Accident Would Shut Down Google's Driverless Car Experiment

SticKx911 said:
please let me test one so I can nap on my way to work....yay for 45 min of extra sleep! lol
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I've said before that if I ever needed open heart surgery, I'd want to be conscious for it if at all possible. I don't fully trust any third party with my well-being, man or machine. Granted I have to trust others, but I want to be aware while indulging that trust. To hell with sleeping in a driverless car. I don't want to miss the Oh shit! moment should something go awry, even if I'm unable to stop it.
 
I wish the road was full of driverless cars. It damn well nearly is already, except Google engineers haven't been staying up nights directing the rolling freakshows I see everyday.
 
Smashing Young Man said:
I've said before that if I ever needed open heart surgery, I'd want to be conscious for it if at all possible. I don't fully trust any third party with my well-being, man or machine. Granted I have to trust others, but I want to be aware while indulging that trust. To hell with sleeping in a driverless car. I don't want to miss the Oh shit! moment should something go awry, even if I'm unable to stop it.
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You'd get used to it real quick. People sleep on buses, trains, and planes just fine.
 
And they sleep in other people's cars, which when you think about it, are your best odds for never waking up under 50.
 
erwalker said:
It is hard to take an article seriously when it states
My car, which has somewhat better braking than the average car on the road (2005 BMW M3), takes approx. 50 ft to brake from 40 - 0 mph not including reaction time.

I certainly question whether or not someone who says the following should even have a drivers licence.

Of course, maybe that's why he is the head of the Association for Unmanned Vehicles International. :D
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Did some math. 40 mph = 60 fps, roughly.

In 10 feet (just keeping the math rough), assuming the car goes half the speed on average over the distance while braking, braking takes 1/3 of a second.

So, the braking deceleration is 120 mph/s. Which, amusingly, works out to 6 g.

Dem some brakes.
 
Aluisious said:
Did some math. 40 mph = 60 fps, roughly.

In 10 feet (just keeping the math rough), assuming the car goes half the speed on average over the distance while braking, braking takes 1/3 of a second.

So, the braking deceleration is 120 mph/s. Which, amusingly, works out to 6 g.

Dem some brakes.
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Frames per second?
 
I was walking my dog across a crosswalk today and someone honked at me to get out of the way and when I didn't they rolled down the window and told me to fuck off as they drove around me. It was a red light.
 
Tudz said:
I'm not sure if american drivers are worse or just more selfish, no where else have I had to brake to avoid hitting someone as often as I need to in the US (I mean someone pulling out in front of me or cutting me off when they should be giving way).
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That right there is my biggest pet peeve when driving. Driving down the road at the limit minding my business and wouldn't you know someone is in such a hurry they have to make sure they get out in front of me so they can proceed to decide they are no longer in a hurry and do 10 under.

Tudz said:
You have to keep things in perspective though. Americans drive significantly more on open highways (at least compared to countries I've been to), so should have lower accidents per mile driven. If you have one accident per hour, the average American would have traveled significantly more distance in that hour.

Of course, accidents at higher speed are more likely to cause death, so the truth actually lies somewhere in the middle.

Even though Australia has a low population density, the country is more centralised and as such you find yourself driving within cities more often. That's why the US is 87.5% more fatalities per vehicle but only 46.5% more fatalities per mile traveled.

I've never traveled in eastern Europe, it seems most the European countries that are worse than the US are eastern European.
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Lots and lots of words to say absolutely nothing of value one way or the other in the argument. You argue then agree then justify statistics with nothing to back up what you say. Thats an awful lot of bullshit sir.

The facts are if you look at actual statistics and not wordplay and anecdotal bullshit American drivers are not the awful menace they are made out to be.
 
Nicterys said:
Which is exactly why even one accident would be catastrophic for driverless cars. When anyone or anything is considered a perfectionist, the rare case of a mistake is magnified exponentially.
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I said nothing about the magnification, so congratulations, you argued a point to someone who agrees with you. Driverless cars are a legal minefield.

Nicterys said:
That is totally believable of someone with fighter pilot and MIT professor on their resume. You should take a second to click the link to see who actually wrote the article.
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Missy also didn't write the article, I said she wrote the quote.

That said, what evidence do you have that she is a good driver?

