Humans Are Slamming Into Driverless Cars and Exposing A Key Flaw

Fun to think but under the law it doesn't remove you from liability.

No, but if I have to speed up to avoid being rear ended, I'll do it. Or swerve, or anything else. Causing an accident is one thing. Avoiding one from someone else's shitty driving is another - those times could require a little breaking the letter of the law to avoid.
 
What works in Europe wouldn't necessarily work in the US. Most countries over there still aren't multicultural and multi-"ethnic" yet, but give it a few decades.
Have you been to Europe? The places I was at in Germany, Holland, Sweden, etc were all more diverse than where I live in the US. There are plenty of places that are very culturally diverse.
 
Ho Hum, How do you call it an "arbitrary" speed limit when a group of engineers have determined safe speeds given the road topography and traffic patterns of the area?

The setting of speed limits is anything but arbitrary with some deviations, for instance a city that adjusts a speed limit or the location of a posted sign in order to create a speed trap or a State that hasn't followed others in raising the maximum speed limit on highways beyond the old generic maximums left over from the Federal 55MPH Maximum days.

Perhaps you would prefer they actually be arbitrary;


You driver being the arbiter :D

Most of what I've read say the speed limit should be set at the 85% of what people drive.

Chicago's I-94 has been 55 FOR EVER, even all the way to the WI border where there is very low population density. I think 1-2 years ago IDOT did a study and the 85th percentile was noted at 70-75mph. So what does the tollway authority do? They set the speed limit to 65, so everybody is still 5-10 over....

Yes it's arbitrary.
 
Driverless cars? Never...

My uncle has a country place
That no one knows about
He says it used to be a farm
Before the Motor Law
And now on Sundays I elude the eyes
And hop the turbine freight
To far outside the wire where my
White-haired uncle waits

Jump to the ground as the turbo slows
To cross the borderline
Run like the wind as excitement shivers
Up and down my spine
But down in his barn
My uncle preserved for me
An old machine
For fifty-odd years
To keep it as new
Has been his dearest dream

I strip away the old debris
That hides a shining car
A brilliant Red Barchetta
From a better vanished time
We'll fire up the willing engine
Responding with a roar
Tires spitting gravel
I commit my weekly crime

Wind
In my hair
Shifting and drifting
Mechanical music
Adrenaline surge

Well-oiled leather
Hot metal and oil
The scented country air

Sunlight on chrome
The blur of the landscape
Every nerve aware

Suddenly ahead of me
Across the mountainside
A gleaming alloy air-car
Shoots towards me two lanes wide
Oh, I spin around with shrieking tires
To run the deadly race
Go screaming through the valley
As another joins the chase

Ride like the wind
Straining the limits
Of machine and man
Laughing out loud with fear and hope
I've got a desperate plan

At the one-lane bridge
I leave the giants stranded
At the riverside
Race back to the farm
To dream with my uncle
At the fireside
 
Here in Austin, I have taken advantage of one of these Google self driving cars. I needed to merge in to the middle lane and it was packed. I noticed the Google car and figured it would behave in a very passive way. I put my blinker on and started to drift in to the lane next to the self driving car and the Google car backed off and let me merge. Perfect.
 
Can we please maintain the status quo and have AI cars programmed to match the models/owner quirks/personality. For example:

Expensive Range Rovers: Tailgates, exceeds speed limit, will jump a curb to get into a right turn lane or cut through corner parking lots on a red make a turn.

BMW: Speeds, always

Buick: Under speed limit by 5 or more MPH always.

Minivan: Speeds but only going towards a school.
 
Might be a bit less arbitrary...

You know?

Most of what I've read say the speed limit should be set at the 85% of what people drive.

Chicago's I-94 has been 55 FOR EVER, even all the way to the WI border where there is very low population density. I think 1-2 years ago IDOT did a study and the 85th percentile was noted at 70-75mph. So what does the tollway authority do? They set the speed limit to 65, so everybody is still 5-10 over....

