Interesting, I did not know about the Driver Drowsiness and Attention Warning (DDAW) thing. Some googling yields this link (PDF warning):

https://circabc.europa.eu/sd/a/7f9912b5-e180-43ab-b9da-82ddf...

DDAW ‘means a system that assesses the driver’s alertness through vehicle systems analysis and warns the driver if needed’

So the primary purpose of the system is to alert the driver when they are drowsy.

Data not accessible, or available to 3rd party. Only held long enough for assessing drowsiness and during activation/deactivation cycle

They are mandating that data is only held for as long as it takes to activate the alarm (?). But I can see such data being a very very juicy target for insurers and police: wouldn't it be quite useful to pin the cause of an expensive accident on driver drowsiness? It's not likely we will have such protections in the US.

I really don't like this. Why is it useful if your car beeps at you when you doze off? You're either going to recognize that you're falling asleep, and pull off the road to rest, or recognize that you're falling asleep and decide to power through. If you're the type to pull over, you're not really going to be helped by a machine telling you you're tired; if not, you're probably going to drive anyway, because you have to be somewhere.

I guess under the best possible case, your car makes it annoying for you to drive drowsy, which might deter that behavior a bit. But in the worst case, every car accident will be financially catastrophic for all parties, because the insurance company will deny any claim -- arguing that you were impaired. You'll have little recourse, because you were probably "very alert" instead of "extremely alert" according to this system.

Ugh.

> You're either going to recognize that you're falling asleep, and pull off the road to rest, or recognize that you're falling asleep and decide to power through

You can totally start falling asleep without noticing, because the drowsiness messes with your critical thinking. The beeping will startle you and make you snap out of it for a bit.

" It's not likely we will have such protections in the US."

It is generally safe in the US to assume consumer protections don't exist until an incident forces an industry change, or a regulatory event materializes.

The US generally does not care about consumers at all, except in terms of keeping or upping the rate of consumption.

I like how this was down-voted, even when the evidence is staggeringly in its favor. We consistently wait for hazard to materialize before we implement post-event safeguards, instead of putting up health parameters and expect commercial entities to meet them consistently.

We laugh at the regulatory frameworks of places like Europe and Japan, yet they consistently get fewer food recalls, or stories about pink-goo as a food source, let alone the disparity in what they will allow in their food supply.

We nearly had a civil uprising about mandating seat belts. Elsewhere? Some griping and little else. Etc.

It was probably downvoted because it isn't true.

In particular, California pushes a lot of proactive vehicle safety measures. There are many states which wouldn't require these measures, but California is a big enough market that many manufactures simply implement them nationally.

"stories about pink-goo as a food source"

This is a non-story. The EU didn't ban pink goo (aka LFTB), they simply require that citric acid is used for sterilization rather than ammonia gas.

Furthermore - there's nothing at all wrong with eating all parts of an animal, as long as it's safe. What country do you know of that doesn't eat tripe?

It is fairly true (yeah, it's more complicated than a simple flat comparison, but in general, yes the EU and elsewhere does a better job and takes a more proactive approach). Also, nice throwaway account.

California is not the US (and frankly much of the US balks at California attempts to push things from gas mileage standards to any environmental quality standard to privacy, etc), and since the tail end of the Reagan years the US has largely given up its affirmative regulatory concerns to the EU. We're great at providing space for for-profit middlemen, but categorically mediocre or worse on preventative concerns.

* https://www.safeopedia.com/2/4270/ehs/comparing-eu-health-sa... * https://www.theregreview.org/2013/01/01/01-oxholm-ppr-vogel/ * https://info.orrsafety.com/safety-hub/usa-vs-europe-biggest-... * https://www.fooddocs.com/post/food-safety-standards * https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/fund-reports/2...

But you're cherry picking regulatory areas. The US is far more conservative and cautious around drugs, for example.

The irony of you saying I'm cherry picking, then doing it yourself looking for an out isn't lost on me. Given you picked the one area where the US started it's agency as an actual consumer-safety oriented one (a rarity), and a centralized one, is a good topic to look at:

"The FDA historically developed as a consumer protection agency, whereas the regulations from the European Commission arose out of a need to harmonize inter-state commercial interests while preserving national “autonomy.” Thus, whereas the FDA has the advantages of centralization and common rules, the European Union regulates medical drug and device approvals through a network of centralized and decentralized agencies throughout its member states." - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2452302X1...

Congrats, you cherry picked the outlier. And I'd argue based on the fact that we actually allow endless Pharma advertising and doctor lobbying, and the EU generally forbids it, that we still come up short comparatively.

An example of something you ignored in a categorical statement isn't cherry-picking. It's a counter-example disproving your claim.

And it seems you agree, so we're done.

" so we're done."

Thank $DEITY_OF_CHOICE

> I really don't like this. Why is it useful if your car beeps at you when you doze off? You're either going to recognize that you're falling asleep, and pull off the road to rest, or recognize that you're falling asleep and decide to power through.

I fell asleep once while driving without recognizing that I was falling asleep. I only know I fell asleep while driving because that is the only plausible explanation for waking up while driving.

>In the EU, drowsiness/distraction detection becomes mandatory this year.

Fascinating, thanks. I was unaware. Do you know if there is any sort of standard that they follow? Or do manufacturers decide for themselves on what counts as drowsy/distracted behavior?

I am unaware of the specifics, but the law says " Since DDAW systems assess the physical state of the driver through indirect means, it is not possible to fully test those systems through a set of defined tests or with a programmable machine, which reproduces human behaviour.

..

The vehicle manufacturer carries out validation tests with human participants, either in a simulated environment or in a test vehicle, and present to the approval authorities"

So it sounds like they left it vague enough for manufactures to do their own thing.