Comment from Arline Sprau
Arline SprauOpposeIndividual
Summary: A commercial truck driver argues that mandating automatic emergency braking systems is dangerous because the technology frequently triggers "false positives" due to shadows, debris, and construction barriers. The commenter claims these malfunctions create safety hazards for other drivers and disrupt the supply chain, asserting that the technology is not ready for real-world use in heavy vehicles.
Until this system can handle the real world, it shouldn't be mandated on vehicles of any size.
(All these stories are from my Kenworth)
One time direct sunshine hitting my radar made me brake hard as the sun rose.
Another time, an empty bag of chips someone tossed out of their window made me brake so hard, the line of cars behind me streamed into the lane beside me, nearly causing accidents. As the chip bag bounced along in front of me, the KW braked hard 2 more times- although I was under a load at the time, in a forced dispatch company, I pulled into truck parking and demanded they pull the liad off me and route me back to the terminal before my radar killed someone. These radars are as dangerous to commerce as they are to humans.
Another time, I was in Wyoming. They were doing construction on a mountain road, closing all the lanes but the one I was in.
A flatbed truck was behind me, tailgating, as I tend to do the speed limit in construction, which can make people impatient. As we curved around the lane that was blocked off, my KW decided I was going to crash. It hit my brakes hard enough for the flatbedder to nearly hit me. 2 more times my truck did that; by then the other truck had backed off, but I'm sure he thought I was suicidally brake checking him all the way through construction.
Thousands of people have stories exactly like mine.
Shadows set them off. Overhanging signs set them off. Construction barriers set them off. To mandate this primitive, dangerous technology in the largest vehicles in the road makes absolutely no sense. You will kill people and slow down the supply chain. I don't care what I'm hauling, if my truck is unsafe, I'm not hauling it. Everyone with a CDL is of this opinion.