The moment I feel even the slightest bit drowsy I stop driving rather than telling myself "it's just a bit further, I can make it", which is my point. I've only even reached that stage twice more in the time since.Oils4AsphaultOnly wrote:... and yet, you do it. In case you missed it, you wrote," something I've done ever since anytime I feel drowsy while driving"GRA wrote:No, I'd be a hypocrite if, having avoided causing serious injury or death to myself as well as the innocent people in cars around me through my own stupid decision on that occasion over 30 years ago, I ignored the lesson and continued to repeat the same inexcusably reckless behavior, while berating others who also know better yet choose to do likewise. That would be hypocritical. As noted, I don't drive while drowsy or when in any condition where drowsiness is remotely possible. Offing myself through my own stupidity is my business, but injuring or killing others is unconscionable.Oils4AsphaultOnly wrote: Great! So you admit to having gotten drowsy while driving too! That makes you a hypocrite.
Note that you didn't start off drowsy and then took a nap. You got drowsy as the drive progressed and realized then that you needed a nap. Exactly what happens to all of us.
Paying back my debt. I first got access to the backcountry and learned many of the skills needed when I was a scout, so wanted to give other kids the same opportunity.Oils4AsphaultOnly wrote:As for being a scoutmaster, I salute you for devoting time to other people's kids. Honestly. It takes commitment to do so.
Oh, no doubt the likelihood of zoning out is greater after a couple hundred miles of sameness. I can't remember where I read it, but the most common category of fatal auto accident in Wyoming is "Single vehicle run off road." Long drives in rural areas with similar scenery is monotonous, which is why I'm a firm believer that AVs need to arrive with all deliberate speed, which means not through using customers as beta testers. The stakes of system failure in a car aren't just a Blue Screen of Death, they're actual death.Oils4AsphaultOnly wrote:But I would NEVER drive alone on long trips (multiple hours) with kids, there's ALWAYS a co-driver in each car.Only possible sometimes, as it usually took multiple cars to transport everyone, and the number of adults is limited. Which is why we had scheduled stops and drove in loose but in sight convoys (pre-cell-phone era).
Oils4AsphaultOnly wrote:On short trips (under 30 minutes), I have never lost focus, because it's a short trip. HUGE FREAK'N DIFFERENCE when you're driving on your own in stop-n-go traffic for miles at a time.
A high proportion of my driving is on undivided rural two-lane highways, and my greatest fear while doing such drives is of being killed by someone affected by one or more of the Four Ds crossing over the centerline and hitting me head-on. It's one of if not the most common form of fatal crash in the U.S. Which is why, at their current stage of development, I feel autonomous systems should be restricted by geo-fencing to the safest roads with the least number of possible interactions with other vehicles or intersections, i.e. divided, limited-access freeways with no at-grade crossings, preferably with construction zones or near emergency vehicles also prohibited if technically possible (I'm thinking some kind of transponder). Cadillac does the former, Tesla doesn't, and as several fatal crashes as well as numerous videos of Teslas crossing centerlines show, Tesla's A/P system simply isn't reliable or capable enough yet to deal with undivided highways with cross-traffic. The fact that they continue to allow its use in such situations when they have the full ability to prevent it is to me, immoral.
I can only hope that suits like the one brought by Walter Huang's family will go to trial instead of being settled out of court, and result in either Tesla changing their behavior or else government regulators will finally do their job and prohibit it. It will only take one or two high-profile crashes where people (like Elaine Herzberg) who aren't occupants of a Tesla are killed by one using A/P to set back the adoption of AVs by years. As it is, a poll done following that well-publicized (Uber) accident showed a noticeable drop in the % of the population that would be willing to buy or ride in an AV compared to one taken prior to that, and IIRR a similar drop in the willingness to share the road with same. Tesla's been lucky so far, in that none of their fatal A/P accidents seriously injured or killed any non-occupants. All three of them could so easily have come out differently, instead of minor injuries to one other driver in the Huang accident.