I know a lot of very smart people and some with more impressive backgrounds than her that I would not give such credit. That is a meaningless qualification for driving. Unless you are Missy, your opinion is irrelevant. Though, even if you were, due to the Dunning-Kruger effect, I couldn't trust your opinion without objective study.

Grow up and recognize some humor.
 
i cant wait for those driverless cars, the world needs this so much, dont care, but its much more safer and accidents will be rare! imagine that. of course they might turn against us, but we got their oil they cant do nothing about that ha!
 
The thing is that the car just has like a gazillion sensors on it. To get an accident to happen there must be a form of sabotage or some freak solar flare activity (natural disaster) to take place before it shuts down and more then likely you can get a manual override in those cases.

Nothing man made will ever be 100% safe and Missy prolly can't drive :) .
 
Pieter3dnow said:
The thing is that the car just has like a gazillion sensors on it. To get an accident to happen there must be a form of sabotage or some freak solar flare activity (natural disaster) to take place before it shuts down and more then likely you can get a manual override in those cases.

Nothing man made will ever be 100% safe and Missy prolly can't drive :) .
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Even beyond all the sensors, many of the auto accidents are caused by things that an Automated Car could control and regulate:

Speeding (speeds could be communicated by sensors and not user determined)
Following too closely (distance can be programmed in or speed adjustments as traffic reduces the preferred distance)
Distracted driver (the automated car is always paying attention)
DUI (the automated car doesn't drink or take drugs before hitting the road)
Right of way questions (an automated car shouldn't run stop signs, fail to yield, or run red lights)
Loss of control (an automated car can adjust its activities in higher risk situations like curves, icy roads, rain, limited visibility, etc)

Although an automated car isn't perfect and still requires lots of testing and infrastructure upgrades to be totally practical, I think they are definitely the future of driving (in a good way) :cool:
 
Silly article.

People are always the unknown and more dangerous. Without a serious malfunction a machine is unlikely to cause damage (without we are talking about kill bots), a person on the other hand can fall asleep, get side tracked, get road rage or a whole host of other things which make them pay less attention to the road than they should.

Can I see self driving being a reality? Yes.
Do we really need them? Kind of.
Really for a majority of road users, public or alternative transport would be quicker and/or cheap if the funding and research was there.
The trouble is the auto manufactures and related businesses don't want that to happen as it would kill their profits.
 
Aluisious said:
Did some math. 40 mph = 60 fps, roughly.

In 10 feet (just keeping the math rough), assuming the car goes half the speed on average over the distance while braking, braking takes 1/3 of a second.

So, the braking deceleration is 120 mph/s. Which, amusingly, works out to 6 g.

Dem some brakes.
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The 9ft & 12ft measurements must be the reaction time distance and not the total stopping distance.

If someone steps out in front of a car before it can mechanically stop it's clearly the pedestrians fault. If someone steps out in front of a car at a distance that the car should be able to stop in, but the driver - man or machine, didn't react fast enough - the article is suggesting that the driver is at fault. Which is nonsense - the pedestrian is still responsible for the accident.

A much more interesting thought is what's going to happen when a driverless car first has to decide whether to hit the pedestrian, brake hard in front of a human tailgater, take a chance swerving into a part of the road it isn't sure is clear, or swerve and hit a tree killing its vehicle occupant. The pedestrian is still responsible for the accident - but the car is deciding who the victim is.
 
GaryJohnson said:
A much more interesting thought is what's going to happen when a driverless car first has to decide whether to hit the pedestrian, brake hard in front of a human tailgater, take a chance swerving into a part of the road it isn't sure is clear, or swerve and hit a tree killing its vehicle occupant. The pedestrian is still responsible for the accident - but the car is deciding who the victim is.
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Except this could be a stronger area for a computer driven car since computers can think faster than a human and they can be programmed with a variety of scenarios that might not occur to a human in the heat of the moment:

You could install computer deployable safety systems to try and reduce damage to the pedestrian or the driver (hard to install the automatically deploying kind now, but with computer controlled ones it could be much easier)

You could have cars broadcast a signal to try and move other traffic out of the way so they could swerve into another lane.

