Presumably the drink driving laws would still apply to an autonomous vehicle, as the human inside would still be in charge.

Or can we all get bladdered and tell the car to take us home?

Presumably the drink driving laws would still apply to an autonomous vehicle, as the human inside would still be in charge.

Or can we all get bladdered and tell the car to take us home?

In the FAR future when the car is completely autonomous then dont see why not, car logs would show if you had intervened. By then id guess the car would have enough sensor tech to know you were over the limit and ignore your attempts to take control.

if they’re confused by fixed bikes, they probably spontaneously combust when they see a fat bike.

Anyone else think that mr fixie rider may not be as stable in a track stand as he thinks he is?

It’s not a bad decision really. If I see someone trackstanding and wobbling about a bit I’d probably slow or stop in case they decided to have an unplanned dismount in front of me.

As for the single lane road postulated above, no way you could program a car to use the verge – think about what you’d do as a driver – is that verge in fact a ditch? is it boggy? is it the sort where you can stick a wing mirror in a hedge or is it a solid wall? No way you’d be able to have that sort of thing automated.

As for the single lane road postulated above, no way you could program a car to use the verge – think about what you’d do as a driver – is that verge in fact a ditch? is it boggy? is it the sort where you can stick a wing mirror in a hedge or is it a solid wall? No way you’d be able to have that sort of thing automated.

All your examples are easily resolved with the existing sensors and collision avoidance algorithms in the cars at the moment to avoid other road users, they can ‘see’ far more than a human driver and judge distance to a mm. All it would take is a bit of programming on how to deal with another car on a head on collision and how much of the verge to use. They can already distinguish surfaces and the military stuff is programmed for offroad driving.

The things it probably cant do now is deal with a driver in a fauxXfaux who wont go off the road enough for fear of getting their wheels dirty, or know to reverse (or expect the other driver to reverse) to a nearby passing point.

No way you’d be able to have that sort of thing automated.

Bit like there’s no way we could automate shopping, bank branches, supermarket checkouts, trains, stock trading, media buying etc…

A combination of LIDAR and real-time grip/traction data could almost certainly resolve that. Don’t forget we’re at very early stages in self-driving tech and have made great progress already. There’s billions of dollars/pounds to be made in developing automated tech so I wouldn’t underestimate the ability of Google, Apple etc to break through any challenges they find…

As for the single lane road postulated above, no way you could program a car to use the verge – think about what you’d do as a driver – is that verge in fact a ditch? is it boggy? is it the sort where you can stick a wing mirror in a hedge or is it a solid wall? No way you’d be able to have that sort of thing automated.

Another example of humans being MUCH smarter than autonomous cars are currently.

Given time autonomous cars will become as smart or smarter than humans but by that point they will have decided that humans are a danger to them and to themselves and they’ll just kill us all to save themselves the trouble of carrying us around 😯 😆

wordnumb – good point

the other one that keeps doing the rounds about ‘argument about whether an automated car has to choose between hitting a pedestrian or driving onto the wrong side of the road’ is straight from a pro-car lobby group

@edhornby

It could of course just be moving at an appropriate speed and therefore, err, stop.

the other one that keeps doing the rounds about ‘argument about whether an automated car has to choose between hitting a pedestrian or driving onto the wrong side of the road’ is straight from a pro-car lobby group

To be honest i think thats easily resolved, the car should do everything within its ability to prevent danger, without straying outside its defined boundaries. So brake as hard as you can, swerve if its clear, what more can you expect.

Where the moral comes is where its a child and parent crossing, and the car ‘could’ choose who to hit. Which is why i think you just remove the scenario of choosing and just go off defined parameters of stay within lane unless clear to do otherwise.

You cant resolve all scenario and the potential benefit shouldnt be blocked by trying to come up with scenarios it might not work quite as well. A car which can see, feel conditions and react quicker and more consistently than a human driver is a good thing.

We are already part way there with auto-braking tech in modern cars, plenty of scenarios could be made up where a car could suddenly brake when infact you had chose not to in order to avoid a ‘worse’ consequence.

