U.S. urges states not to allow general use of self-driving cars • Hacker News Board

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

#61

Post by 3JPLW » Thu, May 30, 2013, 7:17 PM UTC

protomyth wrote: post #33

Goronmon wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Automated vehicles also potentially means automated plowing/sanding vehicles. Roombas for the roads basically.

Not unless sensors get a lot better, as starring into white and finding the road is a rather large problem[1]. Nevermind the actual skill of those drivers, it is not an easy job. 1) GPS + Maps is not the answer as it wrong sometimes.

[1] will surely improve greatly with a fleet of millions of data gathering machines. No, it still won't be absolutely 100%, but that's what Kalman filters are for.

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

#62

Post by Avshalom » Thu, May 30, 2013, 7:18 PM UTC

tolmasky wrote: post #49

6d0debc071 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> See, for example, the vast swaths of parking lots in much of the United States, and think how utterly unnecessary they'll be in a world of fully autonomous vehicles. I don't know that it would make that much difference. Most people want to drive at the same time to get to work and few people seem likely to want to have their car do an extra commute so that it can park up at home. Couple that with the fact that a ca…

This is basically the way it works in cities anyways. No one really cares in NY that taxis aren't their 'personal' space. In my eyes, autonomous cars would just allow a city-style car culture in suburbia, since it will finally be practical to not own (several) cars. You should really think of self-driving cars as providing scale to a lot of existing car-share economies. For example, consider how many families today h…

Unless the husband commutes 61 minutes away.

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

#63

Post by steven777400 » Thu, May 30, 2013, 7:22 PM UTC

akmiller wrote: post #56

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 like…

Just to address your first point, data is not actually too beneficial when it comes to general public policy making. Many people make decisions based on emotion rather than data.

For example, some people have a tremendous fear of flying. Yet flying commercially is one of the safest modes of travel: a person is far more likely to be injured on the way to the airport than to be injured in a commercial aviation accident in this country.

Likewise, the first time one of these cars misreads a signal or marking and plows into a farmer's market, the panic will be significantly greater than when an impaired driver causes the same damage; even if we have data to show that for each self-driving car injury there are 100 human-driven car injuries, it will be tough to override the "I don't have control of it, I don't understand it, I'm scared of it" emotional gut response of people.

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

#64

Post by Aloisius » Thu, May 30, 2013, 7:23 PM UTC

protomyth wrote: post #33

Goronmon wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Automated vehicles also potentially means automated plowing/sanding vehicles. Roombas for the roads basically.

Not unless sensors get a lot better, as starring into white and finding the road is a rather large problem[1]. Nevermind the actual skill of those drivers, it is not an easy job. 1) GPS + Maps is not the answer as it wrong sometimes.

Since roads where it snows are always getting torn up and repaved, if automated cars do become widespread, it seems entirely feasible and realistic to line major roads on each side with radio reflectors or some other cheap system that can keep automated plows from driving off the road.

The real problem is the cost of the automated plow itself. A 10-wheel plow with salt feeder isn't exactly cheap to run with or without a driver.

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

#65

Post by youngerdryas » Thu, May 30, 2013, 7:29 PM UTC

dtparr wrote: post #60

youngerdryas wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That may be marginally helpful but only if all the cars are self-driving and if there is no traffic have fun going the speed limit the whole way. A good way to foster adoption of self-driving cars may be to let them go faster when on auto.

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

#66

Post by thedrbrian » Thu, May 30, 2013, 7:35 PM UTC

roguecoder wrote: post #7

Given how bad humans are at driving cars safely, it is unfortunate that we are holding self-driving cars to a higher standard than we hold humans. It will cause needless loss of life.

That's because people have liability and machines do not.

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

#67

Post by polymatter » Thu, May 30, 2013, 7:36 PM UTC

Avshalom wrote: post #54

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.

Its not sinister, its entirely predictable. But that doesn't make it any less selfish and callous towards the lives it could save.

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

#68

Post by maeon3 » Thu, May 30, 2013, 7:37 PM UTC

EliRivers wrote: post #53

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 indicato…

Then you'll need the override when the passenger (or driver) is dying and needs to get to the hospital. I guess you would have to read and sign the 85 page EULA and sign: "I understand that if I crash here there will be hell to pay".

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

#69

Post by DerekAlia » Thu, May 30, 2013, 7:40 PM UTC

What will insurance companies do if people aren't crashing cars?

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

#70

Post by Aloisius » Thu, May 30, 2013, 7:47 PM UTC

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?

Some phantom traffic jams are actually caused by a moving wave caused by the inefficiencies in starting/stopping. If you have a whole set of linked self-driving cars, theoretically, you could prevent traffic waves from being sustained by moving at a slower constant rate.

The slower rate means you need less time to break reducing the distance you need between cars and increasing capacity of the road and the constant speed reduces the break/acceleration cycle that is needed to sustain the wave.

Then of course other jams are caused by inefficiencies in merging which ripple out to all the lanes as people try to get out of the lane that is going to merge. Self-driving cars of course would have the advantage here since they would no doubt be able to merge at higher speeds.

Traffic jams caused by accidents would hopefully be reduced if self-driving cars get into fewer accidents.

And finally, it is conceivable that if you are in a lane full of self-driving cars - especially ones that communicate between themselves - and if it is shown conclusively that they could cope faster in case of a catastrophic event, you could allow them to drive faster the speed limit.