alt Hacker NewsAll these self driving and "drivers assistance" features like lane keeping exist to satisfy consumer demand for a way to multitask when driving. Tesla's is particularly cancerous, but all of them should be banned. I don't care how good you think your lane keeping in whatever car you have is, you won't need it if you keep your hands on the wheel, eyes on the road, and don't drive when drowsy. Turn it off and stop trying to delegate your responsibility for what your two ton speeding death machine does!
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Have you ever driven more than 200km at an average of 80km/h with enough turns on the highway? Perhaps after work, just to see your family once a month?
Driver fatigue is real, no matter how much coffee you take.
Lane-keep is a game changer if the UX is well done. I'm way more rested when I arrive at destination with my Model 3 compared to when I use the regular ICE with bad lane-assist UX.
EDIT: the fact that people that look at their phones will still look at their phones with lane-keep active, only makes it a little safer for them and everyone else, really.
But this is why people bought Tesla. Musk promised that the car is automatic.
We made drunk driving super illegal and that still doesn't stop people. I would rather they didn't in the first place, but since they're going to anyway, I'd really rather they have a computer that does it better than they do. FSD will pull over and stop if the driver has passed out.
I think it’s unfair to group all those features into “things for people who want to multitask while driving”.
I’m a decent driver, I never use my phone while driving and actively avoid distractions (sometimes I have to tell everyone in the car to stop talking), and yet features like lane assist and automatic braking have helped me avoid possible collisions simply because I’m human and I’m not perfect. Sometimes a random thought takes my attention away for a moment, or I’m distracted by sudden movement in my peripheral vision, or any number of things. I can drive very safely, but I can not drive perfectly all the time. No one can.
These features make safe drivers even safer. They even make the dangerous drivers (relatively) safer.