Nissan's Autonomous Car Now Road Legal In Japan

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Nissan's Autonomous Car Now Road Legal In Japan

Posted by Soulskill on Friday September 27, 2013 @07:43AM from the as-long-as-you-don't-program-it-to-run-over-mimes dept.

Daniel_Stuckey writes "The current test vehicle uses what Nissan calls its 'Advanced Driver Assist System,' which isn't fully autonomous, but rather can be thought of as a really advanced cruise control system. According to the company, the system can keep a car in its own lane, while automatically changing lanes to pass slower vehicles or prepare to exit a freeway, which it can also do automatically. Along with that, the car automatically slows for congestion, and — most impressively in my opinion — can automatically stop at red lights. In other words, the car isn't fully automatic in that you can't simply type in a destination and have it do all the work, but the bulk of driving load is taken care of. Curiously, Nissan's goal appears to be to take sloppy human drivers out of the equation to eliminate road fatalities."

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Curiously? by Antipater · 2013-09-27 07:48 · Score: 5, Funny

Curiously, Nissan's goal appears to be to take sloppy human drivers out of the equation to eliminate road fatalities."
"We want fewer people to die" is a curious position to take?

--
Everything is better with chainsaws.
1. Re:Curiously? by pablo_max · 2013-09-27 07:53 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Why? Dead people tend not to buy as many cars.
2. Re:Curiously? by BreakBad · 2013-09-27 08:00 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  They sure do like to vote though.
3. Re:Curiously? by cusco · 2013-09-27 08:12 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Hell, in Miami they still drive.
  
  --
  "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
4. Re:Curiously? by sl4shd0rk · 2013-09-27 08:16 · Score: 1
  
  "We want fewer people to die" is a curious position to take?
  Maybe everyone texts while driving in Japan
  
  --
  Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
5. Re:Curiously? by gagol · 2013-09-27 08:26 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  As far as general availability of self-driving cars, I see it as a good step. The technology needs to mature much more before we should consider total automation. Keeping a responsible human in the loop is not bad too. Kudos Nissan.
  
  --
  Tomorrow is another day...
6. Re:Curiously? by EnsilZah · 2013-09-27 08:38 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  What's curious is the fact that this line has nothing to do with the car in the article and actually refers to Nissan's plan to build an army of ninja robots who would take sloppy human drivers out of the equation to eliminate road fatalities.
7. Re:Curiously? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 08:43 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Or may be they have a real problem with aging population there.
  So helping the drivers as much as possible and gradually going to autonomous isn't necessarily a bad thing.
8. Re:Curiously? by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · 2013-09-27 08:43 · Score: 1
  
  Curiously, Nissan's goal appears to be to take sloppy human drivers out of the equation to eliminate road fatalities."
  "We want fewer people to die" is a curious position to take?
  A lawyer must have written that. They are drooling, awaiting accidents so they can immediately dump it on tje deep pockets corporations. When it turns out safer, dammit! Oh they will still sue, of course, because that's what they do -- punish companies that make things net safer, in spite of their rhetoric.
  
  --
  (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
9. Re: Curiously? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 08:44 · Score: 0
  
  In all seriousness, there is nothing curious about that for me. I wouldn't mind an automatic or heavily assisted driving vehicle for myself, sure. But I absolutely want EVERYONE ELSE to have one. I can't remember the last time I commuted home without people meandering into multiple lanes, turning into/through my clearly marked turining lane, or using a very liberal definition of "merge", and I don't think half of them know what a yield sign even means or are aware that they have turn signals.
10. Re: Curiously? by epyT-R · 2013-09-27 08:48 · Score: 0
  
  Some of us like retaining control of our autonomy and are perfectly capable drivers. This automated car business will end up abused by governments. I want no part of it.
11. Re:Curiously? by EEPROMS · 2013-09-27 08:49 · Score: 2
  
  what is curious for me is at what point will insurance companies insist on automated assist drive systems in cars especially considering 95% of crashes are due to human error. In 100 years it may be impossible to get insurance if you drive at all on public roads.
12. Re: Curiously? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 09:00 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  This actually worries me, the natural inclination will be for people to stop paying attention while driving. Then when the sutuation has surpassed the cars ability, nobody will be in control and an accident could happen. At that time, it will be assessed as the "robot's" fault and may set back adoption of what is likely to be a safer form of driving.
13. Re: Curiously? by JWSmythe · 2013-09-27 09:10 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  I'd worry less about abuses by the gov't, and more about unintentional actions by the car.
  The story says it will pass slower traffic. Great. But will it detect that guy you've seen in your rear view mirror switching lanes doing 40mph faster than you? I see a great chance to have a multicar accident just on that one thing.
  It's not all that unusual either. I've seen quite a few close calls, where exactly that has happened. Either he takes the grassy median, or the other car swerves back.
  If it can't figure out that he's back here, but you did based on observation, now you're going to have him rear ending you, and one of you hitting the slower car(s).
  I wonder how it will handle unusual activity, like a car running a stop sign on a perpendicular road, or something not quite car sized like a dog, large bird, child, or object falling off another vehicle. I've seen wheels come off of cars; big rigs throw the tread off a wheel; a rock truck break a driveshaft, part of which went bouncing down the road behind him; and other various things that shouldn't have been on the road. If people get use to the car doing the driving, they *won't* be doing the driving themselves. They'll become more reliant on the fact that the car can do it for them.
  
  --
  Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
14. Re: Curiously? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 09:13 · Score: 1
  
  Some of us like retaining control of our autonomy and are perfectly capable drivers. This automated car business will end up abused by governments. I want no part of it.
  Yesterday I had some idiot screaming fury at me because HE didn't understand that at a 4-way stop, you take turns in a circle, NOT "opposites go at the same time". He was dead certain that his driving ability was flawless.
  Sure, you might be perfectly capable. But from what I've seen, at least 25% of the people driving have no business even possessing a license at all, and a good half the drivers out there are only barely capable.
  I feel the same way you do in terms of giving up my autonomy, but on the other hand it would be really nice to be able to go out to the bar, get stinking drunk, and just hop in my car and tell it to take me home... instead of waiting 3 hours for a sleezy cab driver to long-haul me back to my place and try to charge me ten times the normal rate. And then have to do it again first thing in the morning to go get my car.
15. Re:Curiously? by Obfuscant · 2013-09-27 09:23 · Score: 1
  
  what is curious for me is at what point will insurance companies insist on automated assist drive systems in cars especially considering 95% of crashes are due to human error.
  Citation? And you do realize, I hope, that 95% (if true) being human error is because there currently is no "autonomous computer failure" category or contestants as regular participants. I expect that the numbers will be vastly different when there are.
  Unless, of course, the NTSB uses the same standards for car crashes it does for aircraft mishaps and everything is labelled driver (pilot) error as an overarching cause. "Driver did not properly supervise the autonomous vehicle that wasn't supposed to require his supervision anyway."
16. Re:Curiously? by K.+S.+Kyosuke · 2013-09-27 09:24 · Score: 2
  
  As far as general availability of self-driving cars, I see it as a good step.
  Well, once self-driving cars fill the roads in significant numbers, if they'll have provisions for mutual communication and data exchange, you can count on them being more polite to each other than human drivers would.
  
  --
  Ezekiel 23:20
17. Re:Curiously? by aliquis · 2013-09-27 09:25 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  In Texas they become presidents!
18. Re: Curiously? by Obfuscant · 2013-09-27 09:27 · Score: 1
  
  The story says it will pass slower traffic. Great. But will it detect that guy you've seen in your rear view mirror switching lanes doing 40mph faster than you? I see a great chance to have a multicar accident just on that one thing.
  More important, will it realize that the reason the fast lane is empty and everyone is slowing down in your lane is because there is a state trooper with someone pulled over on the left side of the road and your state's law says you must either pull over or slow down when going past him? Will you get to be the next recipient of a ticket from that trooper because your car endangered him?
19. Re: Curiously? by Ralph+Wiggam · 2013-09-27 09:28 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  The problem is the large percentage of people who *think* they're "perfectly capable drivers", but are not.
  And no matter how capable you are, a computer has a faster reaction time.
20. Re:Curiously? by Obfuscant · 2013-09-27 09:33 · Score: 0
  
  Well, once self-driving cars fill the roads in significant numbers, if they'll have provisions for mutual communication and data exchange, you can count on them being more polite to each other than human drivers would.
  What anthropomorphic hogwash. The cars will not be polite. They will behave as they were programmed to.
  But here's the rub. My car speaks Toyota HTML, yours speaks Hyundai HTML, and the next guy's speaks Microsoft HTML. Kinda all the same language, somewhat close to the standards, but each manufacturer does it better by doing it their way just a bit.
  I spent a wonderful half hour of my life I'll never get back writing with Word some material I wanted to put on the web. I kept indenting some paragraphs and exporting the document as HTML, but the web browser never showed an indent. Then I realized I was looking at it with Mozilla and not IE. Isn't it great that HTML is a standard? Can we survive when our tools that we depend on to keep us alive don't use exactly the same standards?
21. Re: Curiously? by Obfuscant · 2013-09-27 09:49 · Score: 2
  
  And no matter how capable you are, a computer has a faster reaction time.
  And that's why when you make a mistake with a computer's help, you can do much much more damage than doing it by hand. It takes a long time to shred 100 paper files, and you can figure out after five minutes that it is a mistake and stop, and still have half of them. If you do that to computer files, five minutes later means you have nothing left but the regrets.
  I'd go find a reference to the havok created by computer trading on wall street, where instant reaction times lead to financial catastrophe, but I think we probably are all well aware of these stories. Why we want to ignore those stories and assume that a massive system of independent computers would be perfection personified this time, when they've been problematic before, is a mystery. I sense a lot of money to be made for people shilling autonomous vehicles on an unsuspecting public...
22. Re:Curiously? by CauseBy · 2013-09-27 09:50 · Score: 1
  
  Dead, not brain dead.
23. Re: Curiously? by Ralph+Wiggam · 2013-09-27 09:57 · Score: 2
  
  We only have one data set for real world performance of an autonomous vehicle, 350k miles by Google's prototype. It has been involved in one accident- when a person backed into it. So it has been perfect thus far.
  If it makes you feel better, lots of people thought that horses were superior to cars for years.
24. Re: Curiously? by epyT-R · 2013-09-27 10:05 · Score: 0
  
  Yes, that too. Computers are faster, for sure, but they are far less contextually aware. I don't want hurtle down the highway at 70mph knowing that the only thing between me and an accident are lists of bad assumptions made by cut rate programmers.
  We cant even fully automate our trains, and they are fixed point traffic!
25. Re: Curiously? by epyT-R · 2013-09-27 10:11 · Score: 0
  
  That's fine, but I don't want to reduce my safety by trusting it to a badly programmed computer. A human running a stop sign can be accounted for since the human retains control of the vehicle. A badly programmed computer in an automated car cannot.
  I am not willing to sacrifice my liberty and freedom for a bit of convenience. The moment a computer is inserted between me and the car I am responsible for, it won't be long before the dirty hands of government bureaucrats and insurance companies leave fingerprints all over it. No thanks. Unfortunately, the prevailing effeminate culture disagrees, which means, at some point, society will have to relearn what it's like to lose their rights in the first place. If the night life was a big part of my lifestyle, I'd move to such an area so I could walk.
26. Re: Curiously? by epyT-R · 2013-09-27 10:12 · Score: 1
  
  Faster? yes. More contextually aware? No.
27. Re:Curiously? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 10:14 · Score: 0
  
  Haklsnz
  http://www.xn--bidoludnya-geb.com/
28. Re: Curiously? by epyT-R · 2013-09-27 10:16 · Score: 0
  
  I'm sure its route was very carefully planned and monitored and I'm sure the people inside had kill switches. If these things go public, I guarantee override buttons will disappear quickly when officials realize that people are overriding them for reasons they don't deem worthy. The whole pile is just a big "do not want" for me at the moment, for both technical (computers aren't contextually aware enough), and political (this should be obvious) reasons.
29. Re:Curiously? by epyT-R · 2013-09-27 10:17 · Score: 1
  
  Then people will do what they do now with interlocks and other idiocy. Disable the devices and take their chances. It's that or not go to work/get paid/eat.
30. Re:Curiously? by epyT-R · 2013-09-27 10:21 · Score: 0
  
  Imagine the costs involved in treating every auto accident like a plane crash!! The bottom line is, as long as I'm to be held accountable for the car's behavior, I will insist on being the driver. If not, then the car really isn't mine, and honestly, I'd rather not own a device loaded with government/insurance company mandated NARCing nancies that do their bidding while I pay the bill. Remote kill/route override switches WILL be a part of this technology. Count on it.
31. Re: Curiously? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 10:21 · Score: 1
  
