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California DMV Told Google Cars Still Need Steering Wheels
cartechboy writes Google showed us what it feels is the car of the future. It drives itself, it doesn't have a gas or brake pedal, and there's no steering wheel. But that last one might be an issue. Back in May California's Department of Motor Vehicles published safety guidelines aimed at manufacturers of self-driving vehicles. After seeing Google's self-driving car vision, the California DMV has told the company it needs to add all those things back to their traditional locations so that occupants can take "immediate physical control" of the vehicle if necessary. Don't for a second think this is a major setback for Google, as the prototypes unveiled weren't even close to production ready. While the DMV may loosen some of these restrictions in the future as well all become more comfortable with the idea of self-driving vehicles, there's no question when it comes down to the safety of those on the road.
In fact, it would not surprise at all if the brake itself is NEVER removed. I can easily foresee a situation where these vehicles are used to transport unwilling people, or simply undergo a malfunction and the occupant will always want the ability to stop the device.
But I can see the steering wheel and accelerator going away completely - don't want to let untrained people having the ability to make things worse.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Personally I'd like to get a car that has controls similar to a jet fighter - or even more basic if it's all drive-by-wire anyway. Gimme a throttle lever in one hand, and a twist stick for proportional steering in the other - or combine them. More display room and less clutter of a wheel.
Never have a philosophy which supports a lack of courage
What if I happen to be a much worse driver than the car's software and in "wresting control" away from the car I inadvertently cause an accident that the software could have avoided (or was in the process of doing)?
Have they not seen "I, Robot" (2004)? Of course you need a manual override.
.. So that real horses can take "immediate physical traction" of the vehicle if necessary.
Any car that allows the driver to take "immediate physical control" makes the roads unsafer for all. The safest roads will be when ALL cars are autonomous. Having humans in the mix will just ruin all the gains that autonomous cars provide. Can a human wirelessly communicate with a car 5 miles ahead to know of a road condition and adjust it's speed in tandem with all the other cars in between to mitigate any and all danger in advance? Can a human react in sub-millisecond time to avoid obstacles thrown in their way. No and no.
Consider how many people die on the roads every year in the United States alone, the biggest factor is humans.
Then, consider how many people die every year due to firearms in the United States alone and look how CA reacts and tries to limit access to firearms, through laws and technology. Basically, "remove the problem."
Shouldn't CA be pushing hard for driverless vehicles? Removing human error from the equation would save countless lives.
Think of the children.
Which is: 2 out of three of those are already physically disconnected in a modern automobile, and the third they're working really hard to do the same with.
If California's DMV wants to bitch about google removing all those 'unnecessary' features, then it should look really hard at what it's allowing in it's HUMAN OPERATED vehicles.
Allowing a computer to adjust throttle or braking response is one thing. But physically disconnecting the pedals from the devices they're meant to operate means in the event of an electronics failure there's no guarantee you'll have control of braking, throttle, or even steering anyway.
Food for thought!
I think it would be nice to still have a steering wheel. Not that I doubt the safety and precision of the vehicles, but it is always good to have manual control just in case some sort of freak accident or whatever occurs. For example planes can fly themselves as well but we still have manual controls for those just in case, even though the situations that they may be needed in are probably extremely rare.
Eventually is a nice word. You can be completely wrong today but adding that one word...
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
That's basically all is needed for an autonomous vehicle.
Eventually it will become clear that human drivers are the weakest link.
Right, I propose to field autonomous cars without any humans onboard and send to the junkyard any non autonomous cars immediately. Now that should make the roads safe.
Next : get rid of pedestrians, those pesky humans walking on the sidewalk are just asking for trouble.
Conclude : exterminate the human race 'cause they're nothing but problems and give the world over to the 'bots.
