U.S. vehicle safety regulators tell Google that computers can qualify as drivers

[gary]

In an article in the Institute of Electrical & Electronic Engineers (IEEE)
magazine (http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/self-driving/an-ai-can-legally-be-defined-as-a-cars-driver), Philip E. Ross reports that the U.S National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration have ruled in a letter to Google that computer
systems can qualify as the legal driver of a car in the United States.

That letter here -
http://isearch.nhtsa.gov/files/Google%20--%20compiled%20response%20to%2012%20 Nov%20%2015%20interp%20request%20--%204%20Feb%2016%20final.htm



IEEE Spectrum article here -
http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/self-driving/an-ai-can-legally-be-defined-as-a-cars-driver

[bojan]

Oh oh... We are doomed :shrug: :sadeyes:

[AndrewJ]

They have spent hundreds of man years and trillions of dollars trying to fully automate planes, but they still need pilots ( esp if carrying those pesky human cargoes that sue on any fault ).
Cant see em getting "fully autonomous cars without controls"
Just the insurance bill will kill that off.

Andrew

[bojan]

I imagine this system will be very OK for army vehicles... without biological material to be transposrted. And even with it..
If machine is given the order.. it will execute it.
Who will sue whom?

[Wavytone]

Doomed ? No...

I'd much rather be driven home by a googlebot than a very tired or drunk driver. And no annoying chitchat with stupid taxi drivers.

[Bassnut]

yes, a googlebot will be generally safer but consider this.
5 kids barge across a road without looking and your car is 2m away, googlebot has 2 choices, sacrifice 5 kids or avoid and possibly sacrifice you.

Everyone understands a human driver has to make a fast difficult choice and **** happens and whatever ensuses is just bad luck. But this scenario MUST be pre programed in a googlebot. So, do you buy a car that has optional (stated, would have to be) software that will 1/ preserve the driver always 2/ make a valued decision based on amount of human destruction and act accordingly. What would you buy?.

Who sues who?. Insurance companys will go nuts. Sue the driver, no, software made the choice. The coder?, or the car co?, or maybe you anyway because you picked the algorithim (I bet cars owners want the choice on purchase).
What if you had a prang with another human driven car which confused your googlebot and it made a wrong choice because it was not predicted?.

At a minimum, googlebot cars arnt possible unless ALL cars are googlebots and accident response is universally regulated by government.

[AndrewJ]

I always think of Hazel O'Connors song "The Eighth day" at times like this

"On the eighth day machine just got upset,
A problem man had never seen as yet"

Wonder how long before simple bugs ( or more likely hackers ) would upset the Googlebots:question:

Andrew

[RickS]

Don't need bugs or hackers. Just obeying the road rules, unlike human drivers, puts the automated drivers at a disadvantage.

[OICURMT]

For the amount of miles the GoogleCar has already driven, there has (arguably) been no accidents that was its fault... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_self-driving_car#Traffic_accidents

January 2016 report - https://www.google.com/selfdrivingcar/files/reports/report-0116.pdf

One of my Fav TedTalks... https://www.ted.com/talks/chris_urmson_how_a_driverless_car_s ees_the_road

[Wavytone]

And you'd be wrong about that - in the US the trials showed the only prangs were stupid humans driving into the Googlebots cars... Probably more out of surprise to see no driver.

The trials have run long enough to prove quite clearly the bots are much safer drivers statistically; the numbers are against the doubters.

But some things do worry me, like apps deciding to plot a route to Tasmania that involves driving under Bass strait, or a route in the blue mountains that takes the car over a cliff...

[RickS]

I was actually paraphrasing a comment I read in an article about the Google research. I wasn't claiming that the cars were unsafe.

I guess if human drivers drive as politely as they debate on the Internet the sooner we're out of the driver's seat the better.

Cheers,
Rick.

