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Why is freeway driving more difficult (genuine question)? I would have naively thought it would be easier, since it's much easier as a human. Per minute I rec

Why is freeway driving more difficult (genuine question)? I would have naively thought it would be easier, since it's much easier as a human. Per minute I reckon the cognitive load of driving on even a busy motorway is less than half that of driving in central london

JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> Why is freeway driving more difficult (genuine question)? “Stopping in lane becomes much more dangerous with the possibility of a rear-end collision at high speed. All stopping should be planned well in advance, ideally exiting at the next ramp, or at least driving to the closest shoulder with enough room to park. This greatly increases the scope of edge cases that need to be handled autonomously and at freeway speeds. … The features that make freeways simpler — controlled access, no intersections, one-way traffic — also make ‘interesting’ events more rare. This is a double-edged sword. While the simpler environment reduces the number of software features to be developed, it also increases the iteration time and cost. During development, ‘interesting’ events are needed to train data-hungry ML models. For validation, each new software version to be qualified for driverless operation needs to encounter a minimum number of ‘interesting’ events before comparisons to a human safety level can have statistical significance. Overall, iteration becomes more expensive when it takes more vehicle-hours to collect each event.” https://kevinchen.co/blog/autonomous-trucking-harder-than-rideshare/ https://kevinchen.co/blog/autonomous-trucking-harder-than-ri...
- Ferret7446 1y ago
  I don't think a self driving car needs to react any differently than humans are supposed to: slow down safely as necessary. The "interesting" interventions that happen on the highway are exclusively caused by the driver tailgating.

JumpCrisscross 1y ago

> Why is freeway driving more difficult (genuine question)? “Stopping in lane becomes much more dangerous with the possibility of a rear-end collision at high speed. All stopping should be planned well in advance, ideally exiting at the next ramp, or at least driving to the closest shoulder with enough room to park. This greatly increases the scope of edge cases that need to be handled autonomously and at freeway speeds. … The features that make freeways simpler — controlled access, no intersections, one-way traffic — also make ‘interesting’ events more rare. This is a double-edged sword. While the simpler environment reduces the number of software features to be developed, it also increases the iteration time and cost. During development, ‘interesting’ events are needed to train data-hungry ML models. For validation, each new software version to be qualified for driverless operation needs to encounter a minimum number of ‘interesting’ events before comparisons to a human safety level can have statistical significance. Overall, iteration becomes more expensive when it takes more vehicle-hours to collect each event.” https://kevinchen.co/blog/autonomous-trucking-harder-than-rideshare/ https://kevinchen.co/blog/autonomous-trucking-harder-than-ri...

Ferret7446 1y ago
I don't think a self driving car needs to react any differently than humans are supposed to: slow down safely as necessary. The "interesting" interventions that happen on the highway are exclusively caused by the driver tailgating.