5 ms·

Cars That Avoid Crashes by Talking to Each Other

44 points by sew 14y ago

culturestate 14y ago
I worry about the potential for reliance on this system - 30 years from now (the time the article stated it would take for mass adoption), will we have head-on collissions around corners because one of the cars was malfunctioning and neither driver bothered to look "because the computer said it was OK?"
- adventureful 14y ago
  Probably, but compared to losing 32,000 people per year, I'd bet the rate of computer fault would substantially lower. Particularly when you consider the power of the systems we'll have in 30 years. That doesn't ensure quality (bugs, poor algorithms, etc), but it does make it plausible there will be numerous very effective fail-safes built in. The x factor in that calculation to me, is the potential for people to treat computer fault deaths particularly harsh. If human fault kills 32,000 - I'd just about wager people would be more willing to excuse it than, say, if computer fault killed 1,000 instead (That is, there's some equation of human fault to computer fault deaths that is necessary before people will find it acceptable, and unfortunately I bet people aren't going to be very forgiving of computer fault deaths even if the ratio is 10, 20, or even 30 to 1. Let's say you eliminated human fault driving deaths, and all that was left is 5,000 computer fault deaths - I think people would be outraged at that number, quickly forgetting the old 32k number).
  - finnw 14y ago
    I think you're right about the double standard, but there is another factor - distribution of culpability. Current situation: 16,000 drivers, each responsible for about 2 deaths. Situation with the computers in control: 1 CEO of a manufacturing company, could be prosecuted for causing 1,000 deaths. Who would want to be in that position? And as for being forgiving of human error, it's easier to be forgiving of an individual driver who causes an accident (as long as he was not reckless, e.g. drunk) because it could be you next time - anyone can make that kind of error. But the CEO of Samsung/Google/whoever could not be you: You know you will never have that job, and also you may be envious of their wealth, which will make you (and the judge) less sympathetic.
- brc 14y ago
  The rate of people driving around corners looking properly is probably already staggering. I think, even given a relatively high failure rate, the statistics will still improve. Mind you, like everything with autonomous vehicles, legislation needs to be laid down now in order to clarify who is responsible for what. I would hate to see a situation where this technology is withheld from the market because of the possibility of the company being sued for every penny.
- RyanMcGreal 14y ago
  > I worry about the potential for reliance on this system People also worried that drivers using ABS would be less competent than drivers not using ABS. Before that, we worried that drivers wearing seat belts would be less careful than drivers not wearing seat belts. Risk homeostasis is a real problem (witness the number of SUVs lining the highway ditch during a snowstorm) but the sheer benefits to engineering-for-safety more than offset the risk of encouraging cavalier behaviour.
  - GiraffeNecktie 14y ago
    Re. ABS, one study seemed to indicate that when drivers have ABS they tend to adjust their risk taking upward "Among a total of 747 accidents incurred by the company's taxis during that period, the involvement rate of the ABS vehicles was not lower, but slightly higher, although not significantly so in a statistical sense. These vehicles were somewhat under-represented in the sub-category of accidents in which the cab driver was judged to be culpable, but clearly over-represented in accidents in which the driver was not at fault. Accident severity was independent of the presence or absence of ABS." http://psyc.queensu.ca/target/chapter07.html http://psyc.queensu.ca/target/chapter07.html
- zerostar07 14y ago
  Software can be refined, people can't .
adventureful 14y ago
Fascinating to consider that within a few decades that annual 32,000 fatality rate could be reduced by some radical amount (95%?) with software. That's an incredible amount of lives waiting to be saved by some good programming; 300k per decade is a staggering number of people. I'm not aware of too many other private sector problems that you can go to work on that can have such an impact (with programming), outside of biotechnology perhaps.
- wazoox 14y ago
  In several European countries, fatality rate was reduced by a dramatic amount by being stricter on speed limits, alcohol, reckless driving, etc and building (much) better cars. See the statistics: http://www.securite-routiere.org/Fiches/statistiques/statinter.htm http://www.securite-routiere.org/Fiches/statistiques/statint... In fact, USA are about the only developed country which didn't make any significant progress in the past 20 years.
  - Retric 14y ago
    only developed country Sorry, but the numbers don't support your argument. Grèce 1502 1511 1699 1737 1790 1995 2008 2076 1993 2068 2000 2182 2116 2037 1880 1654 1605 1619 1658 USA 46390 47087 45582 44599 44508 39250 40150 40716 41817 42065 42013 41501 41717 41945 42116 42815 42884 42636 43443 http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=sp_pop_totl&idim=country:GRC&dl=en&hl=en&q=population+greece http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&#... http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=kf7tgg1uo9ude_&met_y=population&idim=country:US&dl=en&hl=en&q=population+us http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=kf7tgg1uo9ude_&#... So, both countries has reasonable population growth and the rate of fatalities dropped by a similar amount relative to their populations. What's different is the absolute number peaked in Grece in 1990's and dipped in the US in the 1990's.
    - Wilya 14y ago
      To expand on that: The second table on wazoox's link give the number of fatalities scaled to the population (in death per million) for European countries. It doesn't include the USA for some reason, but you can estimate it from Retric's info. - 1990: 186.3 - 2005: 147.2 So, improvement there has been.
derwildemomo 14y ago
For the curious, there is a system built-in to every modern aircraft called TCAS ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_collision_avoidance_system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_collision_avoidance_sys... ), Traffic Collision Avoidance System, that does something similar for airplanes.