Yes it's arbitrary.
 
People are idiots. The number of times some asshole has tried to kill me, or some moron has wandered out in front of my car is mammoth. I'd rather do my driving out in the canyons and country roads, and leave the urban driving to a machine that doesn't give a shit. The day I can buy a self driving car, I will.
 
I don't know about all states, but where I'm at, the signs on the freeway say to STAY in the right lane unless you are passing. It's a ticketable offense if you're in the left lane and not passing.
It's also ticketable if you're speeding in order to pass. Some state actually do have laws designating the left most late as a pure passing lane usually with speed limits attached meaning highway only, most do not irrc. Just like some had a reduced speed for nighttime driving(although i think most of those laws were done away with, not sure...)
 
Why bother? They go maybe 100 yards further and then get stuck to the same traffic like everyone else. I just laugh at their stupidity.

Because they then almost 100% of the time force their way back into the line in front of you.

What if that person had a medical emergency and you just blocked them from getting to the hospital?

Not sure if serious. Not when there are a bunch of idiots trying to do the same thing.

And like I said above, they always force their way back into the line ahead of you.

Now if they were right before an exit ramp and needed to drive on the shoulder a bit, that is fine, but when they are obviously being retards I grant them no passage.
 
I think they should just let it happen and have society adjust to the new system. The people that drive recklessly and tailgate others as a habit, for example, will end up with tickets and points, the system will adjust itself through insurance companies.

Also I find it a ridiculous and ass-backwards notion that because laws are being broken already then it means automated cars should get dumbed down as a result, I think if the laws are not working and/or no one can or wants to enforce them then they should be adjusted to reflect the reality of driving. If the speed limit in street xyz is 20mph too low and you don't wanna enforce the limit then fix the sign.

Summary:
1. Human drivers will learn to adjust, and they'll be better off for it - at the cost of 10 minutes longer commute for not cutting someone off somewhere.
2. If the laws keep getting broken then the solution is not to program law breaking but rather adjust the law to be more reasonable if possible.

That's my 2 cents.
 
Obviously people drive fast if conditions allow them to do so, but pack enough people onto the freeway, and stop-and-go is what happens. That isn't because people don't want to drive fast, it's because they don't have a choice.

I'm from California, where there are probably more people on the road at any given time than the entire population of Arizona or Georgia. If you think people fly along on crowded freeways, then that just means you've never seen a freeway that is truly crowded. I know dozens who would give their first child to have freeways that didn't slow to a crawl during the commute every day.

So, I take it you haven't driven in Atlanta.
 
This problem was solved 100 years ago with this thing called "Railroad"
Doesn't really need a computer,even.
 
Have you been to Europe? The places I was at in Germany, Holland, Sweden, etc were all more diverse than where I live in the US. There are plenty of places that are very culturally diverse.

I go to various countries in the EU occasionally for work-related activities. They are not as "diverse" as the US is in aggregate, and most of that "diversity" isn't on the roads.
 
I live in Seattle with probably some of the worst traffic in the world, caused by idiot design of freeways with not enough lanes. Literally 3 wide, with one as the HOV for the majority of the roads. The left lane and any rules attached to it are inconsequential as the freeways are at capacity in pure gridlock for hours every day. I’m talking about 2.5 hour commute to go 40 miles from Auburn to Everett. It’s insane and the area is growing like crazy, there is no end in sight and no way to widen the roads.

Even accounting for all the improvements to how a driverless car could do things, there is literally more vehicles than there are miles of freeway to fit them all on, and there will be slowdowns. Driverless cars are not some magical panacea for our commuting woes. There is a true social issue of the “9-5” that all companies make everyone grind out at the same time causing these huge spurts of traffic insanity. Not to mention people driving 50+ miles from South Tacoma area to north Seattle for jobs. Improving traffic conditions is such a larger issue to take on.