  Interesting. From your term state trooper I assume you are in United States. I may be ignorant to my states laws but I have never heard of slowing down a requirement for NY. In fact I feel it makes things a nuisance and possibly dangerous. Most cops I see position themselves well to mitigate risk. Everyone slows anyway to stare at who got caught while rear ending the car in front.
32. Re:Curiously? by xaxa · 2013-09-27 10:31 · Score: 1
  
  Imagine the costs involved in treating every auto accident like a plane crash!!
  But imagine the benefits!
  The UK has the safest railway in the world (of any reasonably sized country). Look at the rail accident investigation reports -- pick one -- to see why. The reports usually finish with "recommendations already implemented". (I sometimes read these reports, typically the ones about structures or vehicle faults -- the causes are often very technical, and it's interesting to read about how they work out what caused the accident/near-miss).
  (This is probably expensive. We also have one of the most expensive railway systems in the world, but it's not clear what the cause is. I don't know why we don't have the same focus on road accidents -- globally, British roads are in the top 5 for safety, but they're still poor compared to railways.)
33. Re: Curiously? by Ralph+Wiggam · 2013-09-27 10:33 · Score: 2
  
  You sure make a lot of assumptions for someone that doesn't know anything about the subject.
34. Re: Curiously? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 10:35 · Score: 0
  
  That's fine, but I don't want to reduce my safety by trusting it to a badly programmed computer.
  Have you ever wondered what controls traffic lights? (Hint: It's not human)
35. Re: Curiously? by Ralph+Wiggam · 2013-09-27 10:35 · Score: 1
  
  When the car in front of you slams on its brakes, how much context do you need?
36. Re:Curiously? by Garridan · 2013-09-27 10:36 · Score: 2
  
  George W. Bush is still from Connecticut, no matter what he wants the Rupublicans to believe.
37. Re: Curiously? by Mike_EE_U_of_I · 2013-09-27 10:54 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  But will it detect that guy you've seen in your rear view mirror switching lanes doing 40mph faster than you?
  Yes. And it will almost certainly do it better than almost any human driver.
38. Re:Curiously? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 10:57 · Score: 0, Funny
  
  1999 called, they want their problems back.
39. Re:Curiously? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 11:05 · Score: 0
  the difference is, microsoft was a monopoly that tried to push their own set of features and didn't want to implement the "standard". meanwhile, other browsers strive to implement the "standards", not to mention, standardizing the web is more than just "HTML". you can be completely compliant with HTML standards, and still have a website that doesn't work/look the same on one browser vs another.
  When web standards are discussed, the following publications are typically seen as foundational:
  
  Recommendations for markup languages, such as Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), Extensible Hypertext Markup Language (XHTML), Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), and XForms, from W3C.
  Recommendations for stylesheets, especially Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), from W3C.
  Standards for ECMAScript, more commonly JavaScript, from Ecma International.
  Recommendations for Document Object Models (DOM), from W3C.
  Properly formed names and addresses for the page and all other resources referenced from it (URIs), based upon RFC 2396, from IETF.[10]
  Proper use of HTTP and MIME to deliver the page, return data from it and to request other resources referenced in it, based on RFC 2616, from IETF.[11]
  if an Automated Vehicle Communications protocol is ever created, you can bet the government will be involved. and there will be standards that are enforced by the law. so your point is moot, because you're comparing something that will be enforced by laws and regulations to something not enforced by anybody whatsoever.
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_standards
40. Re: Curiously? by Obfuscant · 2013-09-27 11:38 · Score: 2
  
  I may be ignorant to my states laws but I have never heard of slowing down a requirement for NY.
  
  Oregon. The law says you must slow down or pull over when going past an emergency vehicle on the side of the road. Not every vehicle on the side, just emergency ones. This points out another risk of autonomous vehicles. Will they be programmed with all the laws of all the states they may be driven in, and how will they deal with people who live close enough to a border that there are two sets of laws?
  Here's another interesting law. In North Carolina, if you have the wipers on, you must also have your headlights on. Also in NC, there is an arcane twist to the laws regarding stopping for police. I don't recall the details, but I think there are exceptions of when you have to stop for flashing lights from the car behind you (cops), based on a rash of fake cops pulling people over.
  
  In fact I feel it makes things a nuisance and possibly dangerous. Most cops I see position themselves well to mitigate risk.
  They do their best. As do road workers. And yet, they get run over by drivers to the point that there are special laws for work zones and now emergency vehicles.
41. Re: Curiously? by JWSmythe · 2013-09-27 11:52 · Score: 1
  
  That's a good point. Each state has their own laws. Ours is...
  FS 316.126(1)(b)
  
  1. Shall vacate the lane closest to the emergency vehicle or wrecker when driving on an interstate highway or other highway with two or more lanes traveling in the direction of the emergency vehicle or wrecker, except when otherwise directed by a law enforcement officer. If such movement cannot be safely accomplished, the driver shall reduce speed as provided in subparagraph 2.
  2. Shall slow to a speed that is 20 miles per hour less than the posted speed limit when the posted speed limit is 25 miles per hour or greater; or travel at 5 miles per hour when the posted speed limit is 20 miles per hour or less, when driving on a two-lane road, except when otherwise directed by a law enforcement officer.
  That doesn't cover other pesky things like school zones, temporary construction speed limit changes, and other reasons that you can't just go cruising through at the speed limit.
  
  --
  Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
42. Re: Curiously? by Obfuscant · 2013-09-27 11:56 · Score: 2
  
  We only have one data set for real world performance of an autonomous vehicle, 350k miles by Google's prototype. It has been involved in one accident- when a person backed into it. So it has been perfect thus far.
  One data point. Many years ago I remember the buzz about a new field of study -- emergent behaviour in clusters of simple robotic devices. For example, you can program a small robot to obey simple rules like when to turn, when to go, when to stop, etc, and predict pretty well what it will do. But when you put a roomful of them together they start doing things that weren't obvious. I wish I could remember the name of the guy who was at the forefront of this. Randy something, I think.
  The point being, one computer programmed to do one thing is something we can pretty much understand, and predict how it will react. When you get large collections of systems interacting, you sometimes find miraculous, and sometimes not so miraculous, results. Kind of like, if you have one computer programmed to watch the stock market and make trades you will probably be ok. When you get thousands of them all interacting indirectly (via the stock prices, e.g.) and all acting in milliseconds, you can get havok. That's why I referred to that in my original post.
  So, I'm really surprised you would respond with a statement that we know the world filled with autonomous vehicles will be safe and accident free because one autonomous vehicle acting in controlled conditions and in a human-centric environment had only one accident. I suspect that we will find all kinds of unpleasant emergent behaviour as the roads begin to have more and more of these things.
  I'm also fascinated that you see this as an issue of cars vs. horses, since in neither case was the human removed from "driving".
43. Re: Curiously? by Obfuscant · 2013-09-27 12:08 · Score: 1
  
  When the car in front of you slams on its brakes, how much context do you need?
  Is the lane to the left clear so I can deviate that direction and avoid a collision?
  If the lane to my left is oncoming traffic, can I safely cross the double yellow line to avoid serious injury?
  Is the shoulder clear so I can go that direction?
  If the shoulder is not clear, does it have an obstruction that is less valuable and causes less damage if I run it over instead of colliding with the car ahead of me?
  Is there a large truck or other similar vehicle behind me that I need to worry about?
  Did the driver of the large vehicle appear to be awake and alert when I passed him a few minutes ago?
  Does there appear to be a traction limiting condition directly ahead of me that is not to the left or right? E.g, ice or snow?
  Is there a traction limiting condition to the left or right?
  Did the car ahead of me slam on his brakes for a transient reason (to miss a squirrel that is now out of the way) or because it was about to run into a stopped semi truck?
  Enough context? The fact that you only need one piece of information in this kind of situation tells me you don't drive much, and shouldn't be driving the autonomous vehicle bandwagon.
44. Re:Curiously? by Obfuscant · 2013-09-27 12:55 · Score: 1
  
  you can be completely compliant with HTML standards, and still have a website that doesn't work/look the same on one browser vs another.
  You're talking to someone who writes website code by hand and maintains several. Of course you can have different looks on different browsers -- it's called "customization". Fonts, colors, width of screen, allowing pop-ups/js/cookies, all kinds of things. None of that deals with the issue of one manufacturer fielding an "extension" to his communications protocol that doesn't play well with someone else's extension.
  
  if an Automated Vehicle Communications protocol is ever created, you can bet the government will be involved.
  Which government? And how many of them? Will a committee of governments design a consistent camel, or will some of them be one hump and some two? Will the EU camel deal with data differently? Will the French camel surrender whenever it is threatened? Will the Chinese camel be reverse engineered and get it almost right?
  
  because you're comparing something that will be enforced by laws and regulations
  
  Because enforcement of perfect worldwide laws and regulations leads to perfection and full compliance everywhere.
  Have you noticed, modern cars are getting full entertainment centers and communications capabilities built in at the same time that many states are cracking down on distracted driving? Laws and regulations are going to save us. Some laws say that you're too distracted if you simply talk on a phone, but a context-sensitive touch-screen menu system on a car audio system is perfectly ok.
  You put a lot of faith in laws that don't exist yet, governing cars that don't exist yet.
45. Re: Curiously? by Pinky's+Brain · 2013-09-27 14:52 · Score: 2
  
  Of course for the majority of drivers the context is :
  I didn't keep enough distance, time to hit the breaks and pray
46. Re: Curiously? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 15:26 · Score: 0
  
  The reason we can't automate trains is twofold:
  1. The unions are fighting it (enough such that it isn't cost effective to invest in automation)
  2. For some reason people get up in arms if they're told "if you find yourself on the tracks, the automated train will not know you are there and will not make any attempt to stop". Whereas a human operator would attempt to stop. The person on the tracks is squished either way, the difference is with the automated train it may make it to the next stop before anyone notices, versus the current situation of hundreds of passengers stranded in the middle of buttfuck nowhere because once people "know" the train hit someone, everything has to stop...
47. Re: Curiously? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 17:06 · Score: 0
  
  I hope the designer of the car is reading this because I'm quite certain that in all the research that all the engineers have done they never would have thought about the edge case that you mentioned off the top of your head.
48. Re: Curiously? by davburns · 2013-09-27 17:14 · Score: 1
  
  It seems that state-to-state (or even city-to-city) variations in law pretty much just requires that a lawyer and an engineer sit down and code up the statutes, right? Then do simulator testing? Then the car can download them as needed. I'd bet that autonomous (or semi-autonomous, as I think better describes this one) cars will do a better job at that than out-of-state drivers.
49. Re: Curiously? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 17:38 · Score: 0
  
  havoC. The word does not have, and has never had, a "k" in it.
50. Re:Curiously? by EuclideanSilence · 2013-09-27 17:41 · Score: 1
  
  When web browsers display HTML differently, no one dies. That's why we can be uncompromising about following standards.
  Not having a universal standard may be a good thing for autonomous cars. Car 1 suggests a proposition to the other cars, like "I'm going to speed up". Car 2 had damn well better not assume that what car 1 is saying is true. Car 2 should operate safely whatever car 1 says, and any messages from car 1 should only be used to optimize travel. If car1 says "I'm going to speed up" then slams on the breaks, car2 better be able to handle that.
  In fact, cars should be designed assuming that other cars will mess up the standard sometimes.
51. Re:Curiously? by AmiMoJo · 2013-09-27 21:12 · Score: 1
  
  The EU is already looking at making parking sensors mandatory on new cars. Once the cost of a safety technology gets low enough not to have any significant impact on the cost of a cheap car you can expect to see it becoming mandatory. I think crash avoidance will be next.
  
  --
  const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
  SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
52. Re: Curiously? by AmiMoJo · 2013-09-27 21:15 · Score: 2
  
  The US could always harmonize its road laws, like parts of the EU are.
  