They still leave the operators open to liability, and he/she has to pay attention. The vehicle is not autonomous until then. Babysitting the damn thing is not part of the deal.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I agree that an automated car will need a steering wheel in the immediate future. Once their track record has been proven and people are comfortable with them, however, cars will gradually lose manual controls. We'll likely be telling our grandkids with stories of hundreds of non-automated cars screaming down the highway piloted by fallible humans. Of course, they'll just roll their eyes at us, make an "uphill both ways in the snow" comment, and tell their RobotCar to take them to the mall.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
If there's one lesson I learned from Star Trek it's that you always, ALWAYS, include a manual override.
The transition time from the computer giving up to the user having to take control is always going to mean this is impossible.
If you're reading the newspaper, you are not going to be able to transition to operating the vehicle in the event the computer gives up and says it's all up to you.
I've been saying for a while, that a driverless car needs to be 100% hands off for the people in the car, or serves no value at all other than as a gimmick.
I will believe driverless cars are ready for prime time when I can stumble out of a pub, crawl into the back seat and tell the car to take me home. Anything less than that is a giant failure of automation waiting to happen, and a convenient way of dodging liability by pretending that users are expected to be in control of the car even while the AI is driving.
As long as there is a pretense of handing back to the driver in even of an emergency, this is a glorified cruise control, and I'll bloody well drive myself.
If I'm ultimately responsible for the vehicle, I'll stay in control of the vehicle. Because if there's a 10 second lag between when the computer throws up its hands and says "I have no idea" and when the user is actually aware enough and in control, that is the window where Really Bad Things will happen.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
In fact, it would not surprise at all if the brake itself is NEVER removed.
That's the current situation with driverless trains/subs:
No cockpit in the front of the wagon, but you still have "emergency brakes" lever everywhere.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Is this requirement based on science or an irrational fear of computers?
If this is an infancy thing, fine, but I don't think we need to reach Ultimate Endgame for these things to be ride'able (NOT "operable") by a child, or even unmanned for deliveries. It'll be the better choice long before we reach superduper polished and perfected.
Mind, I still expect them to come with some tucked away form of control access, even a clunky digital-only one. There's an endless number of possible edge cases that can't be scripted.
I assume code will mostly fail-safe into "Stop the car." for unexpected encounters, so that someone (incl remotely, ie support center or the owner) can help manually guide the derping sensors back to the clean, plainly marked road and resume automated driving, or summon a tow for really locked up/physical damage situations.
90% of accidents (or more, depending on the study) are due to human error. So the DMV insistence on putting the humans back into the drivers seat is actually counterproductive. "there's no question when it comes down to the safety of those on the road." ... the question is are the other humans on the road more or less safe with the google vehicle operators able to override the computer?
While I'm not interested in being an early adopter of this or most automotive technologies, there are lots of questions when it comes to safety. It is a pity that government hardly ever uses science or logic in the decision making.
Can a human wirelessly communicate with a car 5 miles ahead to know of a road condition and adjust it's speed in tandem with all the other cars in between to mitigate any and all danger in advance?
Do not assume that source of wireless coordination is always 100% trusty.
The wireless coordination information might be hostile origin. i.e.: some idiot with a hacked emitter that systematically ask all the other cars to slow down and move aside to let him go through. In theory such a function has practical uses (ambulances, for example), in practice such function WILL GET abused (idiot wanting to arrive faster, or a criminal trying to run away through heavy traffic).
Can a human react in sub-millisecond time to avoid obstacles thrown in their way.
Yup, that's what I consider as the main reason why we should have robotic drive.
Except for the occasional false positive, the current collision-avoidance systems that are already street-legal nowadays and that are already travelling in some cars around us are already much better than humans in reacting in case of emergency.
The only drawbacks currently are false positive[1].
But even in that situation, most of the false positive are safe.
It just causes the cars to slow down or stop when that should not be needed.
---
Example on our car:
- auto-cruise control which chooses the wrong taget: with our car, a large truck that is almost as large as the lane can be mis-targeted and our car slows down to yeild, even if the truck is actually in a different lane and we're not actually on a collision course with it if we stay in the middle of our current lane.