There could be a lot more options for a computer driven car if all the cars were computer driven ;)
 
PornoSatan said:
We're like 10 times better than India and China, which most people in the world live. I don't know about Europe, but we're not as bad as you all make it out to be. Atleast not in the midwest.
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There's the problem. I wouldn't exactly call the midwest typical american driving, we're like a country onto ourselves that just doesn't follow general american stereotypes.
 
kbrickley said:
Except this could be a stronger area for a computer driven car since computers can think faster than a human and they can be programmed with a variety of scenarios that might not occur to a human in the heat of the moment:

You could install computer deployable safety systems to try and reduce damage to the pedestrian or the driver (hard to install the automatically deploying kind now, but with computer controlled ones it could be much easier)

You could have cars broadcast a signal to try and move other traffic out of the way so they could swerve into another lane.

There could be a lot more options for a computer driven car if all the cars were computer driven ;)
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All of which have risks, all of which are not 100% guaranteed to prevent a death, and non of which actually teach the pedestrians that stepping out in front of cars is bad. I already see this issue in a similar situation, foreign exchange students who come here from countries where pedestrians have the right of way at all times and it's always the driver's fault, even if the pedestrian caused the accident, being so accustomed to being able to step out into traffic and think that traffic will stop or move for them they don't even think about it anymore. If we have a system in place where it is advertised that the system has so and so percent of preventing or avoiding a pedestrian we will have more pedestrians being stupid and careless. The systems we put in place to protect the pedestrians make it so the pedestrians take more risks more often. Same thing with putting up signs around campus that say state law is to yield for pedestrians in the crosswalk. Pedestrians will literally run to the crosswalk to get in it and across it when cars are coming at speed, with no stop sign. The pedestrians see that there are systems in place to make them safer, so they abuse those systems actually making it more dangerous.
 
randomdean100 said:
All of which have risks, all of which are not 100% guaranteed to prevent a death, and non of which actually teach the pedestrians that stepping out in front of cars is bad. I already see this issue in a similar situation, foreign exchange students who come here from countries where pedestrians have the right of way at all times and it's always the driver's fault, even if the pedestrian caused the accident, being so accustomed to being able to step out into traffic and think that traffic will stop or move for them they don't even think about it anymore. If we have a system in place where it is advertised that the system has so and so percent of preventing or avoiding a pedestrian we will have more pedestrians being stupid and careless. The systems we put in place to protect the pedestrians make it so the pedestrians take more risks more often. Same thing with putting up signs around campus that say state law is to yield for pedestrians in the crosswalk. Pedestrians will literally run to the crosswalk to get in it and across it when cars are coming at speed, with no stop sign. The pedestrians see that there are systems in place to make them safer, so they abuse those systems actually making it more dangerous.
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Well, I agree that you can't fix stupid and people can be pretty stupid sometimes ... I also think that this is why we won't see too many driverless cars until we totally redo the infrastructure around the cars:

Sensors for pedestrians or non automated vehicles (bicycles and such)
Sensors for animals or other obstacles
Interactive communication of environmental features and the cars (and vice versa), like speed limit signs, railroad crossings, traffic lights, etc

Given the cost and difficulty I agree with one of the other posters that a robust mass transit system might ultimately be more cost effective and consumer friendly (but not well aligned to the American culture unfortunately) ... I have travelled to Japan many times and find their mass transit some of the best in the world ... a system on that level would benefit people more (and could be much easier to automate) :cool:
 
GaryJohnson said:
A much more interesting thought is what's going to happen when a driverless car first has to decide whether to hit the pedestrian, brake hard in front of a human tailgater, take a chance swerving into a part of the road it isn't sure is clear, or swerve and hit a tree killing its vehicle occupant. The pedestrian is still responsible for the accident - but the car is deciding who the victim is.
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You know how I can tell you need a Google car to drive for you?
 
Couple days ago a large trash can rolled into the road as I was driving, my bumper drop kicked that shit back onto the sidewalk
 
Tudz said:
I don't think the road planners in the US have heard of a yield sign or understand it's use, there's stop signs fucking everywhere that should be replaced with yield signs. I pass through 11 stop signs on my way to work, only a couple of them actually need to be there.
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Yield signs don't work because they can't give you a ticket for running a stop sign when you didn't stop for the required number of seconds.
How are they going to raise enough money without all those stop sign tickets?
 
Disposed said:
Lots and lots of words to say absolutely nothing of value one way or the other in the argument. You argue then agree then justify statistics with nothing to back up what you say. Thats an awful lot of bullshit sir.

