Funny how those kinds of previews of the future always include luxury perks (in the present case they highlight the 4K display; for flights in the 60 they highlighted
luxury meals) when the reality is obviously pragmatic.
More seriously, I wonder how automated cars deals with our road traditions. In France, if you leave the officially required distance with the front car on the highway, another car will insert in between. Then you'll have to slow down, and another car will insert, and so on. Cars can't be programmed to perform something illegal, so I guess they don't deal with "competitive situations" efficiently.
Tailgating isn't just illegal, it's also extremely dangerous. I think the in best case, a self-driving car would record the number plate of the car that cut you off, and you could then pass that information on to the police.
edit: I didn't want this to come across as an attack, I'm not a perfect driver myself, in fact I'm still on my learner licence :) . I feel the fact you have to constantly break the law because other drivers are also breaking the law to be a problem in itself, without even bringing the autonomous car into the equation.
There's a difference between tailgating and using one's space though. I'm a Swiss who's driven in France (countryside) and I've always found French driving style quite pleasant. Quick on the outer lane, giving you space on the inner/middle lane. What I mean is: Legal limits usually don't really reflect what's safe with today's cars, so using the space a bit better shouldn't be a problem as long as you're respectful and reasonable.
So yeah, parent raises interesting questions - since autonomous cars will probably have to follow legal limits, what about driving culture? If it were me I'd solve the issue by giving drivers a slider going from the most aggressive yet still safe distance to the legal distance - with legal warnings you have to tap through if you want to change the slider.
"Legal limits usually don't really reflect what's safe with today's cars,"
Correct - Legal Limits results in many deaths a year that would not occur if the Limits were more strict. People who violate even those rather dangerous limits, result in even more carnage.
I find it fascinating how overconfident people are when it comes to cars, and just feel that because they aren't getting into accidents, that cars are safe.
There isn't a single country in the world that believes that human life is worth more than the convenience of speeding around in cars. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_Zero is a great concept, but until automation is fully extended, most of the traffic laws, speeds, car spacing will continue to result in people dying in numbers greater than if there were more strict regulations.
> Legal Limits results in many deaths a year that would not occur if the Limits were more strict.
Source on this please. Let's take speed limits as an example. Looking at [1], the data for the US doesn't seem to be conclusive to me - some times speed limit decreases didn't have a significant effect, sometimes increases lead to more crashes, sometimes to less crashes. So I don't know about you, but I wouldn't use such a blanket statement. Also, Europe often has higher speed limits, but significantly less fatalities than the US[2], both by miles driven and by number of cars. That may or may not be causal, but the world is not as simple as it's the law so it must be good.
Edit: I've been looking for regulations on following distance, but I can't actually find any. There's lots of rules that are given to driving learners but I can't find anything legally binding, whether for the US nor for European country. Obviously keeping a safe distance is necessary for reducing accidents, but lacking any data I can't really say what distance is safe. In Switzerland we learn the 'two second rule', in the US it seems to be three seconds - which seems excessively much to me - at that distance you'd have driver after driver using the gap in front of you since half the distance would seem close enough to the two-second-rule to them - thus creating way more critical situations where you have to be careful.
I was referring to following distance. And yes, three seconds is the "too liberal" version that I was referring to. Once we have automated systems in place, then anybody cutting into a three second gap gets an automatic $xx fine or some type of penalty to discourage them from doing that.
I assure you, that if every driver on the road was a minimum of 4 seconds behind the car in front of them, with mechanisms to enforce that, certain classes of accidents (predominantly rear-ending events, and rapid-swerve events) would be significantly reduced.
