[93hardbody]

Nissan is making a push to add automatic emergency braking to the bulk of their 2018 vehicles, but the Frontier is not on the list:

Nissan makes big safety tech standard on most 2018 models

Pickup trucks seem to only get safety equipment after it's mandated by the government; for instance, my '93 Nissan came with head restraints (aka head rests) but no air bags. Light trucks were eight years behind cars in the requirement to have air bags.

 

[93hardbody]

I don't think this feature is a dumbing down of anything, and I don't believe people will use this feature instead of the brake pedal. I think it will help avoid minor accidents, especially in stop and go traffic where somebody stops short and the guy behind isn't quick enough. It sounds like the insurance companies are supporting this feature because it will save them money. I know I want the guy driving behind me to have this feature.

I think the reason that trucks are the last ones to get new safety features is because the mandatory safety rules for trucks are looser, apparently because of the agricultural industry. Seatbelt usage has only recently become the law for drivers of pickup trucks in Georgia. There's a small town in south Georgia I drive through that has a sign proudly stating a record of high seatbelt usage of 59%. It seems like if this brake feature will reduce the number of accidents then it might be viewed as a good thing.

How's this for a safety feature- technology that would prevent the driver of a car from talking on the telephone, even hands free? I know that people would scream bloody murder to have their precious phones put on hold, but I guarantee you it would make our roads safer and save lives.

 

[93hardbody]

I'm enjoying this discussion, I hope the rest of you are. I think one of the reasons rear cameras and sensors have become more common is the roll-over crash testing and insurance ratings that have led to beefier C-pillars and therefore narrower rear windows. Another reason is fuel economy redesign with high trunks (or in the case of pickup trucks, high sides) that have shrunk the view to the rear to the point that it isn't safe to back up without help from technology.
A few years ago we got a rental car, a P/T Cruiser, and it had abysmal sight to the rear- huge blind spots- you really couldn't use reverse gear safely. I think sensors and cameras are a patch to help offset this design flaw in modern car design. It's not that drivers are no longer able to drive skillfully, it's that car designs have changed.
It's a pleasure to get into an older car and be able to see all around, to have command of the experience of driving, but it seems insurance companies and the pursuit of safety have become a dominant force. In the arena of vehicle design, it seems we're giving up freedom for security.

 

[93hardbody]

People shook their fists at halogen headlights when they first came out. They were going to blind oncoming drivers, cause accidents and kill everyone....

Halogen headlights do blind oncoming drivers, and blinded drivers are more prone to accidents. Ideally, all blinded drivers should default to a head on collision with the oncoming halogen headlights, but that's probably not the way it works. You never know what's coming at you behind that assault of obnoxiousness, but it could be a 3 ton SUV.

I understand why the drivers with the halogen headlights like them, but they should be outlawed.

 

[93hardbody]

Halogen bulbs, not HID or LED's that people install. I'm speaking of when they came to be in the U.S. in 1983 and people complained about them in comparison to standard incandescent bulbs. 1983....

You're right, it's not halogen bulbs that are a problem. AM radios, however . . . .

 

[93hardbody]

Regarding automatic braking, I read a post on a vehicle forum where an owner's brakes went into emergency on the Interstate when a piece of road trash blew over the sensor in the grille and covered it. Yikes.

I'd want to see another source for this story, scary as it sounds. Fact or fiction?

 

[93hardbody]

Here's an excerpt from Wikipedia on the technology I found interesting:

"The findings indicate that two crash-avoidance features provide the biggest benefits: (a) autonomous braking that would brake on its own, if the driver does not, to avoid a forward collision, and (b) adaptive headlights that would shift the headlights in the direction the driver steers. They found lane departure systems to be not helpful, and perhaps harmful, at the circa 2012 stage of development.

In the 2016 Berlin terror attack a truck was driven into the Berlin Christmas market and was brought to a stop by its automatic braking system In a study of police-reported crashes, automatic emergency braking was found to reduce the incidence of rear-end crashes by 39 percent.[16] A 2012 study suggests that if all cars feature the system, it will reduce accidents by up to 27 percent and save up to 8,000 lives per year on European roads."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collision_avoidance_system

 

[93hardbody]

It has the potential to make some people more careless, seeing as they would have an added safety net. In the end, chances are the overall numbers would stay the same, or very close.

I agree with you in that it seems technology is adopted more quickly than is justified in some cases, a case of we can, so we will- rather than we need, so we will.
I'm not certain how this feature works as compared to other similar sounding technologies like adaptive cruise control that includes the ability to bring the vehicle to a stop, but I'm picturing it as less comprehensive- not a crutch to take over regular driving, but a backup to help prevent collisions, or at least make them a little less severe.
A few years ago I was hit from behind by a motorist when the light had turned green but for some reason things didn't start moving when he expected- he was obviously running his mouth to the rear seat passengers and hit the gas even though traffic was still stopped. The insurance company came close to totaling my car. Technology like this would be able to prevent those kind of accidents. I don't know if this driver would have been more careless if his car had been equipped with this technology, he was pretty careless already.