Adaptive Cruise Control - Mindblown

[stevieboy308]

Juddian:
Mindblown just about covers the state of the mind that came up with this crap.
Electronic eyes and it’s collective electric brain in charge of the brakes, now what could possibly go wrong with that.

Unfortunately the results we see on the road every day due in no small way to the increasing number of idiots attracted to the job, and apparently in the eyes of incompetent transport admin deemed capable of doing the job entirely due to said dumbing down, has helped lead us into this race to the bottom, which has only a little further to go before its goal is reached.

Maybe next it’ll be the all seeing eye that stops half wits driving into bridges and off the road into ditches and up trees, maybe the machine will take over steering for the wheel attendant when it sees a likely scenario, anyone’s imagination could be right.

You’re all welcome to this new world of what was once lorry driving lads and lasses, quite what input you’ll have on what the vehicle does in ten years time i’m not sure, one thing won’t change, when error 404 rears its ugly head and the lorry drives itself into an otherwise preventible tragedy, you, the driver (when it suits) will still be to blame.

You always seem to want to be stuck in the past! Unless you’ve got hold of the reigns and feeding the horse, then you’re not a proper trucker, eh?!

[mucker85]

It’s fitted to the new coaches at work. On long night drives I don’t see many trucks but the ones I do see are going as fast as me. Only they aren’t, as you catch up to a slower moving vehicle it is so gentle as it reduces your speed you don’t notice it. I’ll be driving along thinking to myself “this truck ahead is motoring on”, then I look down at the speedo and see I’m only doing 90 kph. Indicate to overtake otherwise the lane departure vibrates your ■■■ and away she goes.

[conor]

mucker85:
It’s fitted to the new coaches at work. On long night drives I don’t see many trucks but the ones I do see are going as fast as me. Only they aren’t, as you catch up to a slower moving vehicle it is so gentle as it reduces your speed you don’t notice it. I’ll be driving along thinking to myself “this truck ahead is motoring on”, then I look down at the speedo and see I’m only doing 90 kph. Indicate to overtake otherwise the lane departure vibrates your ■■■ and away she goes.

I do that with Tesco wagons quite often. The number of them I thought were doing a reasonable speed until I look at my speedo and see 50MPH.

[juddian]

stevieboy308:

Juddian:
.

You always seem to want to be stuck in the past! Unless you’ve got hold of the reigns and feeding the horse, then you’re not a proper trucker, eh?!

Maybe, yes i do prefer the old ways, like honour integrity morals and courtesy in people, back in the days when a man’s word meant something, as well as the old ways we used to do the job.

However, there’s another side to this, and i’m a little surprised that it should need expanding.

I can’t be the only one who realises that the end game in all this progress is the removal of the driver from the lorry, or at the very least a minimising of the number of skilled drivers needed to do the job, there will always be a certain amount of hands on whatever they do, but they are trying their best to make the vehicles more or less drive themselves.

Why are drivers welcome this automating of their job, it’s aimed at dumbing the job down so any bugger can sit in a lorry and point the thing, and when any bugger can do it any bugger does do it, no shortage of any buggers so the job can be low paid.
As stated a few posts above a few days course followed by a quick test and hey presto one fully skilled lorry driver hits the road.

The blokes earning well now in the transport game are doing jobs that they can’t automate and still require some nous, the vast bulk of lorry jobs though have become chauffering and little, else.
This is what so many wanted, and up to a point i understand it, but you have to look further than a ■■■■ easy job you are doing now and try to see whats coming next.

Yes the job was harder in years gone by, it was a bloody sight harder still 30 years before i started too, but i believe we’ve gone too far in welcoming what they tell us we need.

I don’t expect much agreement with this view, but hopefully it will give you an insight why i say what i do about not being too keen on things that make our job easier (only they don’t), they aint doing it to make our lives easier or any other benevolent reason, they’re doing it to make it easier to get any cheaply bought and trained sod off the street and onto that seat behind the wheel.

[roymondo]

Bluey Circles:

Beau Nydel:
What really worries me is when the bored little runt in the back seat of the car next to you realises that his smart phone is cleverer than your truck and takes control of all your little gizmos! I suggested this to one of the managers at London Gateway when he was bragging about clever the new dockside straddles will be-no drivers just locators set in the concrete-and the colour drained from his face!!! If they can hack the Pentagon, Volvo, Scanias et al will be no problem and probably more fun.

