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Comment by uncletammy | Hacker News Reader

> I think reputable car companies take this stuff very seriously, but your concern is also well placed.

I trusted Volkswagen because of their reputation. Then the news broke about them systematically lying and breaking the law with respect to engine emissions. Shortly after this came to light, other "reputable car companies" turned out to have been not trustworthy at all.

Yes there are good standards in place and some companies claim to adhere to them but no company should be trusted on their word or reputation alone. The better question is what kind of regulatory oversight is in place to make sure those claiming to adhere to certain standards are actually doing so? Also, how much power do the regulatory organizations have in addressing violators?

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Faking those things is a totally different state of affairs to safe operation. I've been out of automotive for 20 years but never met anyone who would compromise normal operational safety. Let's face it most people who work on cars love to drive cars. They would be putting their own and families lives at risk.

> I've been out of automotive for 20 years but never met anyone who would compromise normal operational safety.

There is nothing to gain with not taking safety seriously, but fortunes to loose. Many of the software components of traditional automakers are built by suppliers. If a serious safety issue would arise and cause fatalities, the suppliers and the OEMs would not only have to pay enormous amounts in damages, they'd also need to issue recalls that might even pose an existential threat to the company.

I've also never seen intentional compromises, but I've seen unintentional compromises made through ignorance or lack of foresight plenty of times. The bigger automakers seem to be better at this by virtue of developed processes, but what I've seen from smaller companies is terrifying.

So you are oblivious to the history of Takata? Or the problem with the Ford Pinto, or the ignition key of GM, or the recursive function calls in Toyota code... just to name the most important that I can cite out of the top of my head.

Functional safety standards are performance based standards, which means they are shades of grey rather than prescriptive "follow these design clauses".

The designers get together and in a formal process try and come up with every possible adverse outcome and the probability it is likely to occur.

They then rank and use this info to assign performance requirements to various safety aspects and functions.

But a key part of the overarching parent IEC61508 standard is that there is a safety lifecycle - the designers make their best guess but the manufacturer has to at regular intervals compare actual gathered data against the predicted design data used and adjust accordingly, iterating to a better place.

Just like you might win the lottery first time you buy a ticket, under a performance based standard you might experience an adverse outcome in the first day of use, doesn't mean the design was necessarily deficient.

Infinite safety takes infinite cost, which would mean no cars, and what would the cost of that be to society.

Like I said,it's all shades of grey.

My comment was in reply to "I've been out of automotive for 20 years but never met anyone who would compromise normal operational safety"

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