- artmageddon 14y ago
  TCAS is definitely useful but it's not be-all end-all in collision avoidance, and unfortunately I think that translates well to automobiles as well. There's always the possibility of failure with the devices or perhaps sending erroneous(perhaps malicious) data that could screw with the system in other people's cares. That said, I do like seeing these kinds of innovations!
  - derwildemomo 14y ago
    Yes, a very tragic example that happened quite close to where I live was a mid air collision between a freighter and a regular airliner ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_%C3%9Cberlingen_mid-air_collision http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_%C3%9Cberlingen_mid-air_co... ), with 71 fatalities.
maeon3 14y ago
In Orlando FL, (one of the car-crash capitals of the world), the devices would be issuing warnings every 15 minutes (causing warning fatigue). I have to deal with these situations: 1. I am cruising on a road 45 mph. A perpendicular street intersecting the road has a stop sign. They are accelerating toward their stop sign. If they don't brake, there will be a collision. I often brake a little and prepare to brake hard if they don't brake at the last possible millisecond. A collision system would warn me in that situation. 2. People behind you accelerate up to you to 5 feet behind your bumper to "make a statement" that they didn't approve you pulling in front of them. Ethics aside, the system would think the person behind is out of control, causing a warning. 3. On the interstate going 75mph, cars pull in front of you with about 5 feet to spare. Cars coming into near contact with each other. A crash detection system would issue a warning. So it means these crash detection systems need a "Tolerance" dial, that the idiot drivers are going to set as close to zero as possible because of warning fatigue. Also, this system will embolden the idiot drivers to drive even more dangerously. A system like this must account for warning fatigue in places where people drive like in Grand Theft Auto and would be confused if a system told them that what they are doing is dangerous.
- sneak 14y ago
  > A system like this must account for warning fatigue in places where people drive like in Grand Theft Auto and would be confused if a system told them that what they are doing is dangerous. No, it doesn't. In that case, people will just disable it or ignore the warnings, and continue their existing unsafe practices. People who drive like that aren't going to improve because of a box beeping at them. I don't think that widespread reckless driving is a problem that can be solved with technology, short of full automation (driverless cars). I'm not saying this isn't useful - but for those drivers, feedback that what they're doing is dangerous isn't going to change their behavior. Deploy it anyway, for the rest of us. It at least won't make reckless drivers any worse.
  - slug 14y ago
    it would be interesting to have those warnings go directly to the car black box, even when disabled, it might help in case of collision. Or have it send the "log" every month to the DMV and remove points from the driver's license, and revoke it when it reaches zero, but this sounds too Orwellian to many people.
loppette 14y ago
Combine this approach with Google's driverless cars and allow pedestrians to participate via their cellphones and the future looks brighter, safer and hopefully quieter
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
datagramm 14y ago
Warnings, yes please. Allowing my brakes to be controlled wirelessly by anyone clever enough to spoof the right data, no thank you!
CurtHagenlocher 14y ago
Can you really trust what other cars are telling yours? This sounds like an interesting security problem.
philip1209 14y ago
My parents spent the better part of the last year contracting on this project. They traveled with car company engineers, DOT people, and test cars equipped with the system around the country to various race tracks to test the system with normal drivers. On the race tracks they would put normal people in these V2V-equipped cars with (I believe) a professional driver/racer riding shotgun. Then, they would run people through scenarios that would set off the system - i.e. they would send two cars barreling towards a t-bone collision, and the testers would be instructed to not stop until the buzzer/light went off - at which point they were to slam on the brakes as hard as they could. My dad said that this test was the scariest and he chickened out while in the driver's seat. The system is great for blind corners where you cannot see the oncoming car, but on an open race track it is scary to see the other car on a collision course with you. After the race track test, my parents would debrief and interview the participants. Here are some scenarios I remember them testing: * The peek-a-boo: Three cars are driving down the road. The first car slams on the brakes. The middle car veers to avoid it. You are in the third car and suddenly there is a stopped car that you are barreling towards. The system would have alerted you as soon as the first car panic-braked. * Oncoming car - you are on a country road, about to pass a car. You start to pull into the oncoming lane to overtake the car, but the system senses an oncoming car that you did not see and sends an alert to you. Also, I recall a problem with testers who were former policemen. Apparently they are taught to drive with two feet - one on the brake and one on the gas, for quickest reaction time. I think this fooled with the system because the alert was disabled as soon as you put your foot on the brake, and having a foot on the brake at all times caused problems. One final tidbit: If you are ever looking to rent a race track in the USA, apparently the Disney/Richard Petty track has the best catering for the least money, compared to all the other tracks!
- gdubs 14y ago
  Regarding the two-foot driving police: I thought the purpose of using one foot to brake and accelerate was all about removing the mental process that occurs when having to choose which foot to use. I was always taught that removing that decision was the reason for using one foot. The point of heel-toe pedaling is that your foot can reach both pedals simply by pivoting, which theoretically makes both pedals equally quick to access. I learned on stick, which clearly dictates that style. But, I'd be interested in hearing what others think. Regarding the stories from your parents: pretty cool info!

