Is anyone else worried that GMC’s Hands-Free Driving with Super Cruise, on their Sierra Denali Pickups is another self-driving system that may start racking up accidents on the highway?
In their commercial, it shows the driver, playing “patty-cake” beating their fists on the interior to the beat of “We Will Rock You.;” and then the truck decides to pass the slower truck ahead of them.
The web site says, “if the vehicle is traveling on a divided freeway at a set speed of 65–70 mph and is behind someone traveling 60 mph, the system’s Automatic Lane Change when enabled will look for an opening once the following gap is shortened. If a suitable opening is detected, Super Cruise will automatically initiate the turn signal and change lanes without the driver doing anything other than paying attention to the road.”
But if you look at the commercial, at 0:21, there is NO divided freeway, it’s only a two lane road… So, its obvious it can be overridden and possibly be used on a regular two land road; roads that would have traffic traveling in the opposite direction…
It must be a wonderfully powerful radar/camera the system has (perhaps like the Air Force’s “Over the Horizon, Backscatter Radar…”) to be able to “look” so far down the road…
As a computer programmer, I certainly do not trust a system that fails to operate within specifications (only on a divided freeway) when it is demonstrated (the commercial they created and marketed) …
Yeah like it would be a good idea to have it in automatic pulling a trailer and going over those bridges. From a human standpoint though, people don’t like to just sit and do nothing. So if they are not taking part in actual driving, as the commercial shows, they will find another means of entertainment. And we are to believe that they will still stare straight ahead at the road alert.
Given the lack of bad news reporting on crashes involving GM’s Super Cruise versus Tesla’s system… I’d say there is little to worry about.
GM’s systems seem to actually work. Not sure what sensor set they use, but I’d guess radar and vision are both used in the the system. Radar sensors in cars have been around for about 20 years now. Vision systems seem to get better and better every year.
I am sure it will work well as with all other self driving cars. Right up until it kills you. The concept is as sound as others today such as “planes/drones will replace cars and everyone will be flying themselves places”, “we will be establishing colonies on Mars” and “you can wake up in 200 years after they cure the disease that killed you”. All ridiculous nonsense.
The pavement lines indicate it is a multilane divided highway, the opposite direction is out of view or edited out. The left lane has a yellow stripe to the left and the lanes are separated by a broken white line. If the lanes were in opposite directions, the stripe between the lanes would be yellow.
Edit: People have tried to tell Mn dot to make them white so they can be seen in low visibility. They seem to think yellow is a psychological danger sign and like to make them yellow even though you can’t see the line in fog. Actually white shows up better in snow too. I’m not going to look at that ad again though.
Well gotta correct that. Driving on the road today, the two lane had yellow divider line and white left and right fog lines. The four lane had white divider line and white right fog line but yellow left fog line. Sheesh.
GM has mapped out 2 lane highways as well as divided freeway’s, looked at the map of what super cruise covers and along with I-5 it covers the highways going around the Olympic Peninsula and over to the coast, still would be watching the road and prepared to take over.
A few years ago Nissan ran a commercial with the driver threading the needle between two semis in heavy traffic, hands off the steering wheel. NUTS, in my opinion.
My new car has some sort of self-steering (don’t recall the name for that feature) when the Cruise Control is activated. After seeing how incredibly accurate its self-steering is, when I was on a totally-deserted stretch of I-78, I decided to experiment by taking my hands off the wheel.
After a few seconds, I got this message on the instrument panel: Place hands back on steering wheel w/in 10 seconds or this feature will be cancelled.
If Lexus has the ability to detect hands on the wheel, and to cancel self-driving when hands are not on the wheel, I assume the other car companies could also add that safety feature.
Yes, and as Robert Burns, the Scottish poet wrote in 1785, “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men often go astray” Or in modern terms… No matter how carefully a project is planned, something may still go wrong with it.
Folks figured a long time ago that they could defeat the Lexus system with a water bottle (partly filled) and even with an orange propped on the steering wheel.
Now Super Cruise uses an infrared camera to determine the driver’s attention but in tests, it can be tricked using glasses with fake eyeballs printed on them…
Folks will continue to challenge the limits of whatever they are associated with… I am a FAA Licensed Unmanned Aerial System Pilot (a Drone Pilot) and I am active on various Web Sites that, like CarTalk, but these site cater to drones… You would be surprised with the folks who brag and post videos of flying their $1,000 and more drones out miles, over mountains, oceans, forests, etc… while the FAA limits drone flight to Line of Sight (meaning you must be able to see it with the unaided eye – no binoculars, etc…). And then there are the “Oh Poor Me…” postings, “I flew my drone out so far that there was not enough battery power left to return and it crashed in the ocean…”
And I believe it will be no different with folks in all the self-driving vehicles. I’ve posted a video of a “person” sitting in the back seat of their car while it’s driving down the road…
Older Lexus models used a torque sensor that could be defeated with a small weight–such as a water bottle. The newer Lexus models use capacitance sensors in the steering wheel to detect the presence (or absence) of a hand on the steering wheel by detection of the moisture normally present in hands.
As someone said paraphrasing, who is still lost under the sea, if you aren’t breaking the rules you aren’t innovating. Or another that said a solution looking for a problem. Just not comfortable yet with a computer doing the driving. A lot more variables than just landing a plane.
Well 1st of all, at $70-80,000 I don’t think the average American will be able to afford it given it’s price tag, so it will be business owners and upper middle class and higher will be the only ones buying it for the most part…
I know I will never be able to afford one in this life…lol
Funny, my 2006 Corolla LE sure knew, due to the seat belt and seat sensor when my Pitbull’s would move around and in/out of the front seat… Why on Earth aren’t the self driving vehicles able to easily know if a Human is in the drivers seat or not???.. That is just plain stupid to me… And it would also turn the passenger side air bag off, wow what a thought, it could also turn self driving off also…
For that matter my lawn mower will turn off if the blades are engaged and you raise up off the seat for any reason, and it don’t get much simpler than that!!.. lol
And if the driver is wearing Driving Gloves or mittens? Or they use a “cold bottle of water” that “sweats” due to the humidity. See, I do not even have this issue but I am already considering ways to defeat the capacitance sensors…
One time, when I was taking a deep dive into submenus, I did notice a “winter glove mode”. Since I don’t plan to drive without holding onto the steering wheel, and because I have no reason to try to defeat those sensors, I ignored that option on the submenu.
Many years ago now, a friend of mine was ogling the new trucks on the Chevy lot. A gaggle of salespeople came bursting out onto the lot hoping to be the lucky one to snare him with a new truck purchase. When one prevailed over his slower competitors and arrived first, he started the conversation- looking for a new truck? with a big smile… to which my friend replied- “Nah, just looking at the truck I’m going to buy in 10 years or so”. His smile gradually faded and they all slinked off…
It is easy to know if they are present. That can be done with a simple switch in the seat or an inexpensive infrared detector. What’s a bit more difficult is to determine their level of engagement. Sitting there is one thing, ready to take over in the event of a crisis is another.
