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California To License Self-Driving Cars
DevotedSkeptic writes "Californian senators have passed a bill that looks set to make the state the second in the US to approve self-driving cars on its roads. The bill was passed unanimously by state senators, and now hits the desk of governor Jerry Brown, who's expected to sign it into law. It calls on the California Department of Motor Vehicles to start developing standards and licensing procedures for autonomous vehicles. 'This bill would require the department to adopt safety standards and performance requirements to ensure the safe operation and testing of 'autonomous vehicles', as defined, on the public roads in this state,' it reads."
Considering half the drivers there don't seem to be paying attention to their driving, self-driving cars would probably be a huge improvement.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
...and they'll work the security into it after the first major hacker-caused pile-up.
Not safe right now... the difference being is that we can make continually make self driving cars more safe, since driving only requires a set of rules and environmental awareness. Humans will never become more safe, in general, because they are inherently mistake prone due to fatigue, poor judgement, distractions, intoxication, and many other factors.
Just look at the wonders of automated flight. Most airline accidents that aren't due to terrorism or mechanical malfunction are due to pilots overriding the autopilots.
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Oh come on. Both articles you link to are full of nothing but conjecture and opinion, and both are about the same accident. Plus, anecdotal evidence tells us nothing. What I want to know is: how many accidents on average do Google autonomous cars have per mile, and how does that relate to the average for human-driven cars?
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And your driver's license lets you vote in CA, does that mean these cars get to vote? Can they vote themselves "car friendly" politicians? Will we be talking about "vehicle rights" in the next election?
In a panic, will we try and pull the plug?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
what about stuff like code review and liability?
Now there are 2 big liability parts criminal liability and civil liability.
and no who makes the car and or the software coders who make the code can't hide behind a mandatory arbitration or an eula.
Even more so if say the car hit's some thing out side of the car.
There are a lot of interesting legal implications for these self driving cars but all that a side I dream of the day when a drunk can stumble out of the bar and fall into the back of his car and wake up in the drive way of his home the next morning.
Anyone who seriously moves to prevent the self driving car from becoming reality regardless of how safe they are is simply against saving lives. I'm sure most people will wonder how anyone could be flat out against self driving cars but people like that do exist and at some point this will move from a legal issue to a political issue when it starts looking like mass adoption might happen and these people will come out.
Don't put any ethanol in the tank! Or you'll see a lot more DUIs...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
With reports of Google's self-driving car crashing left and right how could anyone want to be in one of these vehicles? They just aren't safe. When something happens when you're driving then it's at least your fault and you could do something about it, but not in self-driving cars.
Was this meant to be sarcastic? Both of those posts referred to the same accident. These cars have logged hundreds of thousands of miles, with ONE accident(which may well have been human error). That's far, far safer than the average human driver. If you're in the drivers seat of the self driving car, you CAN take control of it should you feel the need, too.
However, realistically that's not going to be useful. The car will be better at accident avoidance than you are - it's not that big a programming challenge to achieve that. People don't like to admit it - it bruises their delicate little egos - but the car knows *exactly* how fast every car around them is moving, their acceleration, and can put itself exactly where it wants to be every time. No delayed reactions due to inattention, no slight overreaction due to panic.
Yes, self driving cars will be involved in accidents, and will be at fault, from time to time. This does not make them less safe - it's inevitable, particularly when human drivers are involved as well. Human drivers, on the other hand, are extremely unsafe. Everyone wants to think that they are special, and unlike everyone else they're awesome drivers, but the reality remains that human drivers are in accidents extremely regularly.
Don't get me wrong. I'd hate to be in a robotically driven car. Logically, I know I'd be much safer than with a human driver, but I'd be enormously squirrelly about the whole process. And, of course, I love driving - I'd never be comfortable giving that up to a machine. I consider myself a good driver, too (like everyone else), and I've never been in an accident for which I'm at fault, but I can acknowledge that there have definitely been times I've driven with far less than ideal circumstances. Distraction, emotional distress, tiredness, ill health, the list goes on an on. In all those cases, I'm less than 100%.
Meh.
It's not safe for the simple reason that the automatic cars will drive the speed limit, and cause accidents because everybody else is going 20 over.
If a self-driving car crashes...
Make sure to get the breathalyzer sample from the tailpipe... that corn alcohol is powerful stuff.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I'm expect a lot of political trouble from trucking unions etc. Driving is many peoples livelihoods.
Left and Right you say? It's the same incident in both links (indeed the C|net article is based on and points to the Jalopnik post).
Also, from your own source:
Updated 3:51 p.m. PST: Google would only give me a further one-line statement. A spokesman said: "The car was in manual mode at the time. We have confirmed it in our logs."
That's 3:51 pm August 5th, so it was cleared up by the time you got the link.
I'm just as concerned about this, but your post is downright deceptful.
This post contains no rudeness or derision of any kind. All arguments are friendly. Terms and exclusions may apply.
It's clearly just a matter of time until automomous cars are head and shoulders safer than those driven by people. Once this happens, adoption will be driven by the insurance companies. It will become prohibitively expensive to drive your own car.
