When a Self-driving Car Causes an Accident

What are you saying, you never made any mistakes when you were learning to drive? I might add this is over the course of driving a lot of miles...over 1.5 million miles...

https://www.google.com/selfdrivingcar/

Hopefully this car learned something from it's accident.

Yeah he learned his insurance is going up....

I've often envisioned a future filled with self driving cars, where you just program your destination and sit back and relax. But that has always included a time when all cars were self-driving, where they could all coordinate with each other... in special lanes or elevated lanes, if nothing else. It was never a place where automatic mixed in with human driven cars on the same roads. The safety level between those two scenarios is completely different. I don't believe I'll ever feel comfortable on a road where the two mix. I don't believe the sensor and coordination challenges can ever be solved, to allow full scale deployment of self driving on our current roadways, as long as regular cars share those same lanes.

Well there has to be a transition period...I don't think there will ever be a car that has non-override auto pilot...even if that override requires some sort of authorization...there are too many situations that would require a preferential decision, and possibly a string of preferential decisions...just as a function of speed and feeling of freedom to choose would have to be retained...Uber is not a one-size-fits-all solution...

A little off topic, but in line with the self driving.

Back in the 80's (maybe in the 70's) the Moller Skycar envisioned a automatic GPS system installed in the car and in communications with other Sky cars to avoid collisions.

At the time I thought it was just a pipe dream,... and it was. But now the technology is finally catching up.

My question is simple: What is the purpose of having a self driving, (autonomous car)?

To what ultimate end is this going to improve anyone's life?

I can understand not owning a vehicle saves money on the individual.

I can understand there may be some safety advantages.

I also understand anyone can simply take a taxi, bus or train to get around.

Do people really not enjoy driving or is it that while sitting in a vehicle one can work more?

I am more than puzzled by this phenomenon as driving can be enjoyable, just as anything can be enjoyable or tedious. Try driving across Australia, it is a great experience. Tedious but enjoyable.

What actually is this fascination with a self driving car or are we being pushed to what some computerised nerdy company wants. Lead like sheep to an unknown destination. Fad, laziness, false comfort, keeping up with technology, ?????

I am curious. Today, on reflection, it makes no sense to me as yet.

Ultimately, safety is the goal. Vehicular deaths each day are outrageously high. But as I mentioned, I don't believe that's achievable until the entire network is autonomous. Mixing the two isn't going to do it.

Second would be efficiency. Time efficiency. If everything is tied in, traffic jams will be a thing of the past. And driving across the Outback is quite different than AM and PM rush hour, where you are stuck going 0-6 mph for over an hour each direction. And this is coming from a man who loves the jeep he drives.

The advantages of a properly working system are not that difficult to understand; "properly working" being key.

Nope sorry, I don't see this as sense, as we will still have the same amount of vehicles on the road in rush hour times, if not more al crawling along at 6mph. Just the driver will be less stressed from driving but the frustration will still remain or shift to another anxiety.

Great for cities and pollution, if the vehicles are all electric, but, world wide as they want this to be, I see no advantage to the general population of the world.

Time would not be advantageous as people will not work but rather mess about on the net with private stuff.

It is a great concept if used correctly, for some countries and cities, but people are involved and they are gullible as well as flawed. I think big business is driving us to a place we should not be in, to maintain profitability. Clever marketing catering for the lazy, as marketing does. Gives you something you did not really need nor want.

And just think, you wont be able to fix it yourself so the garage can become a spare room I guess.

Sort of like spitting out the hole of a doughnut to me.

It has its pros and I think, too many cons for now. Stick with my bike and car and enjoy the drive.

You should research the mechanics of what causes a traffic jam. Seen from far above, it is an accordian or slinky type movement. One slow car that pauses too long or rubbernecks then catches up, and the effect multiplies behind it. You will have traffic jams even when there is no accident to get in the way. They start from nothing, just because of human nature and reactions. This won't happen in an intelligent network that takes all vehicles into consideration. An algorithm will be used that for the most part prevents this. The average speed may be slower, but the end result would get you there much faster, since you won't be stopping and going all along the way. I'm talking about a highway system here, not surface roads in neighborhoods.

The purpose:

1. for the car companies

a. new technology - added costs they can reasonably ask for

b. since a driver is not at fault, the car will be under scrutiny so owners . will need very thorough maintenance records and have maintenance done more often. Increased sales of OEM parts is the result.