And it has been proved possible.
wired.com/2015/07/hackers-re … p-highway/

What that article fails to mention (other than possibly in a brief, passing note - I haven’t read it all in detail) is that this “vulnerability” requires that the would-be hackers have hands-on physical access to the vehicle and its electronics for quite some time (as in, not just a minute or two) to do their stuff. IOW it’s essentially scaremongering with the usual “Woohh” factor because it’s all done wirelessly (apart from initially setting the vehicle up to accept said wireless commands, of course).

[peterm]

Juddian:

stevieboy308:

Juddian:
.

You always seem to want to be stuck in the past! Unless you’ve got hold of the reigns and feeding the horse, then you’re not a proper trucker, eh?!

Maybe, yes i do prefer the old ways, like honour integrity morals and courtesy in people, back in the days when a man’s word meant something, as well as the old ways we used to do the job.

However, there’s another side to this, and i’m a little surprised that it should need expanding.

I can’t be the only one who realises that the end game in all this progress is the removal of the driver from the lorry, or at the very least a minimising of the number of skilled drivers needed to do the job, there will always be a certain amount of hands on whatever they do, but they are trying their best to make the vehicles more or less drive themselves.

Why are drivers welcome this automating of their job, it’s aimed at dumbing the job down so any bugger can sit in a lorry and point the thing, and when any bugger can do it any bugger does do it, no shortage of any buggers so the job can be low paid.
As stated a few posts above a few days course followed by a quick test and hey presto one fully skilled lorry driver hits the road.

The blokes earning well now in the transport game are doing jobs that they can’t automate and still require some nous, the vast bulk of lorry jobs though have become chauffering and little, else.
This is what so many wanted, and up to a point i understand it, but you have to look further than a ■■■■ easy job you are doing now and try to see whats coming next.

Yes the job was harder in years gone by, it was a bloody sight harder still 30 years before i started too, but i believe we’ve gone too far in welcoming what they tell us we need.

I don’t expect much agreement with this view, but hopefully it will give you an insight why i say what i do about not being too keen on things that make our job easier (only they don’t), they aint doing it to make our lives easier or any other benevolent reason, they’re doing it to make it easier to get any cheaply bought and trained sod off the street and onto that seat behind the wheel.

Well I agree with you and can see exactly what you’re saying. How many people does it take to make a car nowadays because robots can do it quicker and cheaper.

[conor]

Juddian:

stevieboy308:

Juddian:
.

You always seem to want to be stuck in the past! Unless you’ve got hold of the reigns and feeding the horse, then you’re not a proper trucker, eh?!

Maybe, yes i do prefer the old ways, like honour integrity morals and courtesy in people, back in the days when a man’s word meant something, as well as the old ways we used to do the job.

How far back ago was this because it doesn’t fit in with my experience of almost quarter of a century of haulage. Honour, integrity and morals like nicking diesel for your car, shafting drivers to get a quick tip, running bent cards and logbooks? And I for one am damned glad I no longer have to do some of the stupid crap we took as part of the job and if it means just one driver doesn’t end up with a back like mine then I’m all for it.

Why are drivers welcome this automating of their job, it’s aimed at dumbing the job down so any bugger can sit in a lorry and point the thing, and when any bugger can do it any bugger does do it, no shortage of any buggers so the job can be low paid.
As stated a few posts above a few days course followed by a quick test and hey presto one fully skilled lorry driver hits the road.

They’re not fully skilled or anything like it. They have the basic essential tools of the job but they’re not capable in most cases of even operating the various types of sliding post in a curtainsider, using fridges, using tankers etc. They can literally drive a truck from A to B but when they get to B they’re stuffed because of the reversing. If they were fully skilled then we wouldn’t get the seemingly endless 1-2 a week posts about reversing would we?

I don’t expect much agreement with this view, but hopefully it will give you an insight why i say what i do about not being too keen on things that make our job easier (only they don’t), they aint doing it to make our lives easier or any other benevolent reason, they’re doing it to make it easier to get any cheaply bought and trained sod off the street and onto that seat behind the wheel.

I don’t agree because I don’t wear the same rose tinted specs you apparently do. Trucks will be automated in 20 years time which suits me fine. I’ll be retiring, most on here will have already retired.

[the_nodding_donkey]

They’ll never let a truck on the road without a driver. Ever. To many incalculable scenarios that can not be dealt with by a computer. And there will be so many moments where a driver has to be hands on. Just like aeroplanes. All fly by wire with autopilot and such, still have two pilots on board. I’m sure that old DC3 pilots will be derogatory about airbus pilots though.

And how difficult can flying a plane be, if a rock band singer can do it as a hobby??