- mis-identified target: the current logic inside the car is: "if there's an object on the way and the car is on a trajectory intersecting it, then hit the breaks (unless overriden by the driver)". The car has no concepts of *what* the object is, and might break on useless occasion. Nearby automatic RFID-based tool booth are non-stop drive through: you don't need top stop, just drive through at a slow steady pace. The RFID transponder will beep in advance to alert you that the transaction with the booth was successful and the barrier will open shortly, you know that barrier will open shortly/is opening shortly and you don't need to brake. But the car only sees an object that is still currently inside your lane (it's not able to notice that the object is moving vertically and that by the time you reach it will be safely away) and will auto-brake unless you keep your feet on the gas pedal.
- very simplified hit-box: the car's hitbox is exactly that: a box. the car will panick and hit the brakes if you try to park under a low hanging balcony. You see that there's enough room under the balcony for the car's engine compartment to go there, but the car will react as if it was a solid wall and break if your foot is on the brake instead of the gaz pedal (which will be the case during slow manoeuvres).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
If a driverless car has no manual means of steering, and if it broke down and you had to push it, how could you control it?
The laws will be rewritten once this gets closer to being a real thing. Google can continue to do what it wants on its test tracks.
So that real horses can take "immediate physical traction" of the vehicle if necessary.
You have no idea how punishing the roads were in the early days of the automobile, how often cars broke down or became hopelessly mired in mud or snow. In rural states, the horse was still in the towing business as late as 1940.
In 1919 Lt Col Eisenhower, yes the later Supreme Allied Commander of WW2 and the 1950s President of the US, led a convoy of 24 vehicles from the east coast to the west coast. 9 vehicles were lost, 21 men were injured and unable to continue.
"... stumble out of a pub..."
Like the inebriated gentleman in San Francisco of many years ago? He stumbled out of a pub, crawled into the back seat of a waiting automobile, assuming it was a taxi, and demanded "Take me to the corner of Washington and Clay!" Given that Washington and Clay run parallel to each other, that would confuse the hell out of the computer.
In this case, however, the officers driving the vehicle escorted their new passenger to the lockup so he could sleep it off.
If I'm ultimately responsible for the vehicle, I'll stay in control of the vehicle. Because if there's a 10 second lag between when the computer throws up its hands and says "I have no idea" and when the user is actually aware enough and in control, that is the window where Really Bad Things will happen.
Have a look at how collision avoidance systems that are on the streets nowadays currently work:
- the car will sound an alarm signalling probable impending collision and asking the user to intervene.
- the car will also autonomously start to slow down and eventually brake and stop never the less.
The system is designed in such a way that, although human override is possible, the car will also try to autonomously to follow the best course of actions, unless overridden. You could take the control and do something, or you could also let the car follow its normal program (in traffic jams typically).
Same should be applied to fully autonomous cars one day:
in case of "I have no idea" situation, the user should be able to take over control, but lacking any intervention, the car should also react in a sane way ("I have no idea what to do, and instead I'm gona park on the side of the road and wait safely there until further instructions").
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
This is a non-issue because no one actually expected to make a car like Google's prototypes. Google isn't even trying to get into the automobile business with this technology. That's not what they do. They sell tech and software services. They're just trying to show their prospective customers what their tech is truly capable of. The real automakers like GM, Ford, Toyota, etc will use Google's tech in the cars they produce and I don't think anyone ever expected them to make a car without a steering wheel. I'm sure they'll eventually include "automated driving assist" as an option in some of their vehicles but they're still going to sell cars drivable by humans. Don't get me wrong, it did need to be clarified in the laws...but no one was actually planning to build a real car without pedals and a steering wheel.
I want a human to be able to take control of whatever automated device acting as my conveyance. Train, plane, automobile-- it doesn't matter.
If I'm liable for the machinery and the lives carried by the machinery, I want to be able to determine the maximum speed, the maximum rate of acceleration (when not in an emergency), the route, and be able to take full control as necessary. It's not that I distrust computers... it's the squishy meat bags affecting and affected by the computers I don't trust. Humans program the computers and engineer the roads. Sh*t happens and not all sh*t is planned for. There's road kill, potential road kill, flat things on the road that can fly up into the under-carriage when run over-- there are plenty of reasons to be able to control an otherwise-autonomous automobile.
