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

Post by freiheit » Tue, Aug 07, 2012, 10:35 PM UTC

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…

Post by danweber » Tue, Aug 07, 2012, 10:36 PM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #100

ericd wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not really reasonably cost effective for most people.

Neither is a Google car, though. Adding self-driving requires five figures, probably even in production.

Post by danweber » Tue, Aug 07, 2012, 10:43 PM UTC

greyboy wrote: post #99

stephengillie wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This brings up another question: How will these cars react when a street is blocked and unpassable, due to heavy snowfall (unplowed), heavy rainfall over the street, mudslides & rock slides, etc? What about where a street has parked cars on both sides and just enough room for one car to go through the middle of the street - one of the narrow city streets where drivers have to wait in the intersection for oncoming car…

Personally, I can think of lots of edge cases that will be interesting to see answers to. For instance, a 4-way stop - we know how to handle that easily, and can overcome someone jumping out of turn, again, quite easily. More importantly - who will be maintaining all the traffic changes? An example - a section of Interstate or road is closed for months, whether by damage or construction. And then, when it's clear aga…

Post by danweber » Tue, Aug 07, 2012, 10:48 PM UTC

pavel_lishin wrote: post #41

krasin wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Post by pavel_lishin » Tue, Aug 07, 2012, 10:50 PM UTC

rogerbinns wrote: post #154

arrrg wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I’m interested in is whether they counted hypothetical accidents. As far as I know, there always has to be someone in the driver’s seat, ready to step in at any time. How often did that person have to step in? Now that would be an interesting metric, especially when plotted over time. As is, it should be pretty unlikely for the autonomous cars to cause accidents, even if they were much less reliable than human d…

Computer driven cars also have the option of just stopping when things aren't looking good (analogous to a panic). For all we know they could stop when a leaf blows across the road - unlikely to cause an accident because of the reaction time. The "just stop" approach isn't available for planes or nuclear power plants for example.