  --
  const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
  SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
53. Re: Curiously? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 22:29 · Score: 0
  
  I'd worry less about abuses by the gov't, and more about unintentional actions by the car.
  The story says it will pass slower traffic. Great. But will it detect that guy you've seen in your rear view mirror switching lanes doing 40mph faster than you? I see a great chance to have a multicar accident just on that one thing.
  It's not all that unusual either. I've seen quite a few close calls, where exactly that has happened. Either he takes the grassy median, or the other car swerves back.
  If it can't figure out that he's back here, but you did based on observation, now you're going to have him rear ending you, and one of you hitting the slower car(s).
  I wonder how it will handle unusual activity, like a car running a stop sign on a perpendicular road, or something not quite car sized like a dog, large bird, child, or object falling off another vehicle. I've seen wheels come off of cars; big rigs throw the tread off a wheel; a rock truck break a driveshaft, part of which went bouncing down the road behind him; and other various things that shouldn't have been on the road. If people get use to the car doing the driving, they *won't* be doing the driving themselves. They'll become more reliant on the fact that the car can do it for them.
  There are plenty of humans on the roads that can't handle those situations. A self driving car will probably be able to handle it perfectly, but even if it doesn't it will still handle it better than humans.
  Pretty much all of you examples can be reduced to "observe surrounding objects location and velocity (Possibly even observe acceleration to differentiate if a perpendicular car is slowing down to stop or to turn.) and calculate if they intersect with own path".
  The thing that human drivers have a problem with is dogs and children, they don't have much inertia and can change direction quickly. Unsurprisingly this is a problem for self driving cars too. The big difference here is that machines doesn't have optimism, they use the same margin to avoid accidents every time.
54. Re: Curiously? by CastrTroy · 2013-09-27 22:37 · Score: 1
  
  I think the problem is that the cars are in some dangerous point where they are mostly autonomous, but the driver is still expected to pay attention. If the car can do 90% of the driving, but expects the person to be paying attention 100% of the time, like in a conventional car, then it can indeed be dangerous. I wouldn't buy one specifically for this reason. Either the car is autonomous, and I don't have to pay attention at all, don't have to buy insurance (manufacturer should cover that, I'm in no control of what the car does), or I might as well just have a conventional car, which will be cheaper, and, since it doesn't try to drive, will actually require me to pay attention to what's going on.
  
  --
  
  Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
55. Re:Curiously? by u38cg · 2013-09-27 23:22 · Score: 1
  
  The only way that would happen is if only the riskiest drivers insist on manual drive. Otherwise, the current risk cost of manual drive will stay roughly the same - in fact, it'll go down because other road users are safer - and insurers don't have a problem taking on risk that they can charge a correct premium for. You will without a doubt see much lower premiums for automatic cars, but that isn't a problem from the insurer's point of view - they're just charging for the extra risk in the same way as if you had speeding tickets or prior claims history.
  
  --
  [FUCK BETA]
56. Re: Curiously? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 23:53 · Score: 0
  
  You can already buy, right now, in the US and Europe, luxury cars which will prompt you not to pull across the path of a vehicle coming from your blind spot. So in that case the car sees the guy you would otherwise hit and tries (though you can override it if you force the issue) to prevent you precipitating an accident. Typically the wing mirror on the side you're moving into lights up to highlight that you need to check that mirror more carefully, and the wheels on the other side brake slightly to correct you back onto a straight path instead of making the dangerous lane change.
  Likewise you can already buy cars, and especially trucks (because trucks are expensive and have high insurance costs) that will detect an obstacle (a stopped or slow vehicle) ahead, verify whether you seem to be closing on it too quickly, measure whether it looks like a motor vehicle, and gradually apply the brakes so as to stop neatly just behind it it while giving those behind you the maximum time to spot your brake lights and stop themselves.
  And of course most of you will have seen lane-keeping and auto-parking because those are now routine standard features on good family cars. You may have seen alertness prompting (the car measures whether you seem to be drowsy and if so it vibrates the wheel and suggests you pull over and take a nap) and perhaps pedestrian detection (the car detects things that look human and whose path will intersect with yours and brakes to prevent collision) and urban crash safety (the car detects that you've unavoidably initiated a collision, it applies brakes to try to reduce the impact speed and pre-tensions seatbelts for the crash).
  All this stuff I listed is already for sale, right now there are people (probably wealthier than you) who have these technologies in the car they regularly drive. The Nissan is just adding a few extra features on top.
57. Re: Curiously? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-28 03:17 · Score: 0
  
  those are breitenberg vehicles, and the non-obvious behaviour is 'emergent order', thinks like they collectively behave as a school of fish, or a flock of birds (you know lots of autonomous actors real close together but somehow avoiding big pilups)
58. Re:Curiously? by DadLeopard · 2013-09-28 05:58 · Score: 1
  
  Seems that is a problem that has been thought of a long time ago! There is a Federally mandated not for profit organization that is a clearing house for all that data and helps industry to come up with clear standards for the collection, distribution and utilization of this kind of information and many others. Check out http://www.itsa.org/ It's been around for quite while now!
59. Re: Curiously? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-28 06:45 · Score: 0
  
  Many of the items you bring up are such that an autonomous car makes a better assessment than you do. An autonomous car can better predict the needed braking distance based on car weight, road inclination, road conditions right there (you do know that they have sensors for that?) and a better view of everything surrounding you. And if you factor in whether other drivers seem awake and alert into such decisions you're certainly being irresponsible because then you're dealing with such an uncertain variable that you shouldn't base anything on it. But if we say that some of the things you brought up are valid. Are you sure you wouldn't prefer having a reaction time that is a hundredth of yours even if it meant that those things were not considered. In terms of distance, the difference is pretty big and even bigger when vehicles start to communicate their braking actions to other vehicles.
  However, I think you're just trolling since in another post you claim that humans were not removed from "driving" when we had horses instead of cars. Or are you seriously telling me that many people didn't get hurt when they lost control of the horse they were riding or that was pulling their cart? That was really removed from driving since autonomous cars - unlike horses - can have an emergency stop button. On the upside, on familiar roads people actually had somewhat autonomous vehicles back then - in the old days many tired farmers could take a nap in their carts on the way home since their horses remembered the way anyway.
60. Re:Curiously? by epyT-R · 2013-09-28 13:17 · Score: 1
  
  Safety isn't the be-all-end-all if it means that others have the power to dictate if, when, and where I may travel. It's already bad enough as it is.
61. Re: Curiously? by epyT-R · 2013-09-28 13:19 · Score: 1
  
  As they presume to know about me, and what I want/need. it's not like they're unbiased, since they've invested themselves, their money, and bet their careers..
62. Re: Curiously? by epyT-R · 2013-09-28 13:21 · Score: 1
  
  My concern is that at some point, you won't have a choice. If you want to travel by car, you'll have to buy one of these accident-waiting-to-happen devices. Anything else will be made illegal (or just very very very expensive and limited) by hollywood-technology trained authorities, who will really be in it for the remote control and monitoring aspects anyway.
63. Re: Curiously? by epyT-R · 2013-09-28 13:25 · Score: 1
  
  It's not a valid comparison. Traffic lights have very limited set of inputs and outputs..and they don't control anything. They just light lamps. The driver has to be contextually aware enough to know when to obey and when not to. The world isn't a precision stopwatch you know.
64. Re: Curiously? by epyT-R · 2013-09-28 13:27 · Score: 1
  
  So the only type of train accident to consider is someone being run down?
  The point is, the computer cannot possibly take into account all situations. Maybe someday in the future, we'll build a machine that can, but at the moment, they're not even close to the contextual awareness of a human.
65. Re: Curiously? by stoatwblr · 2013-09-28 13:31 · Score: 1
  
  The only place I've ever seen 4-way stops is in the USA. The rest of the woprld uses roundabouts where it's important and prioritises one direction where it's not.
66. Re: Curiously? by epyT-R · 2013-09-28 13:45 · Score: 1
  
  That's if everything is working correctly.. If the cheap chinese made sensor arrays don't have crud in them, if computer board is working properly, and, if the software is bug free.. Programming heuristics is often intractable. Apple can't even get siri to understand that 'bowling' is not the same thing as 'blow job' when the user has a cold.
  'emergency stop' is only one of many such life saving actions... To be effective, the others all require something more contextually aware at the controls than a craptastic cut-rate embedded cpu programmed by cutrate overworked programmers. Reaction time is one component, but it's useless if it's slaved to an awareless AI.
  The fastest horses can do about 40mph for short distances, and they are specifically bred for it. The average horseride trots along at what? 8-15mph? This is not the same thing as hurtling down the highway at 70 in a machine with preprogrammed assumptions as the only defense between the passengers and their deaths. Comparing horses to self-driving cars is not a valid comparison
67. Re: Curiously? by JWSmythe · 2013-09-28 15:30 · Score: 1
  
  I don't have any specific cases to list, but I do know that different jurisdictions in my state have different rules.
  There are weird things too. How does it know if a driver is speeding? Obviously, the VSS gives the ground speed, but what about the posted speeds? I use a Garmin GPS as my primary navigation tool, and I update it frequently. I also use a variety of apps on my phone mounted on the dash. The Garmin is great at navigation and traffic. Others get their traffic data from other places, so I use a combination of them to know how to get where I'm going.
  When I hit where I live, the last 1.5 miles there is a posted speed limit of 20 mph. Based on the kind of road, the speed limits should be 30 mph to 45 mph. None of my devices indicate what my speed should be.
  So the car would most likely believe the speed limit should be at least 30 mph. About once every couple months, the police set up to bust people speeding, and they *will* ticket for 5mph over the speed limit.
  Construction zones come and go rather rapidly, and here it's double the fine for speeding through those. I got hit with that one. 65mph is the normal speed limit. The "construction" speed limit was 40mph, even though there was no construction going on. I was doing 65mph. The officer was more than happy to write out the fat ticket for 25mph over. I had to retain a lawyer for, as it could have been considered a criminal offense. A car like that would do a wonderful job of automating the offenses.
  
  --
  Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
68. Re: Curiously? by EdZ · 2013-09-28 21:44 · Score: 1
  
  What you are thinking of is Swarm Robotics. And you misrepresent the field quite insultingly: it was far from a case of plonking down some simple robots and noting "wow, they do all sorts of things we didn't expect!". The entire point was to confirm that the emergent behaviour that had previous been simulated with virtual swarm agents, and prior to that theorised as the cause of insect behaviour, was possible to replicate, and to codify if the physical medium of interaction added any notable additional factors to the swarm behaviour (it does mainly due to computational imitations of the simulation, and computational robotics is now a big and mostly biomimetic field, e.g. using mobile driven whiskers for impact sensing).
  
  What does this have to do with autonomous vehicles? For a start, while autonomous cars are in the minority they will be interacting almost entirely with human drivers. This is the WORST CASE scenario for autonomous vehicles. Once you have a large proportion of vehicles being autonomous, you can begin to have communication between vehicles, and produce behaviour like convoying that is impossible for human-operated or human/autonomous mixes to perform. There are plenty of simulations of large numbers of autonomous vehicles around, mostly to see how to optimise behaviour to produce superior traffic flow; for example removing junction signalling and allowing autonomous vehicles to freely and continuously merge and cross each other is far more efficient than turn-by-turn streamed releases. Papers and reports on this sort of modelling abound. Here's one that turned up after about 5 seconds of googling, with a few hundred thousand of its cohorts available.
69. Re:Curiously? by delt0r · 2013-09-29 03:22 · Score: 1
  
  And where are you going to find this responsible human?
  
  --
  If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
70. Re: Curiously? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-29 07:25 · Score: 0
  
  That's if everything is working correctly.. If the cheap chinese made sensor arrays don't have crud in them, if computer board is working properly, and, if the software is bug free.. Programming heuristics is often intractable.
  Anything critical will have multiple redundancies but Chinese sensors won't be placed in cars until they pass the necessary tests. Chinese cars are kept from our markets for now for the very reason that they fail tests. Government mandated regulation and testing of cars seems to work pretty well.
  
  Apple can't even get siri to understand that 'bowling' is not the same thing as 'blow job' when the user has a cold.
  'emergency stop' is only one of many such life saving actions...
  You cannot compare the two. First of all, you cannot compare the development of a "smart assistant" with the development of software that human lives depend on. Second, traffic is regulated so that everyone should act consistently because it's safer. The intention with Siri was to meet a completely different goal - to understand the inconsistent way in which people speak casually.
  
  To be effective, the others all require something more contextually aware at the controls than a craptastic cut-rate embedded cpu programmed by cutrate overworked programmers. Reaction time is one component, but it's useless if it's slaved to an awareless AI.
  Why do you think that? Considering the importance of getting the programming right, I doubt that you should be concerned about that if you're not concerned about overworked demotivated workers on production lines where one mistake only affects one vehicle. Besides, car recalls are not unheard of and not cheap so manufacturers will put in serious effort into getting the components right and since virtually the same AI can drive all autonomous models by the same car manufacturer profits from the first models don't even have to cover the development costs - unlike with almost all other components that are only suitable for one model during a couple of years until it needs to be redesigned just to appear new.
  