44 points by sew 14y ago

I worry about the potential for reliance on this system - 30 years from now (the time the article stated it would take for mass adoption), will we have head-on collissions around corners because one of the cars was malfunctioning and neither driver bothered to look "because the computer said it was OK?"

adventureful 14y ago
Probably, but compared to losing 32,000 people per year, I'd bet the rate of computer fault would substantially lower. Particularly when you consider the power of the systems we'll have in 30 years. That doesn't ensure quality (bugs, poor algorithms, etc), but it does make it plausible there will be numerous very effective fail-safes built in. The x factor in that calculation to me, is the potential for people to treat computer fault deaths particularly harsh. If human fault kills 32,000 - I'd just about wager people would be more willing to excuse it than, say, if computer fault killed 1,000 instead (That is, there's some equation of human fault to computer fault deaths that is necessary before people will find it acceptable, and unfortunately I bet people aren't going to be very forgiving of computer fault deaths even if the ratio is 10, 20, or even 30 to 1. Let's say you eliminated human fault driving deaths, and all that was left is 5,000 computer fault deaths - I think people would be outraged at that number, quickly forgetting the old 32k number).
- finnw 14y ago
  I think you're right about the double standard, but there is another factor - distribution of culpability. Current situation: 16,000 drivers, each responsible for about 2 deaths. Situation with the computers in control: 1 CEO of a manufacturing company, could be prosecuted for causing 1,000 deaths. Who would want to be in that position? And as for being forgiving of human error, it's easier to be forgiving of an individual driver who causes an accident (as long as he was not reckless, e.g. drunk) because it could be you next time - anyone can make that kind of error. But the CEO of Samsung/Google/whoever could not be you: You know you will never have that job, and also you may be envious of their wealth, which will make you (and the judge) less sympathetic.
brc 14y ago
The rate of people driving around corners looking properly is probably already staggering. I think, even given a relatively high failure rate, the statistics will still improve. Mind you, like everything with autonomous vehicles, legislation needs to be laid down now in order to clarify who is responsible for what. I would hate to see a situation where this technology is withheld from the market because of the possibility of the company being sued for every penny.
RyanMcGreal 14y ago
> I worry about the potential for reliance on this system People also worried that drivers using ABS would be less competent than drivers not using ABS. Before that, we worried that drivers wearing seat belts would be less careful than drivers not wearing seat belts. Risk homeostasis is a real problem (witness the number of SUVs lining the highway ditch during a snowstorm) but the sheer benefits to engineering-for-safety more than offset the risk of encouraging cavalier behaviour.
- GiraffeNecktie 14y ago
  Re. ABS, one study seemed to indicate that when drivers have ABS they tend to adjust their risk taking upward "Among a total of 747 accidents incurred by the company's taxis during that period, the involvement rate of the ABS vehicles was not lower, but slightly higher, although not significantly so in a statistical sense. These vehicles were somewhat under-represented in the sub-category of accidents in which the cab driver was judged to be culpable, but clearly over-represented in accidents in which the driver was not at fault. Accident severity was independent of the presence or absence of ABS." http://psyc.queensu.ca/target/chapter07.html http://psyc.queensu.ca/target/chapter07.html
zerostar07 14y ago
Software can be refined, people can't .

