Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

googleblog.blogspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 455 posts

Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#351

Post by pyoung »

pinaceae wrote: post #262
alwaysdoit wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't buying a car that is able to handle a bunch of different hypothetical future scenarios planning ahead?

sure, but i do it once and then i have peace of mind. i have a car at my disposal, 24/7/365. should i book a car for the weekend? a last minute shopping tour? etc. etc. etc.

Have you ever used Lyft. In my experience (SF), it literally takes minutes for a car to show up. More often than not, I am still looking for may keys/wallet/jacket or brushing my teeth when the car gets here. I imagine an autonomous car service would be even faster, as car availability could be highly tuned to demand (Lyft and Uber are using comparatively crude methods of demand/availability management, surge pricing).

As others have mentioned, the car-sharing model works best in urban areas, and no one is suggesting that we ban individuals from owning cars. But I will also add that we have spent the last 100 years building infrastructure and public spaces to accommodate for a car-centric society, but this has had a negative impact on people who prefer other forms of transportation. Public transportation is severely underfunded and inadequate in most places, pedestrians and bikers are getting mowed down by reckless drivers, tons of public land is being poorly utilized as parking space, and our air is getting polluted to unprecedented levels. Your "peace of mind" comes at a high cost to the rest of society. Autonomous cars are not a silver bullet for all of these problems by any means, but they can go a long way in getting us to a better place with most of these issues.

Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#352

Post by scoofy »

beachstartup wrote: post #211
scoofy wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replace bike with car. You seem to think that drivers are not massive traffic law violators? Speeding, double parking, tailgating, failing to signal, need i go on? Expecting an entire group to act like pristine angels before life saving laws can be put in place is asinine at best.

the problem is bicyclists tend to do things that are far more dangerous / serious: * running red lights * running stop signs * driving down the wrong side of the road * driving on sidewalks bikes are far less dangerous than cars, which is why nobody minds that they routinely break far worse rules. in addition, bicyclists routinely break the rules you mentioned.

The problem is that these things only seem more dangerous. At the end of the day, momentum kills. Speeding in an automobile, especially in urban areas, is far and away the most dangerous thing of any of the "crimes" here, and it's treated as though it should be expected, not reprehensible as it is.

A cyclist yielding at a stop sign isn't going to kill anyone. The car flooring it after each one and rolling the crosswalks may.

Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#353

Post by grkvlt »

mzs wrote: post #168
thefreeman wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a feeling that the general populace of hacker news will disagree with us, but I am with you 100%. I live in a small-ish town on the outskirts of Philadelphia that happens to be in the middle of some sort of really popular biking route. Unfortunately, we have a ton of really small streets with cars parked on both sides. I understand and appreciate that cyclists have no other place to ride then in the street, an…

Why I pull in front of the line of cars stopped at the red light on my bike is because otherwise a car will clobber me. It's not a matter of if but when and the consequences will be severe for my family and me. On my commute I am minimally wearing a bright neon green penny over my clothing. When I have stopped in the line of cars at the light I have had cars almost rear end me. Also when I get to the intersection dri…

In the UK this is actually enforced, and we have ASLs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_stop_line) allowing cyclists to move in front of other traffic at junctions, and start ahead of them. Is this sort of thing not part of the road system i9n the US?

Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#354

Post by scoofy »

theg2 wrote: post #234
scoofy wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet, you would think that the side of your "battle" with the tendency to kill should be expected to behave better?

I ride a bike and drive a car. And while doing both, I do my best to obey the laws and not injure other people. In Boston, and more specifically in my area of Cambridge we have major issues with drivers turning without looking at the bike lane and bikers running through red lights or riding on sidewalks. In MA, we have very specific laws regarding how bikes are to be treated under the law and whenever riding I abide…

I'm not pointing fingers. I'm saying both parties are guilty. I just thing that the level of danger posed by the automobile drivers demands greater attention. Less than one person per year is killed by a cyclist. Drivers kill 100 in the united states every day.

Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#355

Post by altcognito »

Theodores wrote: post #265
jsmthrowaway wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually don't follow the intuition. The thought of putting a smart fortwo into a barrier at speed terrifies me, whereas I've done it in a Toyota Camry (pedestrian on freeway over blind crest, nowhere to go), gotten out unharmed, and driven a rental to work the next day. Also if I hit a pedestrian at 25mph I don't think it matters which I'm driving. The ads don't help. They show the car's frame holding up a pickup…

Crumple zones and needing a 'big car' is old fashioned safety. Probably the best cars to study are the big brothers of the Smart Car - the Mercedes A and B series. The original A series had a problem with the elk test, that was fixed and is a side issue to the main safety advances. The passenger cell is the key part, ideally you want the engine to go under it rather than land in the passengers laps. That is a key inn…

> Crumple zones and needing a 'big car' is old fashioned safety.