  The fastest horses can do about 40mph for short distances, and they are specifically bred for it. The average horseride trots along at what? 8-15mph? This is not the same thing as hurtling down the highway at 70 in a machine with preprogrammed assumptions as the only defense between the passengers and their deaths. Comparing horses to self-driving cars is not a valid comparison
  I didn't make the original comparison. I highlighted the stupidity in the parent posters comparison (in a different thread) by showing how it's such an invalid comparison that it's easy to twist it to be in favor of autonomous cars instead of against them.
71. Re:Curiously? by aliquis · 2013-09-29 19:08 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah. I googled it and saw the governor title or whatever. Never bothered in investigating further. Turned out I should had I guess :)
72. Re:Curiously? by Neil+Boekend · 2013-09-30 00:57 · Score: 1
  
  Long term this is counterproductive to that. The only way for fewer people to die is fewer people to be born. One of the few ways to achieve that is for people to die before their first child. Increasing road safety would decrease the percentage of deaths before reproduction.
  
  By the way, condoms are a nicer way to cause fewer people to die.
  
  --
  Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
73. Re: Curiously? by Obfuscant · 2013-09-30 05:48 · Score: 1
  
  What you are thinking of is Swarm Robotics.
  
  No, actually, what I was thinking of was subsumption architecture and the name Rodney Brooks. It's the recognition that some interesting behaviours develop from groupings of lower function autonomous systems. I'm sorry if you feel insulted because I didn't say it the way you wanted. And thanks for trying to tell me what I was thinking.
  
  What does this have to do with autonomous vehicles?
  Autonomous vehicles are independent autonomous systems that interact indirectly, just like the insects that demonstrate your "swarm behaviour". Nobody sits at the top level saying "all you ants, line up single file and head east". The line of ants comes from emergent behaviour based on simple rules.
  Stock market havok can result from a swarm of autonomous trading programs, all acting independently but interacting indirectly. One program is nudged to sell sell sell. Other programs see the trades and decide to sell or buy. Other programs see that and do something. On normal days that works out ok. On some days, not so well. Do you think the designers of those programs anticipated the negative results? Do you think that being able to react to stimuli in microseconds compared to seconds actually improves the chances for positive outcomes?
  Now apply that to a freeway full of autonomous vehicles. Throw in a human driver for good measure. How will the entire freeway of independent vehicles react to various issues? Are you seriously trying to claim that a system of hundreds of cars made by tens of manufacturers that haven't actually been produced yet is a well understood system? That models of nonexistent objects can tell us everything there is to know about those objects, especially when those objects aren't even fully designed yet? That arrogance is the insulting part, I think.
  
  Here's one that turned up after about 5 seconds of googling,
  I spent a considerable amount of time googling for the person I was thinking of with no luck. I'm glad you found something you were interested in in just 5 seconds. Yes, I found lots of papers by lots of other people, all pretty much following Rodney's work, but unfortunately not what I was looking for until I got the name right. Assuming that I must not have spent even five seconds because I didn't find the papers you thought I should be thinking about is, well, arrogant.
74. Re: Curiously? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-30 09:35 · Score: 0
  
  What do stoplights do if not control the flow of traffic?
Now it just remains to be seen... by Kjella · 2013-09-27 07:51 · Score: 5, Insightful

Now it just remains to be seen if drivers will continue to pay attention to the road, or if it becomes so autonomous that people start slacking (more) behind the wheel. It really won't work to have a car that drives itself 90% of the time and then expects you go randomly jump in for the last 10%. Still, nice to see this tech getting closer to reality.

--
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
1. Re:Now it just remains to be seen... by Dimwit · 2013-09-27 07:55 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  That's what worries me. The transition to fully automatic cars needs to be essentially 100%, or at least 99% with a "pull over and stop moving" for the remaining 1%. Otherwise I would've be surprised if fatalities went *up* due to drivers taking a nap/getting drunk/reading a book and failing to notice when they need to take back over.
  
  --
  ...but it's being eaten...by some...Linux or something...
2. Re:Now it just remains to be seen... by MightyYar · 2013-09-27 07:57 · Score: 1
  
  I think that it would rather obviously need to fail safe. Depending on the contingency, this could include a panic stop - but the system can't just depend on the driver to "jump in".
  
  --
  W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
3. Re:Now it just remains to be seen... by pablo_max · 2013-09-27 08:01 · Score: 2
  
  I dont think that is true at all.
  I think it will start the way most things do. Baby steps. Most likely there will be dedicated lanes to encourage people to adopt the tech. Like fast trax or something.
  No doubt there will be a charge by the state to actually use the lane though, thus reducing its appeal.
4. Re:Now it just remains to be seen... by lgw · 2013-09-27 08:07 · Score: 2
  
  That's exactly the problem I'm most eager to see how Nissan solves.
  I have their system that's 1 step back from this: it can only steer gently with the brakes (using the brakes on one side or the other), but it will keep a safe distance form the car in front of you, even stopping as needed, keep you from drifting out of a lane if you're not paying attention, and, if you let it, brake for you in cases where it seems you're not paying attention. It's good enough that, even though you can't take your hands off the wheel, I sometimes have to remember in a hurry that my car won't stop for that red light if there no one ahead of me.
  How and when and if the driver is supposed to "jump in" is really the rub. And how easy is it to override if it gets it wrong?
  
  --
  Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
5. Re:Now it just remains to be seen... by toastar · 2013-09-27 08:08 · Score: 1
  
  A panic stop on the freeway can be pretty deadly
6. Re:Now it just remains to be seen... by lgw · 2013-09-27 08:08 · Score: 1
  
  Oh, nearly forgot my favorite feature: warn you if you're trying to change lanes and someone's in your blind spot.
  
  --
  Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
7. Re:Now it just remains to be seen... by JaredOfEuropa · 2013-09-27 08:11 · Score: 1
  
  It sounds like people won't have to jump in randomly or unexpectedly, rather there are some types of roads that the system won't handle, requiring the driver to take over. It also sounds that if these systems sense a need to switch to manual control, warn the driver but get no response (hands on the wheel), they can at least bring the car to a controlled stop at the side of the road.
  
  --
  If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
8. Re:Now it just remains to be seen... by cusco · 2013-09-27 08:21 · Score: 2
  
  Pet Peeve
  If you have a blind spot your mirrors are adjusted wrong. Every Drivers Education course teaches students to adjust the mirrors so that the driver can see the side of the car, but unless you're worried about a quarter-panel falling off and not noticing it you really don't need to see your own car. The mirrors should be adjusted outwards so that you need to move your head at least 6"/20 cm to the right or left before you see the side of the car. Once you've done that drive slowly past a parked car and you'll see that the car appears in your peripheral vision just before it goes out of view in the mirror.
  
  --
  "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
9. Re:Now it just remains to be seen... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 08:28 · Score: 0
  
  This is a well known problem with glass cockpits.
10. Re:Now it just remains to be seen... by sexconker · 2013-09-27 08:30 · Score: 1
  
  Pet Peeve
  If you have a blind spot your mirrors are adjusted wrong. Every Drivers Education course teaches students to adjust the mirrors so that the driver can see the side of the car, but unless you're worried about a quarter-panel falling off and not noticing it you really don't need to see your own car. The mirrors should be adjusted outwards so that you need to move your head at least 6"/20 cm to the right or left before you see the side of the car. Once you've done that drive slowly past a parked car and you'll see that the car appears in your peripheral vision just before it goes out of view in the mirror.
  None of that works when you're on the freeway trying to merge one lane to the right and someone 2 lanes to the right of you is trying to merge one lane to the left.
11. Re:Now it just remains to be seen... by Obfuscant · 2013-09-27 08:34 · Score: 2
  
  Most likely there will be dedicated lanes to encourage people to adopt the tech.
  Yeah, we have so many empty lanes now that dedicating one of them to a small percentage of cars that are "not autonomous autonomous vehicles" will be a really smart idea to solve traffic problems.
  This "not autonomous autonomous vehicle" automatically stops at red lights? How nice. The local store has a red light in their signage out front and all the cars stop. Good for the store. Bad for the traffic, especially the updated version of the "not autonomous autonomous vehicle" which has that bug fixed and doesn't feel like stopping, and runs into V1.0.
  "Hello, Toyota support? My autonomous vehicle computer crashed." "Did you try to reboot?" "No, I mean it crashed into the autonomous vehicle computer in the car ahead of me."
  The headline is deliberately misleading. It's not an autonomous vehicle if is isn't autonomous, which even the summary admits.
12. Re:Now it just remains to be seen... by h4rr4r · 2013-09-27 08:40 · Score: 2
  
  THIS!
  Push the mirrors all the way out. The rear view and sides should not have any overlap ideally.
13. Re:Now it just remains to be seen... by holmstar · 2013-09-27 08:45 · Score: 1
  
  Exactly. You can use mirrors to keep an eye on your surroundings, but you should always take a quick glance over your shoulder to check for situations like that or, for example, a motorcycle that still manages to fit in your blind spot (even with your mirrors properly adjusted).
14. Re:Now it just remains to be seen... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 08:45 · Score: 1
  
  This does depend on the car. When I drive my wife's Toyota Yaris and set the mirrors correctly, I feel like I have a seamless 360-degree vision without so much as moving my head. When I drive my own Chevy HHR (which I bought for its other qualities), there are blind wedges pointing in every direction. I've had near-misses just backing out of my driveway with a good view along the road, because the passenger side B pillar is wide enough and perfectly placed to hide approaching traffic. So now I check by first leaning against the windshield, then leaning back and wedging between the front seats, to see around the damn thing. :P
15. Re:Now it just remains to be seen... by ShanghaiBill · 2013-09-27 09:00 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I dont think that is true at all.
  Of course it is not true, because the entire premise of the GGPP's objection is false. Self driving cars do not expect the human driver to "randomly" jump in. If the SDC calculates that it cannot make the best decision, it will prompt the human to take over. If the human does not respond, the SDC will either continue if it is reasonably safe to do so, or pull over and stop. The people designing these systems are not morons.
16. Re:Now it just remains to be seen... by timeOday · 2013-09-27 09:05 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Get ready to be annoyed for about 30 years, because "automated" commonly means "more automated than before," not "automated in every conceivable way."
  Your example about how this might cause a crash is incorrect, since the car doesn't just follow rules (such as red lights) in the hopes everybody else will also follow them perfectly. They do what you do - they also watch for and avoid other cars, pedestrians, and other obstacles (regardless of why the other car is doing whatever it's doing).
  Still I do worry about how they will accurately see stoplights and stop for the intersection even if no other cars are in view. There are bad lighting conditions where it's extremely difficult to do. (I guess as a backup it could know the GPS location of stoplights and stop if it doesn't see the light and confirm that it is green). But I am sure we will end up with some level of instrumentation on the road such as stoplights that emit at a frequency not obfuscated by sunlight, snow, etc, like visible light is.
17. Re:Now it just remains to be seen... by Obfuscant · 2013-09-27 09:19 · Score: 1
  
  Get ready to be annoyed for about 30 years, because "automated" commonly means "more automated than before," not "automated in every conceivable way."
  
  Perhaps that's why the word being used is "autonomous", not "automated".
  
  They do what you do - they also watch for and avoid other cars,
  Part of fixing the bug that says "stop at any red light no matter where it is" results in "don't pay any attention to the red lights on the cars in front of you."
  
  pedestrians
  In my state, you aren't a pedestrian to be stopped for unless you are IN the crosswalk. Standing on the side of the road looking wistfully at cars as they pass doesn't cut it.
  
  (I guess as a backup it could know the GPS location of stoplights and stop if it doesn't see the light and confirm that it is green).
  So we're all expecting that they will stop when they have absolutely no reason to, which will certainly do wonders for improving traffic flow and safety. I love the idea of autonomous cars more and more each time the topic comes up.
  
  But I am sure we will end up with some level of instrumentation on the road such as stoplights that emit at a frequency not obfuscated by sunlight, snow, etc, like visible light is.
  We already have instrumentation in the roads that detect when cars are there so they can cycle the traffic lights. Before they came up with one sensitive enough for bikes, it was fun to watch a law-abiding cyclist (yes, there are some) stopped at a red light waving his bike around the road hoping to trigger the signal so he could go.
  Sometimes, though, the sensor wasn't sensitive enough for cars, and other than backing up and trying again, there was no way of "waving your car" to try to get it to trigger, so you were left with deciding how long was too long and when you could justifiably run the red light. I can imagine a world where that sensor has a transmitter to tell the car it is at an intersection with a red light so the car will stop, and a world where a few critical transmitters fail and new autonomous not autonomous vehicles blow through a red and get t-boned by a semi.
  I for one welcome our new robot overlords. Hand me the dikes, I need to clip a few wires ...
18. Re:Now it just remains to be seen... by lgw · 2013-09-27 09:23 · Score: 1
  
  Which is great in theory, but you will always have a blind spot of some sort unless you have heavy-truck-size mirrors. RADAR doesn't have the blind spots, which is nice.
  
