibility. I think he is next.
There’s no shame in not knowing something, or not being interested in something. The world has a lot of things. Don’t sweat other people’s. Be proud of theirs. Just be the best in the world at yours.
That’s where snowflakes go wrong, they never learned to fail because Dr. Spock never let them compete at all, so they can’t take seeing someone else do better at something without tearing it down. You didn’t build that, the car should do it for you, there should be a law.
There should be a law that the car runs over people who say that you didn’t build that over for you.
There’s a thing in aviation called automation complacency. It’s basically exactly what it sounds like; the automation in modern transport category airplanes is so good, and so reliable, that it not only leads to an atrophy of traditional stick and rudder skills, it has basically turned “pilots” into automation managers, to the point they’re incapacitated when the automation fails. The Asiana crash a few years ago in San Francisco is a classic example of this. And with the new generation (millennials) of pilots coming out of the puppy farm style flight schools, it’s getting worse by the minute. The Asiana crash was a B777, that for some reason got low and slow on a lovely, VFR day that any student pilot in a C152 could have handled. Yet the crew watched the airplane fly them into the seawall. Automotive automation complacency is going to kill more people than drunk driving or texting does. And it extends far beyond transportation. How many Millennials can do long division or even make correct change at the store without electronic assistance?
As for Vahid, maybe his tweet was a joke, maybe it wasn’t. But there’s no denying his generation has made automation complacency a cultural norm.
How is it “his generation” specifically, and not the one that raised them?
Which goes back to Jack’s point; Slap his Daddy. If he was raised by a daddy. Which is part of a much larger issue and debate that encompasses everything from parenting techniques to the intentional removal of father figures from traditional nuclear families. It wasn’t my intention to stereotype every single Millennial, because I know there are many fine, capable, young men and women out there. I just don’t count the kind portrayed in Vahid’s original Tweet among them.
“There’s a thing in aviation called automation complacency.”
Good point, but I’d say someone who grew up with cars with no modern active or passive safety systems might just think modern cars are examples of “automation complacency” as well.
To wit: “When I was a young-un, if I ran into to something, I didn’t have those newfangled airbags to save me, and if I had to stop in the snow, I had to pump my brakes myself. I had to learn to be a better driver. Young-uns today are just spoiled and don’t know how to drive.”
Now, would YOU want a car that didn’t have airbags, seatbelts, ABS, and the other stuff that can save your bacon when you screw up, just so you can keep your driving skills sharp? I wouldn’t.
It’s not the presence of the systems that’s the problem, it’s the inability to safely operate without them. Or worse, the inability to even recognize when they aren’t functioning properly.
If a 777 crew can’t overcome their disbelief that the autothrottles aren’t maintaining target airspeed, click off the system and advance the thrust levers an inch or two, then what’s going to happen when the automation fails in some automated trans-pod full of snap chatting, vegan nonfat latte sipping cubicle drones?
I am by no means an advocate of eliminating modern safety equipment in cars any more than I am in favor of returning to steam gauge airplanes. What I AM an advocate of, is enhanced training in increasing situational awareness and understanding how to safely intervene in a timely fashion, should it become necessary.
Another example is Air France Flight 447 crash into the Atlantic Ocean in 2009. From Wiki: the aircraft crashed after temporary inconsistencies between the airspeed measurements – likely due to the aircraft’s pitot tubes being obstructed by ice crystals – caused the autopilot to disconnect, after which the crew reacted incorrectly and ultimately caused the aircraft to enter an aerodynamic stall, from which it did not recover.
There is another take on Kazemi’s mindset that hasn’t been mentioned, which is its underlying utopian fascism. The Kazemis of the world march forward confidently and eagerly because they are on the ‘right side of history.’ He does not question the direction because it has been told to him by his bosses and the echo chamber, and is eager to bring about a questionable utopia because he believes he has a position in that world – at least for now.
Reality of course is quite different for his fictional cousin, Waheed Kazemi, who has come to the US without an engineering degree and drives a taxi to earn a living.
Dear Mr Trump!
Vahid Kazemi of LA just admitted himself that he nearly committed a terrorist act by vehicle. He missed this time but next might be deadly. Please, deport him ASAP!
Thank you.
To answer Jack’s question, driver training/licensing could be the answer. The low bar for obtaining a license to drive in most American states is problematic. As someone mentioned above, a tiered license may be in our autonomous driving future. Those of us who like to drive our cars would have to prove our cometence and those who prefer to let the car do the driving would face a less rigorous demonstration of skills.
Jack, do you have any instructor stints in Florida in the upcoming year? I’d enjoy learning from you.
Almost certainly, yes.
I’ll drop you a line.
Agree with general issues of specialty focused and generality lacking mails, but it is overblown in this piece in typical JB provocative fashion to ignite debate and garner clicks.
