New safety regulations introduced last month have made at least 20 technologies standard on all new cars sold in the EU and the UK – and will legislate some out of existence.
The new arsenal of standard safety equipment, brought in under the anonymously titled General Safety Regulations 2 (GSR2), will also add more costs to cheaper cars, likely increasing their prices.
The changes had been in discussion at the UN and the EU for a decade before the EU finalised its proposals in 2019.
They’re being introduced in two main phases. The first went live on 6 July and the second will come in 2024, although some technologies are on a slightly different timetable.
That means all new cars launched after 6 July 2022, regardless of price or engineering suitability, have to comply; and in 2024, existing cars already on the market will have to be modified or retrofitted to stay on sale.
This retrofitting is what will kill off the Toyota GR86. The camera needed for intelligent speed assistance (ISA) and emergency lane-keeping system (ELKS) can’t easily be built into the car’s architecture, which was carried over from the Toyota GT86, designed more than a decade ago.
“We would have to raise the roof and move the windscreen to accommodate the camera,” said Toyota, which announced the GR86’s short European-market lifespan of just two years at its launch.
The insurance and safety industry, of course, is much more sanguine about the introduction of GSR2.
“This is essentially tidying up existing laws and an update of GSR1, which has been around since 1998, especially since many of these new safety features are already incorporated into existing Euro NCAP [safety] ratings,” said Matthew Avery, boss of UK insurance-and-safety organisation Thatcham Research and a senior Euro NCAP team member.
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"There are also big-brother elements in the regulations. For example, the driver drowsiness warning will from 2024 be handled by an in-car infrared camera, always focused on the driver’s face, to detect eye movements."
Why, Julian Rendell, would that be a "big-brother" element? What does the camera do? It's IR. It's not watching eye movements, as you assert. What's the best way to detect if someone's eyes close - beyond a momentary blink? Have you seen the temperature difference between eyes and skin through an IR detector? It's the movement, or lack of, one's eyelids that the IR camera will detect, not movements (perhaps you're self-reflecting on a bit of drive-by perving?)
How is an IR image in any way "big-brother" even assuming that the image would be outwardly accessible, for which there's no requirement in the regulations.
Your Pornhub account history must be freaky.
I'm certain that if there was a venn diagram of man babies that whine about the kinds of systems being deployed through this, and other, legislation, and of the man babies that whine about constantly having to watch the speedo, the venn diagram would, in fact, be a perfect circle. They wouldn't understand it, but neither would they get the contradiction, either.
It's a shame that it takes legislation, from the EU, UK, US, wherever, to make manufacturers and, to some extent, users, design, build, and behave a certain way. Alas, but for that, we could all drive around in cars without seatbelts, rusting apart at the seams, ready to lose a wheel at any moment, killing pedestrians at tragically low speed, while managing a heady 7mpg.
Oh wait, no, manufacturers do have to be pulled kicking and screaming to do the right thing, make vehicles safe (for all road users), efficient, and durable, and users even have to follow rules so they don't become self-inflicted drooling imbeciles, with or without a keyboard.
But, eveyone needs a bogeyman, I suppose.
I have no problem with safety systems, as long as they work as intended, dont make mistakes, and dont go wrong reducing vehicle life. But they should remain on the option list for those who want them.
You, your wife and two children are travelling in your car. A vehicle approaches from the other direction. Its driver is distracted, or maybe had some drinks, enters your side of the road and kills your entire family.
This could have been completely averted if the oncoming vehicle had driver attention and intoxication detection, or lane keeping assistance.
Example 2: your child crosses the road on green light, oncoming driver is busy checking his phone and sends your child 2m up in the air. This could have been averted with attention detection safety feature, traffic lights recognition and automatic breaking.
Remember: the safety features are not just to help the passengers in the car fitted with them, but also to help innocents in other vehicles, or pedestrians.
Example 1 could be avoided by the ass-hat in question not drinking when they know they have to drive home. It's not hard. I never EVER have an alcoholic beverage at all if I'm going to be driving afterwards. Also, the distraction: don't use your effing phone whilst driving, the car shouldn't have to prevent that. Again, not rocket science. Most cars now have Android Auto or Carplay capabilities. There is literally no reason whatsoever to touch your phone when driving.
It is the responsibility of the driver to maintain control and focus.
Example 2: the child should be watching out for and aware of road users regardless of whether the crossing says it is safe to do so. For a pedestrian to be hit by a car at a crossing they must not have checked that their path was clear before they entered the road way.
All these 'safety' systems do is take responsibility away from the driver and place it on the car's systems. Systems are just as fallible as people, sometimes more so. The software is only as good as the programmer that wrote it (I'm a software engineer by trade). My 2018 Mondeo has lane keep, driver drowsiness detection, auto-city stop and speed sign recognition.
The lane keep was turned off ASAP as it was uselss during motorway roadworks and kept 'tugging' at the wheel as it thought it was too close to the lines of the narrow lanes.
Driver drowsiness has been triggered multiple times when I've been at my most alert and hasn't been triggered when I've legitimitely felt borderline safe to drive.
The auto-city stop gets auto-disabled if it feels the sensor is too dirty (happens a lot in winter) plus has triggered in error several times.
Speed sign recognition is garbage and has multiple times put the wrong speed limit or not detected a change in speed limit.
So yeah, you rely on your car's systems all you want. I'll rely on my own alertness and training/experience as a driver (not a single point on my license or RTA in 15 years of driving)