  --
  Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
19. Re:Now it just remains to be seen... by Mr.+Slippery · 2013-09-27 09:28 · Score: 2
  
  If you have a blind spot your mirrors are adjusted wrong.
  You do realize that your advice only moves the blind spot, right? If I can't see the edge of my own car, that means the blind spot is immediately next to my car -- where a pedestrian or bicyclist might be.
  
  --
  Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
  You cannot wash away blood with blood
20. Re:Now it just remains to be seen... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 09:35 · Score: 0
  
  Traffic lights are already designed to be as visible as possible, and they do that job (being seen by human drivers) well enough that nobody worries about their frequencies being obfuscated by sunlight or snow.
  A robot vehicle can have several advantages over a human driver. For one, it can pay attention at all times. For another, it would know where it was via GPS (with some dead reckoning should GPS fail) and where all the nearby traffic lights were - and even how high above the road to look. And yes, it could probably pick up infra-red pulses from traffic lights, speed limit signs etc. if such a system was in place.
  Plus, if these cars were mostly used for regular commutes & shopping trips along the same routes, it would probably remember where it usually stops for red lights, where it usually spots a lot of pedestrians, where the driver swerved to avoid that cat that one time, and so on. Many new cars can park themselves, so soon we'll expect them to be able to navigate our driveways as well, so they'll need to be able to remember things like that.
21. Re:Now it just remains to be seen... by CauseBy · 2013-09-27 09:52 · Score: 1
  
  You don't think it stops if confronted with a situation it can't understand? I'd be surprised if it did anything else. What do you think it does, go into a mode of "coast forward with no control"?
22. Re:Now it just remains to be seen... by Obfuscant · 2013-09-27 09:54 · Score: 1
  
  Traffic lights are already designed to be as visible as possible,
  
  When your initial premise is wrong, expect the rest to be wrong, too.
  
  Plus, if these cars were mostly used for regular commutes & shopping trips along the same routes, it would probably remember where it usually stops for red lights,
  
  Judge: "Why didn't you signal your right turn?"
  Me: "I always turn right at that intersection. Everyone knows that."
  Judge: "Why, not guilty of course. How stupid of me to forget what you 'always do'."
  Of course everyone will know where you "usually" stop for a red light and know you're going to stop there again when your computer fails to detect the green light.
23. Re:Now it just remains to be seen... by CauseBy · 2013-09-27 09:56 · Score: 2
  
  That's one way. Another is to get blind-spot mirrors. I have a little one on each side and I love them.
24. Re:Now it just remains to be seen... by timeOday · 2013-09-27 10:23 · Score: 1
  
  Plus, if these cars were mostly used for regular commutes & shopping trips along the same routes, it would probably remember where it usually stops for red lights, where it usually spots a lot of pedestrians, where the driver swerved to avoid that cat that one time, and so on.
  
  I suppose the car will learn not only from its own experience, but that of, eventually, thousands and then millions of other cars on the road as well. Maybe a few zany-looking cars of the type google uses to create street view will map out all the roads with bulky lidar and high-definition cameras, perform an insane amount of off-line processing, and then humans will hand-verify the location of everything that isn't clear. Cars will download all this as they drive along a new road so they are familiar with the road before they get there. And if a few of the cars licensing their technology go through an intersection on a given day and fail to see things in the expected place, some update will be triggered. And the car will say to the driver, "I'm getting nervous, please take over for me." I would imagine google and others are whiteboarding all this stuff and filing patents at a torrid pace.
  Oh, what do you know, google street view cars already collect lidar:
  
  Secondly, the Googleâ Street View vehicles capture data which most people are not familiar with. This data is known as LIDAR (LI ght D etection A nd R anging).
  So there you go, google already knows the location of every curb and every speed bump, as of whenever one of their cars last went by.
25. Re:Now it just remains to be seen... by Kjella · 2013-09-27 10:25 · Score: 1
  
  Of course it is not true, because the entire premise of the GGPP's objection is false. Self driving cars do not expect the human driver to "randomly" jump in. If the SDC calculates that it cannot make the best decision, it will prompt the human to take over. If the human does not respond, the SDC will either continue if it is reasonably safe to do so, or pull over and stop. The people designing these systems are not morons.
  But that's just the point, this isn't a self driving car. It's a very sophisticated driving assistant that'll handle the routine driving but throw any unexpected situation it doesn't recognize or doesn't handle in your lap. Or are you trying to argue that Nissan is taking full responsibility and liability for how this car drives while this system is active? Because I'm pretty sure they don't. The day you're no more than a swap-in driver which happen to be sitting in the driver's seat instead of the passenger seat, fine. But on the road to that future there'll be hybrids that sort of drive themselves but demand you're there alert and attentive to override the system. And it was the hybrids I worried about, not the true self-driving cars.
  
  --
  Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
26. Re:Now it just remains to be seen... by ShanghaiBill · 2013-09-27 10:40 · Score: 1
  
  throw any unexpected situation it doesn't recognize or doesn't handle in your lap.
  No it doesn't. Only a complete moron would design it that way. And everyone else on the team, and the full management chain would need to be morons as well. The system will prompt the driver to take over, and if the driver does not respond, it will follow the safest course of action, which may be to continue in autonomous mode, or may be to pull over and stop. There is no way in hell that a self driving car sold to the public is going to just turn itself off while flying down the freeway.
27. Re:Now it just remains to be seen... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 10:44 · Score: 0
  
  The car could stop, and punish you for not paying attention, making you angry, and then having to apply the government approved sleeping gas.
28. Re:Now it just remains to be seen... by MightyYar · 2013-09-27 11:36 · Score: 1
  
  Not if all the cars are automated :)
  Panic stops happen all the time. I had to panic stop for a deer recently. I've been run into during a panic stop, too (the car in front of me panic stopped). I would assume that a panic stop would be a last-resort maneuver - if the logic got to an unhandled state or enough sensors were lost to warrant such a thing. I imagine that would be quite rare - probably less frequent than a tire blow out, for example.
  
  --
  W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
29. Re:Now it just remains to be seen... by David_Hart · 2013-09-27 11:44 · Score: 1
  
  Pet Peeve
  If you have a blind spot your mirrors are adjusted wrong. Every Drivers Education course teaches students to adjust the mirrors so that the driver can see the side of the car, but unless you're worried about a quarter-panel falling off and not noticing it you really don't need to see your own car. The mirrors should be adjusted outwards so that you need to move your head at least 6"/20 cm to the right or left before you see the side of the car. Once you've done that drive slowly past a parked car and you'll see that the car appears in your peripheral vision just before it goes out of view in the mirror.
  Exactly. I put the small round mirrors on mine. I can tell at a glance if the lane is clear and if there is room for my entire car to move over without cutting anyone off. I originally got them for towing my boat so that I could see further back, but I find that they are invaluable as they completely eliminate my blind spot.
30. Re:Now it just remains to be seen... by Obfuscant · 2013-09-27 12:19 · Score: 1
  
  Maybe a few zany-looking cars of the type google uses to create street view will map out all the roads with bulky lidar and high-definition cameras, perform an insane amount of off-line processing, and then humans will hand-verify the location of everything that isn't clear. Cars will download all this as they drive along a new road so they are familiar with the road before they get there.
  I seem to recall there being a story here in /. about an airport in Fairbanks Alaska needing to block off a taxiway because a GPS system kept telling people to go that way and cross an active runway to get to the airport. This was with cars where a human was in charge and no autonomous control whatsoever. But if we put a computer using GPS driving instructions in charge, nothing like this would ever happen?
  
  "I'm getting nervous, please take over for me."
  Sorry, I'm in the middle of the final episode of Breaking Bad and my hands are filled with roast beef sandwich. And I haven't hand driven for two years. That's your job. What do you expect me to do?
  
  So there you go, google already knows the location of every curb and every speed bump, as of whenever one of their cars last went by.
  Well, thank God that roads never change after Google takes pictures of them.
31. Re:Now it just remains to be seen... by Obfuscant · 2013-09-27 12:42 · Score: 1
  
  No it doesn't. Only a complete moron would design it that way. And everyone else on the team, and the full management chain would need to be morons as well.
  
  Two words about software designers and management chains: Windows 8. Need I say more?
32. Re:Now it just remains to be seen... by Kjella · 2013-09-27 20:25 · Score: 1
  
  The system will prompt the driver to take over, and if the driver does not respond, it will follow the safest course of action, which may be to continue in autonomous mode, or may be to pull over and stop. There is no way in hell that a self driving car sold to the public is going to just turn itself off while flying down the freeway.
  It's not a self driving car until you're never required to actively take over control, only passively take over control when the car asks you to. And by required I mean required by law, not whether the car tells you about it or not because it might not know or understand. Nissan's car is like that, I never said it'd turn itself off but you're required to jump in whenever the "very advanced cruise control" doesn't drive safely. Those will get better and better, you will do less and less but you're still required by law to be the driver in charge at all times. Why do you keep denying that companies will sell cars like that when Nissan and others are busy building cars exactly like that????
  
  --
  Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
33. Re:Now it just remains to be seen... by AmiMoJo · 2013-09-27 21:23 · Score: 2
  
  Do you honestly think that the engineers developing this thing are that stupid, and have not thought of your obvious and easily fixed issues?
  Clearly any semi-autonomous vehicle will be able to detect other vehicles and not crash into them, even if it thinks the light isn't on red. One of the obvious test cases when developing this tech is to make sure it doesn't hit broken down or stalled vehicles just because it thinks it has a green light. It seems unlikely that it would even mistake a red sign for the traffic light anyway, since like a human driver it would notice that the sign wasn't next to the road but set further back and not placed next to amber and green lights. Google has already demonstrated this working perfectly.
  There is also no chance of the driver falling asleep and failing to take over when required. The car would sound a loud alarm to warn them that they need to take control, and if they didn't it would simply pull over and stop rather than just letting go of the controls and crashing. Really, did you honestly expect such stupidity from the designers of vehicles that have to meet very high safety standards and which required extensive testing before being allowed on public roads?
  
  --
  const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
  SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
34. Re:Now it just remains to be seen... by u38cg · 2013-09-27 23:28 · Score: 1
  
  I suggest you phone up your insurer and tell them you're doing that, because when you kill a cyclist, they'll appreciate knowing that they're going to be able to decline your claim. You really think you're such a fucking genius you thought of something no other motorist did, ever? Thank goodness you're on another continent and I don't have to worry about you.
  
  --
  [FUCK BETA]
35. Re:Now it just remains to be seen... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-28 01:27 · Score: 0
  
  Yeah, yeah, but that's not safety-critical. Safety-critical systems are a whole other ballgame.
36. Re:Now it just remains to be seen... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-28 02:05 · Score: 0
  
  I sometimes have to remember in a hurry that my car won't stop for that red light if there no one ahead of me.
  That's a scary thought. I always thought that feature was in case you didn't notice the car in front of you stopping, but it sounds like you are starting to rely on it a bit too heavily (or getting close).
37. Re:Now it just remains to be seen... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-28 06:58 · Score: 0
  
  I seem to recall there being a story here in /. about an airport in Fairbanks Alaska needing to block off a taxiway because a GPS system kept telling people to go that way and cross an active runway to get to the airport. This was with cars where a human was in charge and no autonomous control whatsoever. But if we put a computer using GPS driving instructions in charge, nothing like this would ever happen?
  The likelihood would at least be much lower considering that human drivers that follow GPS seem to do so very rigorously when they're in unfamiliar areas (and why wouldn't they if they don't have any other map). Autonomous cars on the other hand don't use GPS for anything safety-critical.
  
