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Google's Driverless Cars Capable of Exceeding Speed Limit
mrspoonsi sends a report about how Google's autonomous vehicles handle speed limits. It's easy to assume that driverless cars will simply be programmed never to exceed a posted speed limit, but Google has found that such behavior can actually be less safe than speeding a bit. Thus, they've allowed their cars to exceed the speed limit by up to 10 miles per hour.
In July, the U.K. government announced that driverless cars will be allowed on public roads from January next year. In addition, ministers ordered a review of the U.K.'s road regulations to provide appropriate guidelines. This will cover the need for self-drive vehicles to comply with safety and traffic laws, and involve changes to the Highway Code, which applies to England, Scotland and Wales. Commenting on Google self-drive cars' ability to exceed the speed limit, a Department for Transport spokesman said: "There are no plans to change speed limits, which will still apply to driverless cars." In a separate development on Monday, the White House said it wanted all cars and light trucks to be equipped with technology that could prevent collisions.
If you take an American driverless car to London, I hope it can figure out which side of the road to drive on...
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
couple white house mandate with their assuming power to kill anyone without due process, and things are coming together nicely for a robust fascist police state
I bet most companies will follow google's plan and have autonomous automobiles (auto-autos??, auto-squared?) travel at the speed limit or lower, even if it makes things 'more dangerous'. But they should also do that only in the right lane, not blocking the left lane.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Seems like Google needs to look up the word "limit" in its own dictionary.
Just because others break the law is no excuse for Google to do so.
It is within Google's capability to dynamically map every speed trap and even moving police cars.
With this in place, and with computer reflexes why not speed like a maniac? I for one would buy Google car tomorrow if it could get me to work at 120mph shaving time off my commute.
Yeah, going the speed limit in certain areas will simply result in google cars getting shot at, or ran off the road.
IE, the 101 or I-17 in Phoenix. LOL@75mph. Unless there's a traffic jam of course.
some bugs;; Due to excessive bad posting from this IP or Subnet, anonymous comment posting has temporarily (for quite some time, hopefully forever) been disabled. You can still login to post. However, if bad posting continues from your IP or Subnet that privilege could be revoked as well. If it's you, consider this a chance to sit in the timeout corner or login and improve your posting. If it's someone else, this is a chance to hunt them down (&/or demonize them....) based on speculation of ill intent... peace out /. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m39DWVFK-Bw
unexciting truth;; https://www.youtube.com/movie/home-english-with-subtitles set adrift with no oars or rudder?the stuff we come up with? based on our never ending WMD on credit fictional deity holycost inspired spiritual bankruptcy malady;
all things being equitable.. any notion of real justice is based entirely on mercy, the centerpeace of momkind's heartfelt connection with creation
being spiritually & creatively merciful with each other takes out the (media/fear) drama of the always violent hateful fear & loathing punishment features. are we not each our very own reward? punish as we would wish to be punished? WMD on credit 'weather' is not punishment enough? http://www.globalresearch.ca/weather-warfare-beware-the-us-military-s-experiments-with-climatic-warfare/7561
fortunately over time the truth prevails.... see you there
and makes them do all sorts of evil things
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
If I were a terrorist group and wanted to cripple any city in America, I would get a group of 20 people together and simply go back and forth on all the major roads, driving the speed-limit abreast with one another in all lanes.
After a few days of that the city would do whatever you demanded.
That is, if you all survived the road rage.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Once there are enough autonomous vehicles on the road, highway speeds will SLOW DOWN. Think about it. If, on a 4-lane highway, there are 4 autonomous vehicles all driving the speed limit, each in its own lane, all side-by-side, then traffic behind them will be slowed to the speed limit. The end result is a rolling roadblock. Nobody will be able to exceed the speed limit because there will be too many vehicles all doing the exact same speed.
Because I would not want any driverless car I own to *EVER* decide that it is safe to exceed the speed limit if I didn't explicitly allow it to.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
10Mph is still an arbitrary assumption, just like legal limit. Correct speed varies far too much for such a static definition. There was an article (with video) on slashdot awhile back that explained how their heuristics work, and it said the whole stack was basically built from prefabricated scenarios, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
its safer to drive fast... got it
In a separate development on Monday, the White House said it wanted all cars and light trucks to be equipped with technology that could prevent collisions.