adventureful 14y ago

Fascinating to consider that within a few decades that annual 32,000 fatality rate could be reduced by some radical amount (95%?) with software. That's an incredible amount of lives waiting to be saved by some good programming; 300k per decade is a staggering number of people. I'm not aware of too many other private sector problems that you can go to work on that can have such an impact (with programming), outside of biotechnology perhaps.

wazoox 14y ago
In several European countries, fatality rate was reduced by a dramatic amount by being stricter on speed limits, alcohol, reckless driving, etc and building (much) better cars. See the statistics: http://www.securite-routiere.org/Fiches/statistiques/statinter.htm http://www.securite-routiere.org/Fiches/statistiques/statint... In fact, USA are about the only developed country which didn't make any significant progress in the past 20 years.
- Retric 14y ago
  only developed country Sorry, but the numbers don't support your argument. Grèce 1502 1511 1699 1737 1790 1995 2008 2076 1993 2068 2000 2182 2116 2037 1880 1654 1605 1619 1658 USA 46390 47087 45582 44599 44508 39250 40150 40716 41817 42065 42013 41501 41717 41945 42116 42815 42884 42636 43443 http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=sp_pop_totl&idim=country:GRC&dl=en&hl=en&q=population+greece http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&#... http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=kf7tgg1uo9ude_&met_y=population&idim=country:US&dl=en&hl=en&q=population+us http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=kf7tgg1uo9ude_&#... So, both countries has reasonable population growth and the rate of fatalities dropped by a similar amount relative to their populations. What's different is the absolute number peaked in Grece in 1990's and dipped in the US in the 1990's.
  - Wilya 14y ago
    To expand on that: The second table on wazoox's link give the number of fatalities scaled to the population (in death per million) for European countries. It doesn't include the USA for some reason, but you can estimate it from Retric's info. - 1990: 186.3 - 2005: 147.2 So, improvement there has been.

derwildemomo 14y ago

For the curious, there is a system built-in to every modern aircraft called TCAS ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_collision_avoidance_system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_collision_avoidance_sys... ), Traffic Collision Avoidance System, that does something similar for airplanes.

artmageddon 14y ago
TCAS is definitely useful but it's not be-all end-all in collision avoidance, and unfortunately I think that translates well to automobiles as well. There's always the possibility of failure with the devices or perhaps sending erroneous(perhaps malicious) data that could screw with the system in other people's cares. That said, I do like seeing these kinds of innovations!
- derwildemomo 14y ago
  Yes, a very tragic example that happened quite close to where I live was a mid air collision between a freighter and a regular airliner ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_%C3%9Cberlingen_mid-air_collision http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_%C3%9Cberlingen_mid-air_co... ), with 71 fatalities.