[Bassnut]

And Rick would be exactly right. Stupid humans driving into googlebots?. And what did the googlebot do to avoid this?, Insurance chaos. Anyway, humans driving on the same road as googlebots is fraught with trouble and unmanageable. Yes googlebot is MUCH safer, but its the exceptions that get nasty, just one....

[thunderchildobs]

I am curious about what happens in unusual situations.
Traffic lights are stuck on green, with police giving directions.
Road works where there are traffic control officers with stop / go flags or temporay road / lane markings.
A few years ago on the way to Astrofest, a bridge was out, and the traffic had to go cross country on a dirt track.
There is debris on the road, how does it go around it?

[AndrewJ]

Me too.
After watching many episodes of aircrash investigations, it is apparent that even at that level of sophistication, and in such a highly regulated system, if the computer ( autopilot ) gets confused, it can just hand control back to the pilot.
Even highly skilled and trained pilots can then be disorientated by whats happening, as they werent always following what was going on before, and have to trust that sensors arent faulty etc etc.

Whats going to happen when yr average mug punter ( with their thumb up their bum and their brain in neutral because they have applied all of their remaining braincells to texting or updating their farcebook pages ) is the one left to make a decision in a hurry???
It might work in a fully regulated city environment, with well known sensor positions and gps maps, but i cant see it working ( at 100% safety levels ) anywhere else.

If you dont want to drive, just use Uber.

Andrew

[michaellxv]

IFF googlebots/computer controlled cars or whatever you want to call them are as good as they say then insurance premiums will quickly dictate the they are more popular than a traditional car and they will take over.

IF the insurance companies realise this then they will see their makret disappearing and the reverse will happen and we can keep on driving:driving:

So AI cars take over. No more taxis/buses/trains or any other public transport. I sit in my car and go to work, instruct it to go to the warehouse to pick up the shopping I ordered last night and take it home. The "house" will unload it and store it as requried. At 3pm it will do the school run. At the end of the day it will come to pick me up from work. Oh, no more car parks required either. No more shops. Hmmm, no more job. Aint Utopia great :poke:

[KenGee]

yeap blue screen of death at 110 kms.

[OICURMT]

See the TED Video for an explanation, including how to avoid women in wheelchairs chasing ducks on streets...

BTW: I find it interesting how many people trust "fly by wire" and yet feel the need to distrust an AI car...

[AndrewJ]

Do they "trust it", or just have no options anymore???
I prefer to at least have my brakes and steering as a mechanical option.
Sure there can be mechanical failures there too, but i suspect there are more dollars being spent these days "fixing" breakdowns in the complex fly by wire systems, ( which still end up driving mechanical systems ), than was ever spent on a "completely" failed brake or steering system.
Time and big business will decide what we get.

Wont be long before the little red light comes on and tells you it has already ordered you a towtruck as it cant let you drive anymore.
Be fun if that happens outside a city.

Andrew

[scagman]

I assume it would have to use a GPS to get from a to b. Out my way there are a few places the road and the maps don't match. eg. I'm on the road and the GPS maps are saying the road is 50m's to my right, in the the bush.
When I updated my maps a couple of years later, the maps still didn't match the roads.

Cheers

[OICURMT]

Yes, the car uses GPS for knowing where it is in a "general" sense. It's laser tomography, radar and cameras to sense the road itself and can adjust for changing conditions.

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

No, it's not ready for the Outback... but is gaining momentum as an urban transport system... probably where its market will be, as most people live in urban/suburban environments. Just look at Australia.


I'm a proponent of the self-driving car for various reasons. Let's face it, the abililty to save more than 1 million lives per year makes sense, not to mention the countless number of people who are disabled due to accidents, resulting in a burdening of the social system.

My better-half is Chariman of the board for a company that deals with the physically and intellectually disabled and I can tell you it's not cheap to take care of these people.

[doppler]

No more problems with having a few too many at the local, the car will get you home. I guess the taxi companys will loose out a bit here (or maybe just the drivers, another job lost to technology?).

I guess a few people will have two cars, one for commuting to work and the pub and the other for hooning around on weekends.

