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U.S. urges states not to allow general use of self-driving cars

detroitnews.com

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Re: U.S. urges states not to allow general use of self-driving cars

#51

Post by DougWebb »

thesash wrote: post #18

I'd like to see the data that the NHTSA used to conclude that the risk of a malfunction is higher than the risk of human error. Millions of crashes each year result in tens of thousands of deaths [1]. Humans drive while tired, drunk, or simply distracted, and of course, tend to have slower reflexes than computers. Even if the technology isn't ready for mainstream adoption today, I bet we'll look back in horror at the…

It's rare for all of the human drivers on a road to make the same mistake at the same time under the same conditions, but that's a likely failure condition for automated driving software if the software and sensors are standardized. This could lead to much worse accidents then you'd get with human drivers, because all of the cars will do the same thing.

An all-human example: driving too fast in foggy/whiteout conditions and not having time to stop when the road is blocked. When this happens today, you get 100 car pileups because everyone is doing the same thing: driving along until they suddenly come upon the pileup, and smashing into it because they don't have time to stop.

What if a software error causes this same kind of behavior in more common conditions? Google's testing wouldn't expose this kind of failure mode, because (afaik) they haven't done extensive tests driving fleets of automated cars together. All of their cars have been surrounded by human drivers, and for all we know the varied reactions of the human drivers have prevented them from hitting the Google car when it does something odd.

Re: U.S. urges states not to allow general use of self-driving cars

#52

Post by dnr »

omellet wrote: post #31
maeon3 wrote: post #9

Also, driving in the snow and ice safety is about 3 orders of magnitude more difficult to do than driving on dry pavement. There also needs to be an indicator: "It's snowing, please wait until the road is warm and dry, or have the carbon unit take over". But that's no good, we have to get to where we are going, so tens of thousands of people, who havn't been practicing driving AT ALL for about 8 months now dust off t…

What makes you think computers will be worse than human drivers at driving in poor conditions? I'd think it'd be the other way around.

Exactly: I have some experience driving in snow and I've certainly made a few big mistakes that I'm pretty sure a computer (that would have a much better sense of available traction) could have avoided. I can also easily imagine sensors that can see through headlight-lit falling snow better than a human.

Re: U.S. urges states not to allow general use of self-driving cars

#53

Post by EliRivers »

maeon3 wrote: post #9

Also, driving in the snow and ice safety is about 3 orders of magnitude more difficult to do than driving on dry pavement. There also needs to be an indicator: "It's snowing, please wait until the road is warm and dry, or have the carbon unit take over". But that's no good, we have to get to where we are going, so tens of thousands of people, who havn't been practicing driving AT ALL for about 8 months now dust off t…

The robot will be far, far better than humans at driving in such conditions. Modern cars already help out as best they can with monitoring slippage, temperature sensing, running in higher gears, monitoring road gradient and rate of change thereof, running wheels at different settings, and all the rest of it; if the meatbag would just sit in the back and let the robot drive everything would be much safer.

The indicator will say :"It's snowing meatbag, please wait until the road is warm and dry, or give me the wheel".

Re: U.S. urges states not to allow general use of self-driving cars

#54

Post by Avshalom »

w1ntermute wrote: post #2

I can imagine that there will be a very bloody political fight over self-driving vehicles as they become more mainstream, particularly when it comes to taxis and trucks, because of the vested interests of professional drivers.

Yeah, vested interests like feeding their family.

I mean yeah yeah luddites retraining rising tide etc... but "I'd like to not starve" isn't exactly a sinister motivation.

Re: U.S. urges states not to allow general use of self-driving cars

#55

Post by maeon3 »

maxerickson wrote: post #37
maeon3 wrote: post #9

Also, driving in the snow and ice safety is about 3 orders of magnitude more difficult to do than driving on dry pavement. There also needs to be an indicator: "It's snowing, please wait until the road is warm and dry, or have the carbon unit take over". But that's no good, we have to get to where we are going, so tens of thousands of people, who havn't been practicing driving AT ALL for about 8 months now dust off t…

I think some of that difficulty is because we mostly build up driving intuition on clear roads. An auto-driver will have relatively objective heuristics to evaluate road conditions, which is where humans make a lot of their mistakes (that is, humans frequently just fail to realize that the road is slippery).

