I kind of want to watch this in slo-mo. So German boats don't steer? Or is floating down a river sideways just the way it's done nowadays?

Traffic accidents would be virtually eliminated. The insurance industry probably has the most to lose when it comes to self driving cars, without a risk to insure against they can't make any money.

Regarding features like this, I've just got a new Golf with adaptive cruise control. This measures the distance between you and the car in front and maintains a pre set gap up to a set speed. They have a lane assist option too, like the video here but I don't have that and I'm really glad. The cruise control is teaching me to not react when a car slows down in front of me or pulls into the lane in front of me because the car is doing it for me.

I've noticed I'm letting my eyes wander for longer when looking at the radio, or flicking through options on the display. It's not intentional, taking my eyes off the road is dangerous. I know that. But I can steer between white lines using my peripheral vision so as long as nothing really bad happens the car will save me, so the temptation to look at something just a little longer creeps in subliminally. I don't want to be doing it, and I try not to. Thing is, if you're driving a long way it's pretty certain you're not going to have the self control to be 100% focussed on the road every millisecond.

I can't wait for driverless cars. I can't help but think that features like this being drip fed us are not really that helpful. It's just teaching us to pay less attention when actually the cars aren't that clever yet.

And to anyone who's going to say 'if you take your eyes off the road you're a bad driver, you should be able to keep concentrating, blah blah blah', you don't understand how the mind works. Your body adapts to the situation you're in. When I drive an auto I don't go for the clutch all the time, my body adjusts. It's not a conscious thing, it's automatic. it's the same with these driver aids, your body learns to take advantage of them.

I'm not sure if I like this feature or not, sure, it keeps you between the lines, but it also encourages you to be a little less focused on the road while driving.
At hose speeds, it only takes a millisecond for someone to drift into your lane, or an animal on the road, or maybe, you see it, but because the car was driving itself, you had your hands full and can't grab the wheel fast enough to make the steering correction.

Fair enough..., I've never been through a revolution...
I just know that when the system has passed the point where there is nothing anyone can do to steer it back, then the system needs to be kicked, because those corporations in power aren't giving it up willingly.

Yes, Occupy absolutely failed. I had no illusions it would ever bring about change in any form...) And it always will as long as the guys in power have control of the government, while hiding behind their untouchable walls.

I was thinking the same thing, the steering wheel looks like its higher than his head. I thought maybe it was just some kind of forced perspective but when his arms were at the top of the wheel they looked pretty high up.

He doesn't look tall enough to drive that car. Kind of like the little old ladies that look through the upper part of the steering wheel to see the road.

Actually, this is true, but it's also only one of the recall items that GM has issued Recalls for this year.

"It recalled 8,208 of its 2014 cars on May 7, for example, because they might have rear brakes on the front wheels."

"GM says it has informed regulators about two more recalls imminent but not yet announced. The latest batch includes safety belt, air bag, transmission and electrical issues in a range of midsize sedans, full-size crossovers and SUVs, and pickups."


GM's U.S. recalls this year

Below are General Motors' recall of vehicles in the U.S. since Jan. 1

Date, no. of U.S. vehicles, models affected, recall defect

- Jan. 13: 324,970 of the 2014 Chevrolet Silverado and 2014 GMC Sierra for overheated exhaust parts

- Feb. 7 and 25: 1,367,146 of the 2005-07 Chevrolet Cobalt, 2006-07 Chevrolet HHR, 2005-07 Pontiac G5, 2006-07 Pontiac Solstice, 2003-07 Saturn ION, 2007 Saturn Sky, 2007 Opel GT, 2007 Daewoo G2X for ignition switch

- Feb 20: 355 of the 2014 Buick Enclave, LaCrosse, Regal and Verano; 2014 Chevrolet Cruze, Impala, Malibu and Travers; 2014 GMC Acadia for transmission shift cable adjuster

- March 17: 63,903 of the 2013-14 Cadillac XTS for brake vacuum booster

- March 17: 303,013 of the 2009 Chevrolet Express and GMC Savana for airbag

- March 17: 1,178,407 of the 2008-13 Buick Enclave, 2008-13 Chevrolet Traverse, 2008-13 GMC Acadia, 2008-10 Saturn Outlook for airbag

- March 17: 656 of the Cadillac ELR for electronic brake control

- March 28: 823,788 of the 2008-11 Chevrolet HHR, 2008-10 Chevrolet Cobalt, 2008-10 Pontiac G5, 2008-10 Pontiac Solstice, 2008-10 Saturn Sky, 2008-10 Opel GT, 2008-09 Daewoo G2X for ignition switch

- March 28: 174,046 of the 2013-14 Chevrolet Cruze for front axle shaft

- March 28: 489, 936 of the 2014 Chevrolet Silverado, 2014 GMC Sierra, 2015 Chevrolet Tahoe and Suburban, 2014 GMC Yukon and Yukon XL for oil cooler fitting.

