[EDIT, guess MechAg beat me to that last part. What I get for forgetting I was posting something until I woke up to turn the heater on and decided to check the time on the laptop rather than get my phone from its "I have to get up and go all the way over there to snooze the alarm" spot.]
Indeed. And watching the video the driver seems to let it go quite a bit longer than most folks who are paying attention, even had they leaned back and relaxed a bit, would have before intervening. I'd imagine for the sake of testing? Even so he's able to stop the vehicle instead of plowing head long into the barrier.
Now imagine he's been driving for hours, and happened to choose just the wrong 3-5 seconds to work a few kinks out of his neck. Or got distracted by something in the wing mirror.
1) The car should begin to slow, pull over and shut down after no more than 2-3 seconds of no-hands.
2) Collision avoidance should...hell, do something. Even if it's the wrong thing, there's a ginormous impact attenuator a few seconds ahead at current speed and the car is just happily blasting along straight at it. I'm pretty sure those aren't made from surplus SR-71 parts.
3) VERY LOUD audible warnings for any danger scenario, that can't be muted without shutting off all automation features completely. I'm talking painfully loud; it's less painful than smashing the car into stuff, after all.
Hawkmoon; my understanding is that the "unrepaired" damage was an impact attenuator that hadn't been replaced after being hit more than a week before. It would still have been a big hollow plastic object that visual and sonar should spot easily. There's no repairing those; the whole point is that they rupture and crush to absorb the energy of an impact. The replacement process is straightforward, and I can't see any legitimate excuse for it not happening within 24 hours of the responsible (ha!) agency becoming aware of the damage: bring out the replacement from the storage yard, and anchor it in whatever way is used there, if any, then roll out a tanker to fill it with water. Plenty aren't anchored; 4+ tons of water in a plastic tank doesn't usually need to be tied down to stay put. If they don't have the right size/shape/whatever on hand, then construct a temporary one from water barrels.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_attenuator#Water-filled_attenuatorsThe one in question appears to be one or more larger, special-shaped containers similar to the one in the picture at Wikipedia rather than a series of barrels, but that should make it even easier to replace as it's fewer parts, all of which are easily carried on a normal flatbed truck and can be deployed by 2-3 men when empty. The one in the video is black, with no obvious reflectors, which makes me want to replace it with the people who approved that, duct taped into immobility, but it's still no excuse for an "advanced collision avoidance system" to think it's a good place to drive through at highway speeds.
