Driverless Cars

[Gale Hawkins]

It's easy to be concerned about new technology and new things can have bugs. But if you want to make an argument against something, at least be accurate with your points.

The Tesla is NOT a self driving car. It is a semi-autonomous car. Tesla makes it clear that you must keep your hands on the wheel and stay alert. If you don't, the car will warn you and will eventually pull over and stop if you don't pay attention and keep driving it yourself.

The "fire truck" accident was apparently not a result of not seeing lane markers. It was more a glitch in the car deciding what was a threat and what was not after a car in front of it moved to another lane. The system has to evaluate what is just a roadside stationary thing and a moving car in front of it. This is why you have to be aware and monitor it.

It was a disturbing incident and a situation that has to be refined out, but Teslas are not self driving cars and lane markers may have not been an issue at all.

Good points. I expect we are years away from seeing the first self driving cars on the roads. One of my doctors was excited last week about her 2015 Subaru Forester applying the brakes when a car suddenly slowed to make a right turn in a 35 MPH speed zone.

 

[Reg]

It is a PROGRESSION from the driver assist "components" that we now have in Teslas, Mercedes, BMWs, etc., that are already coming down market to Tonka, Nissan, GM, Ford - - lane marker following, cruise control back off if too close, emergency braking, etc.

From those "components" to incorporation into "systems" that include GPS, real time map updates, construction, accident, congestion, even potholes of the day along the planned route.
I don't think this is an unmanageable amount of data for journeys along a planned route and routes can be re-planned en route.

I think all the enabling technologies are already THERE, public acceptance is lagging, regulation is lagging even more.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

Right on Reg. Thanks

 

[3930dave]

It's easy to be concerned about new technology and new things can have bugs. But if you want to make an argument against something, at least be accurate with your points.

The Tesla is NOT a self driving car. It is a semi-autonomous car. Tesla makes it clear that you must keep your hands on the wheel and stay alert. If you don't, the car will warn you and will eventually pull over and stop if you don't pay attention and keep driving it yourself.

The "fire truck" accident was apparently not a result of not seeing lane markers. It was more a glitch in the car deciding what was a threat and what was not after a car in front of it moved to another lane. The system has to evaluate what is just a roadside stationary thing and a moving car in front of it. This is why you have to be aware and monitor it.

It was a disturbing incident and a situation that has to be refined out, but Teslas are not self driving cars and lane markers may have not been an issue at all.

Not piling on Aaron..... but yeah, that's part of my point/concern..... Be an Informed Consumer...... usually a good practice, but esp. when complexity scales to where these products are going.

Human nature..... do most people read some (any?) of a conventional vehicle's Owner's Manual ? Couple that tendency with Elon's force of nature (over)marketing...... yeah, people are going to incorrectly assume that vehicles are All Seeing/Knowing/Driving.....

..... When, as you correctly point out Raspy, they shouldn't....

That fire-truck scenario has been duplicated on a closed-course track..... Same result. I think I've posted that test in here.... British video.... Top Gear ? or maybe just a Brit Eng firm, or govt dept.

Rgds, D.

 

[3930dave]

I think all the enabling technologies are already THERE, public acceptance is lagging, regulation is lagging even more.

As challenging as the tech can be to get right, even just most of the time, some of those top-level macro issues are tougher....

Liability is a big one. If I'm ever going to "own" a self-driving car (fully autonomous), Why would I need personal insurance ?

My personal views/preferences aside, THAT ^ issue is the acid test for me...... re....... "Are We Really There Yet ?".

Trust the Tech, Trust the Tech, Trust the Tech........ question otherwise, and get brushed aside as a Luddite :laughing:

Where does the accountability lie, When Things Go Wrong ?

Automation, Transport....... some things can be learned from the aviation world......

Plowhog recently posted an interesting ILS accident.....

https://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/front-porch/404639-commercial-airline-accidents-8.html#post5304436

..... ^ described in Post #72.

Guess who got blamed, when the autonomous tech put them (literally) into the weeds.....

It will be some time before driverless cars have all the validation hours locked down, that those ILS systems do.

Rgds, D.

 

[Reg]

@3930dave,
Holding forth a pathological case as a "concern" is OK, but it isn't representative.
It is being addressed (as are very large bobbing animals that were NOT anticipated in early trials, but showed up anyway in Australia (of all place - who'd a thunk it ?)).

The GOOD news is that once solved the fire truck problem will have been solved for THAT case and many cases that have same/similar attributes - and of course it will be solved for every vehicle on every journey once the "patch" is installed.

For human drivers the story is worse, MUCH worse.
Every student driver has to anticipate anything/everything that might happen - and we have well over a hundred years of data to support the statement that they don't (can't ?).
SO MANY near misses form the experience base of those of us who have (so far) got away with it.
Some of my accidents could have turned out very much worse, but for another factor or two - I'll never know, but it is easy to imagine the same accident (with just one more factor) resulting in a fatality.

 

[sd455dan]

Thought some readers of this thread may find this interesting .

Autonomous Driving Future - YouTube

Zak and Jesse are big Tesla supporters - for sure,

Zak has done an interesting series on

(Our Autonomous driving Future)

It is a series of ten Videos ( 5-13 minutes each) - some interesting statistics, info and perspectives in them.

Some of the ideas- future projections/ conclusions make sense-

some not so much for Rural dwellers as always YMMV

 

[Reg]

OK, so a handful of "golly gee technology is a killer" cases - gottit.
Against that - I haven't yet seen the results of last night's human drivers' death toll while intoxicated, distracted, unable to handle prevailing conditions (visibility, ice, etc.)
I'd take bets that it is many times more than the semi autonomous vehicle incidents though.
How many thousands (millions ?) do we have to have before we acknowledge that the existing system of human (not)controlled vehicles is so much worse ?

 

[3930dave]

Thought some readers of this thread may find this interesting .

Autonomous Driving Future - YouTube

Zak and Jesse are big Tesla supporters - for sure,

Zak has done an interesting series on

(Our Autonomous driving Future)

It is a series of ten Videos ( 5-13 minutes each) - some interesting statistics, info and perspectives in them.

Some of the ideas- future projections/ conclusions make sense-

some not so much for Rural dwellers as always YMMV

Thanks for posting that, I will go through them.

Rgds, D.

 

[3930dave]

How many thousands (millions ?) do we have to have before we acknowledge that the existing system of human (not)controlled vehicles is so much worse ?

I'm not big on treating a symptom, while ignoring root cause.

No question, many parts of North America need better drivers..... starts with lack of training and meaningful standards and enforcement. As has been stated on here, you don't need much more than a pulse, to get a driver's license in some jurisdictions. Why was that allowed ?

If we are going to remove dangerous items from individual control, why stop at cars ?

It will be interesting to see how this plays out...... I'm betting that insurance will be a key factor.

Rgds, D.