And finally law enforcements wet dream of being able to remotely disable your car becomes a reality. If you think this is anything but that, you're very naive.
I think the V2V proposal should be scrapped altogether. It would take decades to implement, be very expensive (at hundreds of dollars per car) and it won't actually make cars safer compared with relatively simpler collision avoidance using cameras and other relatively cheap proximity sensors that don't rely on everyone else having functioning V2V systems in their car.
Autonomous cars have cameras and other fail safe sensors they can rely on. GPS is for navigational way points and route planning. Just getting a signal from another car that it is at a certain position is not a sufficient replacement for actually seeing that car with a camera. In all cases I would program that car to trust the camera and distrust the V2V and if it didn't have a camera then the car should stop as safely as it can and not continue to try and drive automatically. GPS is better for navigational way points where precision on the scale of feet and inches is not as important. For collision avoidance in close proximity you want to rely on sensors.
If the speed limit is unsafe, that means that too many people around the car attempting to travel at "only" the speed limit. This, in turn, means that there is insufficient traffic enforcement. I see two solutions...
Solution A: Allow automated vehicles to routinely exceed the speed limit thus contributing to the unsafe environment.
Solution B: Implement appropriate traffic enforcement and raise city revenue on the reckless habits of traffic offenders.
Why the hell is Solution A even being considered?
If they have the ability to detect a human on the road, they can look for them and drive to them. Thus these cars can hunt and kill people. I don't see how the ability to speed is a bid deal.
If the speed limit is unsafe, that means that too many people around the car are traveling above the speed limit. This, in turn, means that there is insufficient traffic enforcement. I see two solutions...
Solution A: Allow automated vehicles to routinely exceed the speed limit thus contributing to the unsafe environment.
Solution B: Implement appropriate traffic enforcement and raise city revenue on the reckless habits of traffic offenders.
Why the hell is Solution A even being considered?
You are "driving" a Google automated car. You get pulled over for doing 10 over the speed limit. You didn't tell the car to do it, the programmers did. Who gets the ticket?
If you do, then that suggests that you have liability for the control of the vehicle. If that's the case, you probably shouldn't allow the car to make the choice whether or not to exceed the speed limit without your input.
If the programmer has liability, then say good by to automated automobiles! No one wants this liability.
Thus, Google cars will not automatically speed... but they may allow you to tell the car to exceed the speed limit... thus reducing the safety of the product overall.
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I can easily see a future 30 years, potentially even 20 down the road where auto-drive become mandatory on metropolitan freeways at certain times of day (rush hour). In fact, I could easily see a not-too-distant future where such a thing is mandatory, regardless of time-of-day. Now the question I ask is, as with concern with electric vehicles and lower revenues from gasoline tax, how are municipalities going to cope with the reduced revenue from speeding tickets?
They need to test year around in the chicago area.
"We have you for no drivers license, old title and insurance, no learners permit, failure to submit for blood test, failure to take field sobriety tests, 11 miles over the limit, and an open oil can. Son, you is in a HEAP of trouble, you hear me? BIG trouble. why, you haven't even posted your code online in open forum. we are going to haul you in, toss your butt in the scrapyard, and impound the vehicle for forfeiture. you have the right to remain silent, you have the right to a hardcopy of the indictment, and a translator if we can find out your toolset. you only have the right to one message from confinement, less than 140 characters...."
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Well duh, that's because that's the rule in California. The driver's handbook says it's illegal not to do this. Presumably in areas where that's not the case it will not do that.
Last time I attended a "driver improvement school" in person, the instructor inquired about what we were cited for. It was obvious to see that all the white attendees had been charged when going greater than 10 MpH over the speed limit, while the persons of color reported being cited while going 5 MpH over the speed limit or less, or similar minor infractions, such as unsignalled lane change. When using a driverless car to transport a recently dead body or felony quantities of illicit substances, one might want to turn off the "drive like everyone else" flag, and turn on the "follow driving rules religiously" flag, as would anyone who was DWB. Of course, when the cops see a driveless car following the speed limit, it just might get a second look just because they'd consider it suspicious.
