Cadillac "Super Cruise" scares the @#$% out of me.

[MinisterofDOOM]

So we've got adaptive cruise control, backup warning sensors, lane-departure warning and prevention, autonomous emergency braking, around-view camera systems, self-parking systems, and similar newish electronic BS helping sell premium-branded cars these days. Cadillac wants to combine them all, add GPS information, and enable the car to more or less drive itself on the highway.

That's the most terrifying thing I have ever heard in my life.

I'm not terribly fond of Car and Driver these days, but their site has a concise article on the tech, so I guess I'll have to link it:
http://blog.caranddriver.com/cadillacs- ... s-driving/

I don't like it AT ALL. I know I'm a vocal advocate of an auto-industry free of government regulation, but THIS kind of stuff needs to be regulated and FERVENTLY DENIED by the NHTSA. If you build separate roads for fully-autonomous cars, I'm fine with that. But half-assing it on the same roads I drive on is not acceptable. What happens when Wannabe Hot Mom is too busy texting in her SRX and doesn't notice that she's hit a wet section of road where the lane-departure monitoring system does not work? She runs into me, that's what. And now my car is damaged; I'm out time, money, and convenience; and there's technically no one to blame. It's not her fault, because the car "drives itself." And it sure as Hell isn't my fault. And it's not Cadillac's fault because their safety agreement W.H.M. agreed to when she started the car says so. So who pays my repair bills?

And user error is only one half of the disaster potential. What about SYSTEMS failures?! What if that GPS map data the car is using to predict road changes is wrong? What if you enter a construction zone where traffic is diverted across the median into what should be oncoming lanes of traffic? What if you live in Utah where the lane lines are often painted by drunk parkinsons sufferers with only one eye? What if the computer control systems simply lose their mind, as it has been REPEATEDLY DEMONSTRATED these types of things are prone to doing?

Really neat. I LOVE pushing the boundaries of technology, but this kind of dangerous garbage has no business sharing the roads with me or my cars. Regladless of how strategically Cadillac words its intentions with this technology, the fact is it will encourage drivers to disengage themselves from the attention-critical act of driving. Not acceptable.

I've said it a thousand times. I will say it a million more if neccessary. I don't even trust ABS. Anything beyond that is PURE EVIL. KILL IT WITH FIRE.

[Dattebayo]

You're overreacting and you know it.

Technology articles such as this always make it seem as if the new tech is ready to be slapped a sticker on, packaged and sent out because the readers always seem to read between the lines somehow. But it's just a ruse to whet the appetites of the geeks out there who are into this kind of whizz-bang tech. If you read the language correctly, there is no promise of anything, only the use of words like "hope" and "feasible".

Cut back on the coffee, bro.

[Jesda]

Fall asleep at the wheel... end up on the other side of the country.

I guess that's an alternative to falling into a ditch and rolling over 20 times, but how bewildering would that be?

[MinisterofDOOM]

but how bewildering would that be?

Probably no more bewildering than an average drive in an automobile if you're the kind of person who actually needs Super Cruise.