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Are you still considered to be in the care and control of the vehicle, or are you demoted to just another passenger? Will the worst consequence of driving drunk be to end up in the wrong place?
Mind you, that would be bad enough -- to punch in the wrong coordinates, and wake up in the truly seedy part of town to find dwarves stealing your wheels -- but it's certainly an order of magnitude less severe than killing someone unlucky enough to be sharing the road with you.
Automatic driving is still sensor-limited. The
current generation of millimeter radars can see other cars, but not smaller obstacles like children. No way can they see a pothole. Vision systems are good enough for road following, but reliable obstacle avoidance still seems out of reach.
We [overbot.com], of course, are working on fully automatic driving. We have both a visual road-follower and a millimeter radar. That's not enough.
Even line-scanner laser rangefinders are too limited. We need a true 3D device. Such things have been built, but the market is so tiny (and they're so big and clunky) that they're all one-offs. It's clear that the problem can be fixed, but the market isn't there yet to do it.
I suspect that many will not like self-driving cars because they will not drive agressively enough. For example, many dislike the automatic speed-matching systems that maintain a "safe" distance to the next car because they leave too much distance to the next car. Tailgaters honk at the automated cars because they wont close the gap and the others cut into the large gap created by these systems. What the system (and safety experts and the car maker's insurance companies) consider "safe" is too tame for most drivers.
While many drivers are comfortable in taking risks, the corporate creators of these systems will be risk averse. That excessive risk averseness will hinder public acceptance.
For the more complex systems (pretty much everything besides ABS) there are usually buttons or switches to turn them off. For example, in most Toyota vans, there is an automatic traction control system that will slow the wheels down if they slide from the driver pressing the gas too much. This is great for people who just don't want the car to slide when they hit the gas too much, but it really gives a feeling of being disconnected from the car. It can be turned off, but it's on by default every time the car is started. Also, the anti-slide feature puts a lot of stress on the transmission, and decreases its life. Normally, women leave it on and men turn it off.
Mercedes S-Class sedans will even start shutting the sunroof and lifting reclined seats if a collision is deemed likely.
Isn't closing the sun-roof a dangerous think to do. If the impact jams the passenger and driver doors, then the sunroof might be the only way of escape.
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Saturday April 03, 2004 @07:57PM (#8758643)
From the article:
On Wednesday, Nissan's Infiniti division said that it would embed a camera on the rearview mirror of its 2005 FX sport utility vehicle. It is part of a system that warns drivers if they drift from their lane, the first such system in the United States. In Japan, Honda sells a similar system that actually steers the car back into a lane if a driver does not heed a warning.
Great. So, what do you do if you want to make a lane change? In most places, using the turn signal is out of the question since it's an obvious sign of weakness on the part of the operator.
Also, the anti-slide feature puts a lot of stress on the transmission, and decreases its life.
Where did you read that? Most traction control systems either
1) Adjust the throttle position so the wheels don't spin more than 5mph (i.e. if the gas is on the floor and the drive wheels are on ice, they only spin slowly).
or 2) They brake individual wheels to gain traction. This isn't stressing the transmission any more than normal driving. The differential is simply distributing more torque to the other wheel. And there's no way to do this without traction control or a limited-slip/locking differential. So it's not always a bad thing.
Fast forward many years. Imagine your typical highway. All of the cars are equipped with their own senses, but also wireless networking. Road signs could have wireless adapters as well that would broadcast their prescence. Let's say a pedestrian dashes out in front of the car. The cameras catch it and hit the brakes. At the same time, that is transmitted to the other cars so we don't have a pileup
differential locks can put more stress on a rear due to the fact that no two wheels are going to turn at the same exact speed (more tread on one wheel, turning, etc)
braking an individual tire puts less stress on the rear, but more on the brakes and robs some power.
but i'd agree that they are helpful. nothing worse than a wheel slipping and no way to get the others to turn. but that doesn't mean that they don't stress certain parts
This is completely true. Another major advantage of autonomous cars is that they could simply follow more closely, letting more cars occupy the road at once, travelling at higher speeds, getting to where they're going more quickly and reducing much of the energy waste and pollution that's often associated with low speed stop-start driving.
