Driverless cars are stuck in a jam • Hacker News Board

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#251

Post by mikestew » Tue, Oct 29, 2019, 2:15 PM UTC

de_watcher wrote: post #206

bogle wrote: post #133

If we expect driverless cars to be further delayed and we continue building our cities to encourage micromobility (bikes, electric scooters, segregated lanes, car free streets, etc.) then at which point does the value of the driverless car become moot because we no longer drive? Does this sound unlikely? Consider European cities like Copenhagen and Amsterdam which have encouraged cycling over the last two decades and…

There are places where it's cold, where it rains and snows. So we can't bike everywhere. The good thing about the driverless cars is that they solve the parking problems in the cities. We can even add lanes or pavements by removing all parking spaces in the city centers.

I keep forgetting that since the dawn of time, humans have been so sensitive to environmental conditions that it is a wonder we survived as a species. I get what you're saying, but in the end it boils down to "it must be 72F and dry anywhere I go". A little rain isn't going to kill you, leave the car at home today. Don't want to ride in the rain? Then don't ride in the rain, I certainly won't judge. But it is not some failing of the design of human beings that makes us incapable of doing so.

they solve the parking problems in the cities

By turning the general traffic lanes into de facto moving parking spaces?

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#252

Post by bluGill » Tue, Oct 29, 2019, 2:16 PM UTC

joking wrote: post #182

I don't get why we can't create a "full self driving suitable zone", with standarized road paint, signs, beacons, traffic lights which broadcast their state on a suitable standar, and maybe a car to car communication mesh. Start small with something like the mortantown prt, even in segregated lanes, and grow from there. I can't see a way to have full self driving capabilities, without helping the vehicles with some c…

The problem is paint fades, beacon lights burn out (or the power fails). You can detect and fix those problems, but there is still the time between the issue and when it is fixed that the system needs to work. I've driven in cities after heavy snowfall took out all the power and you couldn't see any lane markings - we slowed down and used extra space (4 lane road, but everybody was driving between lanes making it effectively a 2 lane road), but those who needed to get around could - we even got through intersections despite the stoplight being out.

That is the self driving car needs to handle cases where the infrastructure around it is dead before it can react to infrastructure helping it out. This is needed in any case to ensure "terrorist" situations are not too harmful.

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#253

Post by ghaff » Tue, Oct 29, 2019, 2:17 PM UTC

Recurecur wrote: post #232

vasilipupkin wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why?. Alcohol is a consumer product sold everywhere and is one of the main killers.

Tobacco is an even better example, in that even when used in the "recommended" way it's often fatal.

And there was a very large settlement related to tobacco.

Legal "drugs" and unhealthy foods are something of a special case. They've been around for a very long time and we've decided as a society we're mostly accepting of them and have greater or lesser restrictions on their purchase and use.

But we're pretty unaccepting of consumer products that are assumed to be safe and then blow up or malfunction in some manner that kills a user minding their own business and not doing anything wrong.

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#254

Post by cloudwalking » Tue, Oct 29, 2019, 2:18 PM UTC

kiba wrote: post #239

DickingAround wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is kind of silly. It's nice to imagine a world where people don't need cars. But most/all european cities, many of which we laid out before cars, still have cars. We all have cars because cars are incredibly useful; Got 4 young kids and you need to get groceries for the week? You're not going to bicycle them to the store and all that food home again in the mountains. Live in the city and want to go hiking 20 mil…

We all have cars because cars are incredibly useful; Got 4 young kids and you need to get groceries for the week? This only work that way because that's how your life is structured, not that it is a law of nature. If you live near a grocery store, you wouldn't have to buy enough grocery to last you a week. You can just buy what you need.

And then go back to the grocery store every day. What a waste of time. You can also wash your laundry but hand. The reality is we have these appliances (including cars) because they increase our personal efficiency quite a bit.

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#255

Post by Steltek » Tue, Oct 29, 2019, 2:18 PM UTC

kiba wrote: post #239

DickingAround wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is kind of silly. It's nice to imagine a world where people don't need cars. But most/all european cities, many of which we laid out before cars, still have cars. We all have cars because cars are incredibly useful; Got 4 young kids and you need to get groceries for the week? You're not going to bicycle them to the store and all that food home again in the mountains. Live in the city and want to go hiking 20 mil…

We all have cars because cars are incredibly useful; Got 4 young kids and you need to get groceries for the week? This only work that way because that's how your life is structured, not that it is a law of nature. If you live near a grocery store, you wouldn't have to buy enough grocery to last you a week. You can just buy what you need.

If you've got 4 kids all under 4yo, you're kind of screwed no matter what vehicle you drive. For biking, you'd probably be looking at a Bakfiets with electric assist plus a trailer.

