4 ms·

I think you are overestimating how clear the rules of the road are. For example two people arrive at a 4 way stop. The rules dictate whoever arrived goes first.

I think you are overestimating how clear the rules of the road are. For example two people arrive at a 4 way stop. The rules dictate whoever arrived goes first. Arrived at the same time? Yield right. Easy right? But are you sure the guy in the other car agrees you arrived first and therefore has the right of way? Or in their estimation did you arrive at the same time and you should yield to them? What if 3 cars arrive at the same time? 4? Often it can be safer to establish some form of consensus instead of assuming the cars around you have both interpreted events the same as you and are about to behave in the way you'd predict. I'm also not sure if this was what you intended in your example, but there are roads in my town where unless someone waits and yields to let someone on a side street turn onto or cross the main road, the person on the side street is literally going to be stuck until rush hour is over. You won't find it in the DMV handbook, but yielding in this situation really is a kindness.

cramjabsyn 4y ago
> there are roads in my town where unless someone waits and yields to let someone on a side street turn onto or cross the main road, the person on the side street is literally going to be stuck until rush hour is over. It’s my view that this is a failure in road design, and leaving it up to drivers to make up their own rules is dangerous. Understood this is the status quo, but I wish more would be done to address these types of situations because they cause stress and accidents
- ghaff 4y ago
  I'm not sure what you do when you have a busy main street and lightly trafficked side streets (and driveways) that require people to make unprotected lefts. You're not going to put a traffic light on every country lane dead ending at busy road.
cameronh90 4y ago
That's a problem with 4 way stops. Equal priority four way stops are just bad road design and should be replaced. Similarly your side street situation is why traffic lights were invented. Alternatively, you could give priority to the side street and force cars on the main road to yield. That being said, I do think standardising some form of "go ahead" message is worth considering due to the prevalence of these poor road designs, particularly in the US. In the UK, officially, you're not supposed to make any form of signal. If you must, you are supposed to just stop, but that can be ambiguous, so most people flash their lights. However, that is unambiguously against the highway code. If it was possibly to explicitly state, through a light or some other kind of means, "I am yielding my priority", that could be unambiguously understood by both AI and humans alike... That being said, these situations where you need to rely on messages are actually reasonably rare on the UK roads and usually as a result of roadworks messing something up.
ghaff 4y ago
>but there are roads in my town where unless someone waits and yields Making a left hand turn into my driveway at certain times of day can take forever to do safely with cars either piling up behind me or somewhat dangerously passing on the shoulder. Even worse it's at the bottom of a hill so traffic tends to speed up. Sometimes there's a break but often someone will flash their lights and let me go.

cramjabsyn 4y ago

> there are roads in my town where unless someone waits and yields to let someone on a side street turn onto or cross the main road, the person on the side street is literally going to be stuck until rush hour is over. It’s my view that this is a failure in road design, and leaving it up to drivers to make up their own rules is dangerous. Understood this is the status quo, but I wish more would be done to address these types of situations because they cause stress and accidents

ghaff 4y ago
I'm not sure what you do when you have a busy main street and lightly trafficked side streets (and driveways) that require people to make unprotected lefts. You're not going to put a traffic light on every country lane dead ending at busy road.

cameronh90 4y ago

That's a problem with 4 way stops. Equal priority four way stops are just bad road design and should be replaced. Similarly your side street situation is why traffic lights were invented. Alternatively, you could give priority to the side street and force cars on the main road to yield. That being said, I do think standardising some form of "go ahead" message is worth considering due to the prevalence of these poor road designs, particularly in the US. In the UK, officially, you're not supposed to make any form of signal. If you must, you are supposed to just stop, but that can be ambiguous, so most people flash their lights. However, that is unambiguously against the highway code. If it was possibly to explicitly state, through a light or some other kind of means, "I am yielding my priority", that could be unambiguously understood by both AI and humans alike... That being said, these situations where you need to rely on messages are actually reasonably rare on the UK roads and usually as a result of roadworks messing something up.

ghaff 4y ago

>but there are roads in my town where unless someone waits and yields Making a left hand turn into my driveway at certain times of day can take forever to do safely with cars either piling up behind me or somewhat dangerously passing on the shoulder. Even worse it's at the bottom of a hill so traffic tends to speed up. Sometimes there's a break but often someone will flash their lights and let me go.