Why Would Driverless Cars Need Rules For Crashing?

[ToraToraTora]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-37418119
we are continually being told they are perfect.

[jim360]

Moving away from your own driving ability, it is nevertheless true that humans are overconfident in their own skills in general. As I say, the statistics demonstrate how untrustworthy humans as drivers should be. Fatal accidents, severe or slight injuries, or just damage to expensive equipment are commonplace and really need not be. Hand over day-to-day driving to a system and the reduction in accidents will certainly be huge. Not total -- because, despite TTT's protestation, no-one ever claimed they would be perfect -- but as near as dammit. Today the road deaths per year are over 1500 in the UK (interestingly, there has been a huge reduction in the last few years, from a high of 3,500 in 2003); does anyone seriously expect this figure to increase if unreliable, temperamental, easily-distracted humans are largely removed in favour of an automatic system?

[Zacs-Master]

Naomi, if you knew there was nothing behind your car, why did you get out to look?

[jim360]

The post counting in this thread has gone wrong for some reason.

[naomi24]

Zacs-Master, because the sensors were bleeping. Very confusing!!

Jim, the posts are very slow appearing this morning. A little while ago the grey box indicated that three people had posted on this thread in succession and none of them appeared here for several minutes.

[Zacs-Master]

But you said, very confidently, that you 'knew' there was nothing behind you. Is it not better to alert you to a potential hazard albeit an irrelevant one, than ignore it?

[naomi24]

Zacs-Master, So you wouldn't have stopped to look?

[mushroom25]

probably the first wide-scale use of autonomous vehicles in the uk will be on motorways. the technology already exists, and there is already legislation in place that could be used to prohibit from motorways any vehicles not equipped for autonomous operation.

[Zacs-Master]

I would have said I 'thought' there was nothing there. Not that I 'knew'. See the subtle difference?
I'm not being pedantic here. Your stopping and looking proves that you took heed of a 'machine' over your own senses, even when you 'knew' there was nothing there. The machine saw something you didn't. Driverless cars will be equipped with sensors far more advanced than the 'parking' ones which can detect potential hazards much better than humans.

[naomi24]

Zacs-Master, // I'm not being pedantic here.//

Oh yes you are. I knew without doubt there was nothing hazardous there when I started reversing, but when the sensors started bleeping it was right to investigate.

[ToraToraTora]

obviously they stilll need programming to spot a bus though....
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/mar/09/google-self-driving-car-crash-video-accident-bus

[Gromit]

The real benefits are about 15 years off when all the cars become networked and synced instead of stand alone computers on wheels.
When they are all connected to one brain, they can be driven at high speed. If the system become congested, the answer will be to increase speed from say 150mph to 200mph. There will be no need for 8 lane motorways, 4 will be plenty. The redundant lanes can be given to walkers and cyclists. Infrastructure will change too. No need to barriers and walls, no road markings, no street lighting.

[Gromit]

Tora,
That car had a driver.
// Neither the Google employee in the driver’s seat – who was required to be there under California law to take the wheel in an emergency – nor the 16 people on the bus were injured. //

As an example, it just proves that the human back up was useless.

[jim360]

You might be right about the timescale Gromit, although in general I just prefer being conservative when estimating how long things will take. If it's five, ten, 20 or 50 years, though, it's worth waiting for. The roads will be far safer once the transition happens. And, by the by, road travel will probably be rather smoother with fewer disruptions.

[vulcan42]

It is accepted that the first true motor car was built in 1885, 131 years ago, yet in spite of a massive leap in technology they still break down. Why are you assuming that in the same time frame a computer will be built that will never go wrong?

[ToraToraTora]

CCL gromit. AI does not exist and software is still linear, ever more powerful hardware means that it can do more but still has 0 intelligence.

[naomi24]

Gromit, at 08:32 you assured me that a driver could override the system, then at 09:56 you say that the example TTT gave proves that human back-up is useless. I’m confused.

[Gromit]

Tora,
I am not talking about AI.

Syncing your computer car to a network controlled by a central computer is nothing new or clever. At the moment, the problem to overcome in achieving that is computering power, to process all the data from millions of cars in an instant. But that is an engineering problem that will be overcome.

[ToraToraTora]

what you suggest may work if no human controlled vehicles or indeed pedestrians are allowed on the roads, never going to happen.

[Gromit]

// I’m confused. //

At last, something we can agree on.

It is simple. The computer car or the computer aeroplane has a human back up. But the back up is only as good as the human. The Google driver had passed a driving test and was licensed to drive. He/or she was sat at the wheel of the car, yet did not then stop the car crashing.

Without knowing the circumstances of that crash, it is impossible to say why the automating system and the driver were both failed.

[Zacs-Master]

Naomi, 'Oh yes you are. I knew without doubt there was nothing hazardous there when I started reversing, but when the sensors started bleeping it was right to investigate.'

You knew 'without doubt' but yet you still investigated. Mmm.