Some people already tried it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
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From the story:
Research shows that sticking to the speed limit when other cars are going much faster actually can be dangerous, Dolgov says, so its autonomous car can go up to 10 mph (16 kph) above the speed limit when traffic conditions warrant.
Anyone know what "research" Dolgov is referring to? It's always been self evident to me that a car travelling slower than the flow of speeding traffic is a danger, but actual evidence would be nice.
Not that it matters. We don't really prioritize safety. We pay lip service to safety and then pursue other agenda. If safety was our first priority small cars wouldn't be allowed on roads; mortality and injury severity is substantially higher for light vehicles. And no, it's not because SUVs are slaughtering Prius owners. It's physics; all else being equal a small, light vehicle will more often kill or more severely injure you in a crash.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
I wouldn't have a problem with going the speed limit.
See, here's the thing. A lot of the traffic jams are because people are hopping lane to lane or cutting people off or really just not doing enough planning about where they want to go. Autonomous vehicles would know what lane to go in and what cars are around it so it would be able to plan appropriately. No more traffic jams (or at least greatly reduced)
When I drive from MA to NY, I may break the speed limit at times, but the average speed is still 50-55MPH because of traffic. In an autonomous vehicle that goes at the speed limit, it would shave close to 30 minutes off what is normally a 3 hour trip. And at no point do I have to speed. A trip into Boston no longer takes an hour in the morning - vehicles know where they're going and you get into town in a fraction of the time.
Longer term, it means that police departments no longer have a benefit of setting up speed traps - nobody is breaking the law, no tickets to write, no additional funding. Cities get no funding from red light cameras.
So here's the real question: Is this a tradeoff that we as society are willing to make? Do we give up the ability to break the law in order to get the benefit that we wanted out of that in the first place (i.e. get to your location quicker)?
We've all seen those "baby on board" stickers/signs, with the intention being that you should keep your distance or take extra caution.
If I've got V2V enabled, I'd want to broadcast that my vehicle that is bigger than it really is. Or you could screw with people and spoof their car to tell other cars that the semi-truck is really a miata.
From http://missingbytes.blogspot.com/2012/12/self-drive-engage.html
Just like in software development with large teams, sometimes it's better to be consistent bad than being inconsistently correct.
It's better for the car to go with the flow.
In my area I've seen a sharp uptick in enforcement of laws like "no swimming in the ocean after 8pm" and "no drinking wine with your family on a picnic in a quiet park" type laws.... I figure the municipalities will do fine if they keep laws like those ones for the Police to collect "being human" taxes with.
...I always drove about 5 MPH faster than the prevailing traffic speed.
It's totally subjective, but it felt a lot safer to be determining my own path through traffic than merely fitting into the herd.
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so why should I trust their cars? I routinely see Google Maps/Navigation giving directions that are impossible to follow, for example, exit an interstate and must cross 4 lanes of high-speed frontage road to make an immediate right turn onto a side street. The correct route would be to take the previous exit and safely merge across those lanes of frontage instead. Other times it routes you down an interstate and then proclaims that "you've reached your destination", in the middle of an interstate while traveling 75 MPH -- I guess the Google Car will just stop right in the middle of traffic and await its imminent demise.
If the Google Cars are relying on Google's Navigation to get from Point-A to Point-B, god help us all.
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this is proof, then, that if you are only going the speed limit (or less), especially in the fast lane, that you are a traffic hazard!
Will this be a user-configurable option? Who is responsible for paying a ticket if a self-driving car is pulled over?
Simple, they will raise the taxes on electricity.
Most drivers speed, and those who don't act as obstacles for the majority. I routinely drive on two-lane I-10 where the speed limit is 70mph, but I drive at 79 since it's common knowledge that the highway patrol only pull over cars going over 80 (and my gas mileage suffers greatly at 80+). Despite going 9 over, I still get passed by most other drivers and always end up having to deal with some asshole riding my ass because I'm not passing another car fast enough. The only safe option in such a situation is to go even faster so I can quickly move into the right lane and allow the tailgater to pass. The most dangerous situations I've seen are when a car going 71 decides to pass a car going 70 and the speeders behind them switch lanes back and forth trying to force one of the cars to speed up. Going the speed limit is a recipe for disaster.
so if my driverless car speeds because everyone around it is also speeding, who is at fault? me for buying it? the programmer? the drivers of the cars around me?
