iPhone app for measuring car traction?

[skidpad]

I am trying to find out if anyone heard anything about this app:

http://traction.glideplan.com

Supposedly it can display in real time when your car is about to slide, based on braking, lateral Gs, road bank angle, steepness of grade, etc. That would be cool if it's real. Nice screen shots. They are in Beta now.

 

[kas23]

We're talking about this app in the App Store thread. But, jeez, if you need to have your iPhone tell you you're slipping or losing traction, you probably shouldn't be driving. I'll be very surprised if this makes it through the approval process. It's just screaming for litigation. And what if you get a call right before you actually skid and the app can't tell you because it closes? Or, what if this gives some dude a sorry-ass excuse to drive faster than the conditions allow and he gets into an accident?

 

[skidpad]

I think the idea is that it tells you how close you are getting so you don't push it. I know when it rains here in California, all hell breaks loose because no one knows how to drive in the rain. Maybe think of it like a Tachometer? Because you know your redline is at 6500 RPM, you back off before you get there. Skidometer???

 

[rayward]

Much safer to have people driving in the rain, with their eyes glued to their iPhone, instead of having them watching the road ahead and completely oblivious to their potential to skid.

 

[AlecMyrddyn]

I think the idea is that it tells you how close you are getting so you don't push it. I know when it rains here in California, all hell breaks loose because no one knows how to drive in the rain. Maybe think of it like a Tachometer? Because you know your redline is at 6500 RPM, you back off before you get there. Skidometer???

It was my understanding that in California, and other places where you have long periods of time between rain plus lots of traffic, there is a tremendous buildup of oil and gas on the road surface. When it first starts raining, that oil and gas is lifted up and you have an instant oil slick on the road surface. I understand it's like driving on ice, and not just rain. Granted, folks in places like that should also know this, and know that when it first starts raining to drive carefully.

Maybe it's a bunch of imports. Like the folks we have up here where it snows who drive like they are on dry roads...

 

[jampat]

The software can possibly tell you how many g's you are doing, but can't possibly tell you when you are about to slide. To sense an impending slide, you would need to know how many g's the car could pull before sliding, this could be calibrated once in a parking lot, but it would only be good for those tires on that asphalt at that temperature.

Cars with stability control use a yaw sensor to determine that the car is spinning, the ipod could do that too, but hopefully by that point you realize what is going on.

It could be fun to play with, but will never be even remotely useful in detecting a slide, you need some external point of reference to decide how the car is behaving.

 

[vinay427]

Much safer to have people driving in the rain, with their eyes glued to their iPhone, instead of having them watching the road ahead and completely oblivious to their potential to skid.

Please tell me you're being sarcastic!

 

[branjosef]

We're talking about this app in the App Store thread. But, jeez, if you need to have your iPhone tell you you're slipping or losing traction, you probably shouldn't be driving. I'll be very surprised if this makes it through the approval process. It's just screaming for litigation. And what if you get a call right before you actually skid and the app can't tell you because it closes? Or, what if this gives some dude a sorry-ass excuse to drive faster than the conditions allow and he gets into an accident?

+1 I dont know if I really need my iphone to check my tire tread. I would think that the iphone and tires just dont belong together