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> Cars with Level 2 automation can perform key driving tasks like steering, acceleration and braking to keep a set distance from the car ahead, center the car i

> Cars with Level 2 automation can perform key driving tasks like steering, acceleration and braking to keep a set distance from the car ahead, center the car in its lane and stay at a certain speed. Yet they can't handle every situation unmonitored and need the driver to pay attention to the road ahead in case they need to take over the wheel. Designing a system like that but blaming PEBKAC whenever something goes wrong is going to kill a lot of pedestrians. If you set impossible expectations and people don't meet them, there is a problem with your expectations. /edit I'm not against automated cars in general, but if Level 2 means a decrease in fender benders, but a higher level of kids running out in to the middle of the road getting killed because the driver is zoned out, then I think it should be skipped.

nawgz 6y ago
It truly doesn't make sense that regulators are not only allowing this, but allowing ridiculous overexaggerations in their monikers like Autopilot and Full Self Driving and shit. I guess that's not true, it makes perfect sense that regulators don't do anything anymore in this crony capitalist world, but I guess it's disappointing.
SilverRed 6y ago
>there is a problem with your expectations. The legal system needs to blame someone. If the system fails and it kills someone, whos fault is it? Currently its most likely the drivers fault because its their job to ensure everything is ok and brake manually if they see something.
- MereInterest 6y ago
  If something is known to be dangerous for any human driver, and is implemented anyways, then that seems like reason to have liability with the design of the system. If your brakes required solving a rubik's cube to activate, that would be poor design. This is no different. Humans cannot maintain attention on tasks that require sporadic but high-intensity attention.
- probably_wrong 6y ago
  If that happened to me and the legal system tried to blame me, I would bring a pile of papers and several experts on human attention research. They would testify that humans don't work that way and that the car maker was being either stupid or malicious. I believe that the only reason Uber, Waymo, and friends have gotten away with "it's the drivers job" is because there aren't that many autonomous cars around and no one was brought to court yet.
  - jfim 6y ago
    > I believe that the only reason Uber, Waymo, and friends have gotten away with "it's the drivers job" Waymo doesn't do L2 or L3, only L4 autonomy. In the case where the AV is at fault for an accident, it would be due to the system as there is no human driver in the vehicle.
- colechristensen 6y ago
  There are plenty of cases where a human preventable accident held the manufacturer of some object to be financially liable, this is how self driving will end. A cute upper middle class child doing something innocent will get killed by a car being operated mostly correctly with a driver who could have prevented the accident if they were more alert to the controls.
  - hilbertseries 6y ago
    Corporations have been killing people for a long time. The early cars were death traps that would almost certainly kill you if you got in an accident. Cigarette companies kill their customers and used to tell them it was good for their health. I’m very skeptical self driving cars will be stopped by people dying. The company would be liable and there’d be a payout, same as always.
seanmcdirmid 6y ago
I always expect kids running out into the street to be in lots of danger anyways. But the big problem is that weird unusual events while driving are rare, at least in the developed world. That’s why that kid running into the street has a much better chance surviving in crazy Beijing where drivers are very aggressive but on edge all the time vs LA where traffic is much more sane, organized, but drivers get too complacent.
- tdeck 6y ago
  Is that actually true, or just intuition?
  - seanmcdirmid 6y ago
    True. A driver in the states is unlikely to ever encounter a kid running out in front of their car, while a driver in China might encounter that situation multiple times a day. Now, more kids are going to die in China (they have higher rates of traffic fatalities), but for kids that run out into traffic, more will survive in China than in the USA where no one is really expecting that to happen (with the caveat that there are much fewer kids running out into traffic in the USA vs China). It really is just a matter of whether some event is rare or not. In countries where the traffic is more chaotic, drivers are necessarily paying attention much more than places where traffic is much more orderly.
    - nitrogen 6y ago
      It depends on where you are driving in the US, but I've had kids run out in front of me at least twice in suburban areas (stopped in plenty of time). One was the TV classic beach ball appearing from behind a parked car, with a toddler not far behind. Do self driving systems know that "ball" means "kid"?
      - iams 6y ago
        What people forget with self driving cars is that they don't have to always go at the speed limit. I love taking trains rather than driving, I can put all my attention on netflix or reading a book. Sometimes the train goes at 100mph sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it stops for 5 minutes, sometimes it just continues slowly at 10mph. At first you find it annoying when a train appears to stop for no reason for a few minutes before continuing, but after it happening a few times, you get used to it, stop noticing and stop caring. Self driving cars can do the same. It's ok for a car to slow down to 5mph when there are hazards, it's ok for a car to go fast when there aren't. The car doesn't need to know that "ball" means "kid" if, every time it sees a ball or a plastic bag or a puddle, it slows down to 5mph and continues at that speed until it's sure there is no more hazard. Humans are very bad a driving. They treat the speed limit as a target rather than a ceiling. I live on a road with 2 schools, the speed limit is 30mph and yet many people drive much closer to 40mph past children walking to school. I'd be willing to bet big money that it's much more likely that that impatient driver driving at 40mph is going to hit a child than a self driving car that changes its speed according to the current situation.
chris11 6y ago
Is that a really fair comparison? I'd say it's location dependent. A street in a small neighborhood, yes kids running out in front of you could be a possibility. But I don't know if humans can handle that well. It's safer to brake instead of swerve if an animal darts into the road. Of course a kid darting into the road is more serious and traumatic, but the typical driver may not be able to avoid a crash.
- bobthepanda 6y ago
  The idea is that human-only drivers will be paying more attention in general. It’s not like kids are jumping out from bushes in camo, they’re present in an environment that can be observed as you get closer and closer to them. Distracted driving was already a problem on the rise, and self driving mostly seems like it’s going to enable that type of inattentiveness even more.
bryanlarsen 6y ago
The study showed the group who saw the most bears were the experienced drivers with L2 assist. So L2 appears to make things more safe, rather than less. That's certainly my experience. I love L2 for night driving, it lets me spend more time scanning the ditches for animals.
- iujjkfjdkkdkf 6y ago
  I'm not convinced the relationship is casual. For example, couldn't the people who already had experience be enthusiasts who are more interested in driving generally?
  - manicdee 6y ago
    The simpler explanation is that drivers familiar with the feature aren't task-saturated managing the feature. It's like learning to drive for the first time: you're task saturated just keeping the car driving straight and at a consistent speed. After a while you learn to manage that and then your attention turns to other aspects of driving the car.
TheRealPomax 6y ago
No sane person will be driving on autopilot (metaphorically or literally) through a school zone. And if your car even allows you to turn it on when the speed limit's 25mph/40kph because it has a map system that knows the speed limit on every street you drive, your car has a glaring fault that needs fixing. But you are going to use L2 driving a highway or even just decently paved road that happens to be going through a forest.
- casualtemp 6y ago
  > No sane person will be driving on autopilot (metaphorically or literally) through a school zone. Sadly there are a lot of irresponsible people on the roads, including school zones.
- orangepanda 6y ago
  > No sane person will be driving on autopilot (metaphorically or literally) through a school zone. Of course they will, sane or not. Do you really think millions of drivers will stay alert when they've gone months or years without an accident? When the car starts beeping, by the time the driver looks up from their phone and understands the situation, half of little Timmy is already 100 meters behind the vehicle.
- ilikecakeandpie 6y ago
  I think you give people too much credit. Anecdotally, I can't tell you the last time I went even on a short trip (fewer than five miles) without seeing many people checking phones/scrolling. I think folks are going to be much more cavalier when they've got an "autopilot".

