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Yesterday, I was saying that autopiloted trucks would take over the long-haul trucking industries. This is why. Driver errors with semis on the highway kill t

by beat 10y ago

Yesterday, I was saying that autopiloted trucks would take over the long-haul trucking industries. This is why. Driver errors with semis on the highway kill thousands every year. This kind of technology will save lives - not just of the Tesla drivers (or other autopiloted drivers), but of the vehicles they don't hit.

stevens32 10y ago
Some were arguing yesterday that there'd be a strong negative emotional response when a driver-less car causes someone to die. I hope there will be an equal and opposite reaction when people are saved by this technology.
- Feuilles_Mortes 10y ago
  There won't be.
akamaka 10y ago
Saving any lives in great, but trucks are a very small part of the problem. Out of 33883 US traffic deaths in 2009, 3380 involved trucks, and truck driver error was listed as a cause 26% of the time. Self driving long-haul trucks probably won't save "thousands" of lives, but certainly hundreds. http://www.trucking.org/ATA%20Docs/News%20and%20Information/Reports%20Trends%20and%20Statistics/02%2012%2013%20--%20FINAL%202013%20Car-Truck%20Fault%20Paper.pdf http://www.trucking.org/ATA%20Docs/News%20and%20Information/...
- SEJeff 10y ago
  Saving a single life is worth the tech and disruption it will cause. That is one family that won't be missing a father, a mother, or a child.
- givinguflac 10y ago
  Any saved is a win in my book, though point taken.
- bdhess 10y ago
  The 26% statistic is misleading in this case-- just because the death didn't involve truck driver "error" doesn't mean a different movement pattern for the truck wouldn't have made a difference. For example, in the original video, if the Tesla autopilot hadn't braked, and the car had been involved in the crash, it's not clear to me that error on the part of the Tesla driver would have been listed as a cause.
  - akamaka 10y ago
    Yeah, for sure. I was implying that the other 74% will be avoided by cars with self-driving features, since the parent comment was suggesting that getting driverless trucks was more important.
    - marcosdumay 10y ago
      It's not more important. Automating trucks is easier, and the economics is all on the side of automation. Automating cars will take much longer than trucks.
      - beat 10y ago
        Exactly. There's a lot more economic impetus to automating trucks. It'll happen faster there than in cars, by a long shot.
  - gohrt 10y ago
    It should be, though. Car #1 stopped shorted and car #2 hit it. Car #2 was at fault for hitting Car #1. Car #3 (Tesla), if it didn't stop, would be at fault for not maintaining stopping distance, hitting Car #2.
    - bdhess 10y ago
      You're implying that minimum following distance <= stopping distance. A brief Google search yields a stopping distance of 315 feet for travel speed of 70 mph.[0] We don't train drivers to leave a football field of space in between cars traveling at highway speed. At least where I live, the legal standard for minimum following distance is that a driver "shall not follow another vehicle more closely than is reasonable and prudent". If Driver #3 can't see Car #1 past Car #2, and Car #2 is traveling at highway speed, I think it's a stretch to say that Driver #3 could be faulted. [0] http://www.driveandstayalive.com/stopping-distances/ http://www.driveandstayalive.com/stopping-distances/
goshx 10y ago
My car, with myself and a friend inside, almost got ran over by a truck when the driver didn't even bother to slow down for the yellow light and crossed at high speed the red light. Luckily he didn't hit anyone. I totally agree with you.
- elif 10y ago
  I don't know your situation, but my experience driving big heavy stuff is that sometimes a yellow light does not provide enough warning to stop 55mph * crazy weight, and you sometimes find yourself with a dilemma of entering an intersection just after a light has changed, or a few seconds after the light has changed.
  - kevin42 10y ago
    It sounds to me like the driver shouldn't be going 55mph in the first place, if they can't stop before the yellow light turns red. It's similar to icy roads. If you go the normal speed limit and you slide into another car, it's your fault. The fact that the speed limit was higher than your speed doesn't release the driver from responsibility.
    - jlarocco 10y ago
      That part's not really up to the driver, though. It's the responsibility of the traffic engineers to make sure the yellow light is long enough to accommodate reasonable braking time and distance for all of the traffic that can be on the road, travelling at the posted speed limit. They can lower the speed limit, increase the yellow light duration, or put up a sign limiting the max vehicle weight. It's not reasonable to expect every driver to know detailed information like yellow light times for every intersection and section of road.
      - goshx 10y ago
        In this particular road and crossing there is a sign with flashing lights indicating "PREPARE TO STOP WHEN FLASHING". It was flashing while the crossing light was still green to indicate that it would turn yellow pretty soon, but the driver still didn't slow down.
dragonwriter 10y ago
Autopilot would take over trucking even if it was no safer than humans under the current safety regime applied to human drivers, simply because it could drive nearly 24/7 without degradation, improving asset utilization.
- Tloewald 10y ago
  I think you underestimate the ability of the trucking industry to poorly maintain automatic pilot systems.
  - beat 10y ago
    Poorly maintained autopilots would still be safer than poorly maintained drivers.
    - mejari 10y ago
      But at least if it's a poorly maintained driver the company can blame the driver and not change their practices.
      - Kadin 10y ago
        They can still use the owner-operator model if they want to, and have the vehicles owned by a different entity than the freight company. But in all seriousness, although I understand that people like to out-cynic each other, over the road trucks seem to be pretty well-maintained. Whether that's the result of safety regulations and enforcement or simple economics (a broken-down truck is not a moneymaking truck) is left as an exercise to the reader, but either way you do not see a lot of barely-making-it or broken-down commercial OTR trucks on the road. That level of poor maintenance is generally the province of private vehicles.
        stormcrowsx 10y ago
        I'd hope a poorly maintained automated truck which crashes would result in extremely heavy fines and lawsuits, to the point where it could seriously threaten to put a trucking company out of business. Make it uneconomical not to maintain the trucks.
jfrankamp 10y ago
No way. I use semis as a highway safety feature. They can see farther down the road and are much less likely to get in an accident statistically. When visibility is poor, I follow one (with a large follow distance).
- MaulingMonkey 10y ago
  > (with a large follow distance) Good. Some things to keep in mind: Semis can clear obstacles you probably can't - and at least around here are trained to not break because of some road hazards. Semis are not manuverable, and if they lose a tire the last thing they want to be doing is applying a now-uneven breaking force.
gnerix 10y ago
It's not just driver errors. Apparently the crash detection system kicked in during the Berlin ISIS attack and stopped the truck before the attacker could kill more people (sorry, link in German) http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/anschlag-von-berlin-bordcomputer-stoppte-lkw-a-1127835.html http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/anschlag-von-berli...
- caconym_ 10y ago
  That's cool. This seems to be a fresh news story but I hope it will be more widely disseminated. Among so much aimless hand-wringing over terrorism, security theater "designed to stop it", and dragnet surveillance and intelligence gathering, here is a clear example of a new technology reducing the impact of a terrorist act and saving lives. It kinda goes against the click-generating narrative of autonomous driving technology being half-baked gimmicks rushed to market, fatal accidents waiting to happen, and Tesla and its celebrity corporation ilk flying too close to the sun on homemade wings.
cm2187 10y ago
Not the least because truck autopilot don't play videogames while they drive! A too common practice in Europe is to drive by ear. The truck driver will not watch the road unless the wheels are running over the side lines which makes a noise.

