I’m sure the guy who was decapitated understood it very well… 
My questions still stand.
Assuming one is motoring along on auto pilot and a semi darts over in front of you and slams on the air brakes.
What’s going to happen when YOUR driving and the semi darts over in front of you and slams on the air brakes?
The reaction time of the driverless vehicle will be magnitudes less then yours. And HOPEFULLY…you weren’t looking at the attractive blond that was in the other lane…or texting or changing the channel on the radio when he slams on his brakes.
The brake application of the car would essentially be instantly but how is any computer system going to account for things like 50 feet of room while the stopping distance at that speed is say 120 feet?
First off the system would probably have already slowed your vehicle down the millisecond the semi started drifting in your lane. And if by chance that didn’t happen…again I have to ask the question…how would you handle it? Would you be able to do it better? In all likely-hood - No.
Or when someone darts out in front of you and there are no options in regards to other escape routes?
And AGAIN…what would/could you do?
In all cases - chances are you’d be better off in a driverless vehicle. Reaction time is far superior then the BEST human. It won’t be distracted by anything.
Will there be scenarios that will stifle the driverless car? Probably. Most will have been eliminated by the time they go into production. The Prius accident in question - the Prius is NOT a driverless car…it’s driver assist. Lets make that distinction right now. The true autonomous driverless car is years from production
But lets say that everything you’ve pointed out is truly a problem for autonomous cars…and a human would be able to avoid it. I still contend that autonomous cars would be safer.
. No more texting drivers.
. No more drivers eating lunch/dinner or drinking coffee.
. No more drunks or drug addicts behind the wheel.
. No more more distracted drivers - EVER.
. That oil slick on the road…your autonomous vehicle will be notified MILES before it reaches it. And any vehicle entering a certain radius will also be notified. And if slick is big enough a Hazmat team will be notified to clean to it up.
Trusting me more than a car, every now and then a horse needed a reboot!
Mike: another cut at it:
The present systems, and the ones available in the near future, look at shapes around the car and their motions to try to decide the best course of action. (yes simplification)
But consider the decision tree it has to go through to correctly handle a construction worker waving you onto the oncoming lane.
- There is a person in the road.
- He appears to be wearing construction clothing.
- He has a sign in his hand. I’ve seen that type of sign before and it usually has a stop on one side and slow on the other.
- He has the slow side pointing towards me
- My lane ahead seems to be blocked.
- There are orange cones that seem to direct me to the oncoming lane
- There is no oncoming traffic in that lane at the present time.
Decision: slow way down and veer into the oncoming lane.
But alternative, the stop side is towards me. I doubt any PC can read that sign accurately.
I just can’t see a PC following that decision tree correctly 100% of the time. Whereas a human operator does get that correct 100%, or at least I do.
And there could be snow on the road making the lane markers not visible, yet you still have to perform the action correctly.
I don’t understand why you don’t think an autonomous vehicle is incapable handling that situation. You don’t think the software/hardware can detect the human actions of a cop? That is technology has been around for years. You also keep forgetting that we’re not just going to jump to autonomous vehicles. There’s going to be a transition period. The first few years there will be drivers to take control when necessary…again the system is still learning. And will continue to learn and continue to evolve.
But let’s get back to that factitious scenario. When/If we have all autonomous vehicles…there wouldn’t be a need for traffic cops. Construction crew sets up and informs the auto-net when and where they are. The autonomous vehicles would have either taken a different route or have anticipated and adjusted long before reaching the construction site.
I just can't see a PC following that decision tree correctly 100% of the time.
Then you don’t know enough about computers and or software. The fact that you used the phrase PC shows that. This system is going to be a series of computers…some digital and some analog (i.e. DSP). More like a server farm.
And there could be snow on the road making the lane markers not visible
It’s already been proven that they don’t need road markers (although it does make it easier for them). They can determine the lane by GPS and other signals.
Just to add a little flame to the discussion…Here’s a list of things that will disappear with truly autonomous vehicles.
