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I'm a regular Boston driver that enjoys driving here. On any average 15 minute drive, you will see numerous examples of cars, pedestrians, and cyclists breaking

by seibelj 10y ago

I'm a regular Boston driver that enjoys driving here. On any average 15 minute drive, you will see numerous examples of cars, pedestrians, and cyclists breaking laws in sometimes shocking and life threatening ways. The drivers are also extremely smart and competitive, looking for any edge they can to get where they are going faster. If self driving cars start driving here in large numbers, they are going to be the most slow, weak, taken-advantage-of cars on the road. If tailgating a self driving car makes it pull over, everyone on the road will do it. If a honk makes it pull over, everyone on the road will do it. You just can't understand the mindset of drivers here until you experience it. This is just Boston, but wait until forums, youtube, etc. of people trading tips on how to fuck with the people sleeping in their cars spring up. In a tech utopia where everyone has a self-driving car and human operators are banned, maybe it can work. But in the real world, where not everyone is a college educated rich HN user, self driving cars are going to require a very difficult-to-accomplish change in behavior to succeed.

DigitalJack 10y ago
I think you are right, it will likely not be an obviously good move until you are at > 70% autonomous. I think there would be a big market for trucking though to have augmented autonomous, so you can keep going for stretches while sleeping. Plenty of routes in the midwest would allow for that, so cross country travel could be improved. Also, driving at night. After traveling back and forth to my inlaws a few times late at night, I noticed I saw many more three trailer trucks on the road. a lot more. It finally occurred to me that they likely drive at night to avoid traffic, with such a difficult to maneuver load.
ctrl-j 10y ago
And then there will be laws that make this illegal. Plus the car will probably be taking video of the infraction. Hell, if everyone driving self-driving cars reduces the 38k deaths and 4.4 million injuries, then it's possibly that eventually it will be illegal to drive. At the very least, I would expect there to be autonomous-only roads - and you'll have to pay higher insurance premiums to manually drive a car.
- seibelj 10y ago
  If every self driving car drives like a grandma (which they will be legally required to do, I assume), they will not be allowed to ruin the commute of Bostonians. Why do you think there are zero red light cameras in Boston, despite an epidemic of running red lights? The voters here are very particular regarding driving.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - CalRobert 10y ago
    Vehicles driving like grandmothers would probably be an improvement. Lower speeds can increase total throughput, as can fewer rapid changes in velocity.
    - seibelj 10y ago
      I'm not arguing about the objective benefits in safety. I'm arguing that your average Joe is not going to let the nerds create a huge hassle for everyone too poor / not wanting a self driving car. This is a social issue.
      - throwaway729 10y ago
        > Joe is not going to let the nerds create a huge hassle for everyone too poor / not wanting a self driving car. CalRobert's point is that aggressive driving isn't rational, because cooperative behavior at lower speeds often increases total throughput in congested areas. That point is completely independent of autonomous vs. non-autonomous driving. > This is a social issue. Social issues aren't insurmountable. Driving behavior can be changed. For example, I've noticed over the past few years that people tend to be far more likely to behave in the optimal way when merging at a closed lane when there's a sign explaining that everyone should use both lanes until the last moment.
        ghaff 10y ago
ghaff 10y ago