And Juddian, did you whine the same when they replaced your crash box with a synchro mesh? There is nothing special about changing gear manually. Loads of us do it in our cars, vans, even motor cycles. I put it that not having to concentrate on changing gears, but being able to concentrate on traffic/pedestrians makes driving in urban areas saver. And as for drivers switching off when on a (motor)way when using the ACC, AEBS et al, that is not the technology at fault.
I do agree that there has been a dumbing down of the skill requirements for drivers, but again, not technologies fault.

[juddian]

the nodding donkey:
And Juddian, did you whine the same when they replaced your crash box with a synchro mesh? There is nothing special about changing gear manually. Loads of us do it in our cars, vans, even motor cycles. I put it that not having to concentrate on changing gears, but being able to concentrate on traffic/pedestrians makes driving in urban areas saver. And as for drivers switching off when on a (motor)way when using the ACC, AEBS et al, that is not the technology at fault.
I do agree that there has been a dumbing down of the skill requirements for drivers, but again, not technologies fault.

No i hated synchro boxes because no matter how accurate you are with meshing engine to road speed to required gear, the synchro always baulks you, that’s why synchro boxes are useless without a functioning clutch, where a crash box is a doddle once rolling for clutchless changes, one of the reasons (as well as proper engines from those who specialised in making them) why i preferred British motors to the the new Swedes of the time, who’s synchro gearboxes were bloody heavy and ponderous to use, and use them in anger you had to because the Swedes started the trend for small engines blown to buggery needing to be kept in that small peak rev window and utterly useless below it.

I’m not getting into an argument about concentrating on traffic and pedestrians because you and i will never agree which is best, i wasn’t trying to convince anyone with my above post, was merely answering Stevieboy 308’s query, though he’s probably forgotten.

[carryfast]

Juddian:

the nodding donkey:
And Juddian, did you whine the same when they replaced your crash box with a synchro mesh?

No i hated synchro boxes because no matter how accurate you are with meshing engine to road speed to required gear, the synchro always baulks you, that’s why synchro boxes are useless without a functioning clutch, where a crash box is a doddle once rolling for clutchless changes, one of the reasons (as well as proper engines from those who specialised in making them) why i preferred British motors to the the new Swedes of the time, who’s synchro gearboxes were bloody heavy and ponderous to use, and use them in anger you had to because the Swedes started the trend for small engines blown to buggery needing to be kept in that small peak rev window and utterly useless below it.

Volvo F7 and Renault G290.

As for crash box that’s actually sliding mesh which is driven in a similar way but not as easy to use as opposed to constant mesh.Air assisted clutches with a decent constant mesh box was as good as it gets even with every shift by the book double de clutched.With the win win situation that they forced drivers to be at the right road speed for the conditions and on the approach to hazards.

As for automation why would anyone want to trust a driver with 44 tonnes on a busy motorway who they can’t trust to drive a proper gearbox or maintain a correct seperation distance.

[generallee]

I don’t often reply on here, but here is my 2p…

I took a new motor out a fortnight or so back with adaptive cruise. I didn’t like it.

I love cruise control, but with adaptive, suppose you are crawling up on the wagon in front, it eases off. I didn’t realise most of the time, so whereas before I could have increased my speed and gone around, now I’m blindly trundling behind. Then Argos blows my doors off and I realise I’m doing 47 mph like a prat. Perhaps I would get used to it and override it more often, but doesn’t that defeat the point?

Suppose I’m trundling uphill light, the wagon in front is heavy, I don’t realise how much I have slowed as the truck maintains the same distance between us. I’m not used to glancing at the speedo all the time in case the truck has altered speed for me. Again, perhaps I would get used to it but I didn’t like it.

As stated by the OP, good in roadworks. I’ll give it that.

This is in a MAN.

[carryfast]

generallee:
I don’t often reply on here, but here is my 2p…

I took a new motor out a fortnight or so back with adaptive cruise. I didn’t like it.

I love cruise control, but with adaptive, suppose you are crawling up on the wagon in front, it eases off. I didn’t realise most of the time, so whereas before I could have increased my speed and gone around, now I’m blindly trundling behind. Then Argos blows my doors off and I realise I’m doing 47 mph like a prat. Perhaps I would get used to it and override it more often, but doesn’t that defeat the point?

Ironically that’s what it’s designed to do in backing off to maintain seperation distance either to compensate for an overtake that’s been left too late or traffic in lane 2 stopping the required lane change.Which would be the same situation regardless of it being fitted or not.IE you either make the lane change in good time before the safe seperation distance has eroded,or you have to back off to maintain it.