I don’t have an answer for it. Autonomous could have the most profound effect on our economy - EVER.
@MikeinNH I can certainly see your points and do agree with them to some extent. My point is that when it comes down to it I would still prefer that it be me making the decisions.
Modern electronics are reliable no doubt about that but they’re not infallible as the driver of that Tesla discovered.
Aircraft avionics have always been far ahead of the auto world and yet many any aircraft has gone n the wrong direction, landed at the wrong airport, or plowed into the ground because of electronic flaws.
Air travel is very, very safe; except for that segment that is on the losing end of an electronic hiccup.
Some years back the AF Thunderbirds were putting on a display here in F-16s. Five of them took off with no issue. The solo guy rolled about 500 feet and had to abort the takeoff because the INS (Inertial Navigation System) went out. INS glitches are not that uncommon.
A couple of years ago an airliner went in with the loss of all people on board because of an INS problem.
Quite often when military aircraft are not mission capable it’s because of electronics.
I suppose my point would be that if I’m going to buy the farm I’d rather do it on my terms instead of it being determined by a flow of electrons; or lack of.
Let me pose this question and I don’t mean it in a morbid or combative way. You get a phone call some evening from the PD advising you that your loved ones are dead in a horrible traffic accident.
The investigation reveals they’re dead because some feature in the autonomous car failed.
Leaving the grief angle out of it, would you accept those deaths as a roll of the dice or get angry and head for the lawyer’s office to get the suit started?
@MikeinNH I can certainly see your points and do agree with them to some extent. My point is that when it comes down to it I would still prefer that it be me making the decisions.
I agree with that 100%. I too prefer to drive. #1 - I like to drive. #2 - I’m arrogant enough to believe that I can drive better.
But the other side…I see every day people texting, driving extremely erratic. The Boston area sees dozens of accidents every day.
Let me pose this question and I don't mean it in a morbid or combative way. You get a phone call some evening from the PD advising you that your loved ones are dead in a horrible traffic accident. The investigation reveals they're dead because some feature in the autonomous car failed. Leaving the grief angle out of it, would you accept those deaths as a roll of the dice or get angry and head for the lawyer's office to get the suit started?
That’s a hypothetical question I really can’t answer.
If you take it on a case by case basis…then every accident will always have controversy. You can look at that question the opposite way. The investigation reveals that if your loved-one was driving in an autonomous vehicle then they would be alive today. How many times have police had to tell some one their loved one was dead because they weren’t wearing their seat belt? How many times was a person killed because they WERE wearing their seat belt? Without looking up the figures on google, I suspect the later is magnitudes lower.
I honestly believe that (IF AND ONLY IF) all the technical bugs can be worked out that when and if all the cars on the road will be autonomous…there will be a significant decrease in traffic deaths and injuries. And I mean MAJOR SIGNIFICANT DROP. Almost 40,000 people are killed each year from traffic accidents. I firmly believe that with autonomous vehicles you could easily see that number drop to less then 1000.
Every two minutes a person is injured or killed in a DUI crash. Every day 27 people die as a result of a DUI accident. DUI will be a thing of the pass with autonomous vehicles.
One other thing I’d like to add…I really don’t know if we ever will have truly autonomous vehicles. Based on my years of school and several decades working as a software engineer or engineering manager, I think it will happen within my lifetime. But I really don’t know. I’m taking an educated guess. I’ve been really interested in this technology since I heard about it a few years ago and have read almost everything I could get my hands on. I even went to a couple symposiums on the subject at a security conference a few years ago. If I was younger and didn’t have a good paying job and nearing retirement I’d seriously be looking to branch into this technology. There aren’t a lot of people who are software geeks who are also into cars. I’ve only met a few.
For those concerned with autonomous vehicles, suppose 20 years ago we were having this same discussion for “drive by wire features” for the gas pedal and steering.
How many would have responded with: “I never want to drive a car where there’s no mechanical connection between the gas pedal and the fuel system, or between the steering wheel and the steering knuckles.”?