Slashdot Mirror
Google Car Pulled Over For Driving Too Slow, Doesn't Get a Ticket (thenextweb.com)
New submitter slickwillie writes: A Google self-driving car was pulled over for going too slow. A photo uploaded to Facebook by Zandr Milewski shows one of Google's self-driving cars being pulled over by a Mountain View, California police officer. On on its Self-Driving Car Project page on Google+ the team wrote: "We’ve capped the speed of our prototype vehicles at 25mph for safety reasons. We want them to feel friendly and approachable, rather than zooming scarily through neighborhood streets. The Mountain View Police Department also commented on the traffic stop in a blog post saying in part: "...The officer stopped the car and made contact with the operators to learn more about how the car was choosing speeds along certain roadways and to educate the operators about impeding traffic per 22400(a) of the California Vehicle Code. The Google self-driving cars operate under the Neighborhood Electric Vehicle Definition per 385.5 of the California Vehicle Code and can only be operated on roadways with speed limits at or under 35 mph. In this case, it was lawful for the car to be traveling on the street as El Camino Real is rated at 35 mph."
Basically what I take away from this is that the cars are not ready for prime-time if they're limited to NEV speeds and have been mostly used in suburban neighborhoods.
I actually want autonomous vehicles. I want them to be capable of driving entirely without occupant involvement beyond stating a destination. I do want honest disclosure of how development is going though, and most of the discussion to this point has made it sound like they were further along and further tested than this article describes.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Or the policeman was looking for an excuse to pull over the obviously marked Google car, perhaps so he could boast about giving it a ticket.
or did the engineers have to take manual control of it and do so?
You're probably right in this case, if Google cars are clearly sign written as being a driverless car.
However, I have no problem with the police stopping a slow driver. It's often an indicator of drink driving, or could be an indicator that the driver's sight is impaired.
I followed somebody home last night - at 11 - and they were doing 30-35 in a 50mph. I contemplated overtaking and then decided against it - mainly because I didn't trust them not to do something stupid. I then watched the car swerve as it came up to a roundabout - almost like the drive didn't see the well lit, well signed junction.
Meanwhile, in european countries, specially the nothern ones (like Germany, scandinavian countries, etc. with Switzerland being the southernish exception among them) and a lot less in southern countries (like all the latin and slavic ones):
- People tend to respect much more limitations. A robot that meticulously respects every limitation won't stand out that much. You don't need to drive above limits or recklessly just to stay in the flow.
- People tend to make less a fuss about other driving slowly. No police is going to pull over just because you drive slowly (at least above the minimal requirement. Obviously you can't do 40 km/h on a Highway). In fact, on small mountainy road you can get stuck behind a slow vehicle (heavy loaded utility vehicle that has difficulties climbing the slope), it's your responsibility to overtake when it is safe to do so, the slow vehicle will eventually pull-out once in a while if a giant queue has formed behind.
In fact, in some jurisdiction it *is forbiden* to make a fuss about slow drivers: On german autobahn, if the driver in front is slower, you are required to stay calm and not start to get aggressive (tail-gate, blink lights, etc.) you could get fined for that.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Reposting under my name. /. forgets my login in some browsers
One of the most dangerous things you can do on a road is to be stopped dead at a long-been-green stoplight, say playing with your phone. That's because *no one sees you as stopped*, specifically the car coming up to the light going 50. No one looks for it. People glance at the light, it's green, keep going at speed. What sort of idiot is stopped at a green light, your big chance to go? It's in the same category as saying "no" to free money. Being stopped at a green light is a nearly invisible event.
So let's talk about how dangerous going too slow is because your algorithm encountered a novel traffic situation (aren't a majority of them novel, really?) and urged caution to the accelerator. It's nearly as bad as being stopped at a green light, especially if you're the only one *reasoning* the way you reason about things, rightly or wrongly. In fact, this may be their fallback tactic- when confused, slow down. That way Google doesn't have any high-speed accidents that actually kill people. That would be bad, and bad press, too.
This is another thing about Google cars and self driving cars generally. They're safer *if they're in the majority*. They all know what each other is likely to do and can take account of it in their own behavior. They can coordinate. It's sort of the opposite effect of the Wall Street bots. They all know do the same thing, and then crater the market on account of it.
So here is a thing to think about. Self driving cars may have real trouble as an incremental approach. I have to think that it's a self conscious part of Google's game plan to reach a tipping point of self-driving cars where they are a significant minority. Until then, the project is a financial loss. Past that point, and working in tandem with insurance companies, expect to pay a first a little then a LOT more for insurance to drive regular cars. This will force the market (that means you) towards self-driving cars, if only for economic reasons. Somewhere along the way to this tipping point, the government will subsidize the purchase of self driving cars using the argument that that money comes back to them and more in the cost savings realized by fewer accidents, less healthcare costs associated with accidents, less police and emergency costs etc etc.
It's interesting to think that owning a car with self driving features is a status symbol now, reflecting wealth and prestige but in the future, driving a regular car will be the status symbol, signalling wealth and the freedom and autonomy it brings.
Google must be reasoning all this through even as they try to get self-driving car technology working. The players- insurance companies, the government the regulators, are all talking about these kinds of things- how they can economically *flip* everyone onto self-driving cars. They also have to be thinking about the popular perception and possible resistance to the technology. Obviously, cars are a form of individual autonomy. The government can't remotely pull the plug on your driving or automatically track your whereabouts. But with self-driving cars, expect to see them demand these *features* and Google *begrudgingly* go along with it.
When we switched from horses to cars, there were obviously numerous social issues that got dragged along. There was a large popular resistance because with a horse, you went where you wanted, the way you wanted. With a car, you could only go where what roads there were were. One of the things that made cars popular was amusingly enough, sex. A car was a kind of rolling bed, a possibly subversive dual purpose technology with a respectable side. The very first porn movie features a man and two women driving in an car in the country. The woman says she has to get out and pee. The car stops and woman gets out and after a little while the man follows. Pants-down embarrassment is followed by flirting which leads to fucking, of course. The other woman follows onto the scene and the gates o
While I also hate tailgaters, as a European who spends many months each year in the U.S. I have to say average American driving habits sometimes make me pull my hair out. I know driving rules and habits are different, still, if most drivers would at least try to keep to the right, to at least try to drive fast enough to be close to the speed limit on highways (not forcing 65-goers to constantly change lanes), to signal lane changes (left and right, yes, both), and not to break randomly on the open road (i.e., even when there's nobody ahead for hundreds of yards), well then maybe I wouldn't curse so much while driving. Oh, and for f* sake, if you enter the freeway and don't plan to leave at the next exit then you might sometimes consider shifting left 1-2 lanes.
You know, it's interesting--I would say there are even huge changes in driving habits between different parts of the country. This is obviously all anecdotal, but my experiences in parts of the midwest have been that people are very good about staying out of the left lane and allowing people to pass them as necessary. OTOH, in North Carolina, people are very bad about that. There are big differences in tailgating, use of the horn, passing on the right, etc. It seems to b e a fairly "southern" driving trait (I've heard northeasterners comment about this) to swing widely in the opposite direction before turning.
I just wish people would freaking pay attention at stop lights and watch for the light to change to green. It's almost always this excruciating ballet of watching the cars ahead of me "Oh, the light changed? *2 seconds to process before starting to accelerate" followed by the car behind them seeming to only realize it's time to go after their own two second pause. I'm hoping for network aware (or just aware!) autonomous cars that can all start rolling at the same time after a light change.