4 ms·

Tailgating isn't just illegal, it's also extremely dangerous. I think the in best case, a self-driving car would record the number plate of the car that cut you

Tailgating isn't just illegal, it's also extremely dangerous. I think the in best case, a self-driving car would record the number plate of the car that cut you off, and you could then pass that information on to the police. edit: I didn't want this to come across as an attack, I'm not a perfect driver myself, in fact I'm still on my learner licence :) . I feel the fact you have to constantly break the law because other drivers are also breaking the law to be a problem in itself, without even bringing the autonomous car into the equation.

radarsat1 12y ago
Wow, automatic highway surveillance? That's actually a frightening aspect of smart cars that hadn't crossed my mind.. like the driving equivalent of a "thought police" society from 1984 -- but automated.
- twright0 12y ago
  > like the driving equivalent of a "thought police" society from 1984 -- but automated. Except in this case it's reporting a crime that you have actually already done - you broke a traffic law. It might not be an extremely serious crime most of the time, but it's absolutely not the same as punishment for thinking about breaking the law.
  - prawn 12y ago
    Depends if it's recording general indiscretions or driving indiscretions. Once all/most driving is automated, I don't think we'll have many driving indiscretions, and you could potentially put them back on the manufacturer in some cases rather than the occupant. Especially so when the majority of people do not own the car in which they're travelling but are hiring it for the journey like they do a taxi or plane.
- peteretep 12y ago
  > automatic highway surveillance As someone who has lived in the dystopia that is the UK, who've been doing this for ages, it's not so bad.
scrrr 12y ago
A future, in which even minor offences (of whatever kind) are automatically reported to the police, will bring us one step closer to dystopia. I am not sure your "best case" is desirable at all. (Even if I sometimes wish humans would drive more carefully and patiently.)
- ghshephard 12y ago
  Of course, it will likely be a dystopia in which tens of thousands a people's lives will be saved, so there is that.
  - scrrr 12y ago
    Philosophically speaking, no one will be saved. We are all basically dying. Of course it would be nice to reduce traffic deaths, but we should carefully consider in what way our actions will affect society. We should not assume this will only affect how people behave in traffic, as well. Other offences will likely also be included.
  - hipsters_unite 12y ago
    True, but it's a dangerous precedent. The fact is that a lot of law in areas such as traffic, waste management etc is basically meant to be fluid and a deterrent; if everybody that littered where it was illegal, drank from open containers where it was illegal, fly-tipped or sped was instantly caught, then we'd just have tonnes of people in prison for relatively minor offences. I think there's a desirable degree of pragmatism to be favoured in lieu of unbounded technological utopianism on this point.
    - TeMPOraL 12y ago
      You don't (shouldn't) put people in prison for stuff like this, you keep fining them increasing amounts of money until they stop doing the thing they are not supposed to be doing. The world would be a much better place if the traffic (and waste) laws were more, maybe even automatically, enforced.
m_mueller 12y ago
There's a difference between tailgating and using one's space though. I'm a Swiss who's driven in France (countryside) and I've always found French driving style quite pleasant. Quick on the outer lane, giving you space on the inner/middle lane. What I mean is: Legal limits usually don't really reflect what's safe with today's cars, so using the space a bit better shouldn't be a problem as long as you're respectful and reasonable. So yeah, parent raises interesting questions - since autonomous cars will probably have to follow legal limits, what about driving culture? If it were me I'd solve the issue by giving drivers a slider going from the most aggressive yet still safe distance to the legal distance - with legal warnings you have to tap through if you want to change the slider.
- martindale 12y ago
  Intelligence-driven cars will likely fly "under the radar" for a half-decade or so while regulators catch up. Once they do, the industry will be more than ready to accelerate traffic 100% to 300% and ultimately flip the regulatory pressure from machine to human. Humans will need to prove their ability to drive at something like 500 kph.
- ghshephard 12y ago
  "Legal limits usually don't really reflect what's safe with today's cars," Correct - Legal Limits results in many deaths a year that would not occur if the Limits were more strict. People who violate even those rather dangerous limits, result in even more carnage. I find it fascinating how overconfident people are when it comes to cars, and just feel that because they aren't getting into accidents, that cars are safe. There isn't a single country in the world that believes that human life is worth more than the convenience of speeding around in cars. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_Zero http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_Zero is a great concept, but until automation is fully extended, most of the traffic laws, speeds, car spacing will continue to result in people dying in numbers greater than if there were more strict regulations.
  - m_mueller 12y ago
    > Legal Limits results in many deaths a year that would not occur if the Limits were more strict. Source on this please. Let's take speed limits as an example. Looking at [1], the data for the US doesn't seem to be conclusive to me - some times speed limit decreases didn't have a significant effect, sometimes increases lead to more crashes, sometimes to less crashes. So I don't know about you, but I wouldn't use such a blanket statement. Also, Europe often has higher speed limits, but significantly less fatalities than the US[2], both by miles driven and by number of cars. That may or may not be causal, but the world is not as simple as it's the law so it must be good. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_limit#Effectiveness http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_limit#Effectiveness [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r... Edit: I've been looking for regulations on following distance, but I can't actually find any. There's lots of rules that are given to driving learners but I can't find anything legally binding, whether for the US nor for European country. Obviously keeping a safe distance is necessary for reducing accidents, but lacking any data I can't really say what distance is safe. In Switzerland we learn the 'two second rule', in the US it seems to be three seconds - which seems excessively much to me - at that distance you'd have driver after driver using the gap in front of you since half the distance would seem close enough to the two-second-rule to them - thus creating way more critical situations where you have to be careful.
downandout 12y ago
This actually just gave me an idea. A little rear mounted camera matched with some software that detects tailgaters, records them, automatically uploads the video to Youtube and lists their license plate on a searchable public shaming site.
- EliRivers 12y ago
  And enables their insurer to increase the cost of the insurance.
malka 12y ago
If you want to merge on a lane, what is the workflow then ? Activate the blinker, then wait for the car on the merging lane to give me (security_distance * 2) before merging ? I could wait a (very) long time for this to happen.