nawgz 6y ago

It truly doesn't make sense that regulators are not only allowing this, but allowing ridiculous overexaggerations in their monikers like Autopilot and Full Self Driving and shit. I guess that's not true, it makes perfect sense that regulators don't do anything anymore in this crony capitalist world, but I guess it's disappointing.

SilverRed 6y ago

>there is a problem with your expectations. The legal system needs to blame someone. If the system fails and it kills someone, whos fault is it? Currently its most likely the drivers fault because its their job to ensure everything is ok and brake manually if they see something.

MereInterest 6y ago
If something is known to be dangerous for any human driver, and is implemented anyways, then that seems like reason to have liability with the design of the system. If your brakes required solving a rubik's cube to activate, that would be poor design. This is no different. Humans cannot maintain attention on tasks that require sporadic but high-intensity attention.
probably_wrong 6y ago
If that happened to me and the legal system tried to blame me, I would bring a pile of papers and several experts on human attention research. They would testify that humans don't work that way and that the car maker was being either stupid or malicious. I believe that the only reason Uber, Waymo, and friends have gotten away with "it's the drivers job" is because there aren't that many autonomous cars around and no one was brought to court yet.
- jfim 6y ago
  > I believe that the only reason Uber, Waymo, and friends have gotten away with "it's the drivers job" Waymo doesn't do L2 or L3, only L4 autonomy. In the case where the AV is at fault for an accident, it would be due to the system as there is no human driver in the vehicle.
colechristensen 6y ago
There are plenty of cases where a human preventable accident held the manufacturer of some object to be financially liable, this is how self driving will end. A cute upper middle class child doing something innocent will get killed by a car being operated mostly correctly with a driver who could have prevented the accident if they were more alert to the controls.
- hilbertseries 6y ago
  Corporations have been killing people for a long time. The early cars were death traps that would almost certainly kill you if you got in an accident. Cigarette companies kill their customers and used to tell them it was good for their health. I’m very skeptical self driving cars will be stopped by people dying. The company would be liable and there’d be a payout, same as always.

