> Canadian Driver story and I think it's BS Craig - you may be right, the guy may be a shill for Audi (or Toyota) - but he made a surprising amount of sense to me (and I'm not uncritical of Psychology). Assuming he's on the level with the research (if not, he can prove anything ;-), he has one very compelling argument. To me, the biggest argument for the validity of the 1980's Audi analysis is the disappearance of the problem when Audi invented the brake pedal / transmission interlock switch. That is the sort of solution that really appeals to me. Make people step on the correct pedal before they can engage a gear to drive away and suddenly all the scary Audi stories stop... All the run-away Audi accelerators magically stop running away with people - because the people are forced to do it correctly. Humans make mistakes. They are also very resistant to the idea that they can make mistakes. A quick look at the history of table saws - which are mostly free of software - will demonstrate both those principles pretty well. There are lots of missing digits and lots of missing blade guards (removed by the operators). If you want to make a machine safe - the hardest part is idiot-proofing it. Software errors are much, much easier to get right. I say that after many years of work with machinery, small computers and designing what we used to call 'the man-machine interface' - to draw on for all the examples you could ask for. So Dr Schmidt may well be extrapolating incorrectly into 2010 - I've no proof either way. If I had to bet, I'd probably put my money on him rather than on the quality of analysis of our modern hyped-up media... I also don't believe in the infallibility of California State Police officers - hell, even aircraft captains get it wrong from time to time and the selection & training processes they face are somewhat more careful. Best Regards Paul Hayward, Auckland, New Zealand *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Tue Apr 13 2010 - 01:17:35 PDT
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