By then id guess the car would have enough sensor tech to know you were over the limit and ignore your attempts to take control.

Or they would call Sly and Sandra.

Another example of humans being MUCH smarter than autonomous cars are currently.

I think you’re confusing smarter with ‘more experienced’ automated tech can learn from experience too, it’s just a matter of time, and the nice thing about machines is that they can learn and share very quickly.

In your example above you’d never run into a situation where the two drivers can’t agree on who goes first, or who moves over more, etc. all easily decided/calculated within milliseconds to autonomous cars, all you need is appropriate logic path for how to deal with the situation.

As in the OP article, it is GOOD that this happened, the tech is being exposed to real world scenarios, so it can be trained and built to deal with them, it needs exposure, and every improvement can be incorporated into EVERY other automated vehicle, every experience is good.

It’s not much different to the first time a learner might come across a cyclist track standing, the obvious thing to do is slow/stop to interpret the situation and decide how to proceed, exactly what happened here, difference being once the software has learned it will remember forever, and will be shared back into the system.

The more exposure the better, the more it learns, the smarter and more experienced it gets, and the more it learns the faster it learns and that can all be shared.

They do seem to be putting a lot of effort into driving round town. Surely it’d be much easier to get it to work on motorways. Jump in, drive to the motorway, pop in a DVD then take over when you get near your exit. I’ll be happy to do the town bit if it’ll do the boring bit on the motorway. Great for weekends away. Much less of a tech challenge too.

They pretty much resolved the motorway bit years ago, the issue is you then transition to city driving (roundabouts in the UK, intersection in the US) very quickly. Only option would be for the car to stop and block a lane until the driver took control again. As it is you already have adaptive cruise and auto brake, you only really need to steer and navigate.

nickjb – Member

They do seem to be putting a lot of effort into driving round town. Surely it’d be much easier to get it to work on motorways.

it’s probably an error on my part to try and guess Google’s motives, but here goes:

town driving is the dangerous bit, that’s where self-driving cars will save more lives.

?

town driving is where autonomous cars wont be used, because they wont be able to go anywhere as human pedestrians will quickly learn they can very easily assert priority over them.

Shuttle to the top of the hill. Unload bike. Programme empty car to drive itself to the bottom of the hill and park up.

Repeat.

Only option would be for the car to stop and block a lane until the driver took control again

not really. Once you get near your exit the car asks you to take over. If you fail to do that then it’ll need to stop but that should be the exception not the norm. If they’ve got that working I want it. The FiL has an Audi that more or less does a bit of it. Follows the car in front for speed and stay between the lines, but that’s not quite watching a DVD while it drives.

Shuttle to the top of the hill. Unload bike. Programme empty car to drive itself to the bottom of the hill and park up.

Killer app.

Also useful when it snows and you want some snowboarding in your local area 🙂

town driving is where autonomous cars wont be used, because they wont be able to go anywhere as human pedestrians will quickly learn they can very easily assert priority over them.

You seem very pessimistic about their use in town (or a pessimistic attitude about peoples attitudes), i know riding in towns can expose you to the worst but honestly, you need to let it go or it will ruin your life 😆

Id suggest they are no different to normal cars, youll find if you walk out in front of someone (check they are watching first) they wont actually hit you, they might blare the horn but most wont actively try and run you down.

not really. Once you get near your exit the car asks you to take over. If you fail to do that then it’ll need to stop but that should be the exception not the norm.

Sorry, i was meaning to suggest the exception. Point being, any exception is not really acceptable on a busy road.

I suppose another issue is how would you be able to ensure the person taking over was fully capable at that point? wake up as your car is doing 60 up a sliproad and about to auto-stop, are you safe to immediately take over and negotiate the potential dangers ahead yet? I think perhaps this is why the cars need to have a certain level of ability of their own? with just inputs from the human on board on actions to take.

town driving is where autonomous cars wont be used, because they wont be able to go anywhere as human pedestrians will quickly learn they can very easily assert priority over them.

