Safety Research & Strategies

That's a good question.

The first thing that came to mind for me was the bad, namely Toyota's unintended acceleration debacle some years back.[0] If anything this illustrated (at the time) a woeful lack of any proper software engineering practices at Toyota that was to some degree indicative of a larger problem across their entire industry. No doubt this was due in large part to Japan's corporate culture and their admirable-yet-deleterious work ethic.

As far as the good, the first place I thought to look was Hideo Kojima's games, namely their engine technology. The history of the Fox Engine[1] and in particular the Decima[2] engine appears very interesting. Kojima games are almost always bleeding-edge with respect to rendering technology.

There's of course Nintendo. I had a friend who worked in software QA there, and there wasn't much good to say about it. That said, it was some years ago and one person's experience in one location.

Japan used to be a leader in robotics, though I'm not sure how true that is anymore what with Boston Dynamics in the spotlight in recent years.

To answer your question however, my guess would be no, probably not—Japan is likely playing catch up right now in terms of software practices. The Japanese development teams and researchers that do output quality, I'd imagine they just use common sense good practices recognized internationally. Namely: hire high-caliber talent, pay them well and don't overwork them. Quality usually follows regardless…

> It's not just money. It's paperwork, bureaucracy, and ultimately not effective. Practically, the only way to ensure safety is to take down the internet.

https://logfall.wordpress.com/all-or-nothing-fallacy/

We can and should be making incremental improvements to technology. Continuing to use methods that are known to be faulty is gross negligence in the legal sense: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_negligence

We do not see enough lawsuits around software negligence today because companies are under no obligation to release source code - there is no way to tell how or why or even whether software is defective. This was a major issue in the investigation of the Toyota unintended acceleration scandal. The investigation uncovered major, obvious code quality problems, ultimately concluded the fault was caused by software (something Toyota denied, and without the investigation, consumers never would have learned), and I hope becomes a precedent: http://www.safetyresearch.net/blog/articles/toyota-unintended-acceleration-and-big-bowl-%E2%80%9Cspaghetti%E2%80%9D-code

IMO if poor coding practice is gross negligence, it follows that failing to reveal the source code constitutes intent: poorly developed closed-source software is criminal negligence.

Reading through the crash test procedure, it is astounding how little attention is paid to pedestrians.

1. Front crash test. Procedure: Crash car into stationary barrier at 35 mph. Is also applicable to face-to-face crash with car of same size, going at same speed.

2. Side crash test. Procedure: Slam concrete block into side of stationary car at 38.5 mph.

3. Side pole test. Procedure: Drag car sideways towards a pole.

4. Rollover resistance. Procedure: Compare the cars footprint to the height of the center of gravity.

The biggest thing to notice is that not one of these metrics involves pedestrians. Metrics 1-3 can be easily improved by making a bigger car, elevating the passengers and providing more crumple room. Metric 4 is unaffected, as the track width is increased to compensate.

If a low sedan hits a pedestrian, the pedestrian rolls over the car, having a lower impulse given over a longer period of time. If a high SUV hits a pedestrian, the pedestrian is knocked back, having a higher impulse given over a shorter period of time. Safety ratings need to account for the danger cars pose to others.

Source: https://www.nhtsa.gov/ratings

Source (SSF): https://www.safetyresearch.net/rollover-stability

Whenever I see articles like this, I like to remind people that a great production system doesn't make a company more honest or accountable.

Unintended acceleration flaw in Toyota models around 2005 to 2011, due to firmware bugs: http://www.safetyresearch.net/blog/articles/toyota-unintended-acceleration-and-big-bowl-%E2%80%9Cspaghetti%E2%80%9D-code

Great for USA customers. They were made whole.

I personally was driving a 2011 Toyota minivan in Thailand in 2013 when I suffered this firmware bug. Toyota refused to consider it was anything other than driver fault. I was only going 5kph when it happened so no damage, but damn scary as hell. No recall in that country, and unless dealers did a covert firmware upgrade during maintenance, the flaw still exists in similar model years.

Have you seen the report on the Toyota source code?

http://www.safetyresearch.net/Library/BarrSlides_FINAL_SCRUBBED.pdf

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9449559

"In a nutshell, the team led by Barr Group found: “a systematic software malfunction in the Main CPU that opens the throttle without operator action and continues to properly control fuel injection and ignition” that is not reliably detected by any fail-safe."

And the black box could fail to record any braking input in such cases.

That's not good! People died! And you would have a hard time convincing a jury that the driver was not at fault, if not for the thorough independent code review.

And that's the safety critical stuff, now imagine all the code for the infotainment systems.

I agree; it's like all the rollaway accidents that happen now because of electronic shifters: https://www.safetyresearch.net/the-persistence-of-rollaway/

Design matters, and bad designs can literally be deadly. Why auto mfgs feel the need to "innovate" with shifter designs is beyond me. The worst part is how every mfg seems to be implementing a different design of bad electronic shifters, from wheels and touchscreens to one-click-at-a-time joysticks to single-function pushbuttons for some gears with others on a scroll wheel. They've taken something and made it worse with no benefit to the user. At least with those auto-flushing toilets, the intention was good, even if the implementation is still somehow so awful decades later.