2. Insurance companies are looking forward to somewhat easier litigation when the "ground rules" become established

3. EPA - reduced emissions via sensible driving styles

Now you ask if people really don't like to drive? That depends a bit on their age and the environment they are driving in. When I was under 50, I would jump in the car and drive 175 miles every Friday night to get to a drag strip I preferred to race at on Saturdays, even though there were a few much closer. Now at 65, I don't want to drive more than 15 miles. It appears to be that way for many of my aging friends as well, as some have already turned to bus trips for vacations they would have driven to in the past. If I lived in an area like, say Rockville, Maryland and had to play bumper car on the multi-lane roads down there just to get onto the super slab, I'm sure I would have tired of driving much sooner - too much stress in that environment.

First off, I disagree with the assertion that it was the car's fault that it's maneuvering WITHIN ITS OWN LANE. caused it to strike a vehicle that was OVERTAKING IT IN ITS OWN LANE. This is also why I WILL not drive in California; their road rules were written by the Loony Toons.

"Further investigation revealed hundreds of cases over a 15-month period where the software failed, the car surrendered control to the human driver, or the driver intervened."

Note how they have to lump three separate categories together to get 'hundreds of cases.' Let's look at these three categories one at a time:

• The Software Failed: How did it fail? Did it crash, did it turn left from the wrong lane? Or did the GPS 'glitch out' and move the vehicle from the highway to the adjacent frontage road?
• The Car Surrendered Control: This would be a desired outcome if the system runs into a situation it cannot deal with, such as, say, a road closure that was not reported to Google Maps.
• The Driver Intervened: How many were cases where the car was being unsafe, how many were due to driver bias ("I always start my left turn in the crosswalk, and make a gentle, sweeping arc, why is the car moving straight? (Because the car was 'taught' that you bring the nose of the vehicle to the midpoint of the intersection before making the turn, like they show in the Rules of the Road handbooks?)), how many were due to the car being set to be 'too safe'? (There was one case where a driverless car was cited in California (Them again, You'd think CA has a natural bias against driverless vehicles) for driving 5mph UN DER the minimum speed for the road it was on. The car was programmed not to exceed 45mph.), and how many times was it because outside influences were 'screwing around' with the car's program, such as a pedestrian at a street corner who won't cross the street. The car is programmed to yield to all pedestrians, and does not have the sophisticated software to analyse all the gestures that mean "drive on, I'm not crossing yet," and differentiate them from all the similar gestures that DON'T mean "drive on." The car is programmed to yield to the smaller, more fragile humans NO MATTER WHAT, so at a pedestrian crossing, it's programming will force it to 'out-wait' a pedestrian waiting for the car to go first.

This whole article strikes me as being written by a 'spin artist' aiming for an 'anti-driverless car' agenda.

God help them in Sweden at pedestrian crossings. They will have traffic jams on crossings and round a-bouts then, as pedestrian crossings are on the round a-bouts in towns.

Simply moving the jam from one area to another.

It will be interesting to note how these cars will negotiate the Magic Round About in Swindon. (6 round a-bouts all on top of one another).

And, if the car passes the driving to the occupant, does the occupant require a drivers license and insurance? I have seen nothing about the operator needing all of this? This could be a laugh for some and expensive for others.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2943467/Driverless-cars-green-light-WON-T-need-licence-meaning-ll-able-school-run-own.html

You can add at PSU, and probably every other university, as pedestrians ALWAYS have the right of way there and at class change time, College Avenue in State College is swarmed with pedestrians for at least 20 minutes. Maybe they will program driverless cars to not go down such streets. (???)

Man is fallible, therefore, what man makes is fallible, and man (and women) made the software...which therefore is fallible!

Thus, I trust them (self-driving vehicles) NOT!

It will probably be the same as a new computer system. Put it out there and let the public find the faults and them simply update as the problems occur. Maybe they will usher the pedestrians along or use the stall time to recharge the battery pack in he sunshine

Electric car marketing: Pedestrians are your friends. Why not recharge while stuck at the crossings. Enjoy a picnic lunch while you wait. Take in the sights and sounds of your surroundings, meet your friends for a chat. Pop in for your late minute groceries or simply sit back and watch the pedestrians pass by. Autonomous driving, your mew relaxation destination,....crossings!

It will be interesting to hear how this works out and if time is saved. Do autonomous cars have hooters to warn other road users and pedestrians?

I doubt this is for me, I prefer the control of my life and passage along the roads for now, thanks. I might get frustrated from being frustrated from doing nothing. It will just be a full scale bluetooth Scalextric, (slot car) set and someone else has the controller.

So we think we have a problem with distracted driving now? The gist of the link is that we still need drivers alert to what the "autonomous" car is doing to take control in non-standard conditions, such as the sand bags in the lane, as in the link. How alert will a driver be if the car is doing the driving 99% of the time? Want to talk about bored drivers? Unless the driver is really connecting with the scenery, he will be asleep in no time. (there is a reason young parents pack fussy kids into cars at bed time - the road lulls you into sleep) If he/she is connecting with the scenery, how alert to road dangers will the driver be?