[AndrewJ]

I reckon if it does become legal and implemented, the idea of "owning" a car will quickly disappear ( esp in cities ), and private ownership would be banned, to ensure the fleet stays consistent, and prevent "modifications/hooning".
( Also allows the govt to track you even more than now )
Big businesses will own them and they will just run around and be "booked" by a smartphone as required.

Andrew

[bugeater]

Hot tub time machine 2?

[sn1987a]

I can't wait! - just pack up the trailer after an all night session, hop in the car " take me home Hal ...oh and stop and wake me up at the servo on the way for a bacon and egg toasted"

:D

[GrahamL]

Volvos new pedestrian avoidance system works a treat :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XskQq-YHpc


Ok maybe the avoidance system wasn't actually fitted to the car they tried to test on ,,:)which brings us right along to imo ,a driverless car puttering round like grandma having an anxiety attack and the mountains of stoopid people on the roads is going to end in tears sooner or later.

[bugeater]

Honestly I'd trust a computer driving a car a million times more than most of the morons driving out there. Yes I rode a motorcycle nearly every day for over 10 years and barely a day went by when some numpty didn't try to kill me. :mad2: And seriously, if I was stupid enough to step in front of a car, I'd trust the computer's reflexes way more than a human's.

I actually did some work on driverless cars and related technologies many years ago. I came across an interesting paper that looked at adaptive cruise control and the effects it has on traffic flow. It was computer modeled, but basically something like 10% adaptive cruise control vehicles was enough to dramatically improve traffic flow. You can think of them kind of herding the rest of the idiots out of the normal speed/stop/speed/stop routine that so messes with smooth and efficient traffic flow. It was very interesting.

TLDR: even a small number of computer controlled vehicles on the road can have significant benefits for all road users.

[Wavytone]

Won't be long before you can instruct the car to go fill itself up at a servo, or take itself to be serviced and return.

[RobF]

Bring it on I say. I've learned to dread the return to school and uni months in our neck of the woods. Every "merge to a single lane" situation can become a fight to the death.

Latest stats on drug use/abuse in drivers frightening. We each pass stoned (or hyped!) morons multiple times each day now without knowing it.

Leads me to believe even Gen I and II vehicles will be a big safety improvement. Don't want to be on the jury when there is an ugly accident for an autonomous vehicle mind you. Statistically it has to happen at some point.

[bojan]

Andrew, you are spot on here.
Public transport (private or business, doesn't matter) is the futiure.. especially in big cities (and the world tends towards becoming a single big city anyway).

[AndrewJ]

Gday Bojan
As much as i hate the thought of it, it would have massive cost benefits in a large city. Ie
no need for driveways and garages in houses/buildings.
no more need for "public carparks" everywhere,
no more onstreet parking blocking traffic flow
massive reduction in maintenance/repair/spare parts facilities, as only limited/std models allowed

Just think how many more people can be squeezed in
without needing to increase road infrastructure.

Andrew

[doppler]

And a lot of people will be out of jobs in the cities.
I for one enjoy my drive to work and back, but I don't live in a big city and the drive here is very relaxing even in peak hour traffic (which is only for half an hour)
Automated taxi's might be good in reigonal area's where public transport is non existant at night and weekends, and taxi trips for the night out are the most expensive part of an outing.

[AndrewJ]

Gday Rick
Fully agree they would be good in the boonies, but if owned by big business, then they wont be used anywhere that they cant guarantee something like 80-90% usage time.
It will be like internet etc. Only the large/densely populated regions make it cost effective to set up.
As to unemployment, what i reckon is Google can use part of their profit to pay local people to drive around the bush in the ( worn out ) googlebots to constantly update the GPS maps :-)

Andrew

[bojan]

There will be new jobs, because cities will grow.... and they grow because there are (more and new) jobs available in cities.