A year or so back John Leonard at MIT--who has done a lot of autonomous vehicle research--took dashcam video of his commute into work from a Boston neighborhood over the course of a few weeks and edited them down. He did this to demonstrate a number of problems (such as police directing traffic around an accident) that, in his view, will be very difficult for self-driving cars to address.
Zigurd 10y ago
It is more likely that a critical mass of well-behaved self-driving cars will make other drivers better-behaved. They will also make cycling and walking much safer and more pleasant. Critical mass is likely to be lower than most people think. When self-driving vehicles reach 10% the perception will be that they are everywhere.
- eru 10y ago
  The first self-driving cars will probably drive for Uber (or similar). That means 10% of total number of cars will be way more than 10% of total miles driven.
throwaway729 10y ago
> tailgating a self driving car makes it pull over, everyone on the road will do it. If a honk makes it pull over, everyone on the road will do it. Tailgating is illegal in most of the US. Same for non-emergency honking. Those laws are never enforced, of course, which I think is a shame. Especially non-emergency honking, and especially in cities. Hopefully assholes exploiting the conservative driving behavior of autonomous vehicles will lead to law enforcement regularly enforcing these sorts of safety&civility laws. > where not everyone is a college educated rich HN user Anecdotally, I haven't noticed that dangerous and aggressive driving is strongly associated with education level or income. I pretty regularly encounter dangerous assholes with "university of blah" stickers on their car.
- ben_jones 10y ago
  Have you ever driven on a busy road way before? Police cannot, and arguably should not have the ability to, monitor drivers 100% of the time. For the most part they are forced to resort to what can be considered scare tactics just to place the idea in driver's heads that they might be caught. The idea that doubling, tripling, quadrupling, or whatever is necessary, police activity will enable autonomous drivers is absurd.
  - wongarsu 10y ago
    >Police cannot, and arguably should not have the ability to, monitor drivers 100% of the time. Police can't catch 100% of any violation or crime, and they don't have to. We can't completely prevent any behaviour, but we can reduce it to the desired level with the right combination of risk of punishment and severity of punishment. Right now the risk of punishment for non-emergency honking is so close to zero that most drivers seem to have forgotten that it's illegal at all.
    - throwaway729 10y ago
      > most drivers seem to have forgotten that it's illegal at all And many police officers, for that matter...
  - 10y ago
HaloZero 10y ago
People used to also be insist and not care about drunk driving but I think the cost of lives lost made that culture change. I'm hoping if people start harassing automated vehicles the public sentiment would be: "Don't you want a future where we minimize traffic fatalities? Stop making this harder".
aidenn0 10y ago
They are already incorporating "unwritten rules" of driving into self-driving cars; things like rolling forward early at a 4-way stop to keep your place in line. Boston is one of the worst cities to drive in (IMO much of Rhode Island is worse though). The "Boston Left" (also heard it called "Mass. left") is particularly jarring to non-locals.
- ghaff 10y ago
  I actually had to look that up. When I did I said to myself "Well, sure, what else are you going to do when you need to make a left-hand turn at a non-arrowed light when there's constant traffic the other way? :-) (Well, that or sneak left after the light has turned red but before the cross traffic has started.)
  - aidenn0 10y ago
    In the DC area (where I grew up) about 4 or 5 cars would turn left after the light was red at intersections like that.
btbuildem 10y ago
That's cool, they'll just make armoured self-driving cars for that particular problem area.