- March 31: 1,340,447 of the 2004-06 Chevrolet Malibu and Malibu Maxx, 2004-06 Pontiac G6, 2004-07 Saturn Ion, 2008-09 Chevrolet Malibu, 2008-09 Pontiac G6, 2008-09 Saturn Aura, 2010 Cobalt, 2009-10 Chevrolet HHR for electric power steering

- April 9: 2,191,014 of the 2005-10 Chevrolet Cobalt, 2006-11 Chevrolet HHR, 2007-10 Pontiac G5, 2006-10 Pontiac Solstice, 2003-07 Saturn ION, 2007-10 Saturn Sky for ignition key cylinder

- April 24: 50,571 of the 2013 Cadillac SRX for acceleration lag

- April 19: 23,249 of the 2009-10 Pontiac Vibe (built by Toyota) for air bags

- April 24: 51 of the 2015 Chevrolet Silverado HD and 2014 GMC Sierra HD for diesel transfer pump

- April 29: 51,640 of the 2014 Chevrolet Traverse, 2014 GMC Acadia and 2014 Buick Enclave for inaccurate fuel gauge

- April 29: 56,214 of the 2007-08 Saturn Aura for shift cable

- May 7: 8,208 of the 2014 Chevrolet Malibu and 2104 Buick Lacrosse for brake rotors

- May 14: 111,889 of the 2005-07 Corvette for headlight low beams

- May 14: 19,225 of the 2014 Cadillac CTS for windshield wipers

- May 14: 140,067 of the 2014 Malibu for brake boost

- May 14: 2,440,524 of the 2004-12 Chevrolet Malibu, 2004-07 Malibu Maxx, 2005-10 Pontiac G6 and 2007-10 Saturn Aura for brake lamps

- May 14: 477 of the 2014 Chevrolet Silverado and 2015 Chevrolet Tahoe for steering tie-rod

- May 16: 1,402 of the 2015 Cadillac Escalade for passenger air bag

- May 19: 1,339,355 of the 2009-10 Saturn Outlook, 2009-14 Chevrolet Traverse, 2009-14 GMC Acadia and 2009-14 Buick Enclave for front seat belts

- May 19: 58 of the 2015 Chevrolet Silverado HD and 2015 GMC Sierra HD for loose fuse block

- May 19: 1,075,102 of the 2004-08 Chevrolet Malibu and 2005-08 Pontiac G6 for shift cable (expands April 29 Saturn Aura recall)

Total 18,666,842
( http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2014/05/20/gm-recalls-fine-goverment/9329481/ )

For anyone that hasn't followed what this is about...

For the problems itemized in this video.
Loss of :
- power brake assist
- airbags
- power steering.

This affair was actually about 1 specific issue :
The detent in the key socket rotator was not as strong as it should have been.

What that specifically meant was that :
IF you had a large heavy keychain on your key, and you jerked it, or knocked it such that it swings hard, the keychain could pull on the key hard enough to turn the key to the OFF position.

So when the car would turn off, you'd lose the power brakes, power steering, and airbags would be inactive.

Under "normal" circumstances, this wasn't a problem.
But for the folks with a christmas tree hanging off of their key, it was a chance to turn off their car while driving.

(side note : Crying about the power steering and power brakes really misses the big issue : The steering lock can kick in while moving... which apparently no one gave enough of a crap about to think for the 2 seconds it takes to notice that elephant in the room)



In this case, the contention over whether or not the core problem with the key socket was negligence boils down to semantics.

Car companies buy their parts from sub contractors.
They spec out the parts, and sub contractors manufacture the parts 'to spec'.

The spec isn't a 'hard' requirement.
If you say "5 Newtons of force", that doesn't mean that 4.999999999999123 Newtons is unacceptable.

Actually, it's standard for ~all parts to not be exactly the spec. They just have to be 'close enough to work right'.

And for that matter, many of the numbers in various specs are 'off the cuff' values that are 'generally known to work fine'. Getting hung up on a specific number isn't salient - what matters is 'does it work right?'.

So the question becomes, what is "good enough to work right?".
In practice, that ends up being a judgment call. Often made by engineers that try out the parts.