  Well, thank God that roads never change after Google takes pictures of them.
  The most recent data would probably come from other automated cars as soon as they are driving around in significant numbers. Otherwise the data would of course come from official maps and incorporate all road repair information, which means that if any change is undocumented it's the government that is at fault.
38. Re:Now it just remains to be seen... by TheLink · 2013-09-28 07:03 · Score: 1
  
  With your adjustments:
  1) If you're in between two vehicles (front-rear) and a truck is behind and close to you, you can't change lanes safely since you can't see much behind using the side mirrors, and the middle mirror just shows the truck behind you. This can happen if the front car has stalled and a big truck is behind you. Or you need to change lanes for other reasons.
  2) you won't be able to spot motorcycles in the resulting blind spots and where I drive they end up more often in those areas than the usual blind spots.
  What you need are mirrors that are curved at the edge so that you see the side of your car AND still cars near to the side of your car.
  Even so it's usually good to look at the direction you are going before you change lanes. Someone else from another lane could be changing into the same lane you're trying to change to.
  --
  
  Too many replies beneath your current threshold
39. Re:Now it just remains to be seen... by cusco · 2013-09-28 15:56 · Score: 1
  
  If there's a bicyclist on the freeway they have more problems than whether there's a blind spot 12 inches wide next to my fender.
  
  --
  "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
40. Re:Now it just remains to be seen... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-28 16:02 · Score: 0
  
  multimillion dollar lawsuits, need i say more?
41. Re:Now it just remains to be seen... by u38cg · 2013-09-29 00:44 · Score: 1
  
  And your house, work, and supermarket are also on the freeway? Oh, and motorcycles don;t go on freeways, right? What the hell, I don't even know why I'm debating this. You're an idiot.
  
  --
  [FUCK BETA]
42. Re:Now it just remains to be seen... by delt0r · 2013-09-29 03:27 · Score: 1
  
  And how do you see in "bad lighting conditions"? Last time i checked we use a fairly narrow range of the electromagnetic spectrum with highy directional senseors that are in no way superior to the mechanical equivalent.
  
  --
  If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
43. Re:Now it just remains to be seen... by cusco · 2013-09-29 09:09 · Score: 1
  
  Do you commonly ride with your handlebars within an inch or so of the car fender? If so, you're the idiot, and that's how close you have to be to be in my blind spot.
  
  --
  "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
44. Re:Now it just remains to be seen... by lgw · 2013-09-29 09:28 · Score: 1
  
  You say "kill a cyclist" like it was a bad thing. I do wish people would keep their toys off my infrastructure. Fortunately, Nissan thought of this and the blind-spot RADAR turns off if you're going slow enough that there might be a cyclist there - wouldn't want to accidentally avoid culling.
  
  --
  Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
45. Re:Now it just remains to be seen... by lgw · 2013-09-29 09:31 · Score: 1
  
  If you're using the cruise control on the freeway, and you're in California where everything is fucking stupid, you can end up at stop lights. The cruise control is entirely dependable in keeping a good distance in front of you - you need to steer, but no reason to think about velocity, one way or the other.
  
  --
  Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
46. Re:Now it just remains to be seen... by Neil+Boekend · 2013-09-30 01:43 · Score: 1
  
  I do wish people would keep their CO2 spewing toys away from my atmosphere.
  
  --
  Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
47. Re:Now it just remains to be seen... by u38cg · 2013-09-30 21:56 · Score: 1
  
  In medium pace busy city traffic, it is common for cars to creep past cyclists in exactly that scenario. Which is fine, until you decide to turn. Without signalling. As a cyclist, I can assure you people do this quite a lot. Now granted, they're so dumb that it doesn't matter what they do with their mirrors, but it doesn't change the fact that if you did that and killed someone, you would be at fault.
  
  --
  [FUCK BETA]
48. Re:Now it just remains to be seen... by u38cg · 2013-09-30 21:59 · Score: 1
  
  Or a motorcyclist. Are those acceptably non-toy-like? And I quite enjoy not spending thousands every year on a transportation device, and spending it instead on *real* toys.
  
  --
  [FUCK BETA]
I am all for it by pablo_max · 2013-09-27 07:52 · Score: 3, Insightful

I cannot wait until we have automatic driving cars! I love to drive as much as the next guy. Hell, I am the go-to car guy among my friends and family. But I hate sitting in traffic to and from work. It is the same every day. I would love to be able to sit back and relax.
So long as I can still take my Jeep out on the weekends in manual mode, you'll hear no complaints form me.
1. Re:I am all for it by h4rr4r · 2013-09-27 07:55 · Score: 1
  
  It also means we can have a couple drinks with dinner without either fearing a DUI while sober .
2. Re:I am all for it by pablo_max · 2013-09-27 07:59 · Score: 2
  
  I already can. I live in Germany. I can literally drink a beer while driving. So long as I am not over the limit..it is legal. Not a good idea and I would not actually do it, but I could if I wanted.
3. Re:I am all for it by Dimwit · 2013-09-27 08:03 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Most state laws (I'm assuming you're in the United States) allow for a DUI conviction if you are in "actual control" of a vehicle. That means if you're asleep drunk in the car and the keys are also in the car, you can be found guilty. If you're parked on private land and drunk, you can be found guilty. If you're in the driver's seat in an automated car and the car could be switched to manual control, you could be convicted of DUI if you're drunk.
  
  --
  ...but it's being eaten...by some...Linux or something...
4. Re:I am all for it by mlts · 2013-09-27 08:03 · Score: 2
  
  It can mean intersections designed just for autopiloting cars. No signals needed, and instead of forcing traffic to stop, cars can be slowed down or sped up to keep an intersection constantly moving. Road upgrades is something that is something very few municipal areas want to deal with, and usually if it is a new highway, it is a toll road. This would allow existing infrastructure to work faster, especially if breakdown lanes are able to be used, and cars spaced on a road by width (SMART cars can be packed better than tractor trailer rigs.)
  Of course, the ability for the car to go by itself to an all-night garage for an oil change, then be in the driveway and ready for the morning commute is a nice bonus.
  No complaints here. Computers are not perfect, but they are better what we have.
5. Re:I am all for it by Kaenneth · 2013-09-27 08:15 · Score: 2
  
  If you are inside a bar, with your car keys in your pocket; that STILL can count as 'physical control'... A lot of DUI laws are influenced by teetotalers who don't want people to be able to drink at all (ala Prohibition). I don't drink myself, and I have zero sympathy for drunk drivers, but some of it is being pushed a little too far than needed.
6. Re:I am all for it by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 08:22 · Score: 0
  
  Your weekends in manual mode are other peoples' autonomously-driven commute. Nobody thinks they're going to be the cause of an accident until it happens; committing to truly fatality-free transportation will likely require far more sacrifice than you're looking for here. Airlines are flown by professionals and (all of the way down to maintenance) highly-regulated by the FAA, yet still produce fatalities.
  Maybe a better question: *can* we achieve fatality-free transportation systems? *Should* we, if it comes at the loss of freedom and/or pleasurable activities? I don't know the answer.
7. Re:I am all for it by mythosaz · 2013-09-27 08:26 · Score: 0
  
  *Citation needed.
8. Re:I am all for it by h4rr4r · 2013-09-27 08:42 · Score: 2
  
  We can at least try.
  Roads are for transportation not pleasure. If you want that drive on private roads or a track.
9. Re:I am all for it by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 08:49 · Score: 0
  
  Join me in Indiana where we can't buy booze or cars on Sunday (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_law and http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/01/19/indiana-strict-on-sunday-booze/1566476/). Next time you could use google yourself or just continue being an arrogant ass.
10. Re:I am all for it by Obfuscant · 2013-09-27 09:43 · Score: 0
  
  Roads are for transportation not pleasure.
  I'll be sure to tell the local and state road departments to take down all the "Scenic Loop" signs and close all the "viewpoint" stops in the mountain roads. Transportation, not pleasure, you hedonistic bastards!
  It's too bad in your universe that roads cannot serve more than one purpose.
11. Re:I am all for it by CauseBy · 2013-09-27 09:58 · Score: 1
  
  Your cite is unrelated to his request. Being unable to buy beer on Sunday is unrelated to getting a DUI while inside a bar.
12. Re:I am all for it by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 10:26 · Score: 0
  
  So long as I can still take my Jeep out on the weekends in manual mode, you'll hear no complaints form me.
  People are still allowed to ride horses...but not on all roads. The exact same thing will happen to manual cars. Only "regular" cars, i.e. the automated ones, will be allowed on highways in the future.
13. Re:I am all for it by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 11:22 · Score: 0
  
  Private land? I find that hard to believe since the driving laws only pertain when the vehicle is on a public road or public right-of-way. A good example is a shopping center, where the private property has right-of-way easement, therefore it is subject to state and/or local driving law enforcement. I could understand if police found you passed out and drunk on the side of the road, on private property, and they believe you were DUI while on the public road and pulled over to rest. However, you can get in your car while parked in a driveway and drink to your heart's content. If you owned a significant amount of open land, you can take an unregistered car and have unlicensed driver do doughnuts, while drinking from an open container.
14. Re:I am all for it by drinkypoo · 2013-09-27 11:34 · Score: 1
  
  It was legal not so many years ago for the driver to drink in the state of Texas. Last I checked, the passenger could still have an open container, but that may have been updated since.
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
15. Re:I am all for it by Kaenneth · 2013-09-27 11:48 · Score: 1
  
  http://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=46.61.504
  also fun reads:
  http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2008-05-29/news/heather-squires-was-arrested-for-dui-without-drinking-a-drop-of-alcohol/
  http://www.minotdailynews.com/page/content.detail/id/562773
16. Re:I am all for it by ShanghaiBill · 2013-09-27 13:19 · Score: 1
  
  I'll be sure to tell the local and state road departments to take down all the "Scenic Loop" signs and close all the "viewpoint" stops in the mountain roads.
  If the car drives itself, then you can relax and enjoy the scenery even more.
17. Re:I am all for it by Obfuscant · 2013-09-27 13:50 · Score: 1
  
  If the car drives itself, then you can relax and enjoy the scenery even more.
  Let's see, worry about whether the car will fail and try to kill me by driving off the edge of a mountain road, fail and suddenly say "you're it, start driving human, I can't deal with it", or simply drive myself and enjoy the trip. Hmmm. I can't decide which I'd rather do. What a quandary.
  But the I think the point was, roads are not for pleasure, they're for transportation. What scenery am I supposed to enjoy?
what happen when it miss reads an light? by Joe_Dragon · 2013-09-27 08:00 · Score: 1

That can be very unsafe / lead to a big accident.
I know of quite a few unusual road Unusual traffic light situations / intersections in the local metro area.
1. Re:what happen when it miss reads an light? by pablo_max · 2013-09-27 08:04 · Score: 1
  
  It seems a bit unlikely that a computer will miss read a color. I would say that a human is far more likely to not see a light. Besides, I imagine that once an automatic car system is in place, they will not be looking at a light, but rather receiving a radio signal with the current light conditions.
2. Re:what happen when it miss reads an light? by LanMan04 · 2013-09-27 08:12 · Score: 2
  
  I bet it misreads a light less frequently than a person blowing one accidentally/because they weren't looking.
  
  --
  With the first link, the chain is forged.
3. Re:what happen when it miss reads an light? by sandytaru · 2013-09-27 08:16 · Score: 1
  
  As long as it's programmed to handle all traffic contingencies with caution. We have a couple of one way streets in our town with legal left turns on red.
  