With a road that's designed for it, as well as cars that are designed to communuicate with the road and the other cars on it, traffic congestion could be reduced hugely. As long as they have reliable data, computers are capable of reacting several orders of magnitude faster than humans are.
It might be substantially more difficult to implement a system like this for city driving, mostly due to uncontrollable parameters like pedestrians. But it doesn't seem that unreasonable to implement it on high speed roads. The main barriers are upgrading the roads to support the cars, and making the cars capable of driving on the roads. Perhaps, to do this, you might allocate a lane or two at a time for a while, as the infrastructure changes.
You cando something about it [amasci.com], if you care to. The biggest causes of stop and go traffic jams on freways are onramps and offramps, and the "gotta win" mindset that doesn't let people merge into traffic flow or change over to exit flow. Start leaving a few car lengths of space ahead of you when you drive on freeways. By doing this, you're giving people room to merge in and out, and you're also giving the wave time to break up before you reach it. I've gotten into the habit of doing this, and wouldn't you know it that if I leave enough space ahead of me, traffic jams just seem to break up right as I approach. Most times, I don't even have to brake as I come up to them.
Yes, people will move into the gap you're leaving. That's the whole point. Most people in traffic jams don't try to change lanes, so they won't know or care that you have a few car lengths of space ahead of you. For the people that do care, they're free to move into that space (when they do, just open up another car length of space). You don't even have to go slow to do this. A few miles per hour slower than the average speed will easily open up a nice gap you can carry to the next traffic jam. As the traffic clears, you can speed up. If you do find that you misjudged your leading distance and end up having to slow or even stop, just pause a moment before starting again. That will open up a space in front of you.
None of this would be necessary if people actually had adequate driver training, but sadly that's not the case in the States. Driving is consider a "right" rather than a privilege, and driver training suffers because of that (Joe Sixpack or Jane Soccermom will throw fits if they fail a driving test and have to give up their license).
A highway full of automated cars could run with very short car-to-car distances and good safety.
And then you have the opposite problem from the parent poster: people are terrified to speed down the freeway only five feet from the car in front of them.
How do we know this? Because there's a stretch of Highway 8 in San Diego County where they're testing magnetic guidance for this exact purpose. They have a "platoon" of cars with sensors under them, and little hockey-puck sized magnetic guides embedded in the pavement. Sometimes early on Sunday mornings you can see them whipping by at 60 mph with five feet between them.
Nothing is wrong with registering, but I know that I don't do it because I don't want it to become commonplace. What if every news site on the internet started requiring free registration to view their content? What if other sites started requring registration. What if I had to register at yahoo just to check ticket times or at weather.com just to check if it was going to rain tonight? If the NYT got really positive feedback about its registration system, then other sites might follow suit.
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Sunday April 04, 2004 @02:25AM (#8760093)
Which means it should make for more cars through an intersection, instead of having to wait for the 0.1-sec/driver slinky effect to work back through the line. Wouldn't it be great if every driver was aware of the green light changing, and started driving at the same instant? It is especially obvious in Oregon how much of a positive effect this could have.
I also wish more through-way streets had synchronized lights. What is fun is finding the streets (Salem, OR - Center Street through downtown) where the synchronized speed is slightly higher than the speed limit...
Is it legal to let the car drive if you're drunk? (Score:5, Interesting)
Mind you, that would be bad enough -- to punch in the wrong coordinates, and wake up in the truly seedy part of town to find dwarves stealing your wheels -- but it's certainly an order of magnitude less severe than killing someone unlucky enough to be sharing the road with you.
Mal-2
What's Wrong and Right with This Article (Score:1, Interesting)
Haven't they already lived up to their names by being able to power themselves. I believe that why they are called "automobiles."
And BTW, good to see short summaries, forcing people to RTFA.
The sensors aren't good enough yet (Score:5, Interesting)
We [overbot.com], of course, are working on fully automatic driving. We have both a visual road-follower and a millimeter radar. That's not enough.
Even line-scanner laser rangefinders are too limited. We need a true 3D device. Such things have been built, but the market is so tiny