You’re assuming no changes will ever be made to the situation you currently know.

This could be resolved by having more pedestrian crossings and making it illegal to jaywalk…as per the US already.

I’d be fine with this – given the massive benefits to society as a whole that automated cars would bring – vastly fewer deaths and injuries, more people cycling etc, it seems like an acceptable sacrifice on the part of pedestrians

The jaywalking legislation was brought in in the States after lobbying by the car manufacturers: can’t have pesky people getting in the way of automobiles now can we? A few cities/states are looking at rescinding the legislation.

human pedestrians will quickly learn they can very easily assert priority over them

This could be resolved by having more pedestrian crossings and making it illegal to jaywalk…as per the US already.

I am sure that the kids will come up with many, many ways of playing ‘You can stop the autonomous car with’ game.

it seems like an acceptable sacrifice on the part of pedestrians

It’d take way longer to get anywhere, cos you’d have to walk to a crossing and wait.

I’d be fine with this – given the massive benefits to society as a whole that automated cars would bring – vastly fewer deaths and injuries, more people cycling etc, it seems like an acceptable sacrifice on the part of pedestrians

there arent any benefits to society in prioritising cars over humans in an urban environment – you just kill way more people via inactivity.

How often are you going to find google car driving around with no other traffic? Jumping out in front of one will probably just result in it getting rear ended by a tailgater. And lets be honest, you know the google car will be kitted out with more cameras and facial recognition than your average police force. You’ll get home to find google car waiting outside with all his mates ready to give you a good dooring 😆

I am sure that the kids will come up with many, many ways of playing ‘You can stop the autonomous car with’ game.

Are there any models of car that ALL come with auto-brake? (new merc’s etc.) could be a good game to try anyway, though you’d want to make sure you didnt get the one where the owner cheaped out on the options list ;0)

you could carjack them by hovering a drone just in front of them.

you could carjack them by hovering a drone just in front of them.

Again, if you hovered a decent sized drone in front of a normal car they’d probably brake.

When they take over the roads, I am going to ride in the middle of the road all of the time. I am guessing they will not go round me?

When they take over the roads, I am going to ride in the middle of the road all of the time. I am guessing they will not go round me?

I think they will wait til it’s safe to overtake….!

When they take over the roads, I am going to ride in the middle of the road all of the time. I am guessing they will not go round me?

It would finally be safe to ride near the gutter, as they would be the only ones leaving a sensible space when overtaking.

When they take over the roads, I am going to ride in the middle of the road all of the time. I am guessing they will not go round me?

They’ll go on their private interweb and moan how you don’t pay road tax or have insurance 🙄

Where do you pass?

I reckon it would be fairly easy for the cars to communicate with each other and one to wait in a layby several bends earlier, rather than meeting each other on a blind bend and having to reverse half a mile 🙂

Regarding the accidents, Google has stuff online about incidents with their cars, most accidents are whilst under human control, or autonomous and another car runs into the back of it. There was one where another car failed to give way and the car emergency braked, but the human applied the accelerator to try and avoid a side impact. The google car was hit on the rear quarter panel as it accelerated away, who knows, if the human hadn’t over-ridden it could have stopped square in the other cars path, or stopped before and avoided the crash.

I’m looking forward to this becoming an new sport “confuse Google”.

I don’t see what need these driverless car will be filling. Other than the desire to see if its technologically possible to do it. What problem are they going to solve.

Is this not a case of a solution looking for a problem ?

I don’t want to be in a bus / car / plane / train that cant be overruled by a human.

Personally, I’m looking forward to programming mine to come and get me from the pub. Or driving to Skye on holiday, say, overnight with me asleep in it = 2 less days leave!

Are there any models of car that ALL come with auto-brake? (new merc’s etc.) could be a good game to try anyway, though you’d want to make sure you didnt get the one where the owner cheaped out on the options list ;0)

*heads off to find large cardboard box and nearest Jag or Merc*