I can predict the future. Due to pressure from Law Enforcement, the new cars
will not have steering wheels and brakes. On command from a Police Officer,
the car will lock the passengers inside, and drive itself to the nearest police
station.
I wonder if you could legally take your driver's license test in a self-driving vehicle. You'd still have to have your hands on the wheel, and check your mirrors before (the car) changing lanes, but I don't know if there are any rules that would actually prohibit your not being in control of the vehicle.
Mind you, they'll have to teach the thing to parallel park...
That is very short term thinking. 15 years after driverless cars are released your going to have a whole generation of people who never learned to drive a car. People who get the license and then forget everything because they haven't touched the wheel in 10 years. There is not going to be anyone quilified to drive a car. You will just have millions of amatuers with a skill level of a 16 year old.
If they're insistent there's a way for an occupant to take "immediate physical control", why do they allow current cars on the road?
I'm not sure about steering, but certainly for acceleration and braking there's no way for drivers to take physical control of a modern automobile. Anything we do with those pedals on the floor sends a signal to a computer. The computer then decides what actions to take--open the throttle or apply the brakes.
There's a person initiating those functions, but the person does not have physical control.
I like the idea of a self-driving car, but I still don't understand how the self-driving car finds a parking space, or gets eased into place in the garage for maintenance. How does it find it's way around an unexpected hazard, like a downed limb, or washed-out area of the road? How does the self-driving car know that the road is flooded or otherwise undriveable? How does it know that the power is out at an intersection that normally has traffic lights?
Proverbs 21:19
If a passenger in a diverless car needs to get the car to do some non-programmed maneuvers, they should hit a button, and let the a trained driver back at HQ take control of the car and do the maneuvers.
You are giving up yet another freedom if you believe this is a good idea.
So every passenger in a car has given up freedoms?
I am all for a self-driving car. I really hope my current car lasts until we can purchase decent self-driving cars, and I will be happy to purchase one for a price that I wouldn't really consider buying anything else short of houses.
But I want to be able to take entirely manual control back at any time, using a completely non-electronic, fully-mechanical override. I would hope to never have to actually *do* that, but I wouldn't trust any car that didn't have that *available*. Even if I completely trust the pseudo-AI to not bug out and do something crazy, which I wouldn't immediately but certainly could after using it for a while and not having any issues with it... I would *not* trust that some hacker couldn't find some way to hack in somehow and mess with things. Thus, I would want to trust in my ability to perform a manual override and completely temporarily shunt the computer systems off to a place where they couldn't control the car at all.
I am entirely willing to accept the minor inconvenience of hardware UI elements (i.e. steering wheel, pedals, etc.) getting in the way of aesthetics, and the slight additional cost of manufacturing said UI elements. And I'm *glad* they're pushing for that to be law, or else nobody would actually do it, even as an option - we've seen a number of examples of things I'd love to be able to pay for (phones with physical keyboards, 16:10 laptop screens), but nobody makes them because they're slightly more expensive to make, and companies feel the drive to make everything as cheap as possible and not even give the option. :(
That Google thinks their self driving cars are ready for the open road isn't the issue. The issue is that they think they are ready to go straight from traditional cars to cars with no ability for the human passenger to take control if the new, unproven technology fails. That, by itself, convinces me that Google's judgment is flawed, and cannot be trusted. Were I making this decision, I wouldn't let Google's cars on public roads at all until they show some evidence that they understand why this is a bad idea.
It will have to be more of a kills switch than a break pedal...I would think that you would want a braking system installed in the car that if the CPU signals were ever interrupted, it would automatically engage an manual break system. The 'break pedal' would then be a kill switch that turned off the computer controls, and activated hazard lights. This would give you an out in case the car CPU failed for any reason, or the passengers panic.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
what about utility trucks / bucket trucks?
They need to go off road (off road can just be on to the grass / sidewalk next to an road) may need to sit in the middle of a road, be placed the wrong way on a road, etc. And it may be hard to get a auto drive car to do that.