The good news is that over the next 3-5 years, a large number of safety automation systems will start to make their way into high-end $50K+ vehicles. The three that I'm super impressed by (having driven in a bunch of vehicles with them) - are Crash Avoidance (your car hits the breaks to prevent it from running into the vehicle in front of you), Lane Control (Your car keeps you in the current lane), and Blind Spot Protection (Your car prevents you from ramming into a car in your blind spot). If, as I strongly suspect, there is a huge drop in car accidents as a result of these three technologies, then we'll start to see them being introduced into the $30K-$50K range over the following 4-6 years, and then, soon thereafter as the technology has been commoditized, the NHTSA will start requiring it. By 2030, all new cars sold in the United States will require those three technologies.
I can only begin to imagine what new technologies will be developed as the march towards self driving cars takes place.
"Doesn't seem conclusive"? I find it hard to believe you could read that table you linked to and claim that speed limits are not effective. Most of the data presented show double digit correlations between speed limit changes and fatalities!
I'm quoting the data entries for the US that are either nation-wide or multi-state:
decreases
* US (22 states) (1992) 5 mph to 15 mph (8 km/h to 24 km/h) decreases No significant changes
increases
* US (1989) 55 mph to 65 mph (89 km/h to 105 km/h) Fatal crashes increased by 21%
* US (40 states) (1990) 55 mph to 65 mph (89 km/h to 105 km/h) Fatalities increased by 15%
Decrease or no effect in 12 States
* US (40 states) (1994) 55 mph to 65 mph (89 km/h to 105 km/h) Statewide fatality rates decreased 3-5% (Significant in 14 of 40 states)
* US (22 states) (1997) 5 mph to 15 mph (8 km/h to 24 km/h) increase No significant changes
So no, I don't see the defining answer here. I'm not saying that the limits should be raised across the board, I'm also not saying that decreases aren't good - all I'm saying is that legal limits should be assessed from time to time (which they are), because of changes in society, technology and new data. Laws are not perfect.
How come it's because of speed when every time someone die in a car he's either drunk, on drugs or felt asleep while driving?
Not to mention people die less because today's cars are also millions times more safe, not because we put speed camera on the side or because people drive slow.
The current model Subaru already has this feature for it's "adaptive cruise control". It has 4 presets for distance it will follow the car in front.
It's obviously only appropriate on the freeway of course. On my commute I will have it set at the second shortest distance because it's frankly a little disconcerting when the person in front of you stops in a hurry. It does, however, mean that people merge in front of you... but somehow, with adaptive cruise, I no longer care.
It's not about the performance of the car that your driving, but about giving you enough time to react. In theory, if your car and the car you were following had same stopping distance, and you could react instantaneously, then you could drive bumper to bumper without incident.
Even with anti lock brakes, the car in front of you probably has them too, so you still have the same time to react as you always did.
Pile-ups still happen pretty frequently, and they could be avoided completely if people were following at a safe distance, and were alert.
You could definitely argue that autonomous cars should be able to follow closer than human operated ones, and I'd buy that.
I agree with everything you wrote. My post was meant to be a reaction to GP's post that implied tailgating to be equal with driving in a way that minifies cars cutting in front of you. I maintain that there is a sweet spot that is both safe as long as you're alert as well as keeps the traffic around you in sort of a steady state where everyone can just keep following. If you let the gap become larger, others will start cutting in - if you then have to use the breaks you basically rely on the guy behind you doing the right thing as well, thus increasing the risk of accidents.
And you can't have legal limits reflecting anything useful because traffic authorities play catch-up with drivers who are so full of themselves they think they're smarter than everyone and can ignore the rules because they know better. You need people obeying the rules, however bad they may be, for traffic engineers to be able to optimize said rules. That's why I think traffic laws should be enforced ruthlessly and in automated fashion.
Intelligence-driven cars will likely fly "under the radar" for a half-decade or so while regulators catch up. Once they do, the industry will be more than ready to accelerate traffic 100% to 300% and ultimately flip the regulatory pressure from machine to human. Humans will need to prove their ability to drive at something like 500 kph.
This actually just gave me an idea. A little rear mounted camera matched with some software that detects tailgaters, records them, automatically uploads the video to Youtube and lists their license plate on a searchable public shaming site.