seanmcdirmid 6y ago

I always expect kids running out into the street to be in lots of danger anyways. But the big problem is that weird unusual events while driving are rare, at least in the developed world. That’s why that kid running into the street has a much better chance surviving in crazy Beijing where drivers are very aggressive but on edge all the time vs LA where traffic is much more sane, organized, but drivers get too complacent.

tdeck 6y ago
Is that actually true, or just intuition?
- seanmcdirmid 6y ago
  True. A driver in the states is unlikely to ever encounter a kid running out in front of their car, while a driver in China might encounter that situation multiple times a day. Now, more kids are going to die in China (they have higher rates of traffic fatalities), but for kids that run out into traffic, more will survive in China than in the USA where no one is really expecting that to happen (with the caveat that there are much fewer kids running out into traffic in the USA vs China). It really is just a matter of whether some event is rare or not. In countries where the traffic is more chaotic, drivers are necessarily paying attention much more than places where traffic is much more orderly.
  - nitrogen 6y ago
    It depends on where you are driving in the US, but I've had kids run out in front of me at least twice in suburban areas (stopped in plenty of time). One was the TV classic beach ball appearing from behind a parked car, with a toddler not far behind. Do self driving systems know that "ball" means "kid"?
    - iams 6y ago
      What people forget with self driving cars is that they don't have to always go at the speed limit. I love taking trains rather than driving, I can put all my attention on netflix or reading a book. Sometimes the train goes at 100mph sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it stops for 5 minutes, sometimes it just continues slowly at 10mph. At first you find it annoying when a train appears to stop for no reason for a few minutes before continuing, but after it happening a few times, you get used to it, stop noticing and stop caring. Self driving cars can do the same. It's ok for a car to slow down to 5mph when there are hazards, it's ok for a car to go fast when there aren't. The car doesn't need to know that "ball" means "kid" if, every time it sees a ball or a plastic bag or a puddle, it slows down to 5mph and continues at that speed until it's sure there is no more hazard. Humans are very bad a driving. They treat the speed limit as a target rather than a ceiling. I live on a road with 2 schools, the speed limit is 30mph and yet many people drive much closer to 40mph past children walking to school. I'd be willing to bet big money that it's much more likely that that impatient driver driving at 40mph is going to hit a child than a self driving car that changes its speed according to the current situation.

chris11 6y ago

Is that a really fair comparison? I'd say it's location dependent. A street in a small neighborhood, yes kids running out in front of you could be a possibility. But I don't know if humans can handle that well. It's safer to brake instead of swerve if an animal darts into the road. Of course a kid darting into the road is more serious and traumatic, but the typical driver may not be able to avoid a crash.

bobthepanda 6y ago
The idea is that human-only drivers will be paying more attention in general. It’s not like kids are jumping out from bushes in camo, they’re present in an environment that can be observed as you get closer and closer to them. Distracted driving was already a problem on the rise, and self driving mostly seems like it’s going to enable that type of inattentiveness even more.

bryanlarsen 6y ago

The study showed the group who saw the most bears were the experienced drivers with L2 assist. So L2 appears to make things more safe, rather than less. That's certainly my experience. I love L2 for night driving, it lets me spend more time scanning the ditches for animals.

iujjkfjdkkdkf 6y ago
I'm not convinced the relationship is casual. For example, couldn't the people who already had experience be enthusiasts who are more interested in driving generally?
- manicdee 6y ago
  The simpler explanation is that drivers familiar with the feature aren't task-saturated managing the feature. It's like learning to drive for the first time: you're task saturated just keeping the car driving straight and at a consistent speed. After a while you learn to manage that and then your attention turns to other aspects of driving the car.

TheRealPomax 6y ago

No sane person will be driving on autopilot (metaphorically or literally) through a school zone. And if your car even allows you to turn it on when the speed limit's 25mph/40kph because it has a map system that knows the speed limit on every street you drive, your car has a glaring fault that needs fixing. But you are going to use L2 driving a highway or even just decently paved road that happens to be going through a forest.

casualtemp 6y ago
> No sane person will be driving on autopilot (metaphorically or literally) through a school zone. Sadly there are a lot of irresponsible people on the roads, including school zones.
orangepanda 6y ago
> No sane person will be driving on autopilot (metaphorically or literally) through a school zone. Of course they will, sane or not. Do you really think millions of drivers will stay alert when they've gone months or years without an accident? When the car starts beeping, by the time the driver looks up from their phone and understands the situation, half of little Timmy is already 100 meters behind the vehicle.
ilikecakeandpie 6y ago
I think you give people too much credit. Anecdotally, I can't tell you the last time I went even on a short trip (fewer than five miles) without seeing many people checking phones/scrolling. I think folks are going to be much more cavalier when they've got an "autopilot".