Proof or data? Lol, get in a car with a young person - they have no idea what they're doing.

I never mentioned anything about safety. Everyone knows cars are safer today - that couldn't be more obvious and nobody is arguing against it. Driver-aids make people worse drivers is the argument, and it's absolutely true - Which isn't really a problem when everything is headed toward automation, but to say that tech doesn't reduce competence is really silly. I could probably list examples all day long.

Does BSM, PCS, VSC, etc make it safer for a person to drive a car? That’s the question at hand, isn’t it?

Get in a car with an old fart...and see if they are good at driving.

There are bad drivers any decade of human existence since there were cars roaming the streets. The “nannies” have made things much safer on the road...period.

Not sure what examples you can list? Your other sister?

I can only show the facts.

Lol. Maybe one day you'll see the bigger picture.

That's been the entire point by me and a couple others, BSM does not make a driver safer because it relies on the driver to know how to set their mirrors and check their blindspots (because that's all BSM does is let the driver know they should do what they should be trained to do). The fact that bad drivers exist is nothing new, the increase of bad drivers is a result of newer technology enabling them and a lack of proper education and common sense. This is nothing new, it's been a downward spiral for not just driver education, but US education, and other aspects. It's a continued example of our society shirking self-responsibility and pointing the blame else where, reactionary instead of proactive and more fundamentally responsible.

VSC is a double-edged sword and on that one I am more conflicted. It's got it's benefits, but it's extremely finicky and dangerous in icy and very slippery conditions. Unfortunately you can't actually 100% disable it in most vehicles, so that's where I get rubbed the wrong way with it. But it does help the majority of people out. But in the majority of conditions it does it's job well and helps lesser driver's maintain control (but it should not be a replacement for learning how to properly control your vehicle.)

PCS is a good "damage reducing" system for reducing the probability of fatalities, can't argue with that. My only concern is how very... difficult it is to verify the calibration on the system once it's done. You can't hook up a scantool and go "yup your PCS is off, it's gonna engage too late or too early". That's just because of how the system is in the vehicle. I'd still have it on my vehicle though if I could.

VSC & PCS have a greater likelyhood to prevent an accident and a fatality than BSM ever will because they are more active in pushing the human error factor out of the way and taking control. If BSM forced a vehicle to stay in it's lane when something was in their blindspot, it'd be an inherently safer system because of it (though it'd be a more intrusive system and I'd be less likely to support it, but at least it has a 100% off switch).

My guess is that you may have fixed a few BSM modules etc....but you have never actually driven a vehicle with it for any length of time.

You have no clue on how it works and how it can PREVENT an accident. No clue at all.

I don't know about your magickal BSM, but all the ones we have on Toyotas light up to let you know something metallic was detected in the detection zone that could be in your blind spot and to check your blindspot. That's what it's for. Maybe you have the super secret version that makes everyone drive properly, I don't know... but in the real world where people bleed red blood and Apple products are still shit, it's a glorified idiot beacon.

If you're using BSM by just letting the light tell you something's there and not verifying it you're doing it wrong.

LOL...what does Apple have to do with this? People bleed red?

Yeah, ok...you need help dude.

Well you live in your own little world I don't know what colour people bleed in there. As for Apple? I like to get my digs against you when I can.

But seriously, BSM is a warning system meant to notify the driver to check their blindspots, that's it. IF it's tied to other systems as part of a package that's different, we are and have been talking solely BSM on it's own.

George Platzer in '95 wrote a paper for the SAE (http://papers.sae.org/950601/) regarding rearview mirrors, the mechanics, and ways to avoid blindspots. The method is often not taught or acknowledged in driver's education (a failure in education and thus perpetuating bad skills and thus bad drivers) because it can be a bit technical and awkward to get used to (but why that has any bearing on teaching people to do something properly I have no idea). BSM was created because of a failure in education and proper training (by Mazda or Volvo I think? I can't remember who came out with it first), it still requires users to check their mirrors, which fundamentally is the problem; that mirrors and checking them is often done wrong.

You can take dig at me all you want...not sure how it relates...but anyhow....

So, now, we can all agree that people of all ages and of all decades don’t know how to adjust mirrors correctly...and that BSM does NOT encourage people to do wrong because they were ALREADY ignorant!!