by beat 10y ago

stevens32 10y ago

Some were arguing yesterday that there'd be a strong negative emotional response when a driver-less car causes someone to die. I hope there will be an equal and opposite reaction when people are saved by this technology.

Feuilles_Mortes 10y ago
There won't be.

akamaka 10y ago

Saving any lives in great, but trucks are a very small part of the problem. Out of 33883 US traffic deaths in 2009, 3380 involved trucks, and truck driver error was listed as a cause 26% of the time. Self driving long-haul trucks probably won't save "thousands" of lives, but certainly hundreds. http://www.trucking.org/ATA%20Docs/News%20and%20Information/Reports%20Trends%20and%20Statistics/02%2012%2013%20--%20FINAL%202013%20Car-Truck%20Fault%20Paper.pdf http://www.trucking.org/ATA%20Docs/News%20and%20Information/...

SEJeff 10y ago
Saving a single life is worth the tech and disruption it will cause. That is one family that won't be missing a father, a mother, or a child.
givinguflac 10y ago
Any saved is a win in my book, though point taken.
bdhess 10y ago
The 26% statistic is misleading in this case-- just because the death didn't involve truck driver "error" doesn't mean a different movement pattern for the truck wouldn't have made a difference. For example, in the original video, if the Tesla autopilot hadn't braked, and the car had been involved in the crash, it's not clear to me that error on the part of the Tesla driver would have been listed as a cause.
- akamaka 10y ago
  Yeah, for sure. I was implying that the other 74% will be avoided by cars with self-driving features, since the parent comment was suggesting that getting driverless trucks was more important.
  - marcosdumay 10y ago
    It's not more important. Automating trucks is easier, and the economics is all on the side of automation. Automating cars will take much longer than trucks.
    - beat 10y ago
      Exactly. There's a lot more economic impetus to automating trucks. It'll happen faster there than in cars, by a long shot.
- gohrt 10y ago
  It should be, though. Car #1 stopped shorted and car #2 hit it. Car #2 was at fault for hitting Car #1. Car #3 (Tesla), if it didn't stop, would be at fault for not maintaining stopping distance, hitting Car #2.
  - bdhess 10y ago
    You're implying that minimum following distance <= stopping distance. A brief Google search yields a stopping distance of 315 feet for travel speed of 70 mph.[0] We don't train drivers to leave a football field of space in between cars traveling at highway speed. At least where I live, the legal standard for minimum following distance is that a driver "shall not follow another vehicle more closely than is reasonable and prudent". If Driver #3 can't see Car #1 past Car #2, and Car #2 is traveling at highway speed, I think it's a stretch to say that Driver #3 could be faulted. [0] http://www.driveandstayalive.com/stopping-distances/ http://www.driveandstayalive.com/stopping-distances/

