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.
Anyone remember those Cadillacs that had thermal night vision?
Oh good, anything to help me kill more at night!
I do a lot of night driving and haven’t killed anyone.
I don’t need a thermal camera to pay attention to the road in front of me. Drive to the conditions.
This is so fucking stupid because you can apply it to literally any safety standard.
I do a lot of driving and have never needed a seatbelt.
I do a lot of driving and I’ve never needed ABS.
I do a lot of driving and I’ve never needed disc brakes.
I do a lot of driving and I’ve never needed modern headlights.
I do a lot of driving and I’ve never needed a properly developed crash structure.
And of course it’s not just driving:
I don’t wear a hardhat or any other protective gear for my job. It’s never done me any harm.
Etc.
Pedestrians and cyclists in the dark can be almost impossible to see until you’re very close, if they’re wearing dark clothes. It’s not a bad thing to be able to see them better.
This is so fucking stupid because you can apply it to literally any safety standard.
And then you write something exactly opposite.
OP writes about “drive to the conditions” which is like… Your responsibility as the driver. If you can’t react to people on the road, slow down.
And you write about being recless.
And then you write something exactly opposite.
No I didn’t. What I proceeded to write lines up 100% with what I said prior.
OP writes about “drive to the conditions” which is like… Your responsibility as the driver. If you can’t react to people on the road, slow down.
Having no safety standards and leaving everything to “just do what you think is right” is a recipe for disaster.
I can’t even believe this needs to be explained.
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.
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.
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.
I know I am part of the problem, but the number of people walking around in dark colors and dark jackets at night baffles me. Bonus points if they are jaywalking because they have the right of way.
Combine that with spending any time after sunset either partially blind from super bright LEDs or fully blind from high beams and yeah. Constantly having to drive defensively and try to spot potential hazards a mile ahead in the brief window of just being partially blinded.
So I am all for some thermals I can glance at
Bonus points if they are jaywalking because they have the right of way.
What does this even mean?
It means someone isn’t using a crosswalk but still has the right of way by virtue of being a pedestrian.
It means he’s confused and has fallen for the automakers’ propaganda.
