Are Today's Cars Too Smart for Their Own Good?

(March 4) -- Today's cars are technical wonders largely controlled by complex computer systems. But as Toyota struggles to identify the cause of the sudden acceleration problems that are believed to have contributed to the deaths of dozens of people, some are wondering whether all that technology is really such a good thing.

This week, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood addressed a Senate Commerce Committee hearing trying to determine how the government can do a better job identifying safety risks in cars. "We're looking at the possibility of recommending the brake override system in all newly manufactured automobiles," LaHood said.

Already in place in many vehicles, the "smart pedal" system is essentially a programming alteration in which a car's computer instructs the vehicle to give preference to the brake pedal in the event of unwanted acceleration or the simultaneous depressing of the accelerator and brake pedals.

"NHTSA should issue mandatory standard smart pedals in all systems, consumer advocate Ralph Nader said, referring to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. "But that doesn't deal with the fundamental computer problem. It's more like an effective Band-Aid," he told InjuryBoard, a public safety group.

Toyota stands to lose billions in revenue because of the recall of 6 million vehicles and the wave of bad press that has followed. But the company initially argued that the problem is attributable to low-tech culprits such as pesky floor mats and a sticky accelerators.

Whether Toyota's woes can be blamed on incredibly complex technical operations that govern the way most modern cars work, or on more standard mechanical operations, is at the heart of the debate on whether every technological advancement makes driving safer.

Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple and a Toyota Prius owner, isn't buying the company's explanation.

Wozniak said that as he tries to increase his speed using his car's computer-regulated cruise-control system, it can suddenly spike to 97 mph. "This new model [of Prius] has an accelerator that goes wild, but only under certain conditions of cruise control," Wozniak said in a recent forum in San Francisco, according to CNET.

"This is software," he said. "It's not a bad accelerator pedal. It's very scary, but luckily for me, I can hit the brakes."

Toyota isn't the only automaker with technology problems. On Tuesday, GM announced the recall of 1.3 million cars because of problems with power steering, another feature controlled by onboard computers.

In February, Ford detailed plans to recall nearly 18,000 cars because a software problem gave drivers the impression that their brakes had failed.

Introduced in the mid-1970s, car computers initially handled a limited set of tasks, but as technology progressed, more and more microprocessors were added to vehicles. In today's cars, millions of lines of computer code account for everything from keyless entry systems to voice-recognition software to brake override systems.

At the Senate hearing, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-WVa., scolded LaHood's agency for not being up to speed with the technological changes in the auto industry. "I think NHTSA investigators would rather focus on floor mats than microchips because they understand floor mats," Rockefeller said.

But the problem facing NHTSA as well as auto manufacturers themselves is that the computer operating systems in cars have become so complex that anticipating problems has become daunting, said Bob Charette, a risk management expert.

"If you have very sophisticated cars and very sophisticated software and if there is overlap of the interfaces ... you can have spurious signals going across these networks in very strange, bizarre circumstances where people really don't understand it until it occurs. And it may be incredibly difficult to replicate," Charette told IEEE Spectrum's Inside Technology.