A future, in which even minor offences (of whatever kind) are automatically reported to the police, will bring us one step closer to dystopia. I am not sure your "best case" is desirable at all. (Even if I sometimes wish humans would drive more carefully and patiently.)
True, but it's a dangerous precedent. The fact is that a lot of law in areas such as traffic, waste management etc is basically meant to be fluid and a deterrent; if everybody that littered where it was illegal, drank from open containers where it was illegal, fly-tipped or sped was instantly caught, then we'd just have tonnes of people in prison for relatively minor offences.
I think there's a desirable degree of pragmatism to be favoured in lieu of unbounded technological utopianism on this point.
You don't (shouldn't) put people in prison for stuff like this, you keep fining them increasing amounts of money until they stop doing the thing they are not supposed to be doing. The world would be a much better place if the traffic (and waste) laws were more, maybe even automatically, enforced.
Philosophically speaking, no one will be saved. We are all basically dying. Of course it would be nice to reduce traffic deaths, but we should carefully consider in what way our actions will affect society.
We should not assume this will only affect how people behave in traffic, as well. Other offences will likely also be included.
If you want to merge on a lane, what is the workflow then ? Activate the blinker, then wait for the car on the merging lane to give me (security_distance * 2) before merging ? I could wait a (very) long time for this to happen.
Wow, automatic highway surveillance? That's actually a frightening aspect of smart cars that hadn't crossed my mind.. like the driving equivalent of a "thought police" society from 1984 -- but automated.
> like the driving equivalent of a "thought police" society from 1984 -- but automated.
Except in this case it's reporting a crime that you have actually already done - you broke a traffic law. It might not be an extremely serious crime most of the time, but it's absolutely not the same as punishment for thinking about breaking the law.
Depends if it's recording general indiscretions or driving indiscretions. Once all/most driving is automated, I don't think we'll have many driving indiscretions, and you could potentially put them back on the manufacturer in some cases rather than the occupant.
Especially so when the majority of people do not own the car in which they're travelling but are hiring it for the journey like they do a taxi or plane.
Cars merging in front of you is mainly a problem for human drivers; it's frustrating, but the actual time lost is probably negligible. An automatic car wouldn't care -- maintaining safety is more important than shaving a few seconds off your commute.
>maintaining safety is more important than shaving a few seconds off your commute.
Nothing more satisfying than to watch a car aggressively weaving in and out of lanes only to miles later encounter that same car stuck in the same traffic as you.
I expect they will be ridiculously deferential, and the last few road hogs driving manual will have a frustratingly easy time of it. It's no fun cutting in, if the nominal driver doesn't even look up from her e-book, and the car politely lets you. And that's how it will feel to you - like nothing. Like a smooth ride. Why would you give a damn how many people cut in?
How about when someone thinks it's fun to hack the simplistic behavior and intelligence of an automated vehicle?
I'm absolutely positive that it's not going to be that long or that hard to find – opportunities – to fool the sensors and intelligence of any car built in the next several decades.
Sonic and GPS jammers and forgers, paining a few extra lines on an interstate, projecting images to fool image recognition... and on and on and on. Not to mention more traditional computer exploitation.
This is true, but I can already do this to the human drivers. I could easily get a really bright light, and make it impossible for drivers to see. I could already create fake signs, or repaint the road markings to make people simply drive off the road.
Yeah -- and that's a good point. I am also interested in seeing if we're going to see a bunch of self driving cars running around at exactly the speed limit, like grandma out on a Sunday drive. And how many drivers is that going to anger?
Consider that the source of frustration in traffic is the condition that you, the driver, are stuck behind the wheel, having to focus on creeping along. If you didn't have to pay attention, really, to your surroundings and could multitask your trip away, I suppose a driver would be less concerned with a drive taking 5 or 10 extra minutes.
Google's cars are programmed to break the law in a number of scenarios. They will inch into an intersection if they don't sense that another car is going to take advantage of their right of way. They will speed faster than the posted limit if they sense that cars are traveling faster than that limit.