[OICURMT]

http://www.autoblog.com/2015/08/07/tesla-snake-arm-auto-charge-video/

[gary]

The February 2016 issue of the Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers
(IEEE) Spectrum magazine has a cover story (http://spectrum.ieee.org/transportation/advanced-cars/selfdriving-cars-will-be-ready-before-our-laws-are)by Nathan A. Greenblatt,
an intellectual-property lawyer in Palo Alto, entitled "Self-Driving Cars
Will Be Ready Before Our Laws Are".



IEEE Spectrum article, which contains many additional interesting hyperlinks, here -
http://spectrum.ieee.org/transportation/advanced-cars/selfdriving-cars-will-be-ready-before-our-laws-are

Brookings white paper "Products Liability and Driverless Cars: Issues and
Guiding Principles for Legislation" by John Villasenor April 2014
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2014/04/products%20liability%20driverless%2 0cars%20villasenor/products_liability_and_driverless_c ars.pdf

[AndrewJ]

Gday Gary
If they do end up modifying the infrastructure to "assist", which will be pretty much a given for full automation in a city environment, then i wonder how long before idiots start indirectly hacking that to cause grief.
( Bit like the legends of the Cornish luring ships ashore with wrongly placed lanterns )

Ive learnt over time its easy to make something do what you want.
Its much harder preventing it from doing what you dont want:D
Its going to be an interesting ride.

Andrew

[GrampianStars]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGi6j2VrL0o
the future of taxies from back in the 80's :lol:

[multiweb]

Maybe they should automate public transport before trying to dive into the personal car market. It makes a lot more sense.

[bojan]

Here we go:
http://www.news.com.au/world/breaking-news/google-selfdriving-car-strikes-public-bus/news-story/5cf6302a4adaae7b1601f367b6f58b50

[xelasnave]

The accident was between a bus and compcar and reading the details one could conclude if the bus was computer controlled there probably would have been no accident.

My father is 94 he still drives and it would be great to see him (and other drivers who find their capacity is diminishing) in a driverless car.
For myself my legs are not as good as a teenagers and I would welcome such a vehicle.
I regularly drive from Tabulam to Sydney and back so I would love to hand over the driving to a compter managed car. No doubt it would talk to you as well and point out places of interest and would lfill the void of loneliness on a long trip.

[bojan]

Alex, wouldn't it be much more fun to use (proper) public transport then?
Talking to real people instead of dumb machine?

PS
It seems we are all slowly but surely developing the phobia towards other people...
"Caves of steel" and other Asomov's novels come to my mind..

[xelasnave]

Public transport from here to there does not work when you are 30 klms out of a one horse town as is the case for me.
It is others loneliness I consider.
I am happy when alone as I don't have to worry about helping people and can enjoy my thoughts.
The trip is hard on my legs is my main issue.

[AndrewJ]

Just reading up on self drive cars and saw the following today
http://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/motoring/us-probes-second-suspected-tesla-autopilot-crash/news-story/a06b53c88739f3f5c695ac826e0ee378
I hadnt heard of the earlier death.???
I know its not a true self drive car yet, but if technology that can't see a semi in front of it on a freeway is currently deemed OK, how "un"complicated is "safe" city driving going to be.
Wanna be a test pilot yet???

Andrew

[torana68]

don't know what that article said but I hear the truck was across the road (90% to) so as you can imagine there wasn't anything to "see" (if you think about the height of the trailer behind a truck, the sensor would have seen clean air). Driver "may" have been distracted as in that car if you take your hand off the wheel it stops, suggestion was he was watching a DVD, not the road ahead.............

