6 ms·

> If a 3500lb vehicle can't decide what it is about to impact, it needs to slow down (to a stop if necessary). Don't be so sure. What if it's a bird, and you'

> If a 3500lb vehicle can't decide what it is about to impact, it needs to slow down (to a stop if necessary). Don't be so sure. What if it's a bird, and you're traveling at 70 mph on a busy freeway? Slowing down or stopping could result in getting rear-ended or worse. Clearly more testing is needed, and more work needs to be put into identifying objects early.

jacquesm 7y ago
If you can't tell a bird from a car or a bike you have zero business being in the self driving car arena.
- gugagore 7y ago
  It's not that I disagree with you, it's just by your standards, [almost] no one should be in the self-driving car arena.
  - jacquesm 7y ago
    Not on public roads.
  - bumby 7y ago
    ...yet? At least this doesn't seem to be that hard of a line to draw in terms of competency before allowing on public roads
  - patrickyeon 7y ago
    That's quite possibly a reasonable assessment of the situation.
- Johnny555 7y ago
  What do you do when your radar says it could be a person, but your vision sensor tells you it's probably a bird?
  - jacquesm 7y ago
    Go back to the drawing board.
  - mamon 7y ago
    You quit and then get a job at McDonalds, because you're clearly not qualified for self-driving cars development.
    - Johnny555 7y ago
      So you need to wait for sensors that have 100% accurate object detection before you can work on a self-driving car? Meanwhile, you let humans who are far less than 100% accurate (and are often distracted) keep killing people? I went into a panic stop one rainy night when a billowing piece of plastic blew across the road in front of me, it looked exactly like a jogging person to myself and my passenger. We don't need self-driving cars to be perfect before they are released, just better than people.
      - mamon 7y ago
        Self-driving cars are far away from matching human driver skill level right now. We do not need them to be "perfect" we need them to stop doing such a silly mistakes as described in the article - that is a very basic requirement before they can be allowed on public roads.
        protomyth 7y ago
        Self-driving cars are far away from matching human driver skill level right now. Well, no. Has any of the systems been tested in heavy snows on icy roads or on a road without maps? silly mistakes A person died.
        Johnny555 7y ago
        A person died. Lots of people die in car accidents. Nearly 40,000 people die each year in car accidents. At least 8 of the top 10 causes of accidents would be improved with self-driving cars. 1. Speeding 2. Drunk Driving 3. Speeding 4. Reckless Driving 5. Rain 6. Running Red Lights 7. Night Driving 8. Design Defects 9. Tailgating 10. Wrong-Way Driving/ Improper Turns Well, no. Has any of the systems been tested in heavy snows on icy roads or on a road without maps? Aside from figuring out where the edge of the road is, the biggest accident risk that I've seen with driving in heavy snow is speed -- no one wants to drive 15mph for 2 hours through a snowstorm to stay safe, so they drive 30 - 50mph instead. And I'm not sure how to solve the road visibility issue with self driving cars, but presumably the same heuristics that humans use could be emulated in software (which I suppose is primarily following the car ahead or his tracks or looking for roadside signs that mark the edge of the road).
toast0 7y ago
The first thing a driver needs to learn is how to slow down and stop safely. If you're traveling at 70 mph (which the vehicle wasn't) and you see something up ahead you're not sure about, you can slow down a bit. If you get rear ended when you take your foot off the accelerator, that's not your fault. If you're still confused, light braking is appropriate. At some point, you'll know to either fully brake or go on through. This system doesn't need more testing. It needs to be designed so it can stop safely and so that it will stop safely and alert the operator in case it is unable to determine if it's safe to proceed.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
dwd 7y ago
There were articles in July 2017 about Volvo's self-driving cars not coping with kangaroos (they bounce) which make up the majority of car/animal collisions in Australia. A kangaroo is a lot bigger than a bird but couldn't be identified as being on the road.
smileysteve 7y ago
> What if it's a bird, Conversely, there are many things that are bird sized that can do significant damage to a car and even be fatal to the car behind you. Ie: a trailer hitch caused one of the first Tesla battery fires; loose pieces of pavement have been known to be kicked up and kill a following car.
ACow_Adonis 7y ago
Yes, but we can also say what a responsible self-driving car should be detecting/recording/ decisioning at that point, paraphrasing: - unknown object detected ahead, collision possible- likely - dangerous object (car) detected approaching from rear with likely trajectory intercepting this vehicle (people easily forget multitasking/sensing like this is something an autonomous car should be able to do better than a human who can only do relatively intermittent serial scans of its environment) - initiate partial slow down and possibly change path: make some decision weighting the two detected likely collision obstacles. You do not have to slam on brakes and be rear ended, but speed is a major factor in fatal crashes, so even if you can drop 30% of your momentum by the time of impact and avoid the rear end, that's still a responsible decision. And we can accept that sometimes cars are put in potential no-win situations (collision with two incoming objects unavoidable). What's a negligent/borderline insane decision? Put a one second hard-coded delay in there because otherwise we have to admit we don't have self-driving cars since we can't get the software to move the vehicle reliably if it's trying to avoid its own predicted collisions. (Another issue is an inability to maintain object identity/history and it's interaction with trajectory prediction... personally, IMO, it is negligent to put an autonomous car on a public road that displays that behaviour, but that's just me)

jacquesm 7y ago

If you can't tell a bird from a car or a bike you have zero business being in the self driving car arena.

