The news from Toronto is not good. I’m wondering if there are reliable technical means, short of hacker-proof self-driving cars, for preventing modern vehicles from being used as weapons.
No modern car will run without the computers that time the ignition and fuel injection, right? So it should be possible to have the engine control computers refuse to continue running the engine unless they are getting a signed “everything is great” signal from a tamper-proof computer/sensor system?
Our 2018 Honda Odyssey tries to sense some bad situations, e.g., an impending head-on collision. Unfortunately, it seems to panic every 20 or 30 miles when driven on two-lane roads, thinking that a car in the opposite lane is on a collision course.
There are already cars, however, that will hit their own brakes if you’re about to run into a pedestrian, right?
What about a system where the car or van can sense that it has departed from the road and is now on a sidewalk? The result would be limiting the vehicle’s speed to, say, 3 mph.
Obviously there are a lot of older non-compliant vehicles on the roads, but a country that was serious about preventing these kinds of attacks could simply export all of the legacy vehicles and insist that everyone buy a new car.
Or is the whole idea bad in light of the impending self-driving vehicle revolution?
I think Volvos have had self-braking anti-pedestrian-hitting tech for years – definitely seen it on rentals, but I didn’t test it. I think this will be part of safety standards within a few years, just like seat belts. It’s about time cars got a little closer to attaining the common sense of the average donkey/mule/horse.
Preventing the small number of mass pedestrian incidents probably wouldn’t justify the cost of this intervention, but putting a substantial dent in the roughly 6000 U.S. pedestrian fatalities just might.
“a country that was serious about preventing these kinds of attacks could simply export all of the legacy vehicles and insist that everyone buy a new car”
yeah, that’s not how these things generally work.
The way to prevent vehicles from being used as weapons is allowing people to have guns so they can shoot the driver.
I’m a complete believer in pedestrian detection.
My 90+ year old dad was saved last year by a 2017 Toyota Corolla (all Corollas, even the base model, were standard equipped with pedestrian detection in 2017). He was crossing the street. There was a stopped car across the road preparing to enter the street from parking lot. The car came out, swung into the lane my dad was in. The car suddenly stopped hard, hard enough that the front suspension did several bounces. My dad ended up in front of the passenger (side) wheels with his hand on the hood of the vehicle. The elderly woman driver looked in shock, like she did not know what had just happened. No injuries. What is interesting when I think back, is that very few cars currently have this technology. My dad was extremely fortunate enough to be in a bad situation, but with the right brand, year and model vehicle.
If Toyota can put this tech standard in one of there very economy vehicle, I don’t see why it can’t be put on all cars and quickly. I won’t buy another vehicle from now on, unless it comes with the complete suite of collision safety features, and I think you would be wise to consider the same.
The Pentagon Is Making a Ray Gun to Stop Truck Attacks
https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2018/04/pentagon-making-ray-gun-stop-truck-attacks/147702/
Or maybe everyplace will end up like DC, with giant concrete planters lining the sidewalks.
A much cheaper and simpler solution is to install bollards between the street and sidewalk.
The key word on the self-driving front is “hacker proof”. Sadly, it’ll take a few generations to get that right. In the mean time, cars can be weaponized without the driver’s knowledge or consent.
Fazal, cheaper? to whom? who is paying for the bollards? this technology exists today, it is just a matter of putting it in all vehicles and getting people to switch (mostly at their own expenses).
Fazal: In countries like the U.S. where population growth is being pushed by the government (e.g., through immigration and tax and other subsidies to parents) AND where there is a trend toward greater urbanization, is it practical to lose one third of the sidewalk to bollards? It is already difficult to walk down the sidewalk in Midtown Manhattan.
https://www.toronto.com/news-story/7934274-new-initiative-aims-to-ease-toronto-s-crowded-sidewalks/
says “Toronto’s crowded sidewalks make navigating the city – particularly in busy areas like the downtown core – a challenge for many. For those with mobility issues or vision loss, that challenge can be even greater.” That was 2017. In 2007, https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/sidewalk-etiquette-needed-in-busy-cities/article20400907/ said “ever since the current condo boom began a decade ago, our downtown has been straining under the foot traffic – and so has our civility.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Toronto says that Toronto is adding roughly 800,000 people every 10 years right now.
Also there are points at which large numbers of people must cross streets, right? So a driver with ill-will towards random fellow residents could still attack with a car or van (unless you also build bridges or tunnels to get people across streets).
I think the gun control “debate” in this country answers your question. Clearly everybody should be driving a car. If everybody was in a car, nobody could be run down by a car. And the only thing that can stop a bad guy in a car is a good guy in car.
There is resistance to concrete barriers for a number of reasons:
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-union-station-barriers-erected-after-toronto-van-attack-draw-pushback/
I like the idea of making pedestrian detection mandatory in cars mentioned earlier – it’s not unlike making those backup cameras mandatory as was done recently.
This stretch of Yonge has been re-developed dramatically in the last 20 years. It had been essentially a 6 lane thoroughfare in a suburban area, but this 2 km stretch is now condo towers side-to-side. The city had been voting on proposals (which the local councilor & planners support) to reduce it to 4 lanes, adding bike lanes, etc, to reflect the changing nature of the neighbourhood:
http://reimaginingyonge.ca/
Grumpy Cat: This is brilliant! I do love the simplicity of the solution. (As a science fiction idea, also imagine an intelligent force field that would spring up around a pedestrian as soon as sensors detected an impending collision. That’s kind of like every person in his or her own car, but the car pops up as needed.)
In fact they did install bollards on the Las Vegas Strip after a similar incident. It’s definitely simpler. Not sure that it’s cheaper since you have to install them everywhere you want to protect pedestrians.
First, on a grand scale, I don’t like the idea of handing over control to computers (programmed by people who are not capable of imagining all the possible scenarios that need to be programmed) in the name of safety. It’s a little too Terminator for me.
Specifically regarding cars – Do you want to give a sensor that can malfunction the ability to slam the breaks on an interstate at 70 mph? Even self-driving cars can’t avoid all accidents with their near-omnipresent eyes (sensors). The unintended consequences haven’t been worked out in the real world.
>In countries like the U.S. where population growth is being pushed by the government
Phil, this claim is unsubstantiated. For all we know other countries have even better policies thus nullifying US effects.
I’ve never heard of a bollard, but I can tell you that after 9/11, very large ones were installed around the Federal Building in San Francisco on Market Street. Plenty sturdy enough to stop even a large truck. Some other buildings in the city got the same treatment.
So I guess if the target is valuable enough, bollards are an acceptable solution to truck/car attack.
Since we can’t even bring ourselves to create proper physically separated lanes for bikes, with rare exception, I won’t hold my breath for pedestrian safety.