The facts are if you look at actual statistics and not wordplay and anecdotal bullshit American drivers are not the awful menace they are made out to be.
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You shit over my discussion for being lots of words saying nothing and then your reply actually adds nothing? Well played.

Sorry if I wasn't clear enough. I was basically trying to say the "actual statistics" given as argument that Americans are good drivers aren't actually statistics that directly imply they are good drivers.

Accidents per mile driven is not an accurate statistic to describe how good or bad one driver is over another because the conditions are not the same.

Also, I did give "actual statistics", you may have chosen to ignore them.
The US is 87.5% more fatalities per vehicle but only 46.5% more fatalities per mile traveled.
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My "anecdotal bullshit" was explaining why I think there is that difference between fatalities per mile and fatalities per vehicle on the road.

I've personally never said American drivers are worse, I've said I think they're more selfish, but I know that varies from region to region and may just be localised to where I've driven. There's more that contributes to fatalities than just driver skill level.
 
i am wondering how smart is google self driving though in where people are blocking the road on purpose due to road rage.
 
xIronCrossx said:
If you go somewhere other than the US, like Europe, you realize that not everyone sucks at driving. The US just has the biggest joke of a license test, a monkey could probably pass.
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Funny that you imply the US driving test is the problem. Most of the bad drivers on the road where I live not only don't have a license, but aren't even in the United States legally.
 
Smashing Young Man said:
I've said before that if I ever needed open heart surgery, I'd want to be conscious for it if at all possible. I don't fully trust any third party with my well-being, man or machine.
Click to expand...

Sooo you think you know better than a surgeon what they're supposed to be doing? I understand the point you were trying to make, but...come on, now.
 
randomdean100 said:
All of which have risks, all of which are not 100% guaranteed to prevent a death, and non of which actually teach the pedestrians that stepping out in front of cars is bad. I already see this issue in a similar situation, foreign exchange students who come here from countries where pedestrians have the right of way at all times and it's always the driver's fault, even if the pedestrian caused the accident, being so accustomed to being able to step out into traffic and think that traffic will stop or move for them they don't even think about it anymore. If we have a system in place where it is advertised that the system has so and so percent of preventing or avoiding a pedestrian we will have more pedestrians being stupid and careless. The systems we put in place to protect the pedestrians make it so the pedestrians take more risks more often. Same thing with putting up signs around campus that say state law is to yield for pedestrians in the crosswalk. Pedestrians will literally run to the crosswalk to get in it and across it when cars are coming at speed, with no stop sign. The pedestrians see that there are systems in place to make them safer, so they abuse those systems actually making it more dangerous.
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A fully automated car could also sense the pedestrian stepping out and sound a very loud, directed horn instantly, hopefully triggering a quick response from the pedestrian. Obviously not a certainty, but it can help. Also, further networked systems could combine with smart roads/streets, allowing curbs to glow red when it's not safe to cross, for example. Or perhaps they could fire off an instant warning that would go to the pedestrian's smartphone/watch/flavor of the month, and very loudly advise them to move back. Or maybe smart shoes would literally prevent them from walking into traffic. Sure, this technology is years or decades from implementation just due to the cost of retrofitting such a massive infrastructure, but it eventually could happen.
 
Aluisious said:
I wish the road was full of driverless cars. It damn well nearly is already, except Google engineers haven't been staying up nights directing the rolling freakshows I see everyday.
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I work near a large retirement community, and driverless cars would be a huge help :)
Just hope they perfect them by the time I hit 70.

I'd also love to rent a motor home that could drive by itself all night. Be great for long road trips/vacations
 
kbrickley said:
Have you driven in Asia? ... USA is nursery school compared to that ... I have driven in the USA, Thailand, Malaysia, and Ireland ... I briefly thought about driving in the Philippines but I consider that a sign that it is time for you to repatriate back to the States as you have been across the pond too long :D

One advantage of the driverless cars is that they would have more consistent performance with traffic rules ... they could also have sensors to adjust speed or programs if they sense pedestrians, bicyclists, or motorcyclists in close proximity ... they would also prevent the most common traffic infractions (following too closely, failure to yield, speeding, and running a traffic signal) :cool:
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You've never driven in france or italy have you. The asian thing I can understand, they do it here in the US too. I mean, you take a bunch of bicyclists and then put them in four wheeled powered vehicles and it's chaos.
 