[roymondo]

I have to ask, given the content of some posts here - “Does it really matter if you end up trundling along at 50/52 mph for a few miles rather than going for the overtake?”

Sent using smoke and mirrors

[socketset]

HGV driving is not brain surgery,although plenty like to make out it is especially to outsiders,it’s 1-4 day course and a 1 hours test away for anyone over legal age…let’s not forget that.
[/quote]
Well, thats technically correct but the course described teaches an individual how to pass a test.

The real world learning starts afterwards and is a lifelong course.

We have an autobox truck and I dread driving it and I don’t think I would enjoy all these electronic driver assist systems that are becoming standard features.

I like to be a part of the process not a spectator so give me a 16 speed manual and I’ll use my own in house electronics.

[jollyjack]

Because I use the A34 often enough, being sat behind tesco trailers doing 50mph is a common occurrence. Coming up behind one doing 55 ish and the truck slowing down for you is a fabulous feature. As we all know, technology can make mistakes. Thats the reason its not driving me down the road i’ve still got steering access and in actual fact i’ve got enough control to take over in time. But when a car slams on the breaks infront of you on the A40 to do a sharp turn off the road, the truck did it before my reactions could even think about it. BEEEEPP slowed down from 48 to 33 then went back up to 48 again without coming to a complete stop. Lane assist is good too (especially the flask reasoning )

Automatic windscreen wipers work fine on the FH4 and never really think about lights either unless i’m flashing a tool in a plastic box doing 45mph.

Its one of those things, get used to it and it will become a problem, i’ve found myself to be a more aware driver since i’ve got the new unit and i believe that will continue.

[the_nodding_donkey]

Juddian:

the nodding donkey:
And Juddian, did you whine the same when they replaced your crash box with a synchro mesh? There is nothing special about changing gear manually. Loads of us do it in our cars, vans, even motor cycles. I put it that not having to concentrate on changing gears, but being able to concentrate on traffic/pedestrians makes driving in urban areas saver. And as for drivers switching off when on a (motor)way when using the ACC, AEBS et al, that is not the technology at fault.
I do agree that there has been a dumbing down of the skill requirements for drivers, but again, not technologies fault.

No i hated synchro boxes because no matter how accurate you are with meshing engine to road speed to required gear, the synchro always baulks you, that’s why synchro boxes are useless without a functioning clutch, where a crash box is a doddle once rolling for clutchless changes, one of the reasons (as well as proper engines from those who specialised in making them) why i preferred British motors to the the new Swedes of the time, who’s synchro gearboxes were bloody heavy and ponderous to use, and use them in anger you had to because the Swedes started the trend for small engines blown to buggery needing to be kept in that small peak rev window and utterly useless below it.

I’m not getting into an argument about concentrating on traffic and pedestrians because you and i will never agree which is best, i wasn’t trying to convince anyone with my above post, was merely answering Stevieboy 308’s query, though he’s probably forgotten.

You may not try to convince anyone, but you only ever bang on how today’s trucks and drivers are not up to anything, because of… because of… … of what? They don’t have trucks with crash boxes to drive? Even if we wanted to, we can’t. So you are beter because you drove a knackered, rattling, unheated, breaking down pile of junk 30 years ago. Good for you. You will retire soon. I won’t. I enjoy driving a big, comfortable, warm, truck, without having to change gears, whilst listening to my surround sound stereo, or talking to my loved one one the hands free…

You go and enjoy finding a phonebox.

[mucker85]

These bloody modern drivers just have to turn a key to start their trucks, bring back the starting handle I say.

[the_nodding_donkey]

mucker85:
These bloody modern drivers just have to turn a key to start their trucks, bring back the starting handle I say.

Pah, starting handle? You were lucky. We had to park 't truck on 't hill, facing downhill, with a brick under 't wheel…

[mucker85]

the nodding donkey:

mucker85:
These bloody modern drivers just have to turn a key to start their trucks, bring back the starting handle I say.

Pah, starting handle? You were lucky. We had to park 't truck on 't hill, facing downhill, with a brick under 't wheel…

As a lad I had to light fire in’t boiler

[bluey_circles]

mucker85:

the nodding donkey:

mucker85:
These bloody modern drivers just have to turn a key to start their trucks, bring back the starting handle I say.

Pah, starting handle? You were lucky. We had to park 't truck on 't hill, facing downhill, with a brick under 't wheel…

As a lad I had to light fire in’t boiler

you were lucky to have a fire to light, we just had an old water storage tank, didn’t even have any wheels on it.