8 ms·

"They drive funny" claims human, regarding high level of reporting of accidents where computer drivers are required to report encounters but humans are not. If

"They drive funny" claims human, regarding high level of reporting of accidents where computer drivers are required to report encounters but humans are not. If humans were required to report every bump and scrape, what would we find out? I suspect we would find that humans are just poor drivers overall, and "they don't drive like I do" is the number one cause of minor incidents worldwide. My main submission to this argument is the ubiquitous rear-ending in the turning lane where the first car's driver starts to roll and then stops, while the second driver is turned to watch approaching traffic and thus oblivious to the behaviour of the car in front.

rflrob 9y ago
"They aren't driving like I would" is a major red flag for me, causing me to either drive/bike/walk more carefully, get well away if possible, and keep them in view if necessary.
- vntok 9y ago
  Sounds like success to me.
omarforgotpwd 9y ago
The issue isn't that the cars are worse drivers than humans. They're obviously going to be much better statistically. The article is just making the point that they're going to have to be programmed to break the rules just like humans do i.e. with speeding, stopping too often etc. If they are not programmed to break the rules, they will frustrate people and even cause accidents as humans try to interact with them. There's not always a good way to know that the car in front of you is being driven by a computer.
- achamayou 9y ago
  There’s a way to know they’re learning to drive or just recently got their license, why wouldn’t there be a way to know they’re driven by software?
  - thret 9y ago
    Right, just give them a C plate.
- captainmuon 9y ago
  This will be an opportunity to fix the traffic rules to be more realistic. Often, the speed limits are too low in the US, and "everybody" goes faster. This leads to the problem of selective enforcement, and people not trusting speed limits when they are really neccessary. In contrast, I've found most speed limits in Germany to be reasonable absolute maximum limits - except on one or two places on streets I know very well. And I'm not talking about the Autobahn - if I see 70 km/h in Germany (45-ish mph), its probably dangerous to go faster. If I see 45 mph in the States, it seems to mean "everybody go 55 mph".
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - chx 9y ago
    1. Do you want to be the local politician who says "hey, let's raise this to 55 MPH" and then on a bad weather day or just out of sheer bad luck soon after there's a major pile up and then said politician gets roasted? 1. The traffic lights need to be coordinated and that means presuming a certain speed. Now the problem is a lot of traffic lights are close enough that changing the programming of just one should ripple through the entire system and this recently (especially on a regulation making time scale) was a problem consuming extraordinary amounts of computing power.
    - Reason077 9y ago
      Speed limits aren't just about safety. Lower speeds mean less noise, which is desirable to local residents in residential areas. They're the ones who local politicians are accountable to.
      - dfox 9y ago
        Decreasing speed limits is something that local politicians can use to demonstrate to their constituents that they care about them, but very rarely has net-positive effect on noise and polution.
      - GuB-42 9y ago
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
  >The issue isn't that the cars are worse drivers than humans. They're obviously going to be much better statistically. This isn't obvious at all.
  - whipoodle 9y ago
    Sure it is!
- jacobr 9y ago
  Speed limits are not just for traffic safety, but also to reduce noise pollution.
- BearGoesChirp 9y ago
  They should follow the law. Granting an exception is not the way the law should work, because such exceptions are arbitrary and without any sense of justice or ethics. The best way to fix a bad law is to consistently enforce it. If two actors, one of which is following the law, has a higher risk than two actors both breaking the law, the lawbreaker is still at fault for the increased risk.
- r00fus 9y ago
