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Google's Autonomous cars complete 300,000 miles without an accident

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Re: Google's Autonomous cars complete 300,000 miles without an accident

#41

Post by pavel_lishin »

krasin wrote: post #10
cygwin98 wrote: post #2

I kind of wonder how Google's driverless car handles the situation in extremely populous cities such as Shanghai or HongKong.

In the city, when there're many pedestrians on the roads, I would expect from autonomous car to drive slower and stop in case of pedestrian spotted (human drivers are smarter, but they usually violate speed limits and have worse reaction time)

I'm afraid that in New York, this would just lead to total gridlock as a few people would stop traffic by jaywalking, leading to a bigger flow of people following them.

Re: Google's Autonomous cars complete 300,000 miles without an accident

#42

Post by alexsb92 »

fghh45sdfhr3 wrote: post #33
TylerE wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So will susceptibility to car sickness become a federally-protected disability?

I wonder how much of car sickness is thanks to the driver. And if a good enough software could drive without causing car sickness?

I don't necessarily think that will be the case. As far as I knew (and from re-skimming the wiki article), car sickness (and any kind of motion sickness) is caused by the brain seeing different things than what it's processing from the inner ear. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_sickness

So it's more up to the individual in question, then the driver (considering a normal, average car ride, not anything in the extremes).

Re: Google's Autonomous cars complete 300,000 miles without an accident

#43

Post by SoftwareMaven »

robertszkutak wrote: post #29

I wonder how well these cars handle heavy snowfall or ice on the roads. I know firsthand how driving becomes infinitely more complicated under these conditions and it would be major selling point for these cars if they could handle it smoothly.

They don't handle snow at all yet. There is no question that will be quite a hurdle to cross, but I doubt it will be for the reasons most think. My guess is figuring out where the road is at is going to be the hardest part; where I bet most people think it is "how do I drive on ice". Without impatient, jacked-up-4x4 drivers driving a twice what conditions warrant, it is just a slightly different calculation of static and dynamic frictions.

Re: Google's Autonomous cars complete 300,000 miles without an accident

#44

Post by pavel_lishin »

dpcx wrote: post #39
melling wrote: post #30

Long-haul tractor trailers. We need long stretches of highway where autonomous tractor trailers can carry goods. It'll provide a good business case and limit liability.

It would be nice, but I can see the reaction from truckers who become out of work already...

Aren't autonomous cars required to have a human "driver" while on the road? I can definitely see truckers lobbying to have some sort of law of that nature - they sit behind the wheel "in case something goes wrong", but would be allowed to drive longer hours with fewer mandated breaks. Sounds like a win for the profession in general... setting aside that longer drive times mean that at least some will be out of work.

Re: Google's Autonomous cars complete 300,000 miles without an accident

#45

Post by huffman »

daenz wrote: post #15
secoif wrote: post #4

This was the easy part. The hard part will be fighting the technophobes when somebody drives into the side of one of these and kills themselves. I don't envy being in that battle.

I would bet they can reconstruct the entire environment through their LIDAR records, play by play, and show the events leading up to the collision.

I hadn't even thought of that. I wonder how this will effect the car insurance industry.

Re: Google's Autonomous cars complete 300,000 miles without an accident

#46

Post by snewman »

fghh45sdfhr3 wrote: post #33
TylerE wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So will susceptibility to car sickness become a federally-protected disability?

I wonder how much of car sickness is thanks to the driver. And if a good enough software could drive without causing car sickness?

Car sickness tends to happen when you're focusing on the interior of the car. That's what leads to the disconnect between your visual field and your mechanical sense of motion. I expect this is the main reason that drivers are rarely affected -- they're always looking out the window (more or less), so their visual sense of motion remains aligned with their other senses.

Re: Google's Autonomous cars complete 300,000 miles without an accident

#47

Post by dpcx »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #44
dpcx wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be nice, but I can see the reaction from truckers who become out of work already...

Aren't autonomous cars required to have a human "driver" while on the road? I can definitely see truckers lobbying to have some sort of law of that nature - they sit behind the wheel "in case something goes wrong", but would be allowed to drive longer hours with fewer mandated breaks. Sounds like a win for the profession in general... setting aside that longer drive times mean that at least some will be out of work.

They do now. Doesn't necessarily mean that in 5 years they still will.

Re: Google's Autonomous cars complete 300,000 miles without an accident

#48

Post by damoncali »

fghh45sdfhr3 wrote: post #33
TylerE wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So will susceptibility to car sickness become a federally-protected disability?

I wonder how much of car sickness is thanks to the driver. And if a good enough software could drive without causing car sickness?

For me, it is a side effect of some problems with my vision. I hear it is curable with vison therapy, but that is quite expensive.

Re: Google's Autonomous cars complete 300,000 miles without an accident

#49

Post by bengl3rt »

I'm of two minds on these.

On the one hand, these will help close the "fun gap" between the city and the suburbs. One big problem with living in the suburbs is that you can't really drink a lot wherever you are, because you have to drive home afterwards. If your car drove itself that restriction would be removed, and over time the suburbs could start to compete with cities for nightlife despite the large delta in density. Places might even start staying open later because they could make more money selling alcohol.

On the other hand, I have a power-nothing manual-everything sports car that I love to drive. Already most people I know drive cars with automatic transmissions, and now some manufacturers don't even ofter manuals anymore, even on fairly powerful high-end cars. I can imagine many of the same people who choose an automatic transmission today will choose a fully automatic self-driving car tomorrow because to them it's a utility and not a form of entertainment. Eventually, the market for non-self-driving cars will shrink in the same way the market for cars with manual transmissions has.

Re: Google's Autonomous cars complete 300,000 miles without an accident

#50

Post by jacobquick »

iskander wrote: post #38
nostromo wrote: post #32

Too bad it doesn't mention if this is better than a human or not. So, I decided to figure it out... 2.9 trillion miles driven in 2009 http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/tvtw/09dectvt/09dectvt.pdf 10.8 million traffic accidents in 2009 http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s1103.p... If my math is correct the average american can expect to get in an accident every ~250,000 miles driven, (NYC to LA 90 times) s…

I don't know much about this google project. Can autonomous cars (i) drive on the highway (ii) drive at night (iii) drive in snow or rain?

I thought they were limited to driving on the highway in the empty parts of nevada?
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