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Being a cyclist in Amsterdam, the lack of driver eye contact and understanding of body language is what worries me about the application of self driving cars.
by makeitsuckless 11y ago
Being a cyclist in Amsterdam, the lack of driver eye contact and understanding of body language is what worries me about the application of self driving cars.
Amsterdam traffic is a chaos in which pedestrians and cyclists mix with cars, and the former two frequently (some would say always) ignore the rules. Not out of some anarchistic impulse, but for mutual convenience. Especially with cyclists, for whom coming to a full stop and accelerating again is both "expensive" and risky (accelerating cyclists tend to swerve), relying on eye contact and mutual understanding of intent rather than following the rules of the road by the book results in safer and more fluent traffic.
I imagine a current generation Google self-driving car in Amsterdam coming to a grinding halt and not being able to move backwards or forwards.
But most of all, as a cyclist I wouldn't feel safe sharing the road with "drivers" with whom communicating via eye contact and body language are impossible.
To me, self-driving cars and liveable, human-scale cities are mutually exclusive, and I very much prefer the latter.
- Shorel 11y agoUntil you actually live surrounded by self-driving cars, your speculation is nothing more than that. As someone who also commutes by bicycle, I would vastly prefer predictable, 100% consistent car behavior.
- ortusdux 11y agoI wonder if a few e-ink displays on the outside of the cars could be used to smooth out these interactions by conveying actions and intents in plain English. I would be comforting to see 'Stopped, waiting for bicyclist to pass' flash up on the front display when I bike up to a 4-way stop.
- linkregister 11y agoAbsolutely. All of my near-misses are due to unpredictable behavior on my part (I sometimes make mistakes; and I'm improving) or unpredictable driving. I include driver rage in the unpredictable driving category.
- lumberjack 11y agoYou bring up a valid point. In highly congested areas the traffic does not simply follow the traffic code. It's more of a distributed system of traffic routing whereby drivers/riders let each other know that they will be letting the other one pass or would like to go ahead first. And bicyclists and mopeds signal their turns with their hands. Can a self driving car recognize my slight nod or my hand gesture indicating to it that I ain't stopping?
- linkregister 11y ago1. In my opinion, the primary reason for establishing eye contact with drivers is to confirm they actually see the bicyclist and agree to not get in a collision. Automation-driven cars with good computer vision processing and sufficient sensors/LIDAR have this problem solved. That is, the Google car automatically takes the most conservative and lawful approach. 2. I don't think I will ever understand the rationale behind bicylists failing to make a complete stop at traffic signals and stop signs. I bicycle to work every day; every traffic stop is an opportunity for a slight increase in cumulative exercise. If the bicyclist is in the center of the lane, swerving (I've never noticed this myself) will not be an issue. More importantly, predictably driving a bicycle decreases driver rage and reduces the probability of being hit by a driver who understandably cannot predict what an erratic bicyclist will do next. tl;dr: if you bike in a predictable manner in accordance with traffic laws, then human and robot drivers will be much less likely to hit you.