gugagore 7y ago
It's not that I disagree with you, it's just by your standards, [almost] no one should be in the self-driving car arena.
- jacquesm 7y ago
  Not on public roads.
- bumby 7y ago
  ...yet? At least this doesn't seem to be that hard of a line to draw in terms of competency before allowing on public roads
- patrickyeon 7y ago
  That's quite possibly a reasonable assessment of the situation.
Johnny555 7y ago
What do you do when your radar says it could be a person, but your vision sensor tells you it's probably a bird?
- jacquesm 7y ago
  Go back to the drawing board.
- mamon 7y ago
  You quit and then get a job at McDonalds, because you're clearly not qualified for self-driving cars development.
  - Johnny555 7y ago
    So you need to wait for sensors that have 100% accurate object detection before you can work on a self-driving car? Meanwhile, you let humans who are far less than 100% accurate (and are often distracted) keep killing people? I went into a panic stop one rainy night when a billowing piece of plastic blew across the road in front of me, it looked exactly like a jogging person to myself and my passenger. We don't need self-driving cars to be perfect before they are released, just better than people.
    - mamon 7y ago
      Self-driving cars are far away from matching human driver skill level right now. We do not need them to be "perfect" we need them to stop doing such a silly mistakes as described in the article - that is a very basic requirement before they can be allowed on public roads.
      - protomyth 7y ago
        Self-driving cars are far away from matching human driver skill level right now. Well, no. Has any of the systems been tested in heavy snows on icy roads or on a road without maps? silly mistakes A person died.
        Johnny555 7y ago
        A person died. Lots of people die in car accidents. Nearly 40,000 people die each year in car accidents. At least 8 of the top 10 causes of accidents would be improved with self-driving cars. 1. Speeding 2. Drunk Driving 3. Speeding 4. Reckless Driving 5. Rain 6. Running Red Lights 7. Night Driving 8. Design Defects 9. Tailgating 10. Wrong-Way Driving/ Improper Turns Well, no. Has any of the systems been tested in heavy snows on icy roads or on a road without maps? Aside from figuring out where the edge of the road is, the biggest accident risk that I've seen with driving in heavy snow is speed -- no one wants to drive 15mph for 2 hours through a snowstorm to stay safe, so they drive 30 - 50mph instead. And I'm not sure how to solve the road visibility issue with self driving cars, but presumably the same heuristics that humans use could be emulated in software (which I suppose is primarily following the car ahead or his tracks or looking for roadside signs that mark the edge of the road).

toast0 7y ago

The first thing a driver needs to learn is how to slow down and stop safely. If you're traveling at 70 mph (which the vehicle wasn't) and you see something up ahead you're not sure about, you can slow down a bit. If you get rear ended when you take your foot off the accelerator, that's not your fault. If you're still confused, light braking is appropriate. At some point, you'll know to either fully brake or go on through. This system doesn't need more testing. It needs to be designed so it can stop safely and so that it will stop safely and alert the operator in case it is unable to determine if it's safe to proceed.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

dwd 7y ago

There were articles in July 2017 about Volvo's self-driving cars not coping with kangaroos (they bounce) which make up the majority of car/animal collisions in Australia. A kangaroo is a lot bigger than a bird but couldn't be identified as being on the road.

smileysteve 7y ago

> What if it's a bird, Conversely, there are many things that are bird sized that can do significant damage to a car and even be fatal to the car behind you. Ie: a trailer hitch caused one of the first Tesla battery fires; loose pieces of pavement have been known to be kicked up and kill a following car.

ACow_Adonis 7y ago

Yes, but we can also say what a responsible self-driving car should be detecting/recording/ decisioning at that point, paraphrasing: - unknown object detected ahead, collision possible- likely - dangerous object (car) detected approaching from rear with likely trajectory intercepting this vehicle (people easily forget multitasking/sensing like this is something an autonomous car should be able to do better than a human who can only do relatively intermittent serial scans of its environment) - initiate partial slow down and possibly change path: make some decision weighting the two detected likely collision obstacles. You do not have to slam on brakes and be rear ended, but speed is a major factor in fatal crashes, so even if you can drop 30% of your momentum by the time of impact and avoid the rear end, that's still a responsible decision. And we can accept that sometimes cars are put in potential no-win situations (collision with two incoming objects unavoidable). What's a negligent/borderline insane decision? Put a one second hard-coded delay in there because otherwise we have to admit we don't have self-driving cars since we can't get the software to move the vehicle reliably if it's trying to avoid its own predicted collisions. (Another issue is an inability to maintain object identity/history and it's interaction with trajectory prediction... personally, IMO, it is negligent to put an autonomous car on a public road that displays that behaviour, but that's just me)