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Traffic laws are notoriously regional in the United States. The fines will adapt. There some potential infractions. Such as keeping your car in a minimum condi

by dexwiz 10y ago

Traffic laws are notoriously regional in the United States. The fines will adapt. There some potential infractions. Such as keeping your car in a minimum condition. Or having legacy system support. It needs to get patches to update to newer network types. Completely unattended driving (enter destination and taking a nap) is still up for debate. Requiring a machine to be watched seems like a pretty easy-to-pass regulation. Current traffic laws are written for human drivers. If there are robotic drivers on the road other traffic laws will be passed for those.

JoshTriplett 10y ago
> Completely unattended driving (enter destination and taking a nap) is still up for debate. Requiring a machine to be watched seems like a pretty easy-to-pass regulation. Requiring a human to watch implies a means for the human to intervene and take over. Having a human second-guess the machine will increase accidents. And having the controls available for the human to do so will increase complexity and decrease reliability.
- dexwiz 10y ago
  Many regulations are of questionable validity, but do you really want to be in a machine that you have no control over? Would robotic drivers be better at things like merging, keeping distance, not over correcting? Yes. But people will still want to intervene when it doing something dumb like driving into a pond, or gets stuck on a median and cannot figure out how to get off. Driverless cars will probably not be magic pods that whisk you around. It's still a vehicle that needs to navigate terrain. And roads are not perfect everywhere.
  - JoshTriplett 10y ago
    > do you really want to be in a machine that you have no control over Yes. I regularly fly in planes, which I have no control over, and which spend most of their time on autopilot. I also regularly deal with machines that do their jobs far better than I could, and I feel no desire to take over and do those jobs worse. Why should that answer change when the stakes get higher and the cost of a mistake goes up? (That doesn't mean I want to beta-test an experimental driverless car; it does mean I'm eager for a non-experimental one.) > But people will still want to intervene when it doing something dumb like driving into a pond, or gets stuck on a median and cannot figure out how to get off. A vehicle that did any of those things would be considered broken in a deadly way. The solution isn't to hand people broken vehicles that they sometimes need to take over from; the solution is to not call a car driverless until it handles those situations (generally by not getting into such situations in the first place). > Driverless cars will probably not be magic pods that whisk you around. Yet.
    - pyre 10y ago
      > Yes. I regularly fly in planes, which I have no control over, and which spend most of their time on autopilot. Those planes with their auto-pilot system still have a means for the pilots to intervene. That's not quite the same as being in a vehicle for which no human has the possibility of intervening. (It's also a bit disingenuous to imply that it is.)
      - JoshTriplett 10y ago
        First, those pilots are heavily trained and certified, far more than car drivers. And second, far more accidents occur due to humans than due to mechanical failure (and of "mechanical failure", only a subset of those involve incorrect autopilot, though I haven't found that broken out). http://www.planecrashinfo.com/cause.htm http://www.planecrashinfo.com/cause.htm puts total human causes at 67% (53% of which is pilot error), and mechanical failure at 20%. Some accidents also occur specifically when pilots ignore/override the automatic systems; I'd be interested to see statistics on that, too, but I haven't found any.
        pyre 10y ago
        Do you have statistics on the number of times that the pilot has to take control because the auto-pilot is unable to cope or is doing the wrong thing? Focusing just human-caused accidents vs. machine-caused accidents ignores this.
        sokoloff 10y ago
        I don't have the stats, but I have a bit over 1000 hours as a pilot of light aircraft. "What's it doing now?" is a common question in the industry, and the subject of this excellent American Airlines training seminar video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN41LvuSz10&t=21m41s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN41LvuSz10&t=21m41s (The whole video is good, but that's the specific automation confusion question.)
    - erobbins 10y ago
      I really hate this association of aircraft and car autopilots. Aircraft operate in essentially empty space, and barring major mechanical failure the pilots typically have tens of seconds up to many minutes to act to avoid disaster. In a car you often have less than a second to react, and certainly never more than 4-5. Aircraft hardware and software is tested, retested, tested again, and certified. Auto hardware and software is pushed out the door with reckless disregard for reliability. There is really no comparison.
  - fwefeefew 10y ago
    > but do you really want to be in a machine that you have no control over? Yes, it would almost definitely be safer than a lot of drivers I've been in the car with, if not all of them. And it's be far less nerve-wracking than with some drivers.
  - raldi 10y ago
    > do you really want to be in a machine that you have no control over? Do you ever ride in taxis? Or as a passenger in any car? How is that situation any different?
- CaptSpify 10y ago
  Some traffic systems, such as red light timing, actually have been shown to increase accidents. But they also increase revenue edit: source that I haven't read, but there are numerous sources from a simple web-search: http://www.illinoisherald.com/articles/2014/q4/chicago-red-light-cameras-increase-accidents/ http://www.illinoisherald.com/articles/2014/q4/chicago-red-l...
  - JBReefer 10y ago
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/01/AR2011020100021.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02... They also save pedestrian and motorist lives.
paulmd 10y ago
This is purely opinion-based, but I think the problem is primarily local/city-level. That's where most of the current problem with ticket farming happens, and once driverless cars are commercially available I think it will be relatively unpalatable to ban them at a state level or higher.
- dexwiz 10y ago
  You can pass traffic laws that target driverless cars without outright banning them. The cronies at a local/city-level that pass laws to turn traffic into a source of income have friends in state and federal. Or move to the state/federal level. Is the Federal government immune from passing similar laws?
  - pyre 10y ago
    If this sort of thing becomes common enough at the local-/start-level, I can see it becoming a legal battlefield for the companies that stand to benefit from driverless cars.

