231–240 of 507 posts
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Both airplanes and trains have automated “assist.” At least in the case of WMATA they give up on automatic train control after a fatal crash.
In a plane you also have far more time to react once the autopilot disconnects for whatever reason, than the fraction of a second that a car gives you.
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It can be really jarring too when a car behaves differently than you expect: I regularly use cruise control on my Kia, which makes driving much less stressful. It keeps the car centered in the lane, more or less turns the car with the road, and of course, matches the speed of the car in front of it with reasonable stopping distance. I wouldn't call it "self-driving" by any means, but if not for the alert that gets ti…
I was thinking about this the other day - driving in construction. The town I live in is currently doing water main replacement. So, lots of torn up roads, closed lanes and even single-lane only with a flagger alternating directions. No amount of safety cones will make it obvious what's going on. How do automated systems deal with flaggers? Visibility of the stop/slow sign isn't sufficient to make a determination on…
Of course, the problem is, if we haven't developed it today, the ADAS systems of today won't understand it in ten years when there's enough saturation to be practical to use it. Apart from Tesla, very few car manufacturers are reckless enough to send OTA updates that can impact driving behavior.
Lane-following ADAS systems of today, mind you, can work relatively fine in construction areas... provided lane lines are moved, as opposed to relying solely on traffic cones.
Craziest statistic: of the 31 serious crashes involving driver-assist systems in the U.S. since June 2016, 25 of them involved Tesla Autopilot.
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That’s a feature accommodating realities of driving on public roads, not a bug. If you drive on a 60mph speed limit highway, no one is driving 60mph, everyone is going around 70mph. If you decide to use autopilot and it limits you to 60mph, you singlehandedly start disrupting the flow of traffic (that goes 70mph) and end up becoming an increased danger to yourself and others. Not even mentioning cases when the speed…
Over the road trucks often have speed governors, some companies limit their trucks to 60 mph because it saves a lot of fuel and leads to a much (50%) lower risk of collisions.
For specific numbers (after subtracting reaction distance being the same for both):
55mph: car 165ft, 16-wheeler 225ft. 65mph: car 245ft, 16-wheeler 454ft.
As you can see, the gap between a car's stopping distance and a 16-wheeler's stopping distance increases with speed increasing, and non-linearly at that. Not even mentioning the destructive potential of a car vs. a 16-wheeler.
I would agree with your point if majority of the roads were occupied by 16-wheelers, but it isn't the case (at least in the metro area that I commute to work in).
Source for numbers used: https://trucksmart.udot.utah.gov/motorist-home/stopping-dist...
Note: I agree that it would be safer if everyone drove the exact speed limit, as opposed to everyone going 10mph above the speed limit. However, in a situation where everyone is driving 10mph above the speed limit, you are creating a more dangerous situation by driving 10mph slower instead of driving 10mph above like everyone else.
Craziest statistic: of the 31 serious crashes involving driver-assist systems in the U.S. since June 2016, 25 of them involved Tesla Autopilot.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_rate_fallacy
This is an issue because Tesla markets its cars as being "safer" than other company's vehicles, and the data shows that their driver assist system is objectively not.
I drive a lot across Europe: as in, really a lot, long trip across several countries, several times a year. I drive enough on the highways to know a few scary situations, like the truck driver in a big curve slightly deviating out of his lane and "pushing" me dangerously close to the median strip for example. To me driving requires paying constant attention to the road and being always ready to act swiftly: I just do…
I learned this playing Gran Turismo video games way back when. The game has long endurance races (I seem to remember races that ran about 2 hours, but there may have been longer ones). Eventually you get hungry or thirsty or have to use the bathroom, so you pause the game, take care of business, and resume. It's really easy to screw up if the game was paused while your car was doing anything other than stable, straig…
The crash in the city of Woodlands, Texas, was pretty terrifying. After hitting a tree, the car caught on fire. The driver was found in the back seat, presumably because he couldn't figure out how to open the door to get out.
Your take seems a lot more plausible.
The crash in the city of Woodlands, Texas, was pretty terrifying. After hitting a tree, the car caught on fire. The driver was found in the back seat, presumably because he couldn't figure out how to open the door to get out.
Interesting! When HN discussed that story a few months ago[1], the common notion was that the driver had enabled autopilot and climbed into the back seat. Your take seems a lot more plausible. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26869962
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> Want safety? How about a Tesla that is electronically incapable of speeding. That would be unsafe in many situations. If the flow of traffic is substantially above the speed limit--which it often is--being unable to match it increases the risk of accident. This is known as the Solomon curve [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_curve
> Subsequent research suggests significant biases in the Solomon study, which may cast doubt on its findings With the logic presented in the theoretical foundation section, it seems that the safer move would actually be slow down and match the speed of all the trucks and other large vehicles... which won't happen. Matching speed sounds great, except there are always people willing to go faster and faster. In my state…