241–250 of 340 posts
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That is clearly not the case.
That clearly is the case, it was my experience growing up that even seasoned New England drivers couldn't take the weather seriously and ended up in a ditch on the side of the road.
Seasoned New England drivers are idiots. Source: Am seasoned New England driver.
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This is so incorrect it hurts.
My point is clear if just consider a little of how snow tires work: The main point is the big bumps in the tread. These big bumps permit spinning drive wheels to dig down in the snow to find some traction, maybe the hard surface below. This digging down has the bumps grab a lot of snow and throw it back and out of the way and let the tires get down, through the snow into some traction. Ordinary tires just spin and th…
That's not how snow tires work. Not at all. Independent of the design. And no, they don't 'stop' the way you describe either.
I’ve taken downvotes from HN optimists for years about self driving cars. The slightest bit of criticism would have comments calling me an idiot 20 different ways. Then a single dead pedestrian changes all the news articles and the opinions change. We are a very, very long way away from self driving taxi cabs. What a total PR scam that was - but it did help valuations.
In the current legal environment, self driving taxi cabs everywhere at all times will never exist. Waymo seems to think they can work in Arizona desert though. How many deaths per year would be acceptable? Like you mention, in the US, it seems that zero deaths per year, similar to commercial aviation, would be required. It is a bit of a shame that a tech that could save a million lives a year globally won't be deploy…
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I’m not an expert in self driving car engineering. I have some experience with ML but not in a significant professional way. What I have is a decade of professional experience building all kinds of software and a skeptical eye. You have a problem that is unconstrained, with infinite variables, where even a simple mistake can have catastrophic outcomes. Society itself may object to self driving cars for a ton of reaso…
But it doesn't have to be perfect, just has better than human drivers. That doesn't seem too difficult.
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“All you need is proper clothing, some seal fat for rubbing on your face” These are not things widely available to many Chicago children.
Vasoline works fine. Affordable and available to even the poorest families. Lets not poke at cultural differences when its not relevant.
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Or most people. If it is actually blizzard conditions, one should have a very serious reason to be on the road. If not, stay at home instead of driving. Snow days are called for schools. Maybe work in general also?
I think this is very regional. I have never had a snow day in my entire life because we get snow several months per year. I think the "snow day" phenomenon happens in cities where snow is rare enough that there is no infrastructure in place to take care of it (having that would be more expensive than just accepting everything stops a couple of days per year) AND not every car has winter tyres. After 60cm snow on one…
Where I live, temperatures between 2C to -5C make the worst driving conditions (you're typically dealing with a mix of freezing rain, snow, ice, and slush).
Even though it's colder, -20C and just snowing isn't as bad to drive in.
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The problem here, is that you are half-right. Its localized conditions. No country, much less worldwide, system can account for local anomolies. Where I learned to drive, most humans could 'see' black ice by predicting where water will pool, the recent weather, and subtle clues that abound, but are not easily expressable. Any out-of-town'er would surely be spun out or driving 10mph, white-knuckled, aghast at the "man…
I've often wondered how much of this is hubris or fear vs. physics. What I mean is - are people in say, icy and snowy climates actually better drivers, able to adjust to the conditions, or are they fooling themselves? Likewise, the person going exceptionally slow and cautiously - are they misjudging the actual risk of inclement weather, relative to an actual scientific judgement? It certainly feels like humans become…
Personally, i'd say there's a pecking order from awesome to awful for the median driver in snow as follows: Buffalo/Vermont natives, NYC/Boston, DC Metro/South, Florida/Texas.
Likewise, if you're from the Northeast, driving in rain in the southwest is surprisingly hazardous.
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>> On the other hand, I'm sure people in India or China will be happy to build and deploy them with much higher failure rates. You might have seen this internet classic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjrEQaG5jPM [India Driving] Driving in India is notoriously chaotic and if self-driving cars are ever deployed there in our lifetime, they will come with a safety guarantee about equal to a car driven by a blind dog wi…
You don't need to go to India: (Paris) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lay8aZlsbB0 (Manhattan) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8WiJgI3N4A
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In the current legal environment, self driving taxi cabs everywhere at all times will never exist. Waymo seems to think they can work in Arizona desert though. How many deaths per year would be acceptable? Like you mention, in the US, it seems that zero deaths per year, similar to commercial aviation, would be required. It is a bit of a shame that a tech that could save a million lives a year globally won't be deploy…
How many years per death would be acceptable is highly culture dependent. Uber should ask the NRA for branding advice, though they might not be patient enough to put in the work to reach such an untouchable brand.
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Those conditions sound like you wouldn't be driving. So, solved. Pull over and stop
You can drive in a torrential downpour. Short of actual flooding or the creation of large puddles, rain isn't all that bad of a driving condition. Be sure not to drive past the limits of visibility and increase follow distances from 2-3 to 5 seconds and you're good. Even motorcycle races are held in the rain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tv4_425K8r4