I don't mean on set easy routes on well-planned Californian highways, but e.g. along (US equivalent to) the winding roads of Skye where the only way to drive safely is to know in advance which turns immediately precede the lambs and the potholes, around the mountains of Andalucia in the snow, through London rush hour, where traffic signs are utterly irrelevant and you just move slowly enough to not knock into bike or sufficiently large swarm of pedestrians, negotiating the East Grinstead one way system when school's out...?
But how do you actually tell a driverless vehicle to pull over so you can give it a speeding ticket?
It's supposed to be completely automatic, but actually you have to press this button.
No speeding tickets, means you don't need people enforcing speed. Means no police hours or court time spent on speeding matters. That's also a good savings.
They can also increase taxes for keeping the streets flowing, if there's no accidents, the incentive is that there shouldn't be reason for people to be late.
In any case, what I was wondering was, Why 10 mph instead of 10% of the speed. Seems like speeding 10mph on a 20mph is dangerous.
If the police turn a blind eye to google cars scanned at 10MPH over the limit, then they must also turn a blind eye to normal drivers too. So the speed at which people drive on average will rise by 10MPH.
But then the google cars will, for safety reasons, sometimes have to go 10MPH faster than those cars i.e. 20MPH above the official limit... Okay, so the police accept this and also must allow normal driver to go 20 MPH faster...
Where does it end? ....
In the crash barrier I think!
A primary cause of accidents is "differential speed". This can be 100 when traffic is 72, or 45 when traffic is 72.
Just a wild guess, here, but taxes just might be a viable way for a government to collect revenue.
Yeah, going the speed limit in certain areas will simply result in google cars getting shot at, or ran off the road.
IE, the 101 or I-17 in Phoenix. LOL@75mph. Unless there's a traffic jam of course.
Good luck ramming a computer car off the road that has quicker reflexes than the police do, unless they remotely disable the car by contacting Google or by more old fashioned methods like using Stingers (bed of spikes) and have the whole highway covered (both directions) so the computer has no way to escape it.
BS. You will NEVER be rightly pulled over for driving at the speed limit as long as you are in the rightmost lane that you can safely move into and/or are passing even slower traffic. Period. Point out any law in any US state that would be violated by that and I'll concede, but A. I'm pretty certain there isn't one, and B. if there were it would be an asinine law.
I can go 25, with my eyes on the spedometer instead of
on the road. I can kill people at 25 MPH.
Alternately, I can focus on the road (and sidewalk too!)
while going roughly 50 MPH. I won't hit anybody because
I'll be paying careful attention.
Look on Google Earth for the border crossing between Thailand and Laos: the lanes cross themselves at 90 degrees in the no man's land, to switch traffic on the other side of the road. An autonomous vehicle should know how to yeld at the crossing (and keep straight, instead of turning).
Here it is, on wikimapia:
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=ro&lat=17.887784&lon=102.711284&z=18&m=b&show=/8257241/Crossover-for-changing-from-driving-on-the-right-to-the-left-and-vice-versa
Are these,
I. Google Driverless Cars
II. Ambulance Chasing Google Cars
III. Ambulance Chasing Google Cars with Lawyers Inside
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
This makes sense. In the US the posted speed limits seem to be 10 or 15 miles below what most drivers would deem a "safe" speed on that road. More then likely this is because the authorities expect that people will be 5 or 10 mph over. I have previously argued that there would be a push to raise the speed limit on some roads when self driving cars became common. It is quite annoying and somewhat dangrous when a car is actually doing the speed limit on some of the roads around here.
Some of the limits also seem to be designed purely to generate tickets. There is one four lane road near my house that is posted 25 mph. This is a silly posting for this road and there is often a speed trap set up on it.
There are exceptins of course. I don't think anyone would argue that the speed limit in residential areas should be raised.
soapbox warning:
Creating laws that people will ignore or "bend" on purpose is bad for a society. Once people get used to breaking this law or that law because it is stupid or it "doesn't really matter" it fosters a general disrespect for authority and law. They start to select which laws they will obey and which don't apply to them.
Every wrong attempt discarded is a step forward - T. Edison