Also based on way some utility's (manly cable) use contractors and subcontractors a special license sounds like a good idea but in real life may not work to well. And they may need to make so they can't use contractors and subcontractors do that work or they may have to make so the utility / cable co has to buy the special licenses for the contractors and subcontractors.
There are still a lot of situations where the automatic controls would not know what to do without a second thought. I live in a part of the country where it snows. Evidently when road markings are covered by snow, the automatic controls don't know what to do. I am expected to be at work on days when it snows, and I can drive on a snowy road without much of a problem -- I just need to take into account the variables as they present themselves. Another situation that pops up occasionally is that I need to park the car in a field or other unpaved surface -- there are no lines and no dedicated spaces, and I'm often directed where to park by a human. I can't imagine the self-driving car knows how to do that yet.
Not to undermine in any way the fantastic work that's been done by Google and other people working in this field. For many conditions that are well-understood (e.g. long distance freeway driving on a clear day), it seems like a lot of this technology is nearly ready to come together in existing automobiles, where you put the GPS, lane departure and adaptive cruise control together and pretty much drive the car. I even saw a video of some guy letting his Acura pretty drive itself with these technologies enabled. He was a total flippin idiot for actually getting out of the driver's seat, but the car did everything right. Video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I'm surprised they even tried to go without manual controls. There will ALWAYS be situations where a human may have to take over.
1.) Safety override. 2.) Driving in an open field or on the beach without a precise destination. 3.) Parking garage, car wash, mechanics bay or other situation where it MAY be necessary to maneuver the car in a way that would be impractical to tell a computer what to do. 4.) Weather conditions could prevent automated operation. 5.) The ability to violate laws when an emergency situation demands it.
The driver must always be ultimately responsible for what happens while they are behind the wheel, a person cannot be accountable without control.
Now, you're being just plain silly. You can communicate directly with and reason with a human driver, and if necessary in extremis you can physically fight with them over control of the vehicle. You can't argue with a malfunctioning computer, especially when all you've got, at best, is a big red button marked "STOP" that it conveniently ignores because it's malfunctioning.. or has been hijacked by someone else.. like the police, or a hacker.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
And they will be taxed twice as much.
I'll stick to my opinion that this self driving thing will mostly be a fad. For ~10-20% of the population who really can't drive (elderly, vision impaired, etc) it makes some good sense, then maybe another 10% who have long commutes that rise to the level of being a burden. The other 70-800% simply won't see it as a worthwhile capability in the next couple decades.
My suspicion is that the real utility will be in automating 18 wheeler traffic and with improving public transportation. General utility just does not compute for this curmudgeon.
Besides, I can't wait to see what the EULA looks like for one of these things.
Uh, no, you got it wrong.
Just like autopilot failures, when the 'driverless' car fails, it will instantly hand control back to the driver, who then crashes, giving a 100% 'driver error' rate.
I can see the early days there being "enhanced cruise control" type thing that people can be licensed for that can be used on freeways only in the near future. I would basically be cruise control that can brake and accelerate and then maybe steering capabilities included, etc.
I don't think it would be possible to have some mix of fully autonomous cars with regular ones on the road at any time.
Anyone who thinks self driving cars are likely to be capable of driving on open roads in all circumstances by themselves in the forseeable future is living in cloud cuckoo land. There MUST be a conscious, unimpaired human being able to take over when the need arises because the need will arise.
Convince the AI to pull onto your yard to wash it :)
Driving is a chore. We would do well to be rid of it.
In the future wealthy folks with nothing better to do will keep cars and drive them around on private tracks, much like those that ride horses today. But it is a certainty that once the tech is ironed out, the lower cost of insurance for self-driving vehicles will ensure gradual adoption, and human-operated vehicles will become rarer and rarer, and eventually they will be banned outright on public streets.
I'm an aircraft mechanic but most people are not, and most people would shit a cactus if they had to pay to maintain their car to aircraft instpection and maintenance standards.