Obeying the law, in some scenarios, particularly when you might force people to make lane changes (which are dangerous in and of themselves) results in greater fatalities. In that situation, it makes sense to break the law.
Manual cars' speedometer "sticks" during an accident, so the police can see the actual speed at the time of impact. Who's responsible when a Google car has an accident while breaking the law?
Likely depends on who signed what, to what extent a manufacturer can deny responsibility, etc. Many people will hire cars rather than own them so it's likely that the taxi service will bear responsibility unless the passenger has meddled.
Depends on where you live and what the local laws are. Where I live (Melbourne, Victoria) most people drive _under_ the speed limit on the highway I take to work each day.
Our local police fine us for doing 2-3km over the limit, and the fines are steep. Most of us here wouldn't notice cars driving at the speed limit.
That's exactly my issue with drivers. Many of them (most of the ones I know personally) get angry at people driving the way they are supposed to. Apparently the "right" way to drive is to be a total asshole with complete disregard for human life.
> Instead of a homeless guy offering to squeegee your windshield, you’ll see crowds celebrating your passage. A Tuscan village will take the place of your crummy suburban cul de sac.
Does anybody else find this train of thought disturbing? That "if I can look at screens instead of out the window I won't have to see the homeless" is one of the first things to come to the author's mind speaks volumes.
One of the things we can take from this article is that once autonomous cars are ubiquitous, you won't be able to save time when you're running late by driving dangerously. Better start learning some time management skills.
And, obviously, if you have good time management skills, you wouldn't need to drive dangerously in the first place.
Things like junctions/intersections would be much better managed (we might even be able to make them free-flowing on roads where non-autonomous vehicles were banned).
Assume that you're travelling 100 miles. The first 4 miles are in town, with lots of crossings, lights, etc. The middle 92 miles are on highways with a few turn offs. The final 4 miles are back in town with lights and crossings again. let's assume UK speed limits for everything (30mph in town, 70mph on highways). We'll ignore acceleration.
In an autonomous car you can do the speed limit for the entire journey. That's 8 miles at 30mph and 92 miles at 70mph. The journey takes you 95 minutes.
In the human-driven car you're slowed to an average of 20mph in town, but on the highway you travel at 85mph because that's what everyone else does. The journey takes you 89 minutes.
Obviously the 95 minutes in the autonomous car can be a productive 95 minutes whereas driving yourself you can't do much else for those 89 minutes, which is a huge difference, but until all the cars are autonomous (or there are superfast autonomous lanes at least) then it's probably going to be quicker to drive yourself because to a human a speed limit is a guideline rather than a rule.
Why would the speed limit on the highway be 70mph in a world of autonomous vehicles? Research indicates that a raise in the limit to 80 or 85 mph would be perfectly safe - the only reason for a 70 mph limit is to cope with heavy traffic.
I find it a bit amusing that we're having to invent some incredible technologies to overcome our sense of self and resulting selfishness to act like the cooperative insects we often step on without noticing.
OK, an oversized self-driving electric limo that seats 4. Why not?
It's amusing that Mercedes' concept of the future of automotive transportation is total isolation from the external world. They didn't go all the way to windowless, but it seems to have more display screen acreage than side windows.
They seem to have borrowed the "street glow" concept from lowriders.[1] The car has large areas of blue LEDs on the front and back faces. That's so LA.
The concept might work, once they get the bulk of the vehicle down and lose the tacky bling.
I think a lot of that is just to advertise the car ("this the future, people!!"). For example, the article notes how large parts of the F 015 is made of "plastic that changes shape in hot weather", which Mercedes (or any other self-respecting auto brand, for that matter) is never going to put in their actual cars that they sell.
So I don't think we can take the cosmetic aspects too literally as to what Mercedes' design team will actually go for with the final product.