No. This is modern design. In the very cool Fifth Gear episode, you're seeing a car that is not designed with a good rigid passenger cell component (and also fails to transfer the energy of the crash around the passenger cell). Both cars have crumple zones. They are not all created equal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crumple_zone

> A misconception about crumple zones sometimes voiced[citation needed] is that they reduce safety for the occupants of the vehicle by allowing the body to collapse, therefore risking crushing the occupants.

> Crumple zones work by managing crash energy, absorbing it within the outer parts of the vehicle, rather than being directly transmitted to the occupants, while also preventing intrusion into or deformation of the passenger cabin.

Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#356

Post by mzs »

grkvlt wrote: post #353
mzs wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why I pull in front of the line of cars stopped at the red light on my bike is because otherwise a car will clobber me. It's not a matter of if but when and the consequences will be severe for my family and me. On my commute I am minimally wearing a bright neon green penny over my clothing. When I have stopped in the line of cars at the light I have had cars almost rear end me. Also when I get to the intersection dri…

In the UK this is actually enforced, and we have ASLs ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_stop_line ) allowing cyclists to move in front of other traffic at junctions, and start ahead of them. Is this sort of thing not part of the road system i9n the US?

It's quite rare here in US, I've only encountered it sporadically near some universities. I think they make a lot of sense and wish they were common. Typically here there is enough room for a bicycle and then some ahead of the stopped cars, so it makes little sense to me why the extra markings are not painted on the road - possibly lack of familiarity?

Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#357

Post by grkvlt »

alextgordon wrote: post #116
danielweber wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it "making a mistake" to take tens of milliseconds to realize that a human has fallen down in front of you?

You're right, I should have said "accident" instead of "mistake".

> Is it "an accident" to take tens of milliseconds to realize that a human has fallen down in front of you?

And the answer is still 'no'.

Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#358

Post by jfoster »

ignostic wrote: post #209

Everyone seems really concerned with the edge cases right now. What about insurance and liability? What about when X happens and it's raining? These are (usually pretty minor) technical challenges, and I haven't heard one yet that we won't be able to overcome with today's technology. Under given circumstances the car will be safer than a human or it isn't. The moment it crosses that threshold (for most conditions) th…

It's funny how none of the critics think about the human edge-cases. What happens when someone decides to drink and drive? What happens when someone falls asleep or gets distracted on the freeway?

The answer, of course, is that edge cases are just that. They don't impede general use, and though they occasionally cause some worst-case outcomes to occur, we all just decide to live with them.

Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#359

Post by jfoster »

chillingeffect wrote: post #256
TheEzEzz wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There must be at least 50 million residential garages in the US alone. If we automate all cars and switch to a Cars-as-a-Service model that is 50 million large rooms suddenly available. That's a lot of reclaimed real estate. Edit: If the average garage is 250 sq ft (pretty small), average cost of real estate is $100/sq ft (pretty low), then this is a $1.25 trillion windfall. Not bad for a small side-effect of autonom…

Way to only see everything with rose-colored glasses. Has it even occurred to you there might be any possible cons to your scenario? First of all, the lot the cars come from is going to require real estate, so subtract that from your windfall. Where will they be at night or other low-use times? Second, subtract the additional resources in gas/electricity it takes to get to my house from god-knows-where it came from.…

The real estate requirement with autonomous vehicles is only the difference between the off-peak maximum required parks and the peak (no cars will be parked). Currently, the real estate required for non-autonomous vehicles is typically more than two spots for each car. (one at home, one at the office, and a fraction of the public parking)

Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#360

Post by ma2rten »

TheEzEzz wrote: post #306
dragonwriter wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the storage space requirements for cars in normal use is access space for human drivers and to allow random access entrance and exits. Cars as a service can eliminate much of the storage space requirement.

As well as 'redundant' storage, since each car effectively gets multiple parking spots at the moment (a dedicated garage, plus a guaranteed spot at work, etc). Once cars are automated you only need enough storage spots for the cars not on the road, which is much smaller.

Also, cars could park on big parking lots, which don't necessarily have to be near someone's home.
Post reply on HN