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On most or all roads below 100km/h autopilot won’t allow speeding, and therefore I drive at the limit, which I know I would not have done if I controlled it. It

On most or all roads below 100km/h autopilot won’t allow speeding, and therefore I drive at the limit, which I know I would not have done if I controlled it. It also stays in the lane better than I do, keeps distance better, and more. Sometimes it’s wonky when the street lines are unclear. It’s not perfect but a better driver than I am in 80% of cases. My insurance company gives a lower rate if you buy the full autopilot option, and that to me indicates they agree it drives better than I, or other humans, do.

Johnny555 5y ago
On most or all roads below 100km/h autopilot won’t allow speeding, and therefore I drive at the limit, which I know I would not have done if I controlled it If following the speed limit makes cars safer, another way to achieve that without autopilot is to just have all cars limit their speed to the speed limit. Sometimes it’s wonky when the street lines are unclear. It’s not perfect but a better driver than I am in 80% of cases The problem is in those 20% of cases where you'd lulled into boredom by autopilot as you concentrate on designing your next project in your head, then suddenly autopilot says "I lost track of where the road is, here you do it!" and you have to quickly gain context and figure out what the right thing to do is. Some autopilot systems use eye tracking to make sure that the driver is at least looking at the road, but that doesn't guarantee that he's paying attention. But at least that's harder to defeat than Tesla's "nudge the steering wheel once in a while" method.
- beambot 5y ago
  > just have all cars limit their speed to the speed limit. The devil is in the details... GPS may not provide sufficient resolution. Construction zones. School zones with variable hours. Tunnels. Adverse road conditions. Changes to the underlying roads. Different classes of vehicles. Etc. By the time you account for all the mapping and/or perception, you could've just improved the autonomous driving and eliminated the biggest source of humans driving: The human.
  - Johnny555 5y ago
    But you can still impose a max speed limit based on available data to cover most normal driving conditions but it's still on the driver to drive slower if appropriate. And that could be implemented today, not a decade from now when autonomous driving is trustable. The parent post said that autopilot won't let him go over the speed limit and implies that makes him safer. My point is that you don't need full autopilot for that. So this is not a technical problem at all, but a political one. As the past year has shown, people won't put up with any convenience or restriction, even if it could save lives (not even if it could save thousands of lives)
  - freeone3000 5y ago
    The single system you're describing, with all of its complexity, is a subset of what is required for autonomous vehicles. We will continue to have road construction, tunnels, and weather long past the last human driver. Improving the system here simply improves the system here -- you cannot forsake this work by saying "oh the autonomous system will solve it" -- this is part of the autonomous system.
  - watt 5y ago
    Just add all those to the map system. It could be made incredibly accurate, if construction companies are able to actually submit their work zones and "geofence" them off on the map.
  - asdff 5y ago
    GPS is extremely accurate honestly. My garmen adjusts itself the very instant I cross over a speed limit sign to a new speed, somehow. Maybe they have good metadata, but its all public anyway under some department of transportation domain and probably not hard to mine with the price of compute these days. Even just setting a top speed in residential areas of like 35mph would be good and save a lot of lives that are lost when pedestrians meet cars traveling at 50mph. A freeway presents a good opportunity to add sensors to the limited on and off ramps for the car to detect that its on a freeway. Many freeways already have some sort of sensor based system for charging fees. What would be even easier than all of that, though, is just installing speeding cameras and mailing tickets.
- jeofken 5y ago
  During the 3 years I’ve owned it there are 2 places where lines are wonky and I know to take over. I have not yet struggled to stay alert when it drives me, and it has driven better than I would have - so it certainly is an improvement over me driving 100% of the time. It does not have road rage and it does not enjoy the feeling of speeding, like I do when I drive, nor does it feel like driving is a competition, like I must admit I do when I am hungry, stressed, or tired. > just have all cars limit their speed to the speed limit No way I’d buy a car that does not accelerate when I hit the pedal. Would you buy a machine that is not your servant?
  - phyzome 5y ago
    > Would you buy a machine that is not your servant? I mean... that's an odd thing for someone to say who has bought a vehicle with over-the-air firmware updates.
    - jeofken 5y ago
      Very true! And I’m typing this on an iPhone… I wish I could hack but car, but also wouldn’t trust others if they did