  --
  Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
4. Re:what happen when it miss reads an light? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 08:26 · Score: 0
  
  In Eindhoven, there was one particular road junction with a Media Markt on one corner. It had the entire wall covered in big shining letters, flooding the entire area with red light. I really wonder how a car would deal with these kinds of environmental distractions.
  The radio signal thing would probably make more sense, but what would it take to install such a system into every big junction?
5. Re:what happen when it miss reads an light? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 08:36 · Score: 0
  
  In Samurai Japan,
  All unusual lights are sliced out.
6. Re:what happen when it miss reads an light? by gameboyhippo · 2013-09-27 09:23 · Score: 1
  
  There's a traffic light near where I live that is unusually dim. Furthermore, with LEDs, it is possible that the light can be covered in snow. A human can see the dim red through the snow whereas a computer may not. Finally near where I live they have put in some funky new lights that indicates you can only turn left, but must yield to traffic. Threw me for a loop the first time I saw one.
7. Re:what happen when it miss reads an light? by ShanghaiBill · 2013-09-27 11:29 · Score: 1
  
  Finally near where I live they have put in some funky new lights that indicates you can only turn left, but must yield to traffic. Threw me for a loop the first time I saw one.
  It may have confused you the first time, but it would not confuse a self driving car. The SDC would already have the rules for that intersection in its knowledge base. There are about six million intersections in America's road system, so a kilobyte or so of info on each will easily fit on a thumb drive.
8. Re:what happen when it miss reads an light? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 11:32 · Score: 0
  
  Don't forget color-blind folks...and yes, not all, but *some* red lights are indistinguishable from green.
9. Re:what happen when it miss reads an light? by Obfuscant · 2013-09-27 14:09 · Score: 1
  
  The SDC would already have the rules for that intersection in its knowledge base.
  If you're going to continually assume perfection in perfectly available data, then you might as well just say you assume the self driving car is going to be perfect and leave it at that. No need for arguing about anything, we know the answer because you assume it will be that way. Only morons would produce autonomous vehicles that weren't perfect and weren't able to deal with an imperfect world, and we assume that there are no morons in the management or design teams.
  And we assumed that the o-rings in the Challenger solid rocket boosters would deal with frigid temperatures just fine. That turned out ok, I guess. The original designers of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge designed a simply perfect bridge. And the much smaller problem of navigation databases for automotive GPSs is a perfectly solved problem, too. Nobody ever gets hurt by trusting GPS navigation databases today, so much more complex systems will be fine and we should trust them with our lives. The literature is just replete with documented cases of humans designing perfect systems that behave perfectly all the time.
  Yes, I welcome our autonomous overlords, but pass me the dikes anyway.
10. Re:what happen when it miss reads an light? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 17:48 · Score: 0
  
  Lolololol, "pass me the lesbians".
  Did you mean "side cutters"?
Sounds great... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 08:04 · Score: 0

...if you're not a mechanic. Well, if you are a mechanic, it might be great in that there's so many systems to break, so much more income for you. Of course, most modern cars already have at least half of the systems automated, so it'll just be an incremental additional cost to most. If you drive an old car you'll be in for a big surprise!
So let me get this straight by DrXym · 2013-09-27 08:10 · Score: 1

The autonomous vehicle in the headline is actually just an advanced cruise control / driver assist system according to the synopsis. It doesn't surprise me that this is all this is (proper autonomous vehicles are a pipe dream for at least a few decades if not more) but it does make me wonder how a headline and description can be so far apart.
1. Re:So let me get this straight by mythosaz · 2013-09-27 08:28 · Score: 2
  
  Multiple auto manufacturers disagree with your "a few decades (or) more" assessment.
2. Re:So let me get this straight by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 08:31 · Score: 0
  
  It seems odd how they are trying to go "straight to the road". Seems like they should be having self-driving cars continually running at big businesses such as warehouses, airports, etc delivering materials, etc and see how many accidents they have. If this works OK, then next step would be do the same routine delivery type function that might use a public roadway for part of the trip.
  Next up: "drone truck fleets". Long-haul semis with coast-to-coast runs driven by drone pilots from warehouses. Never have to worry about sleep needs or potty breaks. A new driver can take over at another pilot station at any time. Give them large gas tanks and they wouldn't even need to stop. The routes would be continually mapped out by the trucks that drive them. Not used for city at first where there are too many unknowns.
3. Re:So let me get this straight by holmstar · 2013-09-27 08:59 · Score: 1
  
  It seems odd how they are trying to go "straight to the road". Seems like they should be having self-driving cars continually running at big businesses such as warehouses, airports, etc delivering materials, etc and see how many accidents they have
  Automated fork lifts are already becoming fairly common in larger warehouses and factories. These are actually fairly easy, since you have a controlled environment and areas that can be marked as off-limits to humans. Airports have an *awful* lot going on ramp-side, so it would take a bit more effort to automate the fleet of trucks, tugs, and other service vehicles. I'd wager that self driving cars will be here before significantly automated air ports.
4. Re:So let me get this straight by DrXym · 2013-09-27 09:40 · Score: 1
  
  Such as?
5. Re:So let me get this straight by Kjella · 2013-09-27 10:53 · Score: 1
  
  They might talk big but when it comes to actually taking over responsibility and liability for the driving, put your money where your mouth is. I bet we'll have years passing where companies have cars they think is almost ready but nobody wants to go out on a limb and say if this car runs over some school children then sue us for manslaughter, not the guy in the driver's seat. More and more advanced assistance that still leaves the final responsibility on you sure, but that truly self-driving car I think could take a very long time.
  
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Fukushima Tour by upto0013 · 2013-09-27 08:12 · Score: 1

Well that's good, nobody wants to drive through a radioactive wasteland and not see the sites.
Impressed by the most unimpressive aspect by loufoque · 2013-09-27 08:12 · Score: 2

Detecting a red light is probably the easiest thing in the whole system.
1. Re:Impressed by the most unimpressive aspect by ArcadeMan · 2013-09-27 08:21 · Score: 1
  
  You're not impressed that a car AI can do something that most people can't?
  
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2. Re:Impressed by the most unimpressive aspect by harvestsun · 2013-09-27 08:26 · Score: 2
  
  No, I'm not. Would you be impressed by a computer capable of multiplying two large numbers in half a second, just because most people can't? Ok that's a mediocre example, but it illustrates the flaw in your logic...
3. Re:Impressed by the most unimpressive aspect by Nemyst · 2013-09-27 08:27 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, it's not much of an AI is it? Actual artificial "intelligence" would be detecting a red light and figuring out whether you think you can make it through without crashing and without the cops catching you.
4. Re:Impressed by the most unimpressive aspect by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 08:32 · Score: 0
  
  Embedded control system != AI
5. Re:Impressed by the most unimpressive aspect by MozeeToby · 2013-09-27 08:57 · Score: 1
  
  Detecting a light colored red is very easy. Differentiating between every red light you are likely to see on the road and an actual stop stoplight is a bit harder. Detecting the transition to yellow and determining if it's safe to stop is also a bit harder. Determining where the stop line is, also a bit harder. Doing it all with 8 9's of accuracy? Damn hard.
6. Re:Impressed by the most unimpressive aspect by Hentes · 2013-09-27 08:57 · Score: 1
  
  Vision is something that's easy for humans but very hard for computers.
7. Re:Impressed by the most unimpressive aspect by bityz · 2013-09-27 09:09 · Score: 2
  
  That's nothing. Actual AI is seeing that the light has gone red, knowing that you should stop, but feeling that you don't really want to, and hoping that if you time it right you can kill the guy sitting inside you without damaging your own mind.
8. Re:Impressed by the most unimpressive aspect by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 09:21 · Score: 0
  
  Would you be impressed by a computer capable of multiplying two large numbers in half a second, just because most people can't?
  If it was the first of its kind? Certainly.
9. Re:Impressed by the most unimpressive aspect by CauseBy · 2013-09-27 09:59 · Score: 1
  
  I think he was kidding but maybe not.
10. Re:Impressed by the most unimpressive aspect by Obfuscant · 2013-09-27 14:17 · Score: 1
  
  Vision is something that's easy for humans but very hard for computers.
  Good point. If autonomous vehicles are so great, why aren't spammers buying them to solve Captchas for them?
11. Re:Impressed by the most unimpressive aspect by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-28 03:29 · Score: 0
  
  This.
  Also interesting with selfdriving cars and detection of things; does it detect SOME red lights or ALL red lights that are relevant to the route. Also, does it detect any red lights that are not relevant (lights for other lanes).
  My wife got a one-month driving ban in Germany for driving a red light in Düsseldorf (we lived there for 3 years). As it was a camera-thing we went back to the crossing and had to drive it 3 times before this one light for turning-left-when-the-straight-lane-light-20m-backwards-is-green-and-if-no-trams-are-coming made any sense to us. Would really like to see how a selfdriving car handles special cases.
The trouble with semi-automatic driving by Animats · 2013-09-27 08:17 · Score: 2

Now it just remains to be seen if drivers will continue to pay attention to the road, or if it becomes so autonomous that people start slacking (more) behind the wheel.
That's a big problem with "driver assistance systems". With both lane-keeping and "adaptive cruise control" installed, the driver can take their hands off the wheel. Once that's possible, some drivers will stop paying attention to the road. That won't end well, because those two functions are only sufficient for good freeway conditions. They don't handle attempts by other drivers to change into your lane, for example.
Audi has an "adaptive cruise control" system in test which also handles stop and go traffic. That will tempt people to use it in cities with pedestrians. But its systems aren't good enough to handle a crowded city. That's probably why Audi isn't shipping it yet. That also seems to be about where Tesla is aiming. This Nissan thing sounds like lane-keeping plus adaptive cruise control plus a user control for "change lane right/left".
Real automatic driving means that the auto manufacturer takes responsibility for accidents. That's not unreasonable. It just means a lease package which includes insurance protecting both manufacturer and driver. Once automatic driving is statistically safer than manual driving, that will be financially feasible.
building pedestrian bridges / underpass will cost by Joe_Dragon · 2013-09-27 08:23 · Score: 1

building pedestrian bridges / underpass will cost a lot so that sounds cool but likely will not happen in lots of areas.
not missing an color but reading the wrong by Joe_Dragon · 2013-09-27 08:27 · Score: 1

not missing an color but reading the wrong head or choking on Unusual traffic lights / intersections.
radio signals can be hacked / blocked / jammed / or misread as well. And a small gps accuracy issue can place a car on a main road with an green light when it really on the forage road that has an red with an radio based system.
1. Re:not missing an color but reading the wrong by ShanghaiBill · 2013-09-27 09:12 · Score: 1
  
  not missing an color but reading the wrong head or choking on Unusual traffic lights / intersections.
  A computer would be less likely to get this wrong than a human. Especially since the "weird intersection" is probably already in its knowledge base.
  
  radio signals can be hacked / blocked / jammed / or misread as well. And a small gps accuracy issue can place a car on a main road with an green light when it really on the forage road that has an red with an radio based system.
  Self driving cars have multiple sensors: GPS, cameras, radar, inertial sensors, rotation sensors, compasses. The readings from these sensors are continuously crossed checked. If the GPS suddenly reports that the car has instantaneously transported itself to a new location, I don't think it will be blindly trusted.
2. Re:not missing an color but reading the wrong by Obfuscant · 2013-09-27 10:00 · Score: 1
  
  If the GPS suddenly reports that the car has instantaneously transported itself to a new location, I don't think it will be blindly trusted.
  You're in the middle lane of I65 going 65MPH surrounded by other cars when YOUR car suddenly decides it doesn't know where it is and needs to stop. Welcome to computer dementia. Happy travels, citizen!
3. Re:not missing an color but reading the wrong by ShanghaiBill · 2013-09-27 11:19 · Score: 1
  
  You're in the middle lane of I65 going 65MPH surrounded by other cars when YOUR car suddenly decides it doesn't know where it is and needs to stop. Welcome to computer dementia.
  Protip: If a problem is obvious to you after five seconds of thought, then it is likely that it is also obvious to a team of professionals working on the system for years.
  There is no way in hell that this system will "suddenly stop" just because a sensor malfunctions. It will just use the other available sensors to determine the safest course of action to follow. That may mean continuing to drive, or it may mean pulling off the road as soon as it is safe to do so. But it certainly isn't going to just shut down.
4. Re:not missing an color but reading the wrong by Obfuscant · 2013-09-27 12:38 · Score: 1
  
  But it certainly isn't going to just shut down.
  I didn't say it just shut down. I said it decides it needs to stop.
  You admitted it doesn't know where it is. If the GPS failed, that means the GPS-based course and speed indications are unreliable. Of course the designers may have have thought of their idea of what to do in such a situation. Just like you've had time to think about it and can't see any course of action that would be called "needs to stop" that isn't "just shut down" or "suddenly stop."
  You blink, and while your eyes are closed you forget where you are and what direction you are going. Sounds like dementia. Welcome to GPS failure, citizen.
5. Re:not missing an color but reading the wrong by ShanghaiBill · 2013-09-27 12:55 · Score: 1
  
  You admitted it doesn't know where it is.
  No I didn't. I admitted that it would know that one sensor (out of dozens) had failed.
  
  If the GPS failed, that means the GPS-based course and speed indications are unreliable.
  Correct. So it would use the other sensors.
  
  You blink, and while your eyes are closed you forget where you are and what direction you are going. Sounds like dementia.
  Why would it "forget" where it was? It could just read the inertial sensors to detect any acceleration, read the rotary sensors in the wheels to determine its velocity, and calculate where it is from its last known position. It could also continue to use cameras for lane detection, cameras for landmark recognition, and a combination of cameras and radar for collision avoidance.
6. Re:not missing an color but reading the wrong by Obfuscant · 2013-09-27 13:43 · Score: 1
  
  No I didn't. I admitted that it would know that one sensor (out of dozens) had failed.
  And that one sensor is the one that tells it where it is. Sensor failed. GPS data unreliable. Where are you?
  
