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Six cars aced new pedestrian detection tests

arstechnica.com

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Re: Six cars aced new pedestrian detection tests

#11

Post by raaaaraaaa2 »

why-oh-why wrote: post #3

I’m a fan of Tesla but when you see that their system is not a bit better than the competition (they’re all failing in low light conditions), I don’t know how they can claim autonomous driving “coming soon.” Especially after Uber’s death you’d think that this specific condition would be given extremely high priority.

They recognize much more objects on the road but major problem is to do not cause a lot of false alarms. e.g. You don't really want to drive car which decided that plastic bag on the highway is reason for emergency braking, on the other hand is that really plastic bag or some drunk person who is sleeping on the road...

I remember when Volvo introduced IntelliSafe technology few years ago that car was totally "paranoid" and it was beeping all the time -> most of drivers deactivated that system.

Re: Six cars aced new pedestrian detection tests

#12

Post by Tade0 »

ryanlol wrote: post #5
evancaine wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

people suck or kids will be kids?

Same thing I guess? It's humans sabotaging a safety feature intended to protect them.

Kids don't know any better yet.

That being said I would probably lose my temper as well when faced with such a situation.

Re: Six cars aced new pedestrian detection tests

#13

Post by djaychela »

I think the interesting thing in that article is the stat that pedestrian fatalities reached their lowest in 2009, and have been increasing since. Is it really (as I've heard and read) that it's because people are on their phones and walking out into the road? I've definitely seen people do this in front of me, but I know that's merely anecdotal.

Re: Six cars aced new pedestrian detection tests

#14

Post by griffinheart »

djaychela wrote: post #13

I think the interesting thing in that article is the stat that pedestrian fatalities reached their lowest in 2009, and have been increasing since. Is it really (as I've heard and read) that it's because people are on their phones and walking out into the road? I've definitely seen people do this in front of me, but I know that's merely anecdotal.

I remember reading an article on hn that the rise of SUV's and their design is related to the increase of fatalities.

Like, compare a pedestrian collision where the car has a lower and more aerodynamic front vs the wall that is a SUV's front.

Re: Six cars aced new pedestrian detection tests

#15

Post by donkeyd »

djaychela wrote: post #13

I think the interesting thing in that article is the stat that pedestrian fatalities reached their lowest in 2009, and have been increasing since. Is it really (as I've heard and read) that it's because people are on their phones and walking out into the road? I've definitely seen people do this in front of me, but I know that's merely anecdotal.

And at the same time people are also on their phones in their cars, decreasing the chance that they can respond to that person walking into the road. I've had so many times where I didn't have an accident just because I was paying attention to what other people were doing.

Re: Six cars aced new pedestrian detection tests

#16

Post by donkeyd »

ryanlol wrote: post #2

I have to turn the pedestrian detection off every time I drive past the local school. Why? The kids figured out that it's really easy to make new cars emergency brake by just pretending to walk onto the road. People suck.

Personally, I would also brake if a kid pretended to walk into the road. There just has to be one kid who isn't pretending for it to become a really big issue.

Re: Six cars aced new pedestrian detection tests

#17

Post by avar »

Tade0 wrote: post #12
ryanlol wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same thing I guess? It's humans sabotaging a safety feature intended to protect them.

Kids don't know any better yet. That being said I would probably lose my temper as well when faced with such a situation.

When I'm dropping off my kids and other kids run in my way I usually just stop to chat or play with them, but I'm doing this when walking or on a bicycle.

I guess if I wore a 2-ton suit of power armor I'd just be pissed off instead :)

Re: Six cars aced new pedestrian detection tests

#19

Post by donkeyd »

stunt wrote: post #10

Basically none of them are good enough for a real world scenario in a busy city. But they may save life on some scenarios which is good. They can achieve a huge safety improvement by forcing speed limit. But somehow car manufacturers don’t want to implement it.

> They can achieve a huge safety improvement by forcing speed limit. But somehow car manufacturers don’t want to implement it.

I've had multiple cars that show the current speed limit on the dash. Some based on GPS, others based on visual recognition. None of them have been correct 100% of the time. I wouldn't want my car to slow me down on a highway because it misinterprets a sign or because their data isn't up-to-date, or because the GPS is glitching and thinks I'm driving on a side road.

It's a really simple solution in theory, but in practice it doesn't seem feasible yet.

Re: Six cars aced new pedestrian detection tests

#20

Post by raverbashing »

why-oh-why wrote: post #3

I’m a fan of Tesla but when you see that their system is not a bit better than the competition (they’re all failing in low light conditions), I don’t know how they can claim autonomous driving “coming soon.” Especially after Uber’s death you’d think that this specific condition would be given extremely high priority.

How good are humans detecting pedestrians in low light conditions?

It's an important test case, but I wonder how many of those would be undetectable by a human as well.

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