maeon3 14y ago

In Orlando FL, (one of the car-crash capitals of the world), the devices would be issuing warnings every 15 minutes (causing warning fatigue). I have to deal with these situations: 1. I am cruising on a road 45 mph. A perpendicular street intersecting the road has a stop sign. They are accelerating toward their stop sign. If they don't brake, there will be a collision. I often brake a little and prepare to brake hard if they don't brake at the last possible millisecond. A collision system would warn me in that situation. 2. People behind you accelerate up to you to 5 feet behind your bumper to "make a statement" that they didn't approve you pulling in front of them. Ethics aside, the system would think the person behind is out of control, causing a warning. 3. On the interstate going 75mph, cars pull in front of you with about 5 feet to spare. Cars coming into near contact with each other. A crash detection system would issue a warning. So it means these crash detection systems need a "Tolerance" dial, that the idiot drivers are going to set as close to zero as possible because of warning fatigue. Also, this system will embolden the idiot drivers to drive even more dangerously. A system like this must account for warning fatigue in places where people drive like in Grand Theft Auto and would be confused if a system told them that what they are doing is dangerous.

sneak 14y ago
> A system like this must account for warning fatigue in places where people drive like in Grand Theft Auto and would be confused if a system told them that what they are doing is dangerous. No, it doesn't. In that case, people will just disable it or ignore the warnings, and continue their existing unsafe practices. People who drive like that aren't going to improve because of a box beeping at them. I don't think that widespread reckless driving is a problem that can be solved with technology, short of full automation (driverless cars). I'm not saying this isn't useful - but for those drivers, feedback that what they're doing is dangerous isn't going to change their behavior. Deploy it anyway, for the rest of us. It at least won't make reckless drivers any worse.
- slug 14y ago
  it would be interesting to have those warnings go directly to the car black box, even when disabled, it might help in case of collision. Or have it send the "log" every month to the DMV and remove points from the driver's license, and revoke it when it reaches zero, but this sounds too Orwellian to many people.

loppette 14y ago

Combine this approach with Google's driverless cars and allow pedestrians to participate via their cellphones and the future looks brighter, safer and hopefully quieter

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

datagramm 14y ago

Warnings, yes please. Allowing my brakes to be controlled wirelessly by anyone clever enough to spoof the right data, no thank you!

CurtHagenlocher 14y ago

Can you really trust what other cars are telling yours? This sounds like an interesting security problem.

philip1209 14y ago

My parents spent the better part of the last year contracting on this project. They traveled with car company engineers, DOT people, and test cars equipped with the system around the country to various race tracks to test the system with normal drivers. On the race tracks they would put normal people in these V2V-equipped cars with (I believe) a professional driver/racer riding shotgun. Then, they would run people through scenarios that would set off the system - i.e. they would send two cars barreling towards a t-bone collision, and the testers would be instructed to not stop until the buzzer/light went off - at which point they were to slam on the brakes as hard as they could. My dad said that this test was the scariest and he chickened out while in the driver's seat. The system is great for blind corners where you cannot see the oncoming car, but on an open race track it is scary to see the other car on a collision course with you. After the race track test, my parents would debrief and interview the participants. Here are some scenarios I remember them testing: * The peek-a-boo: Three cars are driving down the road. The first car slams on the brakes. The middle car veers to avoid it. You are in the third car and suddenly there is a stopped car that you are barreling towards. The system would have alerted you as soon as the first car panic-braked. * Oncoming car - you are on a country road, about to pass a car. You start to pull into the oncoming lane to overtake the car, but the system senses an oncoming car that you did not see and sends an alert to you. Also, I recall a problem with testers who were former policemen. Apparently they are taught to drive with two feet - one on the brake and one on the gas, for quickest reaction time. I think this fooled with the system because the alert was disabled as soon as you put your foot on the brake, and having a foot on the brake at all times caused problems. One final tidbit: If you are ever looking to rent a race track in the USA, apparently the Disney/Richard Petty track has the best catering for the least money, compared to all the other tracks!

gdubs 14y ago
Regarding the two-foot driving police: I thought the purpose of using one foot to brake and accelerate was all about removing the mental process that occurs when having to choose which foot to use. I was always taught that removing that decision was the reason for using one foot. The point of heel-toe pedaling is that your foot can reach both pedals simply by pivoting, which theoretically makes both pedals equally quick to access. I learned on stick, which clearly dictates that style. But, I'd be interested in hearing what others think. Regarding the stories from your parents: pretty cool info!