Toyota's firmware: Bad design and its consequences

Re:Toyota's firmware: Bad design and its consequences by warfangle on Tuesday October 29, 2013 @05:17PM (#6637506)

NYC subways have additional safety features - if the track signals indicate stop (due to imminent collision with another train, for example), there are tripcocks. These raise from the tracks, and catch on the bottom of the train, causing it to hard break immediately.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Toyota's firmware: Bad design and its consequences by twistedpair on Tuesday October 29, 2013 @06:50PM (#6638083)

Failsafes don't always fail safely. Take the unmanned Chicago subway train that cruised through the failsafes and crashed into another train, two weeks ago. Another article quotes a CTA official as not knowing how it could have escaped the yard without the brakes tripping.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/04/cta-blue-line-crash...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Toyota's firmware: Bad design and its consequences by wanderr on Wednesday October 30, 2013 @03:44AM (#6640059)

Reminds me of http://www.amazon.com/Systemantics-Systems-Work-Especially-T... "Fail-safe systems fail by failing to fail safe." - John Gall

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Toyota's firmware: Bad design and its consequences by warfangle on Tuesday October 29, 2013 @11:40PM (#6639321)

Yowch! I hadn't heard about that.

[ Parent | on HN ]