I think they're trying to retain relevance down the track because once car ownership dissipates, most people will be more utilitarian with what they hire and car less about car stylings. e.g., Google have a dorky little concept and Apple's Titan is unlikely to be sporty, assuming that turns out to be some sort of minivan.
All the cabs I take are pretty standard looking and I've never cared.
If this car insists that pedestrians go first, to the extent of stopping and projecting a sidewalk in front of them, it'll never go anywhere very fast. People will just step out into traffic trusting that the car will stop for them - and in areas of any significant pedestrian density that'll mean that you're constantly stopped or going at a couple of miles an hour.
Without the prospect of getting run down and squished if you behave like a total moron, that's what people will do.
Whenever I read an article like this—in advocacy of AI controlled objects, I always wonder: who would be to blame if an unfortunate circumstance would arrive? As in, say there was an accident, how could 'faulty software' be blamed, or better put, how would it stand trial? Perhaps it could go through another update (think ios 8). Problem solved?
Right, and when they represent giant corporations, us common-folk won't have anything to fear; "It wasn't faulty software,but a dysfunctional update"—sort of thing. (my issue is that you won't be able to point a finger at anyone.)
In a system as complex, where you have millions of lines of code written by hundreds of programmers run on hundreds of chips designed by thousands of people, it doesn't really make sense to "point a finger at someone". The smallest responsible unit will most likely be the company that created the car.
Which is exactly the point I'm pushing: Who will pay for other's incompetence (or for lack of a better word failure)? Will we simply sweep someone's life under the rug? With regards to the idea that a company will be 'responsible,' just think of Shell and the oil in the gulf. I only want to be held accountable for my own actions, and not be a statistic a corporation sweeps under the rug. The issue is the accountability, and its ability to be exploited, not the actual legal value.
Well in this situation, the hypothetical "you" are held accountable for your choice of automated car. Evaluating which programming group to trust seems like plenty of responsibility to me.
Just like every investor is fully aware of all variables when picking a stock, thus fully accountable in case of said stock's crash, correct?
I'd agree with the parent commenter: the car company would be responsible, financially. Legally, they would have to recall or disable all instances until a fix is pushed.
Human life, in this case, will get a price tag, instead of a (jail) time value, as is mostly the case today.
Who created the car if the hardware came from manufacturer, internal displays and sensors from a bunch of outside suppliers, and software to manage it all from Google?
Whoever is responsible for approving the aggregate and pushing it to market. Since we don't (yet) have products that self-assemble in store from various parts out of their own free will, there is always a single entity responsible for putting everything together.
Like a famous vice Top Gear presenter once said "We have a self driving car already, it's called a BUS".
In the article they say "There will come a time, within a few decades, when people simply will not drive anymore". I completely disagree with that opinion. For me and for most of my friends driving is a joy, its not just going from point A to point B. I don't think we will ever stop driving altogether.
> Like a famous vice Top Gear presenter once said "We have a self driving car already, it's called a BUS".
True.
> For me and for most of my friends driving is a joy, its not just going from point A to point B. I don't think we will ever stop driving altogether.
We don't have to stop driving altogether, we only need to eliminate 90% of the driving - the part that is boring and joyless, i.e. commute. Also, driving on public roads should be safe, not fun.
I personally hope there comes a time where you have to go to the track to do that. Because I don't see myself wanting to pay for public roads as a playground for unnecessarily dangerous activities.
If I ever make a billion dollars, some portion of it will be spent to make sure a production run of cars like this are made under the GPL license such that we hackers can make and improve upon the interfaces described.
As long as nobody is legally allowed to enter a road with such modifications, I'm all for it - but I surely hope there will be strict enforcement against 'speed hacks', which user-modifiability will surely turn in to.
More seriously, I wonder how automated cars deals with our road traditions. In France, if you leave the officially required distance with the front car on the highway, another car will insert in between. Then you'll have to slow down, and another car will insert, and so on. Cars can't be programmed to perform something illegal, so I guess they don't deal with "competitive situations" efficiently.