Presuming we've sufficiently eliminated car traffic and the roads are safe for kids, it's also likely that at least one of those kids can bike themselves to the store with you.

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#256

Post by cloudwalking » Tue, Oct 29, 2019, 2:19 PM UTC

bpyne wrote: post #227

DickingAround wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is kind of silly. It's nice to imagine a world where people don't need cars. But most/all european cities, many of which we laid out before cars, still have cars. We all have cars because cars are incredibly useful; Got 4 young kids and you need to get groceries for the week? You're not going to bicycle them to the store and all that food home again in the mountains. Live in the city and want to go hiking 20 mil…

"Live in the city and want to go hiking 20 miles away?" Yes, you want to use a car in this case. But, in the life I imagine, I would rent a car. I dislike driving intensely, but I can see use-cases in which cars are necessary. However, Americans have been largely forced into car ownership, despite the expense and hassle of owning one. A reduction in car ownership coupled with more pedestrian-friendly community design…

If you have to rent a car to go hiking, you aren't going to hike very often.

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#257

Post by bluGill » Tue, Oct 29, 2019, 2:20 PM UTC

davidgould wrote: post #198

sliken wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heh, ok, pick any luxury car priced similarly to the Tesla.

It's odd that so many of the comments on the self driving threads make this assumption that drivers of expensive cars are safer than drivers of inexpensive cars. It is just part of the classist bias that attaches virtue to wealth? Or is there some data that suggests that a Mercedes driver is a better driver than a Kia driver?

BMW drivers are stereotypical bad...

I don't know of data, but the high cost of a Mercedes over a Kia means that the average driver is likely to be older and young drivers are a known risk factor in accidents.

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#258

Post by bluGill » Tue, Oct 29, 2019, 2:23 PM UTC

reportgunner wrote: post #139

Self driving cars only make sense to me as a replacement for taxi services. That is, you don't own and don't maintain the car and you don't care where the car is. You call it when you need it and it drives away when you don't. I can't see this realized until we avoid the uphill battle of not running over pedestrians and deciding which one to spare in case you cannot avoid running one over. One way to avoid this battl…

Self driving cars mean I can daydream instead of staring at the road. I daydream anyway: I know it isn't safe but I can't help it.

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#259

Post by bane » Tue, Oct 29, 2019, 2:24 PM UTC

evo_9 wrote: post #248

I don't understand why there is so much focus on automobiles instead of just about everything else. In every other instance - airplanes, boats, long-haul trucking - the problem in significantly less complex to solve. The only tangible reason I see for such disproportionate focus is some sense of false futurism; aka, driver-less cars have become the 'flying cars' of our times.

Large aircraft are basically self-driving these days. Pilots can choose to do almost nothing at all from takoff to landing. However, the failure modes are all mostly catastrophic so pilots remain under the assumption that they can slightly increase the survivability rate when the automation fails. Modern drone systems are also have elements of this kind of automation and can fly complex flight paths and station keep and land and so on more or less on their own.

Some large boat systems have are also similarly "self-driving" and can navigate to way points and along various lanes without too much intervention. They need pilots and tugs for the small-nav stuff like canals and ports and so on, there's simply too many permutations of "things that can be hit and sunk" to rely on the automation. Smaller boats can also buy commercial "autonav" systems that link the engine, steering and such to GPS. However, the marine environment is hellish on equipment.

Trucking is being seriously looked at, with active test runs, but like big ships needs local pilots for the end-points and local nav. Again too many things in flux and too many things to hit.

Cars exist basically continuously at the terminal ends of the trucking problem and are trying to solve the local pilot problem. Humans, with our highly adaptive sensory-response systems can do it to various levels of skill, but even we have lots and lots of failure modes even without impairment.

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#260

Post by dwild » Tue, Oct 29, 2019, 2:24 PM UTC

evo_9 wrote: post #248

I don't understand why there is so much focus on automobiles instead of just about everything else. In every other instance - airplanes, boats, long-haul trucking - the problem in significantly less complex to solve. The only tangible reason I see for such disproportionate focus is some sense of false futurism; aka, driver-less cars have become the 'flying cars' of our times.

> airplanes

I remember when Mythbuster did their episode on driving an airplane in emergencies like they do in movies, they came to the conclusion that if it was going to happen, the airplane autopilot would be used instead or a civilian that never flew one. That was in 2007.

> long-haul trucking

I'm pretty sure that's a long term goal of Tesla with their new semi. I have no doubt many are on that too. The challenges are similar to the one for a car.

There's no so much focus on automobile, it's just that we are talking about it more than the others one. Hell the airplane one was done more than a decade ago and you still don't know about it.