goshx 10y ago

My car, with myself and a friend inside, almost got ran over by a truck when the driver didn't even bother to slow down for the yellow light and crossed at high speed the red light. Luckily he didn't hit anyone. I totally agree with you.

elif 10y ago
I don't know your situation, but my experience driving big heavy stuff is that sometimes a yellow light does not provide enough warning to stop 55mph * crazy weight, and you sometimes find yourself with a dilemma of entering an intersection just after a light has changed, or a few seconds after the light has changed.
- kevin42 10y ago
  It sounds to me like the driver shouldn't be going 55mph in the first place, if they can't stop before the yellow light turns red. It's similar to icy roads. If you go the normal speed limit and you slide into another car, it's your fault. The fact that the speed limit was higher than your speed doesn't release the driver from responsibility.
  - jlarocco 10y ago
    That part's not really up to the driver, though. It's the responsibility of the traffic engineers to make sure the yellow light is long enough to accommodate reasonable braking time and distance for all of the traffic that can be on the road, travelling at the posted speed limit. They can lower the speed limit, increase the yellow light duration, or put up a sign limiting the max vehicle weight. It's not reasonable to expect every driver to know detailed information like yellow light times for every intersection and section of road.
    - goshx 10y ago
      In this particular road and crossing there is a sign with flashing lights indicating "PREPARE TO STOP WHEN FLASHING". It was flashing while the crossing light was still green to indicate that it would turn yellow pretty soon, but the driver still didn't slow down.

dragonwriter 10y ago

Autopilot would take over trucking even if it was no safer than humans under the current safety regime applied to human drivers, simply because it could drive nearly 24/7 without degradation, improving asset utilization.

Tloewald 10y ago
I think you underestimate the ability of the trucking industry to poorly maintain automatic pilot systems.
- beat 10y ago
  Poorly maintained autopilots would still be safer than poorly maintained drivers.
  - mejari 10y ago
    But at least if it's a poorly maintained driver the company can blame the driver and not change their practices.
    - Kadin 10y ago
      They can still use the owner-operator model if they want to, and have the vehicles owned by a different entity than the freight company. But in all seriousness, although I understand that people like to out-cynic each other, over the road trucks seem to be pretty well-maintained. Whether that's the result of safety regulations and enforcement or simple economics (a broken-down truck is not a moneymaking truck) is left as an exercise to the reader, but either way you do not see a lot of barely-making-it or broken-down commercial OTR trucks on the road. That level of poor maintenance is generally the province of private vehicles.
      - stormcrowsx 10y ago
        I'd hope a poorly maintained automated truck which crashes would result in extremely heavy fines and lawsuits, to the point where it could seriously threaten to put a trucking company out of business. Make it uneconomical not to maintain the trucks.

jfrankamp 10y ago

No way. I use semis as a highway safety feature. They can see farther down the road and are much less likely to get in an accident statistically. When visibility is poor, I follow one (with a large follow distance).

MaulingMonkey 10y ago
> (with a large follow distance) Good. Some things to keep in mind: Semis can clear obstacles you probably can't - and at least around here are trained to not break because of some road hazards. Semis are not manuverable, and if they lose a tire the last thing they want to be doing is applying a now-uneven breaking force.

gnerix 10y ago

It's not just driver errors. Apparently the crash detection system kicked in during the Berlin ISIS attack and stopped the truck before the attacker could kill more people (sorry, link in German) http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/anschlag-von-berlin-bordcomputer-stoppte-lkw-a-1127835.html http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/anschlag-von-berli...

caconym_ 10y ago
That's cool. This seems to be a fresh news story but I hope it will be more widely disseminated. Among so much aimless hand-wringing over terrorism, security theater "designed to stop it", and dragnet surveillance and intelligence gathering, here is a clear example of a new technology reducing the impact of a terrorist act and saving lives. It kinda goes against the click-generating narrative of autonomous driving technology being half-baked gimmicks rushed to market, fatal accidents waiting to happen, and Tesla and its celebrity corporation ilk flying too close to the sun on homemade wings.

cm2187 10y ago

Not the least because truck autopilot don't play videogames while they drive! A too common practice in Europe is to drive by ear. The truck driver will not watch the road unless the wheels are running over the side lines which makes a noise.