[AndrewJ]

Gday Roger
As i qualified, it wasn't a true self driving car, but it was supposed to have sensors to detect front on crashes.
Driving into headlights at night or the sun during the day are some of the worst conditions i normally detect
Your comment that "the sensor would have seen clean air" sort of implies that the system cant cope with "all" real world situations yet, as there really was a truck there.
I'm not knocking the push for self drive cars, just how lax the systems are that allows obviously unready technology onto the roads.
These systems MUST allow for the fact that humans are still involved.
Just look at the increasing number of twits that are earning Darwins for using "devices" whilst driving. These new automated driving "assistance" systems must take that into account ( ie the driver will just zone out ), or not be allowed ( yet )

Andrew

[torana68]

It was a Tesla and it was in "Autopilot" mode I"m guessing the sensor will be upgraded shortly.
"Exactly how Autopilot failed Brown in the fatal accident isn’t entirely clear. Indications are that Brown didn’t brake the Model S. The driver of the truck told local media he believed that Brown was watching video at the time of the crash. And in its blog post, Tesla stated clearly that Autopilot was engaged in the Model S when the accident occurred.
“Neither Autopilot nor the driver noticed the white side of the tractor trailer against a brightly lit sky,” Tesla said in its blog post, “so the brake was not applied. “The high ride height of the trailer combined with its positioning across the road and the extremely rare circumstances of the impact caused the Model S to pass under the trailer, with the bottom of the trailer impacting the windshield of the Model S.”

[AndrewJ]

Gday Roger
“Neither Autopilot nor the driver noticed the white side of the tractor trailer against a brightly lit sky,”
I would hazard a guess that the driver wasnt actually watching, as he thought the "automated" safety systems had him covered.
ie he probably had his thumb up his bum and his brain in neutral
Once you introduce these systems, people believe they are safe ( irrespective of the real limits in the automation ), so they need to be foolproof.

"extremely rare" has to be defined more closely, as i'm not sure a truck swerving in front of a car is "extremely rare".
You should driving down the south eastern feeway in Melbourne in peak hours to see how common it is.
Just because the sun was out shouldnt result in a persons death.
Again, i have no probs with the process of developing self drive cars, just the cavalier release of it without proper testing for all the possibilities.
This appears to be a crash that the most basic of systems should have prevented.

Andrew

[torana68]

"............Once you introduce these systems, people believe they are safe ( irrespective of the real limits in the automation ), so they need to be foolproof."

nothing will ever be 100% foolproof you cant fix "stupid" with electronics. People think they are safe now with airbags , ABS etc and forget to drive to conditions and not do stupid things. :(

[AndrewJ]

Gday Roger

Fully agree, and hence "safe" autonomous driving cars are essentially impossible :-). Ie people arent "expected" to drive to the conditions, the computer does it for them, and the computers arent ready yet.
( Just listen to "The Eighth day" by Hazel O'Connor to see the results )
Currently airbags, ABS, auto lane correction etc are all designed to remove the driver from the situation, and hence we end up with "not expected" situations causing grief as the driver is zoned out.
I wrote in an earlier post that we have spent Billions of dollars trying to make planes fully autonomous, ( and we arent there yet )
Autonomous cars wil be a quantum leap more complex than planes, so i am not holding my breath on them being truly "safe" any time soon.
They will certainly be introduced ( as big business stands to make a killing from the introduction ), but i know who will die along the way to improve the concept.

Andrew

[gary]

A 1 July 2016 article at the Institution of Electrical and Electronic Engineers
(IEEE) Spectrum magazine web site by Evan Ackerman entitled
"Fatal Tesla Self-Driving Car Crash Reminds Us That Robots Aren't Perfect"
details the 7th May Tesla Model S crash with the tractor-trailer.

See http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/self-driving/fatal-tesla-autopilot-crash-reminds-us-that-robots-arent-perfect

A 6 July 2016 article by Mark Harris also at the IEEE web site entitled
"Tesla Autopilot Crash Exposes Industry Divide" exposes a
philosophical design fault-line running through the self-driving car industry.

See http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/self-driving/what-next-for-teslas-autopilot



The Telsla's Autopilot is a beta-test of a Level 2 automation system which
requires driver oversight.

Early on, Google decided that they would aim for a Level 4 system which
does not require or allow for any human input at all. This decision came
about during an early trial when an employee who was in the
driver's position was caught rummaging around in the back-seat looking
for a notebook computer. Google engineers then decided that Level 4
should be a mandatory design goal as a human driver could not be trusted.