Johnny555 5y ago

On most or all roads below 100km/h autopilot won’t allow speeding, and therefore I drive at the limit, which I know I would not have done if I controlled it If following the speed limit makes cars safer, another way to achieve that without autopilot is to just have all cars limit their speed to the speed limit. Sometimes it’s wonky when the street lines are unclear. It’s not perfect but a better driver than I am in 80% of cases The problem is in those 20% of cases where you'd lulled into boredom by autopilot as you concentrate on designing your next project in your head, then suddenly autopilot says "I lost track of where the road is, here you do it!" and you have to quickly gain context and figure out what the right thing to do is. Some autopilot systems use eye tracking to make sure that the driver is at least looking at the road, but that doesn't guarantee that he's paying attention. But at least that's harder to defeat than Tesla's "nudge the steering wheel once in a while" method.

beambot 5y ago
> just have all cars limit their speed to the speed limit. The devil is in the details... GPS may not provide sufficient resolution. Construction zones. School zones with variable hours. Tunnels. Adverse road conditions. Changes to the underlying roads. Different classes of vehicles. Etc. By the time you account for all the mapping and/or perception, you could've just improved the autonomous driving and eliminated the biggest source of humans driving: The human.
- Johnny555 5y ago
  But you can still impose a max speed limit based on available data to cover most normal driving conditions but it's still on the driver to drive slower if appropriate. And that could be implemented today, not a decade from now when autonomous driving is trustable. The parent post said that autopilot won't let him go over the speed limit and implies that makes him safer. My point is that you don't need full autopilot for that. So this is not a technical problem at all, but a political one. As the past year has shown, people won't put up with any convenience or restriction, even if it could save lives (not even if it could save thousands of lives)
- freeone3000 5y ago
  The single system you're describing, with all of its complexity, is a subset of what is required for autonomous vehicles. We will continue to have road construction, tunnels, and weather long past the last human driver. Improving the system here simply improves the system here -- you cannot forsake this work by saying "oh the autonomous system will solve it" -- this is part of the autonomous system.
- watt 5y ago
  Just add all those to the map system. It could be made incredibly accurate, if construction companies are able to actually submit their work zones and "geofence" them off on the map.
- asdff 5y ago
  GPS is extremely accurate honestly. My garmen adjusts itself the very instant I cross over a speed limit sign to a new speed, somehow. Maybe they have good metadata, but its all public anyway under some department of transportation domain and probably not hard to mine with the price of compute these days. Even just setting a top speed in residential areas of like 35mph would be good and save a lot of lives that are lost when pedestrians meet cars traveling at 50mph. A freeway presents a good opportunity to add sensors to the limited on and off ramps for the car to detect that its on a freeway. Many freeways already have some sort of sensor based system for charging fees. What would be even easier than all of that, though, is just installing speeding cameras and mailing tickets.
jeofken 5y ago
During the 3 years I’ve owned it there are 2 places where lines are wonky and I know to take over. I have not yet struggled to stay alert when it drives me, and it has driven better than I would have - so it certainly is an improvement over me driving 100% of the time. It does not have road rage and it does not enjoy the feeling of speeding, like I do when I drive, nor does it feel like driving is a competition, like I must admit I do when I am hungry, stressed, or tired. > just have all cars limit their speed to the speed limit No way I’d buy a car that does not accelerate when I hit the pedal. Would you buy a machine that is not your servant?
- phyzome 5y ago
  > Would you buy a machine that is not your servant? I mean... that's an odd thing for someone to say who has bought a vehicle with over-the-air firmware updates.
  - jeofken 5y ago
    Very true! And I’m typing this on an iPhone… I wish I could hack but car, but also wouldn’t trust others if they did