Now, if 99% of folks don’t know how to adjust mirrors since the first Ford came out, then that means that BSM is helpful at preventing accidents.

Thanks for confirming what i have been arguing about. Next time, all you have to do is say, “I agree with you Thai.”

How does it prevent accidents? If they're mirrors are adjusted wrong or they don't know how to check them. Then they won't get accurate visual confirmation and they'll plow into that family and kill them. If your mirrors are only showing you the ass-end of your car and you go, "HERPA DERP GUESS BSM IS WRONG CUZ I SEE THE ASS OF MY CAR AND IT'S GOOD! LETS JERK THE WHEEL TO THE LEFT AND PRAISE JESUS!" you're getting in an accident or at least causing the other driver to have to avoid your stupidity. That happens often, even with BSM flashing away.

That's the entire point, BSM relies on the user to check their mirrors and know where the blindspots are on their vehicle. Do YOU know what the detection angles and zones are for you BSM in every vehicle? Do you also know what the exact size and shape of your blindspots are in your vehicle (trick question, it's not in the manual so you won't know, but hey who cares if you get a false positive from 20ft away you should check your mirrors like BSM is meant to help you do!)? Because most people do not, even with BSM. Most people also don't understand how BSM works and how cross-traffic alert works (had a guy saying it was broken and he nearly got in an accident, why? Because he was using it wrong and didn't read the ****ing manual).

You keep forgetting the fundamental problem, people are not aware of their blindspots, their mirrors, and their job in relation to those. Thus BSM does nothing to improve their skills.

HUH???!!! Why would someone think BSM is wrong? If so, then so be it. But that same idiot withOUT BSM would still change lanes due to bad mirrors, right?

And that same idiot with AUTO-driving will still override the system and create an accident!

Again, your argument is horrible. Just horrible. Please stop.

That's been my point the entire time. With or Without BSM the driver is still bad. Why would they think BSM is wrong? Have you met people? How many people text and drive? They KNOW it's wrong and they still do it. They don't utilize BSM properly or knowledgeably, most don't even read the manual.
Do you genuinely not understand that because something is written does not mean everyone follows it? Do you think that because it's a law or regulation that everyone 100% follows it every second of the day because that's how it works? Are you genuinely that naive? Because in all your posts you seem to think that if the BSM light turns on humans are just incapable of having freewill?

As for the Auto-Driving function, human error has been the entire crux of my point. BSM does nothing to reduce the human error because it's a system reliant on the human to be properly trained (which they are often not). BSM does not supplement or provide training, it's a flawed system and proper training is the solution, not an expensive, prone to breaking, gimmick.

Frankly, i am not sure what you are arguing with me about. If BSM can save one idiot (and that idiot could be me if i am distracted...not gonna say that i am perfect driver) and victim(s), then BSM is worth it. Period.

Do you need guns to have safety features built-in? Why? In the perfect world, everyone knows how to use it, how to clean it, how to carry it, how to check for chambered round, etc....do we live in a perfect world? Will it ever happen? NOPE.

Until that perfect world happens, i will gladly take any safety features.

I can't entirely disagree with you there, but I'd rather have a costly, negligibly useful safety system be optional, not forced onto the vehicle because they can. PCS? Sure bake it into the car, ABS/VSC? Sure... just put a 100% Disable switch, LDA or BSM? No, not paying for it. You will take my Limited vehicle and you will remove BSM & LDA from it and remove the cost of it from my vehicle, along with the sunroof... I'm not interested in 100% guaranteed failure. That's the two main issues I have maintained with BSM. It does not help bad drivers (but it does help good drivers slightly, that's not in question), and it's thrown into cars forcing their cost up for a system that has little benefit, so I'm stuck paying for someone else's stupidity.

My son just received his new company car and it's a new XC90. It's not the top of the line model, but is well equipped. I told him it looked it was built by Buick and was old style looking. It has already left him stranded and would not start, it was towed to the nearest dealership, and it was 90 miles away. It was just the battery that went bad, I guess this could happen to any vehicle, so not really a Volvo problem as such. I was not that into the car as Volvo's have never been a car I thought I would ever purchase, just not a Toyota, or Honda product where I feel I get the most value out of my vehicles. My son says he would not buy the SC90, but when it's furnished to you at no cost, free transpiration is hard to turn down.