To the original tweet, I would believe the 911 conspiracy, Obama being Muslim, Trump being a saint who never grabbed swimsuit clad models wherever,and many other things before taking the tweet not to be tongue in cheek, given the person’s academic background, it is pretty clear that he will not make grossly unscientific statements from his account traceable to work.
I have to qualify this with “unless he actually ran over 5 people” because it’s not clear, but…
the problem wasn’t with his driving. it’s with his fear level. he didn’t crash, he didn’t run over 5 people. he says it “almost happened”, but I don’t know that means anything different than “I drove closer than 5 feet to parked cars” because I live in an area where most streets don’t have a center line painted and some CUV drivers think they need 5 feet of clearance to the right. If he came home from the (if that’s his bag) date and said it almost happened, we would all know he came no where close. what makes this different?
I think the real deal here is best explained by Upton Sinclair:
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
If I had a kid, that kid would have started learning to drive around age 7. I do have a niece, and I took her for flying lessons when she was 7. I also showed her how a tire is changed when she was 6.
And one time, driving along, I spotted a teen-aged female with a flat tire. I stopped to help her with it. I said, I can fix it for you, and you’ll be out of here in about 15 minutes, or I can let you fix it, giving you directions, so that next time you’ll be able to fix it yourself, and it will take at least twice as long. She chose the latter.
But Vahid will have to fix himself. If he is able.
“But Vahid will have to fix himself. If he is able.”
You mean improve his driving skills and other shortcomings? Or make it so he doesn’t have children?
“a man who is old enough to get his PhD should be able to drive a car, ride a motorcycle, understand most basic types of machinery, operate a firearm […]”
No. First of all, why just a man? Should women rely on men to do all that for them (if that’s their bag, baby)? More importantly though, is one less of a man if one decides that cars, motorcycles, or most specifically firearms are not “one’s bag”?
I’ve refused to even touch a firearm–I’ve even rejected military service here in Germany back when it was mandatory and the rejection procedure was a PITA. I’ve never gotten on a motorcycle of any sort, not even one I’m legally allowed to ride. And you know what? I’m fine. A friend of mine doesn’t have a license, and although his wife does, their family of six have never owned a car. And guess what? They’re fine too.
My only request would be that people who *decide* not to learn how to operate something should refrain from doing so. I should not borrow a firearm and try to “defend myself” with it. My friend should not rent a minivan, pack his family, and hit the Autobahn to Italy on the first holiday.
It gets worse: “[…] handle a confrontation with another man whether through diplomacy or force as required, and take a woman on a date (if that’s his bag, baby) without finishing the night either alone or under investigation for harassment” — say what? I’m not a man unless I can win a fistfight, and neither if my date decides not to spend the night with me? I grant you that I may have misunderstood that half-sentence, what with not being a native speaker and all, but if that really is what you meant, then you are a fossil and I am more than happy to know I shall never meet you, thanks to the Atlantic Ocean between us.
Everybody should of course be able to handle a date without getting under investigation for harassment. They should however also be able to handle a confrontation without getting into a fistfight.
I am proud to say that I never got into one in my grown-up life, and that if I ever did I’d very probably lose it.
“I’m not a man unless I can win a fistfight . . . ?”
You don’t have to win, but you should at least be able to make it competitive.
It’s a nice thought that you’ll always be able to convince another man not to behave in a violent manner. But it’s not something I’d be willing to depend on.
Depends on the number of fistfights you are exposed to in your life and your country. Me, I don’t think I’m in the double digits yet (excluding schoolyard rows of course, which weren’t an everyday occurence but did happen once a month or so). And so far, I’ve been able to avoid being involved in any of them (again, excluding school). Knock on wood.
Probably cultural differences.
If this is the average specimen of a German man in 2017, then things really start to make sense in the context of what’s going on over there.
Educate me please: what *is* going on over here? Because all I can see is relative peace and quiet, very much unlike the news from the other side of the pond.
Reading you back-peddle about a horde of migrants molesting and robbing your women en masse in Cologne “guys it was only 5 rapes and 1100 assaults!” sums it up for me. You have to guard your Christmas markets with truck-proof barriers. And most of you are taking it with a smile, which is perhaps the most disturbing part of all of this.
http://metro.co.uk/2017/09/06/afghan-national-raped-eu-officials-daughter-to-satisfy-sexual-urges-before-killing-her-6906912/
The girl volunteered at migrant shelters, no less.
You remind me of this fellow here:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/german-police-thought-man-joking-girlfriend-rape-report-tent-attacker-siegaue-bonn-a7762976.html
I guess reasoning with the guy didn’t work?
Rapes happen. So do murders. If you prefer to be able to defend “your women”, and those two words sum up your attitude towards women pretty nicely by the way, and accept tens of thousands of gun deaths in the process, then indeed we have nothing to argue about.