I actually look forward to this, and wonder how it will change the interior design of cars. Will we turn the front seat around and go for a more social living room style arrangement? Will we dispense with the view from the front windshield in favour of an immersive large-screen TV? Beds for those long drives? Will we have refrigerators and microwaves so we can get breakfast on the morning commute? The possibilities are awesome.
Your theory isn't holding up in the face of the data. Googles Cars have logged hundreds of thousands of miles and have one accident caused by human error.
They have well over 300k miles.
Source
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Where are you getting that the average human driver has an at least one accident every few hundred thousand miles? I wouldn't call this "far, far safer" yet. It has the potential to be.
Also, most of the tests have been in still fairly controlled environments. Meaning, the car wasn't woken up in the middle of the night to get a pregnant woman to the hospital quickly over dirt roads, past nighttime street-racers, etc... Loads of "special cases" exist in the world of cars. It will be quite a long time before we have a really solid understanding of their viability. Right now, a "typical commute" is probably the safest use, or even for standard-route delivery vehicles without a high time sensitivity. Even better if certain roads / routes / lanes get set aside for autonomous vehicles only, which would make them even safer and more efficient.
Come play Moral Decay!
Car drives you!
You know you were all thinking it.
the self diving cars better have the same level of code review that autoplot software get's.
and even if that you can still get errors like this
http://www.airdisaster.com/cgi-bin/view_details.cgi?date=01201992®=F-WWDP&airline=Air+Inter
While on approach into Strasbourg the aircraft impacted the side of a mountain. The cause of the crash was found to be a faulty design in an autopilot mode selector switch which led the flight crew to inadvertently select a 3,300 foot per minute descent rate on the approach instead of the desired 3.3 flight path angle.
or this
http://www.airdisaster.com/cgi-bin/view_details.cgi?date=09141993®=D-AIPN&airline=Lufthansa
The aircraft skidded off the end of the runway during landing. The aircraft touched down with sink rate low enough that the onboard flight computers did not consider it to be "landing," which inhibited thrust reverse and brake application for nine seconds.
http://www.airdisaster.com/cgi-bin/view_details.cgi?date=03101997®=A40-EM&airline=Gulf+Air
A flight control failure at V1 caused the crew to abandon the takeoff, with deceleration beginning at V1+8 knots. The aircraft overran the runway, causing the nosegear to collapse. The flight control problem was traced to a faulty microchip in the aircraft's Fly-By-Wire system.
Hell, I have driven well over 300K miles without an accident....
I would suspect the first waves of cars would be big companies like Google running tests. In that case, they could meet the legal requirements for insurance themselves. After that, we'll probably have enough data to calculate the risks with far greater accuracy than human drivers.
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Nobody. Same as now.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Self-driving cars will eventually be the majority.
Driving 20 over the speed limit may make you get there more quickly, but not having to focus on the road for the whole trip will make the trip more enjoyable and will make it feel like you get there more quickly.
If all cars are self-driving, then we can happily increase the speed limit -- and probably by a lot!! We might even get a scenario where one speed limit applies to humans, and another (higher) one applies to computer-controlled vehicles.
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Eventually sure. It's gonna be a trainwreck getting there, though.
Even if you were to combine accidents from software bugs, driving the speed limit, or some other factor, I'd absolutely bet that they would total far fewer than accidents by drunk drivers, falling asleep at the wheel, using cell phones, talking to passengers in the car, highway hypnosis, misunderstanding street signs, or lack of knowledge about right-of-way. Pick one.
They don't have to be safe, as nothing, not even laying in bed, is completely safe. They just have to be safer than what exists now. That is a pretty low bar to reach.
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So you are an outlier, among the thousands here on slashdot that didn't respond the same. I've read the average person gets into an accident every 6.5 to 10 years depending on location, or 78-120k miles.
Google cars have had over 480k miles accidents-due-to-system free. There was one accident when one was rear ended while stopped at a redlight, and another when a human tester decided to override the automatic driving and drive it himself.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
Somewhat off topic, I know. But if we're going to have auto-driving/piloting, then wouldn't self-navigating ships be more important, from a practical perspective? (Though I can see the fun and technological offshoots in designing self-driving cars.)
Self navigating cargo ships might need to be be piloted manually when leaving and entering docks (at least to start with), but in the open oceans they could auto-navigate and be centrally monitored.
Open water piracy would take a dent as there would be no crew to kidnap, and there would be no incentive for ship owners to follow pirates' demands to reroute ships. After all, if you're going to lose a ship and its cargo either way, then might as well do it by not appeasing pirates.
It would also mean that ships would not be piloted by crews who try to navigate tricky waters to cut corners.
I already have an autopilot in my car which is constantly giving audio prompts and attempting to take control, but enough about the wife. I for one welcome our new autonomous car overlords - as at least I can kick the wife out... heh
Well, 300,000 miles, one non-fatal accident (with, again, a human at the wheel - but we'll ignore that for now).
