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UK To Allow Driverless Cars By January
rtoz sends this news from the BBC: The UK government has announced that driverless cars will be allowed on public roads starting in January next year. It also invited cities to compete to host one of three trials of the tech, which would start at the same time. In addition, ministers ordered a review of the UK's road regulations to provide appropriate guidelines. ... The debate now is whether to allow cars, like the prototype unveiled by Google in May, to abandon controls including a steering wheel and pedals and rely on the vehicle's computer. Or whether, instead, to allow the machine to drive, but insist a passenger be ready to wrest back control at a moment's notice.
Just needs a requirement for a man to walk ahead carrying a red flag.
Stop this charade. All cars have drivers by definition. "Driverless" cars are driven by kilomatrices of embedded, all-seeing microtoads, which are in a mesh network coordinated via energy rays by the intergalactic harmonic Italian toads from Italy. Do you want to be driven around by toad drones loyal, not to our Leader Obama, but to some Italian amphibian mutant? I didn't think so. TAKE THE WHEEL, MEN!
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good they have NHS so one some gets hurt they not left with big bills while the courts are working out who is at fail and who will pay the bills.
We've had that here in the US for decades. We call it street parking.
Rules of Conduct:
#1 - The DM is always right.
#2 - If the DM is wrong, see rule #1
Obviously the US will not have this for some time ("Oh my god, somebody might sue!"), it's nice to see at least some countries see the advantage of cars that can drive themselves better than humans can drive them, even if the self-driving cars are not perfect. I would expect initially they would require a licensed driver behind the wheel, at least until the technology has proven itself.
Enigma
Once they start to roll, there will be a logical progression of complaints, starting with "They're too slow."
Next will be "They're blocking traffic flow/causing traffic jams."
Possibly among the next bunch of complaints:
"They move erratically/unpredictably"
"They wait too long at/stop too soon for traffic lights"
Most of the complaints will revolve around the simple fact that the autonomous cars will be driving 100% according to the rules of the road, and 95+% of the remaining drivers don't. Things like stopping for yellow lights, driving at the actual speed limit, slowing for merging traffic, properly signalling turns and lane-changes, etc.
In the end, the autonomous cars will reduce traffic jams, as they can intelligently travel in clusters, all in communication with each other, and even vary their routes for volume, all while staying moving at a reasonable clip.
The problem will come in when people deliberately try to mess with them, forcing them into emergency maneuvers by cutting them off for exits (for example), or cutting in front and slamming on the breaks (road rage).
Here's hoping they are outfitted with outward-facing cameras for recording such acts of stupidity.
I understand all the dewy-eyed enthusiasm among the mechanically innocent, but standard automotive components aren't flight control grade and there WILL be failures either way.
Cut power to a vehicle with boosted brakes, and your brake pedal will still slow it down. Cut power to a vehicle with hydraulic or electric assisted steering, and you can still guide it to a stop. Cut power to a vehicle with only electronic controls and zero manual failover, and it becomes a projectile.
Brakes COULD be designed like air brakes on an 18-wheeler which are spring applied, pneumatically released, but some sort of safety is required for the eventuality of vehicle power loss.
There is no downside of any importance to retaining manual backup controls. No one will put up with an inspection and maintenance regime similar to that on aircraft with fly-by-wire systems, and don't ever dare forget that many owners and operators are idiots.
Any solution must work for the lowest common denominator.
We have 30k+ deaths a year from traffic accidents in the US. The UK could not be too far behind per capita. Driverless cars have a flawless safety record. Even if they screw up and kill somebody it won't be anything like 30k/year. That means every day we don't deploy driverless cars here kills something like 90 people. It's sad governments seem more interested in BS like lawsuits, gun control and drug wars instead of actually preventing people from dying.
They will have to develop driverless cars with the steering-wheel absent from the Right side of the car, rather than the Left.
I fully expect the lads from Top Gear to seek them out for a little harassment - especially Clarkson.
It will be impossible to tell a driverless car from one driven by a pensioner.
Ok, there will be visual clues, but the driving style will be identical and include features like driving at 5mph below the road limit or 40mph, whichever is the lesser. X!0mbarg above mentions that driverless cars will travel in swarms. We already have that, they're called cycling club members.
No good will come of this!
Since when government needs to allow me something?
Am I a slave that has no rights, that I must wait for government to grant me them?
I think it works the other way around: they can disallow something if it is that important for the society to do so. And what is not banned, is allowed by default.
Fu*k today's governments and stupid pleb people.
Requiring a human to be ready and able to take control in an emergency is just plain dumb. The human in question will be distracted. They'll be texting or playing Flappy Birds or doing any number of things that a passenger might do during a commute. Even if you require that their hands be on the wheel at all times they'll get bored and daydream and be absolutely useless in an emergency situation.
The only reason you'd want to require human controls would be in case the vehicle gets into a (non-emergency) situation that it can't deal with. Think about a situation that would normally be wrong, like parking on a lawn or driving on the wrong side of the road due to a blockage or something like that. Something that requires a judgement weighing the letter of the law against the practical realities of the situation.