Not necessarily. There would be economies of scale. There are also a lot of practices in aircraft maintenance that could be streamlined, like having central records so that every mechanic isn't responsible for basically double-checking everything every mechanic beforehand has done. It shouldn't be any more expensive than just dealer-maintaining your car over its lifetime, which is WAY cheaper than a typical aircraft maintenance regimen.
Autonomous cars and trucks will have to have a comprehensive sensor suite to warn of pending failure and in some cases disable the vehicle so it can be safely towed off for repair. A conventional auto can limp to safety using manual steering and brakes. Those systems also operate even with total loss of electrical power. They are highly reliable.
I'm sure there will need to be a differing set of standards for redundancy/etc for reliable autonomous vehicles, but I'm not convinced that it would be over-the-top. How often do cars have major electrical failures? I imagine that it happens less often than on your typical 40 year old Cessna, even if the results are worse. You could also have dual electrical systems and such, especially for critical components. The car really just needs to be able to coast to safety - this isn't a plane where no radios in IFR is a potentially deadly situation.
Since owners who are not technicians cannot competently assess system conditions, the automated systems must take away their choice and that means some control of "re-arming" the vehicles for legitimate test and diagnosis.
I do agree with this. However, in many cases the cars could also drive themselves in for PM well before they are crippled, which would be a major convenience. People would be far more likely to rent and share cars as well when they can be at your door in 2 minutes.
They will also need to be EMP hard. Not because of some apocalyptic nuclear scenario which isn't going to happen, but because otherwise they will be easy kills with primitive HERF equipment, and even more so where metal bodies give way to composites and plastics which offer no grounded shielding.
I don't buy this. It is a bit like saying that conventional cars need to be hardened against 50 cal sniper rifles, since one shot to the driver could cause a pile-up. Shooting an HERF at an autonomous vehicle is homicide. So is firing on an airliner during its takeoff roll - I'm sure the same sniper rifle would cause a lot of havoc there. The solutions to these problems don't involve systems engineering, though I'm all for reasonable levels of robustness.
Healthy components are replaced BEFORE they fail. It's very expensive.
Actually, on airliners many components are flown until failure when they aren't critical for safety and there is sufficient redundancy. This is part of what makes them more reliable than general aviation - they aren't constantly doing things like servicing all the magnetos (we had a fatal helicopter crash nearby due to improper maintenance and resulting dual engine failure a number of years back).
I do get what you're saying though. If we really want vehicle safety to rise to the level of flight safety, then you can't have people doing their own oil changes without the equivalent of an A&P.
You're thinking about flying drones, not driverless cars. Depending on the drone it pretty much varies between the remote operator actually flying it all the way down to simply programming a flight path that the drone then uses to take off, fly, and land without further intervention. Most military drones do have plenty of intervention, but again, that can range from taking over and 'flying' to simply adjusting waypoints.
I don't read AC A human right
My understanding - perhaps reading on /. - about human caused crashes (Asiana, Air France) was that the plane did so much for the human, that the human was more out of touch with actually *flying.* A cautionary tale if we're thinking of handing over control of cars. Humans will get out of touch. Maybe the right place initially for driverless are paid express lanes with limited entrances and exits, and perhaps solely one lane, making a lot of the scenarios discussed by other posters less likely initially.
In a decade or so, cars will likely be able to drive with no people on board, or even transport children with no adult in the car.
The driverless car is not a chauffer or an nanny.
It knows only that it has arrived at its pre-programed destination. It doesn't know whether that destination was entered correctly. It doesn't know whether that destination is currently a safe place to drop off your kids.
Wouldn't hurt to have some way to check blood alcohol level before allowing a human to take over.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
Cars will always have a human driver. The manufacturers don't want to get sued for every wreck...
Remember that it's against the law to leave children alone in a home under a certain age, and alone at night at a higher age. I can't imagine it being okay to have children alone in a self-driving moving vehicle, with their door locked to prevent them from exiting in an emergency, and no adult to help them.
People need to take control when they think the Google driving is too slow or whatever.