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Not Enough Testing of Autonomous Cars

Posted May 29, 2016 12:00 AM by Engineering360 eNewsletter

Gathering statistics to determine the safety of driverless cars turns out to be more complicated and more demanding than anticipated, according to a report from the Rand Corporation. U.S. drivers log almost 3 trillion miles a year, vastly different from the paltry 1.3 million miles over the past 6 years from the 55 vehicles in Google's fleet. Considering conventional cars' extremely low 1.09 fatalities and 77 injuries per 100 million miles driven, it would take 400 years and 8.8 billion miles for a fleet of 100 automated vehicles running 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to generate enough data for comparison. This item looks at the data and speculates on the types of additional testing necessary to reach sufficient confidence levels.

Editor's Note: This news brief was brought to you by the Quality, Test, & Measurement eNewsletter. Subscribe today to have content like this delivered to your inbox

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Rixter
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#1

Re: Not Enough Testing of Autonomous Cars

05/29/2016 7:24 AM

And if you upgrade the software in that 400 years you have to start over.
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Fredski
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#2

Re: Not Enough Testing of Autonomous Cars

05/29/2016 8:18 AM

maybe we should all move back into caves until we have more data that it's safe to live out here
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Re: Not Enough Testing of Autonomous Cars

05/30/2016 5:10 AM

Yup, I'm up for that
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lyn
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#6
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Re: Not Enough Testing of Autonomous Cars

05/30/2016 1:50 PM

It's never going to be safe.

Life will kill you, if nothing else does.
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lyn
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#3

Re: Not Enough Testing of Autonomous Cars

05/29/2016 4:54 PM

They're just using the Microsoft development philosophy.

Release it as soon as it doesn't crash for an hour and let the users sort it out and tell you how to fix it after that.

Disclaimer: "All warranties, express and implied, become null and void when the system/vehicle crashes."
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#4

Re: Not Enough Testing of Autonomous Cars

05/30/2016 5:09 AM

Gathering statistics to determine the safety of driverless cars turns out to be more complicated and more demanding than anticipated, Err.. not than anticipated by most of us.
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Rixter
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Re: Not Enough Testing of Autonomous Cars

05/31/2016 2:35 PM

Err.. not than anticipated by most of us.

Yeah, most of "us", but maybe not the 95 percent of the population that know little or nothing about statistics.

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#7

Re: Not Enough Testing of Autonomous Cars

05/30/2016 5:45 PM

MicroStuff™, the market leader in selling "bugs, glitches, and blue-screens-of-death" since 1975.

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sharpstick
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Re: Not Enough Testing of Autonomous Cars

05/30/2016 6:57 PM

Someone needs to take statistics 101. Or at least google "sampling".
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sharpstick
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#10

Re: Not Enough Testing of Autonomous Cars

05/31/2016 2:48 PM

I would consider 1.7 million miles a significant amount of data. So far, they have proven far more reliable than humans: http://www.gizmag.com/google-reveals-lessons-learned-from-self-driving-car-program/37481/
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