You go on being a hero in your Wild West. Me, I prefer my civilized country full of (almost exclusively) civilized people, thank you very much.
Oh, by the way, Germany has ca. 10 rapes per 100,000 inhabitants per year (.02 of which are committed by migrants). That’s still too many, of course.
The USA has 27. Yup, you have that issue covered indeed.
And yes, we do guard our christmas markets with truck-proof barriers. Do you encase your open-air concerts with bullet-proof glass?
” If you prefer to be able to defend “your women”, and those two words sum up your attitude towards women pretty nicely by the way,”
That is my attitude towards women: the fairer sex that deserves defending. Sorry to be a backwards fossil (28 years old). As Jack alluded to, seems my great grandfathers wiped out the “fighters” of your lot.
The difference: Gtem has a woman, a woman might have you.
Speaking of which I’ll make a point to have your women when I am in Munich next year. Just to reinforce how backward your views are sir.
Oh and coming soon to a country near you:
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/three-girls-drama-child-sexual-exploitation-rochdale-blackpool-pimping-a7739006.html
“The difference: Gtem has a woman, a woman might have you.”
Or in my case, my wife and I have each other.
And to add to the list on what makes a man, he should know how to backup and protect his data, and not fall for phishing sites like a doofus.
Lastly, live in a jungle, and the laws of the jungle apply. Live in a democracy (my preference), then follow democratic law and values.
I’m not the fossil, my friend.
*You* are the fossil. Not even a fossil, really, because fossils exist in the historical record.
The Islamic Republic Of Germany will have to deal with my son and others like him, but they won’t even have to consider your memory.
Thanks for giving the land on which my great-grandparents were born away to a bunch of teenaged men from the Middle East. Your ancestors gave their lives to halt the Romans back when the Romans were the strongest and smartest military force in history. You, by contrast, rolled over for an invasion force without even the meekest complaint.
I guess you’re the descendant of the guys who didn’t have the courage to get into a Me163 Komet.
You, sir, are speaking in riddles to me. What is this “Islamic Republic of Germany” you are talking about? What land were your great-grandparents born on? The last land Germany “gave away” that I know of was what today is western Poland and such, and that’s so long ago that even the most brain-dead people don’t really demand it back anymore. Which was around the time that a couple of invasion forces, including one from America, met a couple of kilometres east from where I live.
And no, I’m the descendant of the guys who were driven out of Estonia by the Soviets.
I guess you are talking about a couple hundred thousand war refugees that our chancellor, in a rare moment of humanity, decided to take in a few years ago, aren’t you? Calling these people an “invasion force” is so bizarre that I won’t even try to argue it. I happen to know one of those people, by the way. He misses his family, of course, but does get along nicely (with a little help from his friends). He’s got a job taking care of old folk in a nursing home and recently bought an old Renault Twingo.
And unfortunately, there are complaints. The populist right-wing “AfD” party has made its way into almost all parliaments since then, and even is the strongest party in Saxonia (which is also the state with the fewest immigrants, and no, this is not a coincidence).
So, speak your mind. And by the way, what was that bit about not having to finish the night alone? You evaded that one. Please do elaborate.
wow, this attitude of Ermel explains why 1200 German women were raped in public by non Germans… Germany is already lost and soon they shall all be bowing to the Koran… https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/07/10/leaked-document-says-2000-men-allegedly-assaulted-1200-german-women-on-new-years-eve/?utm_term=.59daaff4ed52
There were 1,182 crimes *reported* (not confirmed!) that night in central Cologne, of which 497 were of a sexual nature. However, just five of them were rapes, and 16 attempted rapes. That’s a lot, but it’s nowhere near 1,200 rapes. Need a calculator?
With an American attitude, there probably would have been a firefight. I’m quite certain that that would have ended worse.
It’s always funny to see someone attempt to present cowardice, helplessness and fear of inanimate objects as virtues.
I can’t really refute the cowardice, because apparently a need for your flavour of courage simply doesn’t seem to occur in my life. But rest assured I do not feel helpless at all, and that I have no fear of inanimate objects, just of a certain flavour of probably courageous people, mostly white men, wielding them, which does occur–on twisted country roads on summer weekends, and on the left lanes of Autobahns all year.
@Ermel – you state that you probably would not hold your own in a fist fight but you do hold your own on a blog. LOL
Thank you, sir. I actually prefer it like this, instead of the other way round.
All the guy needed to do to make his tweet inoffensive to competent drivers who want to maintain the freedom to pilot themselves in the future would be to change his last line to “Some humans aren’t designed to drive cars!” That bit of self-deprecation would have been enough to believe that he was joking, or at least that he recognizes his relative incompetence is not universal.
This very much reminds me about the LJ entry of Bram Cohen, the inventor of BitTorrent, where he complained about UI of cars. He really wanted an indicator that showed the steering angle.