I think they have some more testing/programming to go on this concept.

Question: Do you think, believe, consider that the folks making these cars, monitor this site for input, opinions, ideas, potential concerns of people, for their vehicles development? Just as Google. MS, Apple etc., monitors web data and ones location?

Well since the car in question in the link is Google's little mistake, I guess we know the answer to that. Google took about 1 day to link my home account to my work, and I tried to make that tough to do. Whatever I Google at home appears in my search history at work, with totally different accounts. They are amassing a history of all of us.

Some information you may not have known: If I use google here, I am permanently hooked to a server that limits my searches. If I try to use Google.co.uk I am returned to a local server. This makes it impossible to engage other data from anywhere else I am returned to the local server where I suffer the same data and links and limited information.

I also found that by forwarding a link to a friend in Au, he then resend the same link back to me, I can access more information from the same link I searched. If I receive a link from overseas, I can access data I could not have gained when searching in my location.

So using google, it is sometimes better to ask a friend to do a search and have them send you the link from where they are located.

I never had this trouble previously and it seems to have started about 12-18 months ago. So I repeat this again, not all searches produce the same information for all users as access is limited by a server or someone.

I have also noticed a huge volume of rubbish in my email when tracking is disabled and location is impossible as late to disable. They can now tell me within 2km where I am located with the location disable.

Not a computer issue but a people issue. They need to know everything about a person.

Privacy is dead. The CIA, Google etc., killed it.

I don't use Google for any serious searches, I use DuckDuckGo or Ixquick

I prefer to search for what I am searching for, not what Google thinks I would want to see based on past searches.

For example, Google already knows who is 'pro-gun control' and who is 'anti-gun control' based on search history, even if you have never searched on 'gun control' before. Pro-gun control people get links for all the news stories of people getting hurt by guns, Anti-gun control people get links for all the news stories where using/having a gun PREVENTED a tragedy.

DuckDuckGo and Ixquick would each give the same news reports to both groups, no pre-filtering. (DDG and Ixq may give different results compared to each other, but that's just the difference between their 'scoring algorythims.')

Taking the points in order:
Vested interests are determined to make driver-less cars acceptable. Accept it, or toll puddle.
To late,.. you missed your chance. I can only see us becoming more like ants to the controlling elite. It used to be pleasure to drive. I loved driving. I would drive 500 miles in a day and think.. wonderful. Now, I only go out if it is absolutely essential, really necessary.
The roads are full of disaster. Traffic, drivers, druggies, speed traps, regulations, documents, accidents.... All the pleasures have been eroded away. The pleasure has long gone since when you could.. drive into the country lanes, doing about 30 plus mph and enjoy the scenery, fresh air, the peace and quiet of a beautiful planet, in any and all seasons. All gone, for what gain? We rush about, 70 mph plus, saving time, doing more,... to do WHAT?.... Relax?

I begin to think a law should be passed to limit ALL road travel, for everyone, to say 30 miles a day.
i.e. to work within 15 miles, travel anywhere.. up to 15 miles, etc. to seriously curtail ALL road miles
travelled for everyone; commercial and private. Expressly to prevent the mess we have on the roads today.
Admittedly it is our own creation, born of freedom, yet requiring ever more control. Driver-less will only make it worse.
The railways would appreciate the extra boost in passengers and freight. With even more carriages packed like sardines.

I suppose the younger generations who have "grown up" with the status quo, accept it as is, and are none the wiser.
For (an old) me, the roads now are a disaster, a very reluctant necessity. Heaven help the future on the roads.
For now we have the scene: e.g. where a failed software or mechanical breakdown of an auto. vehicle meets up with
a driver driven car with possibly a drunk drugged or just careless driver, who suffers from... road rage?
Has the world gone mad? Who can regulate, aid, or save, this scene? Yet, this too shall also... come about soon.

To be fair, as my mobility deteriorates I may well appreciate being taxied around by a driver-less car! To take me to the quiet lanes, the seaside, indeed where ever I wish to go! Home James. A free chauffeur for life? Or, is my life now in the hands of a programmer (possibly from India?) paid only $5 a day! Is this my short but blissful future? If I had a camper van, need I ever come back? Just travel the world until the (inevitable) breakdown occurs, it could be goodbye world?

jt.

Confirming his case in court a solicitor pointed out that a witness should not be considered unreliable just because he wanted to change a previous statement. For example, he said: "This morning I would have been prepared to swear I was wearing my gold Rolex wristwatch. But, I realise now, that I left it at home on the bathroom shelf."
Much later, when he got home his wife said "I don't know why you bothered to send someone round just to collect your wristwatch?" "I did not!" said the solicitor. "You didn't give it to him?"
"Of course I did," replied the wife, "he knew exactly where it was."