Here's where congress and GM differed.

Congress said : The ignition socket wasn't 100% exactly what GM had in the spec that they sent to the subcontractors, so it was wrong from day 1, and they knew it wasn't 100% the spec since pre-production. Hence, GM was negligent.

GM said : Of course it wasn't 100% exactly the spec. That was to be expected. At the time, we had no indication that the actual provided part was so far out of spec that it would not work right.


My personal take :
If this was something as simple as 'actual malfunctions/breakages of parts', then it would be black and white.
But in these cases, nothing was actually broken or malfunctioning.
So you had to rely on statistics and analysis to identify the issue.
Statistics require data, data requires evidence, evidence requires time to collect.
Seeing as how the vast majority of cars had no problem, this isn't the kind of thing that just leaps out at you.

Since any given car, when made in massive quantities, will have all kinds of multiple complaints about multiple systems, you can't just go back and point at incident(s) X and Y and say that it was the smoking gun - because if it was, then you'd have a pile of smoking guns for every other part out there.
Every instance of every part has a small chance of going bad, and with enough cars, you'll have a lot of 'item A went bad' reports to sift through.
You can't jump to the conclusion after the first couple reports that the part is improper, and it's unrealistic to expect anyone to immediately make that conclusion.
In order to make an informed determination, you simply need a pattern to emerge.

(I listened to the CSPAN coverage of the hearings while driving.)

-scheherazade

Nautical prowess? Maybe, but can he steer a boat with his penis like Tommy Lee?

If there is a button the the steering wheel that gives an extra 100hp for overtaking by whatever method, I'm willing to call it push to pass. I expect that hitting the button would switch the engine to a high power torque mapping, use the MGU-H to spool up the turbo faster, and give a MGU-K boost exactly like last year's KERS button. I would also expect that not every team uses a steering wheel button for this function, but if Williams called it "push to pass" over the radio, I expect that they do. You could also have a separate engine mapping to do the same thing, and I expect that probably some teams do.

The RBR infringement was a bit more complicated than that. The FIA sensor was giving them inaccurate readings (it was reading high), and the FIA told them to apply an offset to the sensor values. They chose to use another method to ensure they weren't exceeding the 100kg/hr limit, and were excluded on the grounds that they had not sought permission from the FIA to do so and that it is not within their discretion to run a different fuel flow measurement method without the permission of the FIA.

I expect their appeal will be on the grounds that they did not in fact exceed the limit, and gained no advantage from their actions... and despite Christian Horner's level of confidence it could go either way. The last report I heard was that although they have lodged their intention to appeal, they have not yet actually tabled the appeal (but have a few more hours to do so).

Actually Mercedes were warned about the same issue. They chose to turn down their engines a bit to avoid the problem.

Formula one has been about getting around the rules at least since the 80s, and RBR have been very good at it. The camera mounting is very much in the category of satisfies the letter of the law, but very much goes against the spirit. I like the approach of using the camera mount as an extra wing actually (is it only the one team who did this?).

The problem with that is that Gangbangers are generally Gangbangers because they have very few other choices in life. Their social, financial, educational and familial situations pretty much steer them in the direction of violence and thuggery.
So what you're saying is: Let's round up all the poor, uneducated violent people in the US and put them on a deserted island so they can kill each other off.
You've got to fix the broken system that generates these fools, because others will be bred to take their places if you only wipe out the ones that exist now.

Imagine what this would do if that steering wheel had one of those Clubs mounted on it.

Pretty sure the driver seat would be empty and there'd be a new sunroof for the car.

Why wasn't he IN the car to steer? I mean, there's still the issue of tearing off the back panel of the trolly, but still...

Sure. There are some in here:
http://www.unusuallocomotion.com/pages/more-documentation/20-one-2-or-3-tracked-rigid-vehicles-light.html

... and about 7/8's of the way down this page:
http://snegohod-tuning.ru/istoriya-snegoxoda.html

We had similar units in Canada in the 60's (with , not quite as speedy as the electric jobby shown here) with I believe (not 100%) some of the early Kohler or perhaps OMC single cylinder gas engines. One could stand on a small foot board that was skidded along behind, steering with two large handles (like a roto tiller), and then behind that there was a sled with high enough walls that you could haul firewood, straw bales, sacks of whatever without them spilling out. They were geared rather high, so not a lot of speed but that's what was required to keep the torque up on these 2 strokes.

Hope this helps a bit.

> I can't figure out how the single track model steers.

Tilting, pulling, pushing the handle to get different parts of the track digging differently