Areas need population caps. Businesses need to not be able to have workers commuting from so far away without offering them a remote work option. It will take more than some silly computerized cars to fix this crap. Civilizations need to be reorganized in a new way to account for this crap.
 
What we really need is to look to the sky as the answer to a lot of these issues. If we could get fleets of solar powered drones running on a central controlled grid to take care of deliveries and get the POS trucks that are slow, ruin the roads, and waste massive amounts of fuel and are dangerous in general off the roads, that would help a lot. Really getting skyways established for transportation may be a better use of our resources in the long run.
 
"Merging onto a jam-packed highway"?

What happened to "a top speed of 25 MPH", and "restricted to roads with speed limits not greater then 35MPH"?

Or is this just the reporters hyperbole? :D

They have the little pod cars around town that do 25. Then there are the Lexus SUVs that must be doing the freeway thing, but I hadn't noticed them on the freeway before, at least on my stretch. Not sure why two different programs. I don't think the pods are suitable for the freeway -- they are small.
 
Chicago's I-94 has been 55 FOR EVER, even all the way to the WI border where there is very low population density. I think 1-2 years ago IDOT did a study and the 85th percentile was noted at 70-75mph. So what does the tollway authority do? They set the speed limit to 65, so everybody is still 5-10 over....

This is why I hate driving through Chicago; there is no other city that I have driven in where I was afraid of being taken out by vehicles both smaller and lighter than my semi...

80/94 at the Indiana line: no one drives 55, and the slowest vehicle is either my truck (governed at 65), trucks governed from 55-62, or that one person driving at 45 in the middle lane...
 
Can we please maintain the status quo and have AI cars programmed to match the models/owner quirks/personality. For example:

Expensive Range Rovers: Tailgates, exceeds speed limit, will jump a curb to get into a right turn lane or cut through corner parking lots on a red make a turn.

BMW: Speeds, always

Buick: Under speed limit by 5 or more MPH always.

Minivan: Speeds but only going towards a school.

Nissan: Drives like an a-hole who thinks their a race car driver drifting on your rear.
 
"Merging onto a jam-packed highway"?

What happened to "a top speed of 25 MPH", and "restricted to roads with speed limits not greater then 35MPH"?

Or is this just the reporters hyperbole? :D

Its CA, that's how fast you move on a highway.
 
If all of the cars are driverless then there would be no need for speed limits as the computers would determine the safe speed. This would end up with cars driving faster on average then they do now as you can have the cars much closer together and drive faster as computes have much faster reaction times than humans and they don't fuck up like humans do.
 
If traffic is "flying along well above the speed limit", how "jam-packed" could the highway really be? Anyone who actually commutes in this fashion knows that "jam-packed" = slow, if not stop and go.

Everyone 'flying' prevents them from becoming jammed packed. Its a flow rate problem. gas flowing faster delivering the same mass of material would need to be less dense. Less Dense = less driver frustration and less driver stupidity.

In my state they finally relented from 55 mph. Several Freeways that had several congestion points, rarely congest now the limit is 70 mph.

The effect is more than a speed/density/flow rate relationship. Morons who are late that use to zoom like maniacs through tightly packed cars where a daily occurrence are now a rarity.

Cars tightly packed make things more likely to go wrong and turn into a problem.
 
What we really need is to look to the sky as the answer to a lot of these issues. If we could get fleets of solar powered drones running on a central controlled grid to take care of deliveries and get the POS trucks that are slow, ruin the roads, and waste massive amounts of fuel and are dangerous in general off the roads, that would help a lot. Really getting skyways established for transportation may be a better use of our resources in the long run.

As a former OTR driver, I have bones to pick with this very uneducated statement.