The Google cars employ more sophisticated sensors such as LIDAR
mounted on the roof which take 360 degree measurements at up
to 1.3 million readings per second. RADAR is employed in the front
and rear bumpers and in some test cars SONAR is also employed
along with stereo cameras. The Google test cars also pack more compute
power than the Tesla S production cars.

Since the fatal accident, some commentators have questioned whether
Elon Musk, who had been dismissive of LIDAR, might re-consider its
adoption into future Tesla models.

See https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/06/lidar-self-driving-technology-tesla-crash-elon-musk

In the U.K. back in the 1890's, "horseless carriages" were, by law, limited
to a speed limit of 4 mph (2mph in towns) and a red flag had to
be carried by a man walking in front.

A group of motoring enthusiasts set up the Self Propelled Traffic Association
and lobbied hard to have these restrictions overturned.

In November 1896 the Locomotives on Highways Act (alias the Red
Flag Act) was passed and the speed limit was raised to 14mph.

Level 4 self-driving cars have already reached a very high level of
sophistication and reading the professional engineering press it is
clear that they are inevitable and will become ubiquitous in
the near-future.

In our lifetimes they will probably be our first and most common form
of interaction with a class of robots.

[AndrewJ]

Gday Gary
Thanks for the specific links. An interesting read, and again highlights the lack of allowance for "humans" in the current Tesla model.
As the Tesla model of operation currently requires the human to stay alert, do you know if they also use any of the new eyeball tracking systems to determine the alertness of the driver???
( That would finish off the designer sunglasses tho :-).
Another human foible to overcome )

One thing that does concerm me still is how much automation, and layers of safety are going to be required to make it all work, and how will it be maintained. Making new is cheap these days, but maintenance costs a fortune, so i know what will suffer once it becomes a consumer product.

I wonder what the true cost of maintaining these beasties will be, as sensor failure rate will be an interesting thing to track.
All very interesting

Andrew

[torana68]

Andrew,
Not sure if you or many have noticed that the ONLY way forward is to buy new, were being programmed to buy new, old is bad, we MUST keep the factory's going otherwise the GDP falls (in that country as we seem to be happy to let others make things for us), unemployment goes up, therefore you MUST buy that new updated automated car, (or knock down that old house for a new one), you must not maintain anything, get a new one and to hell with the planet...... :( So........ I don't see maintenance or sensor life being an issue as you'll probably find legislation to remove anything over 2 years old appearing to prevent (as if) loss of life from those horrible old autopilot cars.

[AndrewJ]

Gday Roger
Dunno. My car is just over 20 yrs old, has done near 200,000k and i can still get it fixed for most problems ( I agree it is getting harder tho )
It cost a bit more initially, but the quality of up front design and build more than makes up the longer depreciation time.
Still runs no problems, and can even play CDs :-)
That will make it unaffordable for the hoi poloi.
Even for the wealthy, who might now buy a new car every 2 years, their old car is sold secondhand and thus keeps depreciation lower than a full 2 year writeoff, and people lower down the foodchain get a cheaper purchase along the way.
The alternative I noted earlier in the thread is if personal car ownership is banned, and multinationals supply bot cars on an as required basis. It would mean no need for carparks, driveways, garages, etc, and traffic flow would be massively improved as no parked cars would ever block a road again. That could provide a cost balancing factor into the equations ( just on land sales to developers ), but im not sure how well that model would work outside the CBD and suburbs of the major cities.
Its certainly not a cost effective model for any semi rural areas.
Again, its going to be an interesting evolution.

Andrew

And just as a "human" thought, and maybe Gary can help here.
If i lived in the bush under this new regime, will i be able to hire a bot car and reprogram it to do circle work in the mud on my farm???????

[gary]

Hi Andrew,

Unlike the eye tracking systems that have been fitted to some Mercedes
for several years, apparently the Tesla does not have it.

