I'm wondering how much self-driving cars will improve the system?
far less accidents, much faster, less traffic jams, more efficient, no traffic light, different speed limits etc...
The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving
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Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving
#52somehow the current scuffle between uber and regular cabs seems to miss the joke. we're going to need a plan for the eventual unemployment of a lot of cab drivers, regardless of how the cab is hailed.
Even New York City seems to only have tens of thousands of cab drivers ('seems' because I just looked at wikipedia for a minute), I don't think they are that big a percentage of the population.
I think the real markets are long haul trucking and small delivery van for the last miles. All in all it is probably a significant portions of job.
Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a cyclist, I was shocked to see the cyclist change his mind like that —unless he was a tester too, that’s how you get bumped– but I really hope Google Cars learn that most cyclists actually don’t signal their turn that well. Cars don’t bother either, and the last frame show how most non-car drivers get killed: don’t notice what passing just being, shift in gear, swerve and… bang. Seeing how Google taught its car t…
don’t notice what passing just being, shift in gear, swerve and… bang Can you rephrase this? I can't understand it.
It's my guess that he's referring to the common motorist behavior of switching lanes and accelerating when the car in front slows down or stops. The car in front of you slowed down for a reason. I've witnessed two accidents caused by such behaviour.
Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving
#54This is amazing, but if anything it's made me more wary of some of the challenges the project faces. - What if the cyclist fell off his bike in front of the car? How quickly can the computer process the real-time imagery and react compared to a human with their peripheral vision. - What if the cyclist swung from the pavement on to the road. A human driver will probably have spotted the hazard (we all train for that k…
The good thing about computers is that they can simulate the future based on current physical data and make decisions in realtime, so if a cyclist fells off on front of it, computer can detect the diversion as it happens, simulate each possible scenario beforehand, and choose the one that has the best outcome. actually it can perform a lot better than humans. look at this unbeatable rock-paper-scissors robot video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nxjjztQKtY
Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving
#55As a city cyclist, the Google solution looks way safer than the current status quo...
Even before we get self-driving cars, autonomous braking should be mandated so that cars and trucks are literally incapable of coming too close to a cyclist.
For trucks, ASL360. This uses 4 cameras around the vehicle and some simple software to synthesize an "eye in the sky" view. Actually, I'd like this on my car.
Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Harder yet, Southeast Asia. Hundreds of pedestrians, tons of vehicle variety (some entirely makeshift), uncontrolled intersections, very little regard to any regulations.
> very little regard to any regulations. That's an important point, I never expected lanes count and lane direction to be interpreted as suggestions until I saw people going through a roundabout on both sides at the same time.
Your other comment in this thread got killed, probably because of the url shortener.
Edit: I think comments killed for some reasons can't be recovered by editing them.
Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving
#57This is amazing, but if anything it's made me more wary of some of the challenges the project faces. - What if the cyclist fell off his bike in front of the car? How quickly can the computer process the real-time imagery and react compared to a human with their peripheral vision. - What if the cyclist swung from the pavement on to the road. A human driver will probably have spotted the hazard (we all train for that k…
The thing is .. what happens if a cyclist falls in front of a car with a human driver? Probably the car drives over him and the cyclist dies. The challenge is to do better than that, which is a rather low bar.
People won't see it like that. If a human driver makes a mistake, it's "human error". If a robot driver makes a mistake it's criminal negligence -- because robots are capable of not making mistakes.
In other words, robots are held to a higher standard than humans.
Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving
#58This is amazing, but if anything it's made me more wary of some of the challenges the project faces. - What if the cyclist fell off his bike in front of the car? How quickly can the computer process the real-time imagery and react compared to a human with their peripheral vision. - What if the cyclist swung from the pavement on to the road. A human driver will probably have spotted the hazard (we all train for that k…
The intermediary step (computer driving with human failsafe) is also incredibly challenging, because you are unsure of the computer's knowledge and intent (this is also what makes backseat drivers so annoying).
This computer drives much more conservatively than a human driver, so much so that I'm not sure a human failsafe driver would grok what is going on.
Waiting for a railway crossing to be completely clear before proceeding is not something most drivers do (ehem, especially at that particular intersection), and may seem like odd behavior to a failsafe driver behind the wheel. Similarly, waiting for a bicyclist coming from behind may also seem odd. For one, he may not have that information since he is less attentive in 'failsafe' mode... or many human drivers would see the cyclist and proceed a bit more quickly to make the turn to get out of traffic and free the intersection for the oncoming cyclist (and cars behind him).
On the other hand I would have probably pulled the plug on the computer driver when Mr. Indecisive-Cyclist was in the road. The computer handled it fine, but as the failsafe, am I sure that the computer will handle it well?
This intermediary stage is going to get really weird, I don't even know how you'd manage liability in this world.
Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving
#59It won't be able to drive around New York if it follows the rules so strictly. It will never be able to turn. They'll have to add a setting for aggression...
Will a cyclist be able to troll you by continuing to signal in front of your car, stopping it from ever overtaking?
Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a cyclist, I was shocked to see the cyclist change his mind like that —unless he was a tester too, that’s how you get bumped– but I really hope Google Cars learn that most cyclists actually don’t signal their turn that well. Cars don’t bother either, and the last frame show how most non-car drivers get killed: don’t notice what passing just being, shift in gear, swerve and… bang. Seeing how Google taught its car t…
don’t notice what passing just being, shift in gear, swerve and… bang Can you rephrase this? I can't understand it.
I assume GP's talking about when a car overtakes a cyclist and then turns in front of (or across) them without having driven forward enough to be clear. All too common and very dangerous.