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The View from the Front Seat of the Google Self-Driving Car, Chapter 2

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Re: The View from the Front Seat of the Google Self-Driving Car, Chapter 2

#21
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not reporting a crash to your insurance company is a bad idea - especially if you do it with the intention of reducing your insurance bill. It means you are currently underinsured and maybe committing fraud.

Could you please provide legislation for that? I would not believe, that you would commit fraud when not reporting an accident and paying for repair yourself. At least not in Germany, where I am from.

[deleted]

Re: The View from the Front Seat of the Google Self-Driving Car, Chapter 2

#22
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not reporting a crash to your insurance company is a bad idea - especially if you do it with the intention of reducing your insurance bill. It means you are currently underinsured and maybe committing fraud.

Could you please provide legislation for that? I would not believe, that you would commit fraud when not reporting an accident and paying for repair yourself. At least not in Germany, where I am from.

http://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/problem/ive-been-in-a...

It's part of almost every insurer's terms and conditions.

They use your driving history to set your premiums. Thus they want to know every accident you've been in because that affects how much they charge you - it affects how risky you are.

If you know you've had an accident, and they ask you to report all accidents, and you do not report an accident with the intent to keep your premiums down you've possibly committed fraud.

Re: The View from the Front Seat of the Google Self-Driving Car, Chapter 2

#23

These cars could be so freeing for so many segments of society. I agree with everyone that reducing the commuting annoyance would be awesome - imagine not having to worry about parking your car in the city anymore. You drive in on a highway at 90mph, get dropped off and then the car goes home or onto another task or gets shared out. Amazing. I'm even more excited about getting the elderly out of their homes safely, a…

I think Uber sees self-driving cars much more as an opportunity than a threat - unless they are afraid they won't be able to buy self-driving cars from anyone but Google, and Google won't sell to them. But I'm sure there will be quite a few suppliers by the time they need the cars [1].

[1] - https://www.yahoo.com/autos/s/uber-ceo-tesla-sell-half-milli...

Re: The View from the Front Seat of the Google Self-Driving Car, Chapter 2

#24
post #12

I wonder how many of these driver errors are due to the assumption that the self-driven car will behave just like a human driven one? It wouldn't take much — an unnecessary hesitation, a slow pull away or (on the other end of the spectrum) super-human reactions to cause me to rear-end someone. Most of my near-collision experiences have been at a junction where I've judged a situation to be safe to pull into the road…

Definitely they could address it somehow. They could have additional stronger red light turning on when car is about to be rear ended. And some sort of rear airbag to softly catch the car behind.

Re: The View from the Front Seat of the Google Self-Driving Car, Chapter 2

#25
post #18

It seems like the vast majority of collisions with google's AVs are rear-end collisions at intersections. I'm surprised that they haven't put any technology in place to attempt to avoid, or at least reduce the impact of these collisions. Clearly, predicting the trajectory of other vehicles should be second nature for the AVs. In the video, there appears to be a shoulder with plenty of escape room. Is there any attemp…

Is there any attempt made to un-distract the driver? Flashing brake lights? Horn? This sounds too similar to victim blaming. In my opinion any action taken by someone who is about to be hit from behind in a low speed crash is likely to make the problem worse. I don't think that is the time to have a quick jerky motion into the shoulder of the road. Even honking the horn could distract or panic another driver that the…

There's a middle ground here where the car sees it's about to be rear-ended and softens the hold on the brakes just enough to convert some of the impact energy to forward motion.

It knows the distance to the car in front and has a good idea of the rear car's speed. The only real variable is the weight of the approaching car but a pessimistic estimate could leave more margin to avoid touching the car in front.

Re: The View from the Front Seat of the Google Self-Driving Car, Chapter 2

#26
post #3

The experiment's been going on for 6 years, so when can I have one? I absolutely hate driving - a complete waste of 30+ minutes of my day, every day, and stressful too dealing with all the idiots on the road.

This is precisely why I take public transit. I know it's not an option for everybody, but if it's available in your area, take another look. I'd much rather spend 45 minutes reading a book than 20 minutes staring at someone's bumper and hoping I don't get killed. And I do.

Re: The View from the Front Seat of the Google Self-Driving Car, Chapter 2

#27

These cars could be so freeing for so many segments of society. I agree with everyone that reducing the commuting annoyance would be awesome - imagine not having to worry about parking your car in the city anymore. You drive in on a highway at 90mph, get dropped off and then the car goes home or onto another task or gets shared out. Amazing. I'm even more excited about getting the elderly out of their homes safely, a…

I think Uber sees self-driving cars much more as an opportunity than a threat - unless they are afraid they won't be able to buy self-driving cars from anyone but Google, and Google won't sell to them. But I'm sure there will be quite a few suppliers by the time they need the cars [1]. [1] - https://www.yahoo.com/autos/s/uber-ceo-tesla-sell-half-milli...

I'm pretty sure Google would love to sell Uber some cars:

http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/22/google-ventures-puts-258m-i...

Re: The View from the Front Seat of the Google Self-Driving Car, Chapter 2

#28
post #14
post #12

I wonder how many of these driver errors are due to the assumption that the self-driven car will behave just like a human driven one? It wouldn't take much — an unnecessary hesitation, a slow pull away or (on the other end of the spectrum) super-human reactions to cause me to rear-end someone. Most of my near-collision experiences have been at a junction where I've judged a situation to be safe to pull into the road…

> It wouldn't take much — an unnecessary hesitation, a slow pull away or (on the other end of the spectrum) super-human reactions to cause me to rear-end someone. If you rear end someone it is almost always[1] your fault, and in the examples you give it's definitely your fault. I'm a little bit surprised that you describe this as the fault of the Google cars. [1] ALMOST

Yes, but fault isn't the problem - if another driver is doing something that would make an accident "their fault", I normally still see their erratic driving and move my own car away from them. If I see someone flying up at me in my rear-view mirror, I move. If I see someone weaving a bit in their lane, I give them an extra lane of space between us.

I don't know if Google's cars do these things or not - but those are the kinds of avoidance techniques I would hope for, even if an accident would not have been their fault.

Re: The View from the Front Seat of the Google Self-Driving Car, Chapter 2

#29
post #18

It seems like the vast majority of collisions with google's AVs are rear-end collisions at intersections. I'm surprised that they haven't put any technology in place to attempt to avoid, or at least reduce the impact of these collisions. Clearly, predicting the trajectory of other vehicles should be second nature for the AVs. In the video, there appears to be a shoulder with plenty of escape room. Is there any attemp…

Is there any attempt made to un-distract the driver? Flashing brake lights? Horn? This sounds too similar to victim blaming. In my opinion any action taken by someone who is about to be hit from behind in a low speed crash is likely to make the problem worse. I don't think that is the time to have a quick jerky motion into the shoulder of the road. Even honking the horn could distract or panic another driver that the…

You're being way too dismissive here.

When stopped in a place other drivers might not expect, just flashing the brake lights does wonders. Probably because human eyes and brains notice change much more readily than a solid light.

Re: The View from the Front Seat of the Google Self-Driving Car, Chapter 2

#30
a quick question. heres the situation I am in a self driving car driving full speed on the highway, a little girl crosses the highway (highly unprobable but still possible) what will my car do? maintain high speed and kill her? or try to avoid her knowing that any attemps to avoid collision at this speed would likely injure me if not kill me? then how the car would react if it is a deer? then how the car will be 100% sure its a deer?

this is where self driving cars are limited and shoudlnt decide for us.

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