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
Whenever I travel to the UK, I'm impressed and often overwhelmed with the level of visual information that there is when driving - UK roads are fantastically well lined and signposted, they are especially good at night with reflectors/cats eyes down the middle of the road and often different colored ones on the side of the road. As you drive down a freeway/motorway there will typically be at least 4 or 5 signs warning you of a turn-off - two actual directions, and then 100m count-down signs! In the US, you're lucky if there's more than one, and usually that one single sign is just before the turn-off! Of course, computer-driven cars will be able to use GPS/satNav, but driving in the UK is like driving a video game compared to the US. In a lot of Colorado cities, they don't even paint a line across the road at the stop/traffic lights!
...we will forget how to drive. Do you really want someone who hasn't driven in months or years to suddenly wrest control of the car during an emergency situation and expect the outcome to be better than what the computer could handle?
Me thinking someone has found a backroom hand full of zirc fittings in Brittain. First of all, allowing vehicles to operate on public roadways without drivers should be up to a moratorium vote by those who actually drive on these roads and pay road tax and incredibly costly insurance premiums. Secondly, It would probably be a jolly good idea to put an inflatable vinyl sex doll in the bright fluorescent orange driverless car's driver seat to make all of us trained and highly qualified drivers believe it was actually driving the car so as not to raise suspicions. And finally, we all want to know what you are up to and why we should facilitate these driverless cars in a world where us humans are going places.
Or is this not an issue in the UK?
Because, if it's a driverless car, I'm not taking any control or responsibility for the vehicle other than telling it my destination.
If the car can suddenly say "Oh, crap, you take over I don't know what to do" then it defeats the purpose.
If you're going to have truly driverless cars, then you need to determine who takes liability if it runs over a person. Because I'm going to be sleeping in the back seat or reading a book.
Somehow, I doubt the companies making these cars have stepped up and said they're so confident in their technology that they'll take responsibility. And someone who has disengaged themselves from the act of driving (like reading a book) can't immediately switch to being in control of the vehicle. If I have to keep tabs on it and be responsible at a moments notice, then what is the benefit at all?
Every time this comes up, it just seems like nobody has actually addressed this yet.
You want a driverless car? Make sure I can crawl into the backseat after a night at the pub and not have to worry about it. Until then, this is really advanced cruise control, but you still need to be aware the whole time.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Is that an item from a Chinese takeaway? WTF?
Roving bands of automatronic cars killing pedestrians...and genetically engineered giant cats bred to kill the cars! Funny skit, but now too soberingly serious...
What do we need driverless cars for?
Our government is already driverless, and we see how well that works with a massive surveillance state, civil asset forfeiture, militarized police...
than their initiative to ensure that every single website shows UK-viewers some variant of a 'this website uses cookies - please click this button to continue being tracked or click this button to have your experience horribly broken' banner.
Requiem for the American Dream
There's just one problem. They're rubbish.
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Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
to not operate a vehicle?
We also would have accepted:
"So that's why I've seen so many student driver cars on the road with nobody in the driver seat."
Sontar-Ha!
As a motorcyclist I'm deeply concerned about the possibility of driverless cars on the roads. I don't think the state of AI and computers is anywhere near sophisticated enough to control a vehicle safely in traffic. Lord knows, cars with real drivers are dangerous enough already
Who's responsible in case of accident? The car owner or the software developer?
We have the will. Calling all voters, reach out and talk to your Senator.
Because what matters in the UK is appeasing the angriest craziest segment of the Muslim population.
I want some of the weed they're smoking. I don't think the tech is ready yet.
I'm here for the experience, not the Hyperbole.
This experiment will end when the first group of schoolkids dart into the road from all directions, and the resulting lawsuits end the "experiment".
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
The human at the wheel is there to take the blame in case something goes wrong. The requirement of having a human at the wheel will also soothe the fears of passengers of both autonomous* and manually driven automobiles, a measure that should help the adaptation of autonomous vehicles and thus save lives.
* Google, putting the "auto" into "automobile" since 2005.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Even if the system requires babysitting, it will probably improve the performance of impaired drivers. Think sleepy, drunk, or old people with poor attention, perception, and/or reaction time, narcoleptics, diabetics who got careless about blood sugar, "indestructible" teenage drivers, Mr I-Can't-Leave-My-Cellphone-For-Five-Minutes, parents with cranky kids, Mrs I-Can-Eat-Drink-And-Put-On-Makeup-Whlie-Driving, Mr I-Talk-With-My-Hands-And-Always-Make-Eye-Contact, folks who like to gawk at accidents/scenery/girls, folks having a sneezing fit/heart attack/seizure, and a few others.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
can they make them drive on the right side of the road?
I would like to see how a autonomous car handles an intersection where the stop light is broken and cars are battling for right of way, or a construction flag man directing traffic off the pavement, or for that matter ice on the road.
I suggest government ministers, who seem to be driven round everywhere anyway. Might as well save a few drivers' salaries in these times of austerity.
What could possibly go wrong?