Ford disguised a man as a car seat to research self-driving • Hacker News Board

Re: Ford disguised a man as a car seat to research self-driving

#141

Post by Chris2048 » Thu, Sep 14, 2017, 1:27 PM UTC

Splines wrote: post #29

josefresco wrote: post #5

"they just needed people to believe wholeheartedly they were using one." Don't they mean "seeing one" instead of "using one"? Or am I missing something? "fill in gaps where we currently communicate via subtle gestures, eye contact and other less obvious mechanisms." This also struck me as odd - do pedestrians and other drivers really make "eye contact" with drivers to gauge their intention? I guess it's possible, but…

> do pedestrians and other drivers really make "eye contact" with drivers to gauge their intention? I certainly do - most commonly when merging into a congested lane from a side street, stopping and making eye contact helps understand if everybody is paying attention (the merger can move forward and the merged is leaving a space open for them). Motorcyclists also have a pretty large vocabulary (I'm not sure how many…

There's a rule of motorcycling that you look at a cars wheels, not the driver: "the car driver is likely to look you straight in the eye, before they pull out right in front of you".

Re: Ford disguised a man as a car seat to research self-driving

#142

Post by kgwgk » Thu, Sep 14, 2017, 1:36 PM UTC

yorwba wrote: post #127

kgwgk wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In EU you have strictly defined priority at stop signs Have you ever seen a 4-way stop in Europe? I think what you try to explain is the rule for unmarked intersections. > put simply, if you are going straight you have priority over someone turning, if you are turning, then the person turning right has priority over someone turning left. Simple as that. That wouldn't work very well when people go straight in differ…

> That wouldn't work very well when people go straight in different directions... That was actually used in my parallel-programming course as the example of a deadlock caused by priority inversion. Of course it almost never happens that there are cars in all four directions at an intersection without traffic lights, so it isn't much of a problem in practice.

The parent's explanation didn't include the "yield to the right" rule, so it was problematic already with two cars.

Re: Ford disguised a man as a car seat to research self-driving

#143

Post by kgwgk » Thu, Sep 14, 2017, 1:44 PM UTC

pluma wrote: post #129

kgwgk wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In EU you have strictly defined priority at stop signs Have you ever seen a 4-way stop in Europe? I think what you try to explain is the rule for unmarked intersections. > put simply, if you are going straight you have priority over someone turning, if you are turning, then the person turning right has priority over someone turning left. Simple as that. That wouldn't work very well when people go straight in differ…

(Disclosure: I learned how to drive in Germany, details may differ in other European countries, apart from the obvious mirroring when driving on the left) The fallback rule for all situations is "yield to the right". If you're at an intersection with no signs or markings, you get to drive if there's no-one to the right of you. This creates a deadlock when all roads are unmarked and there's a car on each of them at th…

In the US everyone stops and then whoever arrived first goes, breaking the deadlock in a well defined fashion (as long as everyone agrees on the order!).

Re: Ford disguised a man as a car seat to research self-driving

#144

Post by dwighttk » Thu, Sep 14, 2017, 2:10 PM UTC

Bjartr wrote: post #90

mikestew wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

do pedestrians and other drivers really make "eye contact" with drivers to gauge their intention? They do, and it's even advised by some. But I'm here to tell you that the eyes lie. I've had people look me directly in the eye and still pull out in front of me. Look at the wheels. The wheels will always tell you what the vehicle is going to do.

> Look at the wheels. The wheels will always tell you what the vehicle is going to do. This is exactly what I do, it's really obvious when the rim are rotating, even at very low speeds. Can't say I look people in the eyes much while driving.

what about when they have spinners?