radarsat1 12y ago

Wow, automatic highway surveillance? That's actually a frightening aspect of smart cars that hadn't crossed my mind.. like the driving equivalent of a "thought police" society from 1984 -- but automated.

twright0 12y ago
> like the driving equivalent of a "thought police" society from 1984 -- but automated. Except in this case it's reporting a crime that you have actually already done - you broke a traffic law. It might not be an extremely serious crime most of the time, but it's absolutely not the same as punishment for thinking about breaking the law.
- prawn 12y ago
  Depends if it's recording general indiscretions or driving indiscretions. Once all/most driving is automated, I don't think we'll have many driving indiscretions, and you could potentially put them back on the manufacturer in some cases rather than the occupant. Especially so when the majority of people do not own the car in which they're travelling but are hiring it for the journey like they do a taxi or plane.
peteretep 12y ago
> automatic highway surveillance As someone who has lived in the dystopia that is the UK, who've been doing this for ages, it's not so bad.

scrrr 12y ago

A future, in which even minor offences (of whatever kind) are automatically reported to the police, will bring us one step closer to dystopia. I am not sure your "best case" is desirable at all. (Even if I sometimes wish humans would drive more carefully and patiently.)

ghshephard 12y ago
Of course, it will likely be a dystopia in which tens of thousands a people's lives will be saved, so there is that.
- scrrr 12y ago
  Philosophically speaking, no one will be saved. We are all basically dying. Of course it would be nice to reduce traffic deaths, but we should carefully consider in what way our actions will affect society. We should not assume this will only affect how people behave in traffic, as well. Other offences will likely also be included.
- hipsters_unite 12y ago
  True, but it's a dangerous precedent. The fact is that a lot of law in areas such as traffic, waste management etc is basically meant to be fluid and a deterrent; if everybody that littered where it was illegal, drank from open containers where it was illegal, fly-tipped or sped was instantly caught, then we'd just have tonnes of people in prison for relatively minor offences. I think there's a desirable degree of pragmatism to be favoured in lieu of unbounded technological utopianism on this point.
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    You don't (shouldn't) put people in prison for stuff like this, you keep fining them increasing amounts of money until they stop doing the thing they are not supposed to be doing. The world would be a much better place if the traffic (and waste) laws were more, maybe even automatically, enforced.

m_mueller 12y ago

There's a difference between tailgating and using one's space though. I'm a Swiss who's driven in France (countryside) and I've always found French driving style quite pleasant. Quick on the outer lane, giving you space on the inner/middle lane. What I mean is: Legal limits usually don't really reflect what's safe with today's cars, so using the space a bit better shouldn't be a problem as long as you're respectful and reasonable. So yeah, parent raises interesting questions - since autonomous cars will probably have to follow legal limits, what about driving culture? If it were me I'd solve the issue by giving drivers a slider going from the most aggressive yet still safe distance to the legal distance - with legal warnings you have to tap through if you want to change the slider.

martindale 12y ago
Intelligence-driven cars will likely fly "under the radar" for a half-decade or so while regulators catch up. Once they do, the industry will be more than ready to accelerate traffic 100% to 300% and ultimately flip the regulatory pressure from machine to human. Humans will need to prove their ability to drive at something like 500 kph.
ghshephard 12y ago
"Legal limits usually don't really reflect what's safe with today's cars," Correct - Legal Limits results in many deaths a year that would not occur if the Limits were more strict. People who violate even those rather dangerous limits, result in even more carnage. I find it fascinating how overconfident people are when it comes to cars, and just feel that because they aren't getting into accidents, that cars are safe. There isn't a single country in the world that believes that human life is worth more than the convenience of speeding around in cars. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_Zero http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_Zero is a great concept, but until automation is fully extended, most of the traffic laws, speeds, car spacing will continue to result in people dying in numbers greater than if there were more strict regulations.
- m_mueller 12y ago
  > Legal Limits results in many deaths a year that would not occur if the Limits were more strict. Source on this please. Let's take speed limits as an example. Looking at [1], the data for the US doesn't seem to be conclusive to me - some times speed limit decreases didn't have a significant effect, sometimes increases lead to more crashes, sometimes to less crashes. So I don't know about you, but I wouldn't use such a blanket statement. Also, Europe often has higher speed limits, but significantly less fatalities than the US[2], both by miles driven and by number of cars. That may or may not be causal, but the world is not as simple as it's the law so it must be good. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_limit#Effectiveness http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_limit#Effectiveness [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r... Edit: I've been looking for regulations on following distance, but I can't actually find any. There's lots of rules that are given to driving learners but I can't find anything legally binding, whether for the US nor for European country. Obviously keeping a safe distance is necessary for reducing accidents, but lacking any data I can't really say what distance is safe. In Switzerland we learn the 'two second rule', in the US it seems to be three seconds - which seems excessively much to me - at that distance you'd have driver after driver using the gap in front of you since half the distance would seem close enough to the two-second-rule to them - thus creating way more critical situations where you have to be careful.

downandout 12y ago

This actually just gave me an idea. A little rear mounted camera matched with some software that detects tailgaters, records them, automatically uploads the video to Youtube and lists their license plate on a searchable public shaming site.

EliRivers 12y ago
And enables their insurer to increase the cost of the insurance.

malka 12y ago

If you want to merge on a lane, what is the workflow then ? Activate the blinker, then wait for the car on the merging lane to give me (security_distance * 2) before merging ? I could wait a (very) long time for this to happen.