by seibelj 10y ago

DigitalJack 10y ago

I think you are right, it will likely not be an obviously good move until you are at > 70% autonomous. I think there would be a big market for trucking though to have augmented autonomous, so you can keep going for stretches while sleeping. Plenty of routes in the midwest would allow for that, so cross country travel could be improved. Also, driving at night. After traveling back and forth to my inlaws a few times late at night, I noticed I saw many more three trailer trucks on the road. a lot more. It finally occurred to me that they likely drive at night to avoid traffic, with such a difficult to maneuver load.

ctrl-j 10y ago

And then there will be laws that make this illegal. Plus the car will probably be taking video of the infraction. Hell, if everyone driving self-driving cars reduces the 38k deaths and 4.4 million injuries, then it's possibly that eventually it will be illegal to drive. At the very least, I would expect there to be autonomous-only roads - and you'll have to pay higher insurance premiums to manually drive a car.

seibelj 10y ago
If every self driving car drives like a grandma (which they will be legally required to do, I assume), they will not be allowed to ruin the commute of Bostonians. Why do you think there are zero red light cameras in Boston, despite an epidemic of running red lights? The voters here are very particular regarding driving.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- CalRobert 10y ago
  Vehicles driving like grandmothers would probably be an improvement. Lower speeds can increase total throughput, as can fewer rapid changes in velocity.
  - seibelj 10y ago
    I'm not arguing about the objective benefits in safety. I'm arguing that your average Joe is not going to let the nerds create a huge hassle for everyone too poor / not wanting a self driving car. This is a social issue.
    - throwaway729 10y ago
      > Joe is not going to let the nerds create a huge hassle for everyone too poor / not wanting a self driving car. CalRobert's point is that aggressive driving isn't rational, because cooperative behavior at lower speeds often increases total throughput in congested areas. That point is completely independent of autonomous vs. non-autonomous driving. > This is a social issue. Social issues aren't insurmountable. Driving behavior can be changed. For example, I've noticed over the past few years that people tend to be far more likely to behave in the optimal way when merging at a closed lane when there's a sign explaining that everyone should use both lanes until the last moment.
      - ghaff 10y ago

ghaff 10y ago

A year or so back John Leonard at MIT--who has done a lot of autonomous vehicle research--took dashcam video of his commute into work from a Boston neighborhood over the course of a few weeks and edited them down. He did this to demonstrate a number of problems (such as police directing traffic around an accident) that, in his view, will be very difficult for self-driving cars to address.

Zigurd 10y ago

It is more likely that a critical mass of well-behaved self-driving cars will make other drivers better-behaved. They will also make cycling and walking much safer and more pleasant. Critical mass is likely to be lower than most people think. When self-driving vehicles reach 10% the perception will be that they are everywhere.

eru 10y ago
The first self-driving cars will probably drive for Uber (or similar). That means 10% of total number of cars will be way more than 10% of total miles driven.

throwaway729 10y ago

> tailgating a self driving car makes it pull over, everyone on the road will do it. If a honk makes it pull over, everyone on the road will do it. Tailgating is illegal in most of the US. Same for non-emergency honking. Those laws are never enforced, of course, which I think is a shame. Especially non-emergency honking, and especially in cities. Hopefully assholes exploiting the conservative driving behavior of autonomous vehicles will lead to law enforcement regularly enforcing these sorts of safety&civility laws. > where not everyone is a college educated rich HN user Anecdotally, I haven't noticed that dangerous and aggressive driving is strongly associated with education level or income. I pretty regularly encounter dangerous assholes with "university of blah" stickers on their car.

ben_jones 10y ago
Have you ever driven on a busy road way before? Police cannot, and arguably should not have the ability to, monitor drivers 100% of the time. For the most part they are forced to resort to what can be considered scare tactics just to place the idea in driver's heads that they might be caught. The idea that doubling, tripling, quadrupling, or whatever is necessary, police activity will enable autonomous drivers is absurd.
- wongarsu 10y ago
  >Police cannot, and arguably should not have the ability to, monitor drivers 100% of the time. Police can't catch 100% of any violation or crime, and they don't have to. We can't completely prevent any behaviour, but we can reduce it to the desired level with the right combination of risk of punishment and severity of punishment. Right now the risk of punishment for non-emergency honking is so close to zero that most drivers seem to have forgotten that it's illegal at all.
  - throwaway729 10y ago
    > most drivers seem to have forgotten that it's illegal at all And many police officers, for that matter...
- 10y ago

HaloZero 10y ago

People used to also be insist and not care about drunk driving but I think the cost of lives lost made that culture change. I'm hoping if people start harassing automated vehicles the public sentiment would be: "Don't you want a future where we minimize traffic fatalities? Stop making this harder".

aidenn0 10y ago

They are already incorporating "unwritten rules" of driving into self-driving cars; things like rolling forward early at a 4-way stop to keep your place in line. Boston is one of the worst cities to drive in (IMO much of Rhode Island is worse though). The "Boston Left" (also heard it called "Mass. left") is particularly jarring to non-locals.

ghaff 10y ago
I actually had to look that up. When I did I said to myself "Well, sure, what else are you going to do when you need to make a left-hand turn at a non-arrowed light when there's constant traffic the other way? :-) (Well, that or sneak left after the light has turned red but before the cross traffic has started.)
- aidenn0 10y ago
  In the DC area (where I grew up) about 4 or 5 cars would turn left after the light was red at intersections like that.

btbuildem 10y ago

That's cool, they'll just make armoured self-driving cars for that particular problem area.