McTurkey said:
Or maybe smart shoes would literally prevent them from walking into traffic. Sure, this technology is years or decades from implementation just due to the cost of retrofitting such a massive infrastructure, but it eventually could happen.
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I like this smart clothing idea ... smart shoes that won't let you walk in a bakery if you are more than 20 pounds overweight ... smart gloves that slap your hand when you reach for cake ... smart pants that won't unbuckle if your partner is really ugly ... the opportunities are endless ... time to file a submarine patent on this :D
 
Methadras said:
You've never driven in france or italy have you. The asian thing I can understand, they do it here in the US too. I mean, you take a bunch of bicyclists and then put them in four wheeled powered vehicles and it's chaos.
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Oh, Asia is much worse than anything here in the States :) ... in Malaysia we drove three cars abreast in a two lane road, the right away pretty much came down to who had the bigger vehicle (if a bus wanted in my lane he was coming :eek: ) ... Thailand and Malaysia was all about avoiding the motor scooters that clustered around you ... in the Philippines I would watch 20 cars go through the red lights (including blocking the intersection as they were bumper to bumper), sometimes I wondered why they even had lights in the Philippines

Our problems in America are mainly around observation (people aren't paying attention) or speed (we are going too fast or too fast for where we are) ... the driving skills of Americans can also vary dramatically from state to state and city to city ;)
 
Tudz said:
Well, driverless cars would have to be much much safer than people for them to be practical. I think if they were only slightly safer, it wouldn't really take off.

Personally, you can aren't going to replace any of my cars with driverless cars, you can take my classic cars away from me when you pry my cold dead corpse from the driver's seat.
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The government has far more power than you think.

Change a couple laws here and there and pretty soon if you don't comply no license for you.

Then you and the classic car and sit in the driveway :p
 
jpm100 said:
People want this because they want to be able to do something else with their time spent driving. So by definition of what people want, it means there will be no human judgement applied at all while driving.

Oh yeah, its your car and your responsibility if it plows into someone. Good luck if you defense was "! was playing fruit ninja".
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I think your missing the point.

All of these cars will have sensors that will pickup on this stuff outside the car.

where as a human can be easily distracted with a phone etc, a hot girl on the corner etc.

And if you actually killed someone in a self driven car, I seriously doubt the driver would be at fault for a mechanical failure so that example is pretty weak.
 
Most people are so ignorant and don't realize that most your commercial jets fly themselves and they simply put captains in the plane to give the illusion the human is in control.
 
MavericK96 said:
Sooo you think you know better than a surgeon what they're supposed to be doing? I understand the point you were trying to make, but...come on, now.
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This had me lol.

Even if you were awake and the doctor decided to F*** with your shit what are you gonna do strapped to the table.

I believe the saying would be he has you by the balls or in this case the heart.
 
Aluisious said:
You'd get used to it real quick. People sleep on buses, trains, and planes just fine.
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Fun fact, I was sleeping on a coach bus one time when they slammed into a car going around a blind turn too fast. Flew out of my seat. I'll still sleep on a bus or a plane though, if I felt the need to.
 
Tudz said:
Well, driverless cars would have to be much much safer than people for them to be practical. I think if they were only slightly safer, it wouldn't really take off.

Personally, you can aren't going to replace any of my cars with driverless cars, you can take my classic cars away from me when you pry my cold dead corpse from the driver's seat.
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I'm pretty certain that even cars that were designed to be driverless would still need to be driven at some point. At least part of the design of said cars would require you to take over if part of the GPS maps it was relying on for navigation was missing of faulty, meaning it should pull over if it can do so safely and prompt the occupant to drive.
 
MavericK96 said:
Sooo you think you know better than a surgeon what they're supposed to be doing? I understand the point you were trying to make, but...come on, now.
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No, that's not what I think at all. I just want to hear them say Oops! I wouldn't try and direct the surgery or anything. :p
 
PornoSatan said:
You guys can't be serious. The US is probably one of the better countries when it comes to driving.
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Its not the worst, but calling it one of the better is like saying Dunkin Donuts coffee is one of the better coffee varieties.
 
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