  That, or... if enough AI drivers are out there then maybe humans will just learn to live with them. While crashing into an AI driver I may be able to blame the AI, it's still a huge pain and possible loss for me as a human. If the reality is that AI is not leaving and they have peccadilloes, then the human drivers and legal structure will just need to adapt (something we aren't bad at).
- pharrington 9y ago
  Computers have been training humans for the past couple decades, and I see no reason for that to stop just because the computer's form factor is a car.
KGIII 9y ago
If you take a system where everybody does similar and add something that does not, this is going to cause problems. This is going to cause problems even if the dissimilar behavior is the proper legal behavior. Erratic behavior causes accidents, be it driving too slow, too fast, weaving, impaired, etc... Now, if all the cars drove the same way, we'd be fine. We'd have very few accidents. However, we don't. So, we bump into stuff.
- platz 9y ago
  Erratic behavior, due to following traffic laws?
  - mst 9y ago
    From the point of view of drivers who're used to everybody bending the rules to a certain level, strictly following the rules is at the very least unexpected; 'erratic' is perhaps an overly strong word but I think the general point is sound.
    - KGIII 9y ago
      If it helps, you can call it things like non-standard. We don't actually tend to follow all the rules of the road. Like all changes in traffic, we will adapt. It takes time. Something like a rotary can take 18 months before traffic fully adapts. I can't speculate as to how long this will take.
Kevin_S 9y ago
I've been in 3 minor car accidents, ALL 3 have come where someone read-ended me in this way. I am constantly conscious of this and am always keeping an eye on the car behind me when I'm in this situation.
- Reason077 9y ago
  This is why Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) is the most important safety feature since the advent of the seatbelt. It's going to save many lives.
  - w0utert 9y ago
    Yes, it's relatively simple things like this that can actually improve car safety right now, no self-driving capabilities necessary. Automatic braking, lane departure warning, dead-spot detection, driver attention detection, missed signal warnings, etc. I don't understand why we are not investing all of the efforts and resources that are now spent to develop full self-driving capibilities, into making existing viable safety technology cheaper, and eventually mandatory. I'm 100% convinced it would have a much bigger impact on traffic safety, in a much shorter timeframe, to the point we don't even need self-driving cars anymore. At least not for safety purposes. Come to think of it, maybe the whole self-driving car hype is not actually because companies want to improve car safety, but because they see new business models based around them, and we, the public, need to be convinced self-driving cars will be safer than alternative technologies or modes of transportation.
    - marcosdumay 9y ago
      It's certainly because of the potential market. Nobody is even claiming to be researching self-driving cars for the safety, it's always because of the potential.
    - r00fus 9y ago
      Yes, AEB and Adaptive Cruise are the two most important features I looked for in a car. I ended up leasing an EV without them (waiting for my Model3), but my next vehicle will require these (for example, almost all Toyota models have similar features - TSS-P warns for frontal crash but doesn't brake immediately).
Bartweiss 9y ago
> If humans were required to report every bump and scrape, what would we find out? This seems like an awfully good point. One of the incidents described was a bicycle rear-ending a car - reporting from that incident reveals a scraped knee, a scratched fender, and an intact bike. How many times a day do equally minor accidents between people get ignored? Maybe self-driving cars really do get rear-ended more, but I haven't seen anyone try to account for reporting gaps like that. http://www.thedrive.com/tech/11407/a-self-driving-chevy-bolt-collided-with-a-bicyclist-in-san-francisco http://www.thedrive.com/tech/11407/a-self-driving-chevy-bolt...
throwme211345 9y ago
Yes, but that is avoided by years of experience and pattern learning, something AI should be able to figure out quickly.

