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Driving through a thunderstorm on an interstate the other day where visibility was about 20 feet it occurred to me that it would have been a lot safer if I had a little picture screen that used a modified version of sonar to show where my car was relative to the cars in front of me. Since some people
had chosen to slow down to 30 mph in the fast lane I could have seen myself approaching them much too quickly and slowed down accordingly.
US Navy banned from using sonar.
http://news.bbc.co....mericas/5143698.stm
[DrBob, Jul 04 2006]
Sonar Vision
Ice_20Sonar
...but this was intended for seeing what is below you, not in front. [DrCurry, Jul 04 2006]
Distronic Plus
http://www.500sec.com/distronic.html
Mercedes cruise control system [jmvw, Jul 05 2006]
Mercedes Cruise Control
http://en.wikipedia...wiki/Distronic_Plus
Mercedes cruise control system described further down [jmvw, Jul 05 2006]
[link]
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With visibility that low 30MPH is probably too fast ... but the idea of sonar for cars is tremendously nifty. Bun. |
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Even an 'unsophisticated' sonar would be helpful, in the same way that reverse sensor beeps when you get too near another car or wall. An onboard computer could calculate your speed and the visibility, and alter 'safe' distances according to what it picks up around it, for example walls or other cars. If visiblity is really good and you're doing 30mph, safe distance could be 30ft, bad visibility at 30mph could be a 100ft safe distance etc. When you approach the safe distance, you get a lovely beep .. or even a nifty 'slow down Michael, my sensors indicate danger ahead' in KITTs voice. |
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Try radar. The tremendous road noise of a rainy highway would probably overwhelm any sonar. |
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Mercedes has a cruise control that will maintain a certain distance to the vehicle ahead. I think it uses radar. They call it Distronic Plus now.. more generic name is adaptive cruise control |
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And sonar doesn't bounce back off raindrops? |
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You can't use sonar. You might damage some passing cetacean. |
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//You might damage some passing cetacean// Porcines may fly |
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I would have loved to be in the room when some minion went in to tell the Chief of the Navy the outcome of the case (linky). |
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Absinthe - I was thinking of something along the lines of the way fish finders work. |
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I believe BMW has a new system on some of their SUV's that warn you when you are approaching an object too quickly while driving with the cruise control on, and will even turn off the cruise control and apply the brakes to stop the car if the warning goes unheeded. I heard it on some automotive news show, but I wasnt paying too much attention. It may just be a prototype or something, or maybe I just dreamed the whole thing. And I'm too lazy to actually look for a link myself (if there is one), but maybe somebody else would like to...? |
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[longshot], safe would have been if you had slowed down so you could stop within your visible range. |
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Surely all that this would allow you to do would be to catch up with the slow moving traffic a little more quickly, while giving the false impression that you were somehow safer because you had a greater visible range than the car in front? |
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And what about the car behind, blindly tooling along at high speed because there doesn't appear to be anyone in fro - oh SHIT!! |
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egbert - Sometimes the visible range is invisible. For example, a police car was in the breakdown lane with its lights on. Normally this would mean there was a car in front of it pulled over for some reason and I could indeed see a dark shape in front of it. This time the car in front of it was perpendicular to the oncomming traffic though, with its front end sticking out into the closest lane. The guy coming up in that lane barely missed it. |
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Im pretty sure this is baked by either BMW or Merceidies. |
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Quite simple really. Make sure that your visibility extends further than your safe stopping distance. Always. |
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And by visibility I don't mean "um, I think I can make out some lights of some kind", I mean total clarity. If you're driving around unable to see what you're about to hit, I can only say that I'm bloody glad that I'm all the way over here and you're all the way over there (wherever there is). |
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