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Also understand what author means, coming from Pittsburgh where the roads are simply not meant for cars. There are many intersections so confusing where it take

Also understand what author means, coming from Pittsburgh where the roads are simply not meant for cars. There are many intersections so confusing where it takes too much time to even interpret the rules. You regularly find yourself in situations where eye contact and gestures inform your driving more than the rules.

zolthrowaway 9y ago
To add to this, there is literally a term "the Pittsburgh Left"[1]. Informal etiquette does really help prevent things like a lane getting blocked for three lights when someone needs to make a left at a busy intersection. However, humans definitely aren't perfect and they likely add a lot of congestion on their own from stuff like following to closely, not maintaining speed, etc. I feel like this is going to be a huge problem if we have mixed human operated and self-driving vehicles on the road at the same time. If we ever move to entirely self driving cars we could move to some sort of protocol for cars to communicate about ambiguous self driving actions. It's really common to see the Uber Volvo's driving around, but it definitely causes me to tense up when driving around them. I have no idea why, I realize there is significant risk when around any other car on the road. It's new. Hopefully these issues get worked out in a reasonable time frame, but it is software. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_left https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_left
- deleted 9y ago
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- ynniv 9y ago
  Let's not overlook that once a single self driving car understands these local, informal rules, ALL self driving cars will. That's about a million times better than the current situation where every new human driver has to learn them. I was going to use a number smaller than a million, but 10k or 100k doesn't seem to properly describe the situation. Literally, these systems will be hazards until the day they aren't, and then they will, for all cars, forevermore, be better than every local.
Retric 9y ago
When 10+% of all cars are self driving this will rapidly stop being unusual. The real issue is not self driving cars, it's poorly designed intersections.
- ntsplnkv2 9y ago
  > it's poorly designed intersections. It's easy to insult design but very rarely are intersections, especially in Pittsburgh, easy to design.
  - deleted 9y ago
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  - Bartweiss 9y ago
    Nor are they easy to redesign. Pittsburgh, Boston, Paris, etc. are generally designed in ways that everyone knows are suboptimal, but the alternative is a catastrophic shutdown in the heart of the city.
    - phicoh 9y ago
      It is sometimes amazing how stupid traffic light systems are. One is giving left turning traffic and straight traffic going in the opposite direction green at the same time. That can be solved easily by making sure that all traffic that gets a green light can actually proceed across the intersection. This may need to vary with traffic density, but that's just a technical problem. The bigger one is to make sure that the next traffic signal down the road is also green. To avoid traffic piling up on an intersection because it has nowhere to go. Of course, this should also depends on the amount of traffic. Any city can in theory build systems where traffic that wants to go to empty roads gets more green and any traffic that wants to go to full roads gets less green.
      - Spivak 9y ago
        You don't think traffic engineers have thought of that? Like, "it's easy to fix this complicated systems problem with no downsides, these idiots just haven't listened to me yet." https://xkcd.com/793/ https://xkcd.com/793/

zolthrowaway 9y ago

To add to this, there is literally a term "the Pittsburgh Left"[1]. Informal etiquette does really help prevent things like a lane getting blocked for three lights when someone needs to make a left at a busy intersection. However, humans definitely aren't perfect and they likely add a lot of congestion on their own from stuff like following to closely, not maintaining speed, etc. I feel like this is going to be a huge problem if we have mixed human operated and self-driving vehicles on the road at the same time. If we ever move to entirely self driving cars we could move to some sort of protocol for cars to communicate about ambiguous self driving actions. It's really common to see the Uber Volvo's driving around, but it definitely causes me to tense up when driving around them. I have no idea why, I realize there is significant risk when around any other car on the road. It's new. Hopefully these issues get worked out in a reasonable time frame, but it is software. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_left https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_left

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
ynniv 9y ago
Let's not overlook that once a single self driving car understands these local, informal rules, ALL self driving cars will. That's about a million times better than the current situation where every new human driver has to learn them. I was going to use a number smaller than a million, but 10k or 100k doesn't seem to properly describe the situation. Literally, these systems will be hazards until the day they aren't, and then they will, for all cars, forevermore, be better than every local.

Retric 9y ago

When 10+% of all cars are self driving this will rapidly stop being unusual. The real issue is not self driving cars, it's poorly designed intersections.

ntsplnkv2 9y ago
> it's poorly designed intersections. It's easy to insult design but very rarely are intersections, especially in Pittsburgh, easy to design.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- Bartweiss 9y ago
  Nor are they easy to redesign. Pittsburgh, Boston, Paris, etc. are generally designed in ways that everyone knows are suboptimal, but the alternative is a catastrophic shutdown in the heart of the city.
  - phicoh 9y ago
    It is sometimes amazing how stupid traffic light systems are. One is giving left turning traffic and straight traffic going in the opposite direction green at the same time. That can be solved easily by making sure that all traffic that gets a green light can actually proceed across the intersection. This may need to vary with traffic density, but that's just a technical problem. The bigger one is to make sure that the next traffic signal down the road is also green. To avoid traffic piling up on an intersection because it has nowhere to go. Of course, this should also depends on the amount of traffic. Any city can in theory build systems where traffic that wants to go to empty roads gets more green and any traffic that wants to go to full roads gets less green.
    - Spivak 9y ago
      You don't think traffic engineers have thought of that? Like, "it's easy to fix this complicated systems problem with no downsides, these idiots just haven't listened to me yet." https://xkcd.com/793/ https://xkcd.com/793/