Regulation, not technology is holding back driverless cars
1–10 of 150 posts
Re: Regulation, not technology is holding back driverless cars
#2No surprises there.
The transition to driverless cars is (IMHO inevitable. At some point it will be cheap enough that the additional cost will pale in comparison to the lives that will be saved as well as the simple convenience of being able to do something else while commuting somewhere.
Likewise I see this kind of thing replacing many forms of public transportation. There will simply be a fleet of cars. You'll say where you want to go and some system will route people and cars to destinations.
But, the transition won't be quick or easy. You need look no further than the aviation industry to see why.
Basically, automation in modern aircraft is a double-edged sword. It seems to erode the ability of pilots to actually fly [1], software errors causing deaths [2] and (I can't find the link to this) I also read a study that in more automated planes, pilots are more likely to believe erroneous instruments rather than their own senses and experience.
The issue won't be how the car normally behaves because as demonstrations have shown, current systems require very little human intervention.
The issue will be extraordinary circumstances plus the huge liability problem of any errors.
Example: if someone runs a red light and causes a crash, killing someone, that person is responsible. If an automated car does the same thing, the manufacturer will be responsible.
That alone will impede adoption.
Instead I think you'll have what we already have: slowly adding automation to cars. Cars already have radars and can stop themselves from colliding, they can park themselves and so on.
But at some point the driver will need to go away and that will be a tremendously challenging leap forward for society.
[1]: http://www.tourismandaviation.com/news-4530--Pilot_Reliance_...
Re: Regulation, not technology is holding back driverless cars
#3No state has anything close to a functioning system to inspect whether the computers in driverless cars are in good working order, much as we routinely test emissions and brake lights.
Having lived in Oregon, Arizona, and California, I have never had anything other than emissions routinely inspected. Demonstrate a car smart enough to monitor its own brake pad wear, alert on burnt out bulbs, and provide a clear readout of all detected issues (i.e. not a coded blinking service light, or plug interface) before you start trying to make it drive itself.
(I do love the idea of an automated train of cars, and driving my drunk self home, though)
Re: Regulation, not technology is holding back driverless cars
#4No surprises there. The transition to driverless cars is (IMHO inevitable. At some point it will be cheap enough that the additional cost will pale in comparison to the lives that will be saved as well as the simple convenience of being able to do something else while commuting somewhere. Likewise I see this kind of thing replacing many forms of public transportation. There will simply be a fleet of cars. You'll say…
"pilots are more likely to believe erroneous instruments rather than their own senses and experience."
The human brain is not setup for 3D dimensions of orientation, unless you can accurately see the horizon it's more than likely that your perception of the planes orientation and vector is wrong than the instruments. In most turbulent situations the brain is wrong and the instruments are right. This is why pilots are trained to fly on instruments only. On most planes the instrumentation system actively and accurately informs pilots that their instruments are broken when they are in such a state.
Re: Regulation, not technology is holding back driverless cars
#5No surprises there. The transition to driverless cars is (IMHO inevitable. At some point it will be cheap enough that the additional cost will pale in comparison to the lives that will be saved as well as the simple convenience of being able to do something else while commuting somewhere. Likewise I see this kind of thing replacing many forms of public transportation. There will simply be a fleet of cars. You'll say…
People generally cite the lawsuit threat, but the threat cuts both ways. I've seen lawsuits for putatively malfunctioning anti-lock brakes, and I've seen lawsuits for not including anti-lock brakes. At some point, once it is reasonably well demonstrated that automated cars drive more safely than humans under some circumstances, someone is going to file a lawsuit for not having automated drivers. It's only a matter of time. That's when it really gets legally interesting.
Note I said "interesting", not "the beginning of the inevitable victory". I say "interesting" because I think we can pretty much all agree how this plays out until that happens, but I can't see past that event.
Re: Regulation, not technology is holding back driverless cars
#6No state has anything close to a functioning system to inspect whether the computers in driverless cars are in good working order, much as we routinely test emissions and brake lights. Having lived in Oregon, Arizona, and California, I have never had anything other than emissions routinely inspected. Demonstrate a car smart enough to monitor its own brake pad wear, alert on burnt out bulbs, and provide a clear readou…
You're right. A gradual easing in to the idea of smarter cars would make driver-less cars less of a shock in the future.
Re: Regulation, not technology is holding back driverless cars
#7Speed limits are another realm in which regulation can hold back the development of driverless cars, besides merely allowing them on the streets in the first place.
With computerized drivers, it will finally be possible to fully enforce speed limits, by introducing some ceiling to the speed attainable by the car. I'm sure some "well-meaning" legislator will make it his or her priority to ensure that speed limits are never exceeded. However, at least in Massachusetts, if you go on the highway, everyone (including police) drive at ~75 MPH even though the posted speed limit is 55 or 65 MPH. Few will buy a car with this kind of handicap, were it to exist -- and I worry that it will. Many speed limits in the US were imposed decades ago, with less safe and responsive cars -- it would be a pity if potentially revolutionary technology advances were thwarted by this fact.
Legislation has already crippled or made useless many useful automotive innovations. In the US, technologies that allow for adaptive cruise control (maintaining a distance to the car in front of you) can only decelerate the car, and not accelerate the car. This forces the driver to have to constantly accelerate, greatly reducing the effectiveness of this feature. Many computer-laden vehicles with navigation systems are similarly crippled -- they automatically "lock" when the car is in motion, and some (like in Lexus vehicles) cannot even be overridden by people sitting in the passenger seat... often causing unintended risks like drivers pulling over on busy highways just to readjust their GPS target.
Re: Regulation, not technology is holding back driverless cars
#8One idea would be to make some long haul roads, or sections of them, completely driverless. Maine to Miami along a section of I95, or NYC to LA. We could start the test with tractor trailers. Let them drive for a few years and tune the system. There would be a huge economic benefit to allowing trucks to run 24x7 without drivers.
Re: Regulation, not technology is holding back driverless cars
#9My dad works in the airplane industry and had an interesting story to tell me that relates to this. (I'm not sure exactly how accurate it is or what the source is, sorry). Apparently, it is illegal for pilots to read while flying. Even if they are heading in a straight line with no one around for miles. This is because one time an pilot wasn't paying attention and due to a series of software failures, the plane turned into a mountain. Interestingly, the plane was tuning at a very exact amount so that the number of Gs remained constant.
In any case, this single crash caused regulation to state that computers can never fly planes by themselves. This strikes me as rather unfair. If a single human crashed a plane, it does not make it illegal for humans to fly planes by themselves.
Another example is that in London, subways must be driven by a human. Even though driving a subway may be trivial (there is no way to steer), Londoners apparently do not feel comfortable being driven by a non-living thing. They want to be sure that if they die, the driver dies too, adding a level of accountability.
It seems that this sort of wide-spread mistrust of machines is driven more by socially normal paranoia than any kind of logic. I for one am rooting for machines to take over all forms of driving. There may be a few mishaps, but it will probably become hundreds of times safer eventually.
Re: Regulation, not technology is holding back driverless cars
#10So much of technical progress happens through delivering most of the value of the previous solution at a fraction of the cost (email vs postal mail). Society seems to rule this kind of progress out for a few industries like health care, I assume something similar is happening here.