Here is a video published by Drive.com.au last October whilst they
test drove a Tesla S with Autopilot across the Sydney Harbour Bridge -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aGXEJ_9G3Y

I have a friend who owns a Tesla S and the impression I get is that the
car's primary attraction is its phenomenal torque. It was some months
before he even got around to trying Autopilot but he did show me
an impressive video of using it on a U.S. highway.

But the 0 to 100km/h in 3.2 seconds acceleration of the Tesla Model S
P85D is visceral and its 691 hp is impressive for an electric-car and
will give a Lamborghini Aventador a run for its money at a standing start.
Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JEpksZA0JA

In other words, the Tesla S is marketed as an advanced
high-performance all-wheel-drive electric sedan (it has electric
motors on both front and rear wheels) that promises an enhanced
driving experience for the driver. The Autopilot is more akin to
an advanced cruise control rather than a fully autonomous system
in the Google approach.

The Tesla is a commercial offering designed to titillate. The Google
cars are experimental prototypes meant not to titillate but simply deliver
passengers from A to B without drama.

Here is a compilation of people's reactions to the launch feature of the
Tesla 85D taken by an American friend. Behind the wheel is a police
officer who has been trained in advanced driving. His day job is
being on the front-line patrolling a city that had more than 60 shooting
over the 4th July weekend alone and over 2000 shootings this year to date.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFwxlCp_wpU

[AndrewJ]

Gday Gary

Fully understood on that fact.
My initial concern was how it could be advertised with basic safety "plus extras" ( incl collision detect ), but it couldnt detect a truck in front of it.
Reading up on how this might have been caused by how they had programmed it to ignore what they "thought" were overhead signs, makes it even scarier. ( Maybe every sign needs an IFF transponder )
As per one of my earlier posts, making it do what you want is 5% of the effort, avoiding all the rest is 95% :-)

Andrew


Hope its not Dallas :-(

[el_draco]

Can you imagine barreling down some highway at 110kmph with a computer in control when all of a sudden you get:

- The blue screen of death on the console... :eyepop:
- A message saying, "Your operating system has been upgraded... Reboot in process"... :sadeyes:

- "Fatal system error" appears on the console... :mad2:

- "Well this is embarrassing..." scrolls across your screen and the vehicle suddenly does a 90 degree hard right towards a self-drive Mack! :scared2::scared2:

Wont happen? Ask the Tesla driver :(

Tesla said "the high ride height of the trailer combined with its positioning across the road and the extremely rare circumstances of the impact caused the Model S to pass under the trailer, with the bottom of the trailer impacting the windshield of the Model S".... and ripping the driver in half I suspect!

Exception report number 1 of 5 billion "unforeseen circumstances"

I think I'd go back to walking or horseback before I'd trust any self-drive vehicle....

[rally]

Agree with others here

I can imagine a few scenarios that wont work out very well.

So the purpose of the driverless car is to do the driving, it therefore goes that the driver is no longer "driving" the car - ie no longer concentrating or for that matter even looking.

So when the car takes a turn into a US street that is lined with drug dealers and brawling rioters brandishing weapons and fireballing shops and vehicles, with a road blockage some distance further down does the car understand to get the . . . out of here before its too late to retreat ?
I'm guessing not

Does it gently pull you up to a safe stop right in the middle of it ?

You can argue that the driver should be alert and retake control, but the very nature of a drivelesss car will make you less alert because you will be on the phone, playing a game, reading a book, arguing . . . . etc.
You wont be alert because you are being trained not to be and some situations that arent even related to roads and traffic can affect your (or others) safety.

I have no doubt they will be implemented, I just wonder who ends up with the liability when unforeseen circumstances arise that a human could have, should have, would have avoided ?

But its certainly going to be handy to send the car out by itself to pick up the shopping, take itself to the service repairman or take the MIL to the podiatrist !!! What a timesaver that will be.
I can just imagine the possibilities for courier and delivery services.
And those interstate drive yourself holidays from Adelaide to Cairns !