rflrob 9y ago

"They aren't driving like I would" is a major red flag for me, causing me to either drive/bike/walk more carefully, get well away if possible, and keep them in view if necessary.

vntok 9y ago
Sounds like success to me.

omarforgotpwd 9y ago

The issue isn't that the cars are worse drivers than humans. They're obviously going to be much better statistically. The article is just making the point that they're going to have to be programmed to break the rules just like humans do i.e. with speeding, stopping too often etc. If they are not programmed to break the rules, they will frustrate people and even cause accidents as humans try to interact with them. There's not always a good way to know that the car in front of you is being driven by a computer.

achamayou 9y ago
There’s a way to know they’re learning to drive or just recently got their license, why wouldn’t there be a way to know they’re driven by software?
- thret 9y ago
  Right, just give them a C plate.
captainmuon 9y ago
This will be an opportunity to fix the traffic rules to be more realistic. Often, the speed limits are too low in the US, and "everybody" goes faster. This leads to the problem of selective enforcement, and people not trusting speed limits when they are really neccessary. In contrast, I've found most speed limits in Germany to be reasonable absolute maximum limits - except on one or two places on streets I know very well. And I'm not talking about the Autobahn - if I see 70 km/h in Germany (45-ish mph), its probably dangerous to go faster. If I see 45 mph in the States, it seems to mean "everybody go 55 mph".
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- chx 9y ago
  1. Do you want to be the local politician who says "hey, let's raise this to 55 MPH" and then on a bad weather day or just out of sheer bad luck soon after there's a major pile up and then said politician gets roasted? 1. The traffic lights need to be coordinated and that means presuming a certain speed. Now the problem is a lot of traffic lights are close enough that changing the programming of just one should ripple through the entire system and this recently (especially on a regulation making time scale) was a problem consuming extraordinary amounts of computing power.
  - Reason077 9y ago
    Speed limits aren't just about safety. Lower speeds mean less noise, which is desirable to local residents in residential areas. They're the ones who local politicians are accountable to.
    - dfox 9y ago
      Decreasing speed limits is something that local politicians can use to demonstrate to their constituents that they care about them, but very rarely has net-positive effect on noise and polution.
    - GuB-42 9y ago
frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
>The issue isn't that the cars are worse drivers than humans. They're obviously going to be much better statistically. This isn't obvious at all.
- whipoodle 9y ago
  Sure it is!
jacobr 9y ago
Speed limits are not just for traffic safety, but also to reduce noise pollution.
BearGoesChirp 9y ago
They should follow the law. Granting an exception is not the way the law should work, because such exceptions are arbitrary and without any sense of justice or ethics. The best way to fix a bad law is to consistently enforce it. If two actors, one of which is following the law, has a higher risk than two actors both breaking the law, the lawbreaker is still at fault for the increased risk.
r00fus 9y ago
That, or... if enough AI drivers are out there then maybe humans will just learn to live with them. While crashing into an AI driver I may be able to blame the AI, it's still a huge pain and possible loss for me as a human. If the reality is that AI is not leaving and they have peccadilloes, then the human drivers and legal structure will just need to adapt (something we aren't bad at).
pharrington 9y ago
Computers have been training humans for the past couple decades, and I see no reason for that to stop just because the computer's form factor is a car.

KGIII 9y ago

If you take a system where everybody does similar and add something that does not, this is going to cause problems. This is going to cause problems even if the dissimilar behavior is the proper legal behavior. Erratic behavior causes accidents, be it driving too slow, too fast, weaving, impaired, etc... Now, if all the cars drove the same way, we'd be fine. We'd have very few accidents. However, we don't. So, we bump into stuff.

platz 9y ago
Erratic behavior, due to following traffic laws?
- mst 9y ago
  From the point of view of drivers who're used to everybody bending the rules to a certain level, strictly following the rules is at the very least unexpected; 'erratic' is perhaps an overly strong word but I think the general point is sound.
  - KGIII 9y ago
    If it helps, you can call it things like non-standard. We don't actually tend to follow all the rules of the road. Like all changes in traffic, we will adapt. It takes time. Something like a rotary can take 18 months before traffic fully adapts. I can't speculate as to how long this will take.

Kevin_S 9y ago

I've been in 3 minor car accidents, ALL 3 have come where someone read-ended me in this way. I am constantly conscious of this and am always keeping an eye on the car behind me when I'm in this situation.

Reason077 9y ago
This is why Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) is the most important safety feature since the advent of the seatbelt. It's going to save many lives.
- w0utert 9y ago
  Yes, it's relatively simple things like this that can actually improve car safety right now, no self-driving capabilities necessary. Automatic braking, lane departure warning, dead-spot detection, driver attention detection, missed signal warnings, etc. I don't understand why we are not investing all of the efforts and resources that are now spent to develop full self-driving capibilities, into making existing viable safety technology cheaper, and eventually mandatory. I'm 100% convinced it would have a much bigger impact on traffic safety, in a much shorter timeframe, to the point we don't even need self-driving cars anymore. At least not for safety purposes. Come to think of it, maybe the whole self-driving car hype is not actually because companies want to improve car safety, but because they see new business models based around them, and we, the public, need to be convinced self-driving cars will be safer than alternative technologies or modes of transportation.
  - marcosdumay 9y ago
    It's certainly because of the potential market. Nobody is even claiming to be researching self-driving cars for the safety, it's always because of the potential.
  - r00fus 9y ago
    Yes, AEB and Adaptive Cruise are the two most important features I looked for in a car. I ended up leasing an EV without them (waiting for my Model3), but my next vehicle will require these (for example, almost all Toyota models have similar features - TSS-P warns for frontal crash but doesn't brake immediately).

Bartweiss 9y ago

> If humans were required to report every bump and scrape, what would we find out? This seems like an awfully good point. One of the incidents described was a bicycle rear-ending a car - reporting from that incident reveals a scraped knee, a scratched fender, and an intact bike. How many times a day do equally minor accidents between people get ignored? Maybe self-driving cars really do get rear-ended more, but I haven't seen anyone try to account for reporting gaps like that. http://www.thedrive.com/tech/11407/a-self-driving-chevy-bolt-collided-with-a-bicyclist-in-san-francisco http://www.thedrive.com/tech/11407/a-self-driving-chevy-bolt...

throwme211345 9y ago

Yes, but that is avoided by years of experience and pattern learning, something AI should be able to figure out quickly.