Now, I pulled these numbers of a set of google searches. There was a fairly wide range of stats, so I took a bit of an average:
Insurance industry assumes one accident CLAIM per 17.9 years (lots of minor accidents go unclaimed, but we'll ignore them too). Average of 15,000 miles per year per driver. Thus, an average of one accident per 268,500 miles per human driver.
Of course, while the human driver stats are numerous (and this is why insurance is expensive!) the self driving car stats are not. Only one accident with new, unrefined technology in 300,000 miles... and that with a human in control of the car.
That said, your example? That's where a self driving car is much, much better than a human. A human driver with a pregnant woman giving birth, woken up in the middle of the night is going to be tired, highly agitated and distracted and definitely not at his best. The self driving car isn't tired. It doesn't care what time it is. The self driving car will be aware of the speeding racers - and know their exact speed, trajectory, and likely path - sooner than the human driver will, as these are very simple computations to make. The self driving car is indifferent to the passenger; which is also important. It's not distracted, worried, or anxious.
Of course, there certainly are cases where that's just not good enough, extreme emergency cases. That's why all these self driving cars can be driven in manual mode. You've always got that option if need be.
Obviously, routes being set aside for autonomous vehicles will be safer, but routes mixed will be safer than pure-human routes, because autonomous cars are simply safer than human driven cars overall.
I've been rearended while stopped at traffic lights six times in the last twenty years; every time due to an inattentive driver. None of those would happen with an autonomous car.
Finally, yes, mechanical/electronic failure can result in crashes. Just like it can with human drivers - sticking accelerators, for example, failing steering linkages, brakes, etc. Software problems? No different than a human driver having a heart attack, stroke, seizure, getting stung by a bee, etc - those all happen all the time. There's no real difference there.
Meh.
Your theory isn't holding up in the face of the data. Googles Cars have logged hundreds of thousands of miles and have one accident caused by human error.
Slow vehicle driving significantly black the prevailing speed cause accidents for other vehicles, while seldom getting hit themselves. They cause chain reaction fender benders two or three cars back, which they are seldom even aware of, and drive away, never to show up in accident statistics.
At least that's the theory put forth by those who perpetually drive over the speed limit.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
I don't think so. I think self-driving cars will catch on very quickly.
Imagine when you get up for work in the morning if you could safely do things like comb your hair or eat breakfast while driving to work. You could save 15 minutes to maybe a half-hour. And a computerized system where the cars drive as close as possible to one another and optimize their placement, and where everyone is allowed to merge when they want to will make rush hour not completely suck.
Very quickly the number of accidents will go down, the number of people getting pulled over for speeding would drop to almost zero, and road rage will evaporate.
Not only that, but because of the cooperation aspect of automating cars(meaning since they all think in almost the same ways), speed limits may actually be increased. Because a computer program can consider multiple variables much more reliably than humans can, their ability to stop or avoid accidents should be drastically better than ours. And because of that, there's a real possibility that automated cars could be legally allowed to drive at significantly faster speeds than human-operated cars are legally allowed to drive.
Our lifetimes? I'm a Singularitarian, you insensitive clod!
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Some redneck hacker will try to modify his own car to disastrous effect.
As if morons don't do that already and somehow this is the fault of the car.
-1 overrated isn't the same thing as "I disagree".
I think you overestimate the average human. For example, please tell me exactly how far it would take your vehicle to stop from 60mph in current weather conditions with the current brake wear? Don't know? A computer would, and it could adjust speed accordingly, given condition of the brakes, weather, road conditions, even traffic information, because if all vehicles are reporting their gps location then your vehicle knows if there is another vehicle close by or not.
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Which is a chicken and egg problem solved by self driving cars.
> with 310+ million Americans each would only need to drive 3 miles a year to reach a billion.
With actual numbers:
"There were 190,625,023 licensed drivers in the United States in 2000." [1]
190625023 * 3 = 571875069
So not only are you wrong, but I don't see your point either. Americans drive a lot, but they also have a lot of car accidents. (Feel feel to provide more recent numbers, but you won't get a billion even if you count the whole population.)
To be fair, I think that computer controlled car should be granted the right to drive, if it can pass the driving test, which human drivers need to pass. Should there be an accident, the company that provided the car should pay. That is unfair for the company, but it is to earn the trust of the population and to ensure that cars have as little defects as possible.
1) http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/onh2p4.htm
You give some great examples where human experience can't be matched by a computer. I could add such things as eye contact with the other driver(s) at a four-way stop sign; noticing the tag number on a car and predicting where it may exit off the interstate; recognizing a car you've seen day after day on your commute and knowing where it's going; and avoiding potholes on a rainy day (unless you've seen it on a dry day, there's no way of knowing how deep it is when filled with rainwater).
I've driven more than two million miles and there's no way a computer can know what I know about driving. There's no substitute for experience.
I'm a little uneasy at what will happen when most people are driving these and how they will interact with the police. I suppose there wouldn't be any point in trying to ticket one, but I still would expect they'll eventually do something like on a signal from a police car, the autonomous car will pull over and stop itself. Things just get more ominous, if more unlikely from there. What if it was set up that, if the Government wants you, any autonomous car you get into will automatically drive you to the nearest police station nonstop?
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