New Automotive Tech

[sheepdog 10]

Something has my curiosity peaked about a new bit of technoligy in new cars. Been seeing this commercial on TV where a little boy is pushing his teddy bear in a toy plastic car down the side walk and a big SUV is getting ready to back out when the little boy gets behind it, and is about to get run over. Anyway, the back up camera system "see's" the boy and according to the announcer in the commercial it says the car can apply the brakes faster than you can, the car applys the breaks and the little boy is saved. Ok. fine. But what happens when you are flying down the freeway, and all of a sudden a car rushes up on your rear end from behind, or cuts over quickly and gets right behind you? Is your car going to put on the brakes and get you hit in the rear? I don't see how it could work for one thing and not put you in danger from another case scenario. Does anybody have any ideas on how this new technoligy actually works?

[k_nitin_r 8]

I imagine that with the technology that you described, the brakes are applied only when you are going in reverse and there is something cutting you off from the rear. When you are speeding along a freeway, you could get cut off from the front, in which case you do want a sensor on the front to apply the brakes for you (many cars do, but they only try to reduce the impact of the accident by gently applying the brakes and do not prevent the accident). I often have a problem seeing kids who are passing by the automatic door of the underground parking at the apartment building I stay at in the UAE. The kids are knee-high and as if seeing them staying right in front of your car is not hard enough, they walk past while driving uphill to get out of the apartment building's underground parking. If I stop when the kid appears, the parking door is going to slam shut on my bonnet and the policeman would come by and give me a fine for being involved in the accident. If I do not stop and run over the kid, I end up in prison for a month followed by having a huge debt from having to pay blood money to the family of the dead and then there's the guilt of having killed another human being though it was an accident. It's like having to pay for what isn't your fault one way or another and having to pick the lesser of the two.