The trucks arent slow. Most of the time they are limited to 65mph by the company that owns the truck, for safety and fuel. If 5mph is that big a deal for you, I suggest leaving a little bit earlier.
Big trucks aren't dangerous. Most accidents involving a big truck are found to be the fault of the dumbass fourwheeler. We as a whole generally pay far far more attention to the road than you do. Get behind the wheel and put a 13spd in your hands(if you can even figure out how to drive a real nonsyncho split range transmission) and figure out how much attention you pay real fast.
Lastly, next to rail, trucks are extremely fuel efficient for what they do. I avg'd 9mpg in the International Prostar+ that I drove. Maxxforce 13 engine, along side an EF 13 speed. 9mpg pulling 41k lbs of product, with gvw at 78k lbs. So, tell me... How many drones will it take to carry 41k lbs? How many *insert vehicle* will it take?
Try math out. Youll find that a loaded truck is for more fuel efficient than anything else on the road.
 
Solar power = Free, Diesel fuel = limited and terrible for everyone. I cant begin to count the amount of time I have almost been smooshed to death by a "professional" truck driver. Like it or not, most people on the road despise trucks for a variety or reasons, these are just mine, your experiences do not negate mine, im just stating what everyone is thinking half the time, semi trucks are a hazard, just as any other vehicle with an idiot behind the wheel is. This only difference is when i get into a fender bender with a honda civic, ill probably live from being side swiped. If a 18-wheeler decides to merge into the fucking 3rd lane to the LEFT going up a mountain pass because his idiot ungoverned rig wants to go 1 MPH faster, and he does so with out caring i'm NEXT to him and makes me drive OFF the road to keep from dying.. you can only stomach so many instances of that crap.
 
I love opening the garage door with a remote from my computer room as I put my phone in my pocket and kiss the wife goodbye, hit the remote start on my key-fob, walk into the garage hearing the low burble of the 5.7Liter Hemi, put on my shoes, get into the Challenger feeling the high soft bucket seats and leather steering wheel. Making a nice spirited 15 minute drive into work speeding slightly when needed in order to avoid getting caught up in the sheeple, punching it a little through the corners, a little roar from the engine, sharp shifts from the 8-Speed Automatic Transmission that never seems to lug the engine ever. Only problem I have are drivers that won't get out of the passing lane, and drive side by side with people right next to them, in the lane that they themselves should be in.

Way too many assholes behind the wheel nowadays.

You have an automatic? I'm sorry.
 
"Merging onto a jam-packed highway"?

What happened to "a top speed of 25 MPH", and "restricted to roads with speed limits not greater then 35MPH"?

Or is this just the reporters hyperbole? :D

Both but makers have dreams of driverless cars being the only cars on the roads...

The solution is simple every auto car becomes a rolling red light camera the terrible drivers crashing into them get points and tickets just by driving near one of these things... Eventually they will eliminate the issue and cause a new set of issues.
 
There is nothing wrong with having an automatic.

Well, except for being less reliable and offering less control and being more expensive to build, service and repair than a manual transmission...nothing at all.
 
From what I'm seeing, it sounds like it's doing fine with the law, but someone wanted to go merging when they shouldn't >_> Seems like the human had the flaw.
 
They need to adapt. If everyone is going 5 MPH over, you should follow suit to not cause an accident. If you need to break a traffic rule to avoid an accident, you do it. If someone else breaks the law and makes the roadway unsafe, and you need to adjust (and break the rules) to avoid that unsafe area, you do it.

Sometimes, rules need to be broken to avoid/not cause an accident.

To steal a great line out of a great movie... "STOP BREAKING THE LAW ASSHOLE!"

heres an idea... maybe follow the speed limit instead of programming a vehicle to break the law because everyone else is doing it.

I installed a train horn in my truck just to screw with people who text and drive... the looks on their faces is epic. Too many of my friends have been rear ended on motorcycles from douchebags who are texting away while driving... another issue entirely.
 
Some jerk sees his exit over 4 lanes away and approaching fast. all the cars in his way are robots. He will expected the robots to yield to him no matter how crazy his driving is so..... VROOOMMMM:eek:
 
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