by dexwiz 10y ago

JoshTriplett 10y ago

> Completely unattended driving (enter destination and taking a nap) is still up for debate. Requiring a machine to be watched seems like a pretty easy-to-pass regulation. Requiring a human to watch implies a means for the human to intervene and take over. Having a human second-guess the machine will increase accidents. And having the controls available for the human to do so will increase complexity and decrease reliability.

dexwiz 10y ago
Many regulations are of questionable validity, but do you really want to be in a machine that you have no control over? Would robotic drivers be better at things like merging, keeping distance, not over correcting? Yes. But people will still want to intervene when it doing something dumb like driving into a pond, or gets stuck on a median and cannot figure out how to get off. Driverless cars will probably not be magic pods that whisk you around. It's still a vehicle that needs to navigate terrain. And roads are not perfect everywhere.
- JoshTriplett 10y ago
  > do you really want to be in a machine that you have no control over Yes. I regularly fly in planes, which I have no control over, and which spend most of their time on autopilot. I also regularly deal with machines that do their jobs far better than I could, and I feel no desire to take over and do those jobs worse. Why should that answer change when the stakes get higher and the cost of a mistake goes up? (That doesn't mean I want to beta-test an experimental driverless car; it does mean I'm eager for a non-experimental one.) > But people will still want to intervene when it doing something dumb like driving into a pond, or gets stuck on a median and cannot figure out how to get off. A vehicle that did any of those things would be considered broken in a deadly way. The solution isn't to hand people broken vehicles that they sometimes need to take over from; the solution is to not call a car driverless until it handles those situations (generally by not getting into such situations in the first place). > Driverless cars will probably not be magic pods that whisk you around. Yet.
  - pyre 10y ago
    > Yes. I regularly fly in planes, which I have no control over, and which spend most of their time on autopilot. Those planes with their auto-pilot system still have a means for the pilots to intervene. That's not quite the same as being in a vehicle for which no human has the possibility of intervening. (It's also a bit disingenuous to imply that it is.)
    - JoshTriplett 10y ago
      First, those pilots are heavily trained and certified, far more than car drivers. And second, far more accidents occur due to humans than due to mechanical failure (and of "mechanical failure", only a subset of those involve incorrect autopilot, though I haven't found that broken out). http://www.planecrashinfo.com/cause.htm http://www.planecrashinfo.com/cause.htm puts total human causes at 67% (53% of which is pilot error), and mechanical failure at 20%. Some accidents also occur specifically when pilots ignore/override the automatic systems; I'd be interested to see statistics on that, too, but I haven't found any.
      - pyre 10y ago
        Do you have statistics on the number of times that the pilot has to take control because the auto-pilot is unable to cope or is doing the wrong thing? Focusing just human-caused accidents vs. machine-caused accidents ignores this.
        sokoloff 10y ago
        I don't have the stats, but I have a bit over 1000 hours as a pilot of light aircraft. "What's it doing now?" is a common question in the industry, and the subject of this excellent American Airlines training seminar video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN41LvuSz10&t=21m41s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN41LvuSz10&t=21m41s (The whole video is good, but that's the specific automation confusion question.)
  - erobbins 10y ago
    I really hate this association of aircraft and car autopilots. Aircraft operate in essentially empty space, and barring major mechanical failure the pilots typically have tens of seconds up to many minutes to act to avoid disaster. In a car you often have less than a second to react, and certainly never more than 4-5. Aircraft hardware and software is tested, retested, tested again, and certified. Auto hardware and software is pushed out the door with reckless disregard for reliability. There is really no comparison.
- fwefeefew 10y ago
  > but do you really want to be in a machine that you have no control over? Yes, it would almost definitely be safer than a lot of drivers I've been in the car with, if not all of them. And it's be far less nerve-wracking than with some drivers.
- raldi 10y ago
  > do you really want to be in a machine that you have no control over? Do you ever ride in taxis? Or as a passenger in any car? How is that situation any different?
CaptSpify 10y ago
Some traffic systems, such as red light timing, actually have been shown to increase accidents. But they also increase revenue edit: source that I haven't read, but there are numerous sources from a simple web-search: http://www.illinoisherald.com/articles/2014/q4/chicago-red-light-cameras-increase-accidents/ http://www.illinoisherald.com/articles/2014/q4/chicago-red-l...
- JBReefer 10y ago
  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/01/AR2011020100021.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02... They also save pedestrian and motorist lives.

paulmd 10y ago

This is purely opinion-based, but I think the problem is primarily local/city-level. That's where most of the current problem with ticket farming happens, and once driverless cars are commercially available I think it will be relatively unpalatable to ban them at a state level or higher.

dexwiz 10y ago
You can pass traffic laws that target driverless cars without outright banning them. The cronies at a local/city-level that pass laws to turn traffic into a source of income have friends in state and federal. Or move to the state/federal level. Is the Federal government immune from passing similar laws?
- pyre 10y ago
  If this sort of thing becomes common enough at the local-/start-level, I can see it becoming a legal battlefield for the companies that stand to benefit from driverless cars.