Now that I think about it, the auto-driver would decide it is slippery and go excruciatingly slow. And the next problem is that you can't get up a hill because it doesn't know how to gather up excessive momentum to make it over the hill. The human would say: "I can do it", but the auto driver says: "it's too risky".

Re: U.S. urges states not to allow general use of self-driving cars

#56

Post by akmiller »

steven777400 wrote: post #5

Reading the article, this doesn't strike me as inappropriate. "Self-driving vehicle technology is not yet at the stage of sophistication or demonstrated safety capability that it should be authorized for use by members of the public for general driving purposes" is probably true. The cars are good at what they do, but that doesn't mean they can handle all sorts of bizarre detour, road construction, rural roads, faded…

They also say, "as self-driving cars improve, they will reconsider." Seems fair.

It would seem fair if they pointed to any actual data regarding the safety of such vehicles versus the safety of cars driven by humans but I see no such information provided. Or, it might seem fair if there was any company trying to actively sell self-driving cars to the general public right now.

I think this is a problem that would likely work itself out without legislation surrounding it. Companies, for the most part, would probably like to provide products that don't endanger the lives of their customers. Along with that, insurance companies I'm sure would love to reduce the risk of driving while maintaining the current cost of insurance. Therefore, I'm guessing they will be heavily involved in testing self-driving cars. If the findings aren't good I'm sure insurance costs would be extreme or not available at all.

Re: U.S. urges states not to allow general use of self-driving cars

#57

Post by danielweber »

forgottenpaswrd wrote: post #35

Well, it does not talk about the main problem that sef-driving cars have today: One cars works ok, as it uses an active super expensive light(Lidar) and radar sensors. Put two cars together using the same LIDAR light or the same frequencies and you have a terrible problem. Also using Lasers will be dangerous when people look at the thing and the thing is working near you as the power of the light could do bad things…

Different vendors' autonomous cars have encountered each other in the wild, there has been nothing tragic happening. They wave to each other.

Re: U.S. urges states not to allow general use of self-driving cars

#58

Post by EliRivers »

maeon3 wrote: post #55
maxerickson wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think some of that difficulty is because we mostly build up driving intuition on clear roads. An auto-driver will have relatively objective heuristics to evaluate road conditions, which is where humans make a lot of their mistakes (that is, humans frequently just fail to realize that the road is slippery).

Now that I think about it, the auto-driver would decide it is slippery and go excruciatingly slow. And the next problem is that you can't get up a hill because it doesn't know how to gather up excessive momentum to make it over the hill. The human would say: "I can do it", but the auto driver says: "it's too risky".

So the human wants to run deliberately fast so they can effectively slide up a hill with massively reduced control, and the robot kiboshes it on the grounds it's dangerous? Sounds pretty good to me.

Re: U.S. urges states not to allow general use of self-driving cars

#59

Post by 3JPLW »

usea wrote: post #29
tokenizer wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of how bad I or someone driving around me is, I would rather have complete control. If I'm going to relinquish that control, then the alternative better be superb. This is one of those paradigms where we need software engineering to be flawless, which history can tell us, is never the case. Not disagreeing with you just offering an opinion which is more centered and cautious.

If you have ever been a passenger in a car, you have given up that control to an entity which is likely far less safe than the software option. (still need to see the data this was based on)

Yes, you've given up control. But you've traded it for trust. While Google's cars may have a flawless record, trust is an emotional thing. It's a long slow road for self-driving cars to earn our trust, even if they should already deserve it.

Re: U.S. urges states not to allow general use of self-driving cars

#60

Post by dtparr »

youngerdryas wrote: post #43
pyoung wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure self-driving cars will make traffic better, because it has been shown that most traffic jams are caused by and exacerbated by poor driving habits.

Traffic jams are caused by volume. If fewer cars pass per minute, due to driverless cars obeying the speed limit traffic will be worse. What are you citing?

The number of vehicles and the max speed at which they're willing to travel aren't the only factors that affect throughput. As the GP mentions, bad driving habits can lead to things like the Accordion effect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accordion_effect

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