  Why would it "forget" where it was?
  Because the sensor that tells it where it is is unreliable, and without that data you don't know where you are. You knew five minutes ago because the GPS was working. You don't know now because it isn't. In human terms, we call that "forgetting".
  
  It could just read the inertial sensors to detect any acceleration
  Oh. The cars will all have INS to backup GPS. Sorry. Didn't assume this.
  
  read the rotary sensors in the wheels to determine its velocity,
  
  That's why I was very careful to say you've forgotten where you are, not forgotten how fast you are going wherever it is you are going. Even so, I've always found my "rotary sensors in the wheels" to be about 3 MPH off compared to the GPS. You've lost your most accurate speed sensor and are putting your life in the hands of, essentially, your speedometer, and hoping that your tires are inflated to the calibrated value so the rotation into distance calculations are right.
  
  and calculate where it is from its last known position.
  How long prior to the "teleportation" was the GPS not working correctly? I've dealt with GPS. High precision RTK systems. There have been times when the GPS says "I'm working fine" despite producing garbage position reports, then it decides there is a problem and says "your guess is as good as mine", and then it usually figures it out. But the GPS was sure it knew what it knew before it knew it didn't know. And then it was just as certain it knew where it was, after it was certain it was somewhere else. I didn't trust that system with my life like you expect us all to trust it when it gets put in a car.
  
  It could also continue to use cameras for lane detection,
  "I'm in the middle lane of some road which I think is I65." Ok.
  
  cameras for landmark recognition,
  "I see a mountain off in the distance, I think that's Mt. McKinley. Maybe it's Mt. Hood. It's at a bearing of 54 degrees from me, and I'm on I65, I think, so I must be right here." Ok.
  
  and a combination of cameras and radar for collision avoidance.
  So it won't collide with someone else deliberately when it decides it needs to stop. Notice I didn't say "slam on the brakes sudden stop" or "just shuts down". Still didn't say that. It will cause a lot of hassles for everyone else on the road, though, and some of those cars may have decided THEY need to stop, too, or handed control over to the human because their GPS failed for the same reason yours did -- blocked GPS. Fascinating news story out of New Jersey, I think it was. Fellow was carrying a GPS blocker in his delivery truck to foil his boss's attempt at tracking him. Screwed up GPS for everyone near the major airport he was driving around.
  You're putting a lot of faith in capitalists building cars that don't exist yet creating large scale systems of autonomous computers that may have interesting emergent behaviour. Every time one sensor fails you're hypothesizing another sensor to make up for it, sometimes using databases that don't exist and methods of navigation that are of such low accuracy you can't pilot a vehicle with the answers. It would be prudent to say "let's see how it turns out" instead of "it will be perfection and we'll all love it to death." It's that latter part that causes concern for some of us.
7. Re:not missing an color but reading the wrong by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-28 07:22 · Score: 0
  
  No I didn't. I admitted that it would know that one sensor (out of dozens) had failed.
  And that one sensor is the one that tells it where it is. Sensor failed. GPS data unreliable. Where are you?
  
  Why would it "forget" where it was?
  Because the sensor that tells it where it is is unreliable, and without that data you don't know where you are. You knew five minutes ago because the GPS was working. You don't know now because it isn't. In human terms, we call that "forgetting".
  
  It could just read the inertial sensors to detect any acceleration
  Oh. The cars will all have INS to backup GPS. Sorry. Didn't assume this.
  
  read the rotary sensors in the wheels to determine its velocity,
  Of course autonomous have a sophisticated INS in addition to multiple GPS devices (considering that they cost next to nothing nowadays). How do you expect an autonomous car to navigate in a parking garage or tunnel without an INS when it can't get a signal? Not to mention that driving enables the most accurate dead reckoning possible - unlike ships and aircraft.
  But you really have this strange obsession with "forgetting". if - hypothetically - all GPS devices were to fail at the same time, the car would still know where it was when that happened and continue with dead reckoning and INS.
  
  That's why I was very careful to say you've forgotten where you are, not forgotten how fast you are going wherever it is you are going. Even so, I've always found my "rotary sensors in the wheels" to be about 3 MPH off compared to the GPS. You've lost your most accurate speed sensor and are putting your life in the hands of, essentially, your speedometer, and hoping that your tires are inflated to the calibrated value so the rotation into distance calculations are right.
  
  and calculate where it is from its last known position.
  Funny that you should mention that. Currently car manufacturers intentionally make speedometers show a little over the actual speed to avoid liability in case the driver is speeding. However, in an automated car it is of course trivial to have it calibrate the speedometer constantly according to the GPS data.
  
  How long prior to the "teleportation" was the GPS not working correctly? I've dealt with GPS. High precision RTK systems. There have been times when the GPS says "I'm working fine" despite producing garbage position reports, then it decides there is a problem and says "your guess is as good as mine", and then it usually figures it out. But the GPS was sure it knew what it knew before it knew it didn't know. And then it was just as certain it knew where it was, after it was certain it was somewhere else. I didn't trust that system with my life like you expect us all to trust it when it gets put in a car.
  Bullshit. Clearly you have never used a decent GPS and don't know the maths involved. The position calculation always results in an accuracy delta being calculated. Maybe you've in addition to not looking up the accuracy the device states for its calculation also been unable to check the timestamp it has put on the position it "was sure of"?
maybe at basic intersections by Joe_Dragon · 2013-09-27 08:29 · Score: 1

But as I said before that are lot's of ones where it can miss read them.
1. Re:maybe at basic intersections by loufoque · 2013-09-27 08:56 · Score: 1
  
  Surely you mean "misread" not "miss read".
meet your new overlords by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 08:30 · Score: 1

In unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy Japan, car drives you
What worries me with cars like this by petermgreen · 2013-09-27 08:30 · Score: 3, Interesting

Is that drivers will stop paying attention and/or take their hands off the controls. Then when something bad happens that the automatic system can't handle they will be in a much worse position to deal with it than if they had been driving the car manually.
The same is true to an extent of autopilots in planes but with a plane you usually have much more time to respond to problems than in a car. Still at least one plane has crashed because the pilots accidentally disabled the autopilot and failed to notice.

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1. Re:What worries me with cars like this by Obfuscant · 2013-09-27 14:41 · Score: 1
  
  The same is true to an extent of autopilots in planes but with a plane you usually have much more time to respond to problems than in a car.
  Yes. It took 3 minutes and 30 seconds for Air France 447 to crash into the ocean after the autopilot disengaged. It disengaged because the airspeed indicators were giving erroneous and differing answers. The aircraft said, basically, "here, humans, you deal with this problem, I don't understand what's going on. I'm not going to help you by keeping your wings level or your pitch attitude within normal limits, even though none of those sensors has failed. I'm confused about how fast we are going through the air and I give up."
  Note that AF447 did not have a stream of other aircraft coming the opposite direction less than ten feet away in the opposite lane, nor were they 3 airplane lengths behind an aircraft in front of them. There were three trained pilots and several minutes to deal with it, and they still couldn't.
  
  Still at least one plane has crashed because the pilots accidentally disabled the autopilot and failed to notice.
  Many have crashed because the autopilot disengaged without the pilot taking over. Many have crashed because the autonomous system (autopilot) flew them into something it shouldn't have, and some of those were with the pilots fully aware of what was going on and trying to stop it. This is why there is almost always half a dozen or more ways of overriding or disengaging the autopilot designed into the system, and even then autopilot created crashes still happen.
  We have been able to design perfectly functioning autopilots for airplanes that can deal perfectly with the world around them. It is time to bring the technology to our automobiles because we are too lazy to want to deal with driving for ourselves, just as pilots are too lazy to fly the airplanes they master for themselves.
2. Re:What worries me with cars like this by delt0r · 2013-09-29 03:34 · Score: 1
  
  ...and some of those were with the pilots fully aware of what was going on and trying to stop it.
  Citation required.
  
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Re:building pedestrian bridges / underpass will co by petermgreen · 2013-09-27 08:34 · Score: 1

pedestrian underpasses also have the problem that they can easilly end up being dirty smelly horrible places due to a combination of homeless people using them for shelter and the fact they get less natural cleaning than an exposed pavement does.

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Great start... by TractorBarry · 2013-09-27 09:03 · Score: 1

This is a good start but if cars "evolve" to be full automatic I hope they're going to include a bar in the final design. No more excuses for sobriety :)

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Will open my garage door? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 09:43 · Score: 0

I can imagine waking up to find my car went on a bender at 2 AM and came back without opening the garage door. A helluva mess it'll be.
Dead man switch needed by WinstonWolfIT · 2013-09-27 12:08 · Score: 2

As it helps reduce road fatigue, this seems a really good thing. However, it should require some sort of feedback that says when a driver is unresponsive in some way, the car pulls over and parks.
1. Re:Dead man switch needed by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-28 06:07 · Score: 0
  
  On the contrary. You want autonomous cars you can send away without any human passenger to valet park themselves and come and pick you up when you are ready to go home. Also, you want city cabs not to have any human drivers.
Humans and Machines by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 12:17 · Score: 0

Will an autonomous car really be safe? I have my doubts. If ALL cars were autonomous, then fine. When an algorithm tries to interact with humans, it's doomed to fail.
An example is a straight shot on the freeway where one, or a pack of vehicles are doing 10 over the speed limit with cars in the right lane.
If I'm in the left lane for a normal cruise control pass, if I see a vehicle gaining, I will increase speed manually and dive out of the way well before the approaching vehicle even gets close enough to have to adjust his cruise control. I won't even attempt a cruise control pass if I see one coming. I'll wait until the gaining car passes, and jump out behind it. I'll even say "thanks buddy -- go flush the speed trap for me". Will the algorithm "see" the approaching vehicles, or several behind it gaining, or will it be a "dick" and ride the left lane causing a "break check" behind it because it's being "safe" and doesn't want to violate the law.
The safest speed to go, is the same speed as every other vehicle while maintaining a decent following distance. The most dangerous thing to do is be a "stone in the stream" where people are trying to get around you and causing secondary accidents for your dickish behavior. People will take chances to get around the militant speed limit guy, and that's how accidents happen on a straight road, in good weather, with unlimited visibility.
Is the guy writing the algorithms for control a "militant speed limit road dick"? Or will my car punch it up to 78 in a 70 to avoid conflict. To me, avoiding conflict, and anticipation of another drivers movements, or being aware of other drivers distractions (phone, beating children, etc.) keeps me out of trouble. If you doubt me, ride a motorcycle, or better yet, drag 70,000lbs of freight down the road with you.
I'm excited. by Konowl · 2013-09-27 12:21 · Score: 1

I can't wait. Autonomous cars is a solution to a multitude of problems - namely bad drivers. How many times does a 3 lane highway merge into two lanes causing a traffic jam - know what causes that traffic jam? All the assholes who stay in the lane that's ENDING just to butt in at the front of the line. If all those cars had merged a mile back, there would be NO traffic jam!
Stop building highways bigger. Let the cars drive themselves, pack them in like sardines going 100 km/hr.
I love driving, but morons take the fun out of it.
1. Re:I'm excited. by number17 · 2013-09-27 23:28 · Score: 1
  
  All the assholes who stay in the lane that's ENDING just to butt in at the front of the line.
  If you are in the autonomous car and they aren't, wouldn't it be easier for them to do this?
2. Re:I'm excited. by u38cg · 2013-09-28 00:04 · Score: 1
  
  Umm, no. What causes the traffic jam is the 30% reduction in capacity. At low enough flows, you might be able to avoid it by temporarily lowering speed limits before the merge, but that's rarely practical for any realistic flow.
  
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an knowledge base still needs to be update and sin by Joe_Dragon · 2013-09-27 17:18 · Score: 1

an knowledge base still needs to be update and synced up. Also it still needs to know 100% to what part of an Intersection it is on.
Mean time between failure for the computer... by Drewdad · 2013-09-28 04:18 · Score: 1

I would hope the computer would be running in some kind of cluster, for when the OS crashes or the application hangs...
Middle English havok by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-28 05:32 · Score: 0

[Middle English havok, from Anglo-Norman (crier) havok, (to cry) havoc, variant of Old French havot, plundering, of Germanic origin.]
captcha: merriest [Olde England]
I worked on Honda's self-driving car by DrStoooopid · 2013-09-28 06:46 · Score: 1

.....so when it comes out and if people crash and burn, you can all blame me....my bad.

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How well would it work in Russia? by darenw · 2013-09-30 17:48 · Score: 1

Go to YouTube, search with some keywords like "russia car accident", and you can watch 10,000 dashcam videos of "interesting events". I wonder how well Nissan's car would handle any of those?