California Approves Testing Self-Driving Cars On Public Roads

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I'm not saying anything bad about California, but this is one of the few states where self-driving cars could be an improvement compared to its human drivers. ;)

On Tuesday, the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) officially approved rules to allow the testing of autonomous vehicles on public roads. The rules will take effect September 16, 2014. The move has been a long time coming, with the DMV promising back in December 2013 that it would post regulations for public use of self-driving cars and then holding a public hearing in January to address concerns about them.
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They should test this in China or India first... then they can market it as "asian proof". *ducks for cover*
 
Just watch, these will on the whole have a lower percentage of accidents but the first time there is a fiery accident involving one people will come out of the woodwork to ban self driving cars (even if its not at fault).
 
They will drive better then a good percentage of the people who live here. ( i live in the bay area)
 
Ultima99 said:
Just watch, these will on the whole have a lower percentage of accidents but the first time there is a fiery accident involving one people will come out of the woodwork to ban self driving cars (even if its not at fault).
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Well a self-driving car can be at fault even when its not.

For example, lets say you notice the headlights swerving back and forth for a semi truck in an oncoming lane on the highway. You can tell from far away the truck is on the brink of losing control and take evasive action and reduce speed.

A self-driving car may think that there is absolutely nothing wrong in the lanes ahead of it, and continue driving at 70mph, and by the time the semi truck is in its recognized path, the closing speed of 140mph combined is too fast to avoid the accident.

Voila, a non-malfunctioning self driving car just killed a family.
 
Ducman69 said:
Well a self-driving car can be at fault even when its not.

For example, lets say you notice the headlights swerving back and forth for a semi truck in an oncoming lane on the highway. You can tell from far away the truck is on the brink of losing control and take evasive action and reduce speed.

A self-driving car may think that there is absolutely nothing wrong in the lanes ahead of it, and continue driving at 70mph, and by the time the semi truck is in its recognized path, the closing speed of 140mph combined is too fast to avoid the accident.

Voila, a non-malfunctioning self driving car just killed a family.
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That depends on how the car interprets motion vectors, for your specific example. If it notices a truck serving side to side, in fact an automatic car could interpret it as possibly heading into your lane based on its current motion, and then just try pulling over until the entire mass is past you.

They have already demonstrated it taking into account STUPID bicycle riders and pedestrians, so I don't really see how it would fail to take into account a swerving truck in an oncoming lane. Not to mention, how many highways don't even have a large disconnect down the center?! I mean I don't think I see any where they're just separated by a middle line. Driving 70 mph down a road like that is insane in the first place.
 
Ducman69 said:
Well a self-driving car can be at fault even when its not.

For example, lets say you notice the headlights swerving back and forth for a semi truck in an oncoming lane on the highway. You can tell from far away the truck is on the brink of losing control and take evasive action and reduce speed.

A self-driving car may think that there is absolutely nothing wrong in the lanes ahead of it, and continue driving at 70mph, and by the time the semi truck is in its recognized path, the closing speed of 140mph combined is too fast to avoid the accident.

Voila, a non-malfunctioning self driving car just killed a family.
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A semi truck is swerving and on the brink of losing control? Sounds to me you are saying human drivers are unreliable and unsafe, not the other way around.

Also I suspect semi-trucks will be the first vehicles to be automated. One of the biggest limitations on delivering goods from one place to another is the 8 hour limit placed on human drivers. I bet you Walmart will start converting their semis as soon as someone does all testing and works the kinks out.
 
Draktharbar said:
A semi truck is swerving and on the brink of losing control? Sounds to me you are saying human drivers are unreliable and unsafe, not the other way around.

Also I suspect semi-trucks will be the first vehicles to be automated. One of the biggest limitations on delivering goods from one place to another is the 8 hour limit placed on human drivers. I bet you Walmart will start converting their semis as soon as someone does all testing and works the kinks out.
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That's a good point, this technology would be great for the freight industry and such, and it made me think for a minute about what this could mean for truckers, but I doubt these companies would have an automated truck travel unattended.
 
Draktharbar said:
A semi truck is swerving and on the brink of losing control? Sounds to me you are saying human drivers are unreliable and unsafe, not the other way around.
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They are, and my point was just that you could end up seeing the automated car manufacturer getting sued even when the product is working to design specifications. Big pockets plus a reasonable lawsuit that says "XYZ automated system didn't avoid an accident that an attentive driver would have".

Then of course you will have some that will legitimately fail. Sensor will get dirty, wire come loose, etc and system goes full retard. Might be programmed to come to a complete stop in those circumstances, but ends up doing that on the highway, causes a 100 car accident with four fatalities.... chaching!

Just pointing out reality.
 
kattana said:
LOL.. having driven in many states, I think it could be useful in all.. especially the cities
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I moved from Seattle to like the middle of nowhere and I hafta say that though there are a lot more people in a city and the sheer number of cars out there makes it dangerous, rural country types are FAR more dangerous and just utterly insane and impatient. On top of that, the tend to be in big trucks and try to intimidate people with the whole speed up slow down thing when you're not way over the speed limit. They badly need a buncha robots to take over driving and get all those crazy people away from trying to use good judgment that they don't have to drive.
 
The end of stupid drivers is near. The way it is now all it takes is for one distracted driver to rear end someone on the freeway and ruin the lives of people of several counties. Until autonomous vehicles are in place we need a one strike accident penalty that forces the offender to take public transportation for six months for first offense and the length increases 2X with every subsequent accident (1/2 year, 1 year, 2 year, 4 year, etc.) Additionally, there should be a peer rating system based on automatic license plate reader and video recording that can flag a reckless driver for judicial review.
 
Living in Vegas...I have to say self driving cars would be an improvement. I'm fucking sick and tired of the constant gridlock that isn't caused by actual congestion...but the stupid inbred morons that obviously find it hilarious to rear end someone in the middle of the highway and cause multi-vehicle accidents. Pretty much the story on I-15 every day at 5pm.
 
Ducman69 said:
They are, and my point was just that you could end up seeing the automated car manufacturer getting sued even when the product is working to design specifications. Big pockets plus a reasonable lawsuit that says "XYZ automated system didn't avoid an accident that an attentive driver would have".

Then of course you will have some that will legitimately fail. Sensor will get dirty, wire come loose, etc and system goes full retard. Might be programmed to come to a complete stop in those circumstances, but ends up doing that on the highway, causes a 100 car accident with four fatalities.... chaching!

Just pointing out reality.
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Actually, if we move fully over to automated cars, other cars can detect malfunctions in a nearby car early. This would reduce guesswork when it comes to trying to figure out whether the guy in front of you is an idiot or not.

And then it would come down to this: how much do you trust idiots out on the road right now vs an automated system malfunctioning? Which is more or less reliable? I mean I see what you're saying about some initial wreck causing a huge negative backlash because idiots don't understand it, and lawyers suing the makers of said system. That's why in order to really go widespread, this needs to get taken over by the government.
 
There is no doubt there will be accidents with self driving cars once this goes into effect. I've seen some of the interesting things that drivers do there. From driving 15+ to U turns wherever they please and motorcycles pulling in between cars at stop lights. It will be interesting to see how the car copes with someone who is doing 20+ over the speed limit not paying attention and runs into the back of the car because it is going the correct speed. It's definitely not going to be the car's fault so hopefully they have some cameras on board to show what exactly happened.

It looks like a few people above me already made mention of that being the most likely case so hopefully self driving cars can help alleviate the issue.
 
I guess I am the only one that hates the idea of a self driving car.... I much prefer to be in charge of my own destiny thank you.
 
Can't be all bad if this is a concern:
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/14/0...ss-cars-could-cripple-law-enforcement-budgets

Approximately 41 million people receive speeding tickets in the U.S. every year, paying out more than $6.2 billion per year, according to statistics from the U.S. Highway Patrol published at StatisticBrain.com. That translates to an estimated $300,000 in speeding ticket revenue per U.S. police officer every year. State and local governments often lean on this source of income when they hit financial trouble
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Ducman69 said:
Then of course you will have some that will legitimately fail. Sensor will get dirty, wire come loose, etc and system goes full retard. Might be programmed to come to a complete stop in those circumstances, but ends up doing that on the highway, causes a 100 car accident with four fatalities.... chaching!
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This happens on an HOURLY basis with human drivers. I would anticipate that even the version 1.0 of automated cars will be hundreds if not thousands of times more reliable than human drivers.

Consider what you yourself have seen in the past week while driving and answer honestly whether automated cars could possibly have done any worse.
 
DeChache said:
I guess I am the only one that hates the idea of a self driving car.... I much prefer to be in charge of my own destiny thank you.
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This is exactly why I operate my own telegraph to browse the internet. I like to have a handle on exactly which binary digits I'm tapping out and receiving.
 
Grahamkracka said:
Living in Vegas...I have to say self driving cars would be an improvement. I'm fucking sick and tired of the constant gridlock that isn't caused by actual congestion...but the stupid inbred morons that obviously find it hilarious to rear end someone in the middle of the highway and cause multi-vehicle accidents. Pretty much the story on I-15 every day at 5pm.
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Shit I live here also I thought it was caused from all pointless construction you know, build a highway tear it down, repeat every few years.
 
dbu8554 said:
Shit I live here also I thought it was caused from all pointless construction you know, build a highway tear it down, repeat every few years.
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They have to burn through those highway funds so they can get more each year, it's simply thievery.

Imagine if they only used what they needed and rolled over the rest till the next year!
 
Yeah they tore out a road that was meant to be expanded but instead rebuilt it exactly the way it was, only took em about two weeks to notice before they tore it out in a matter of about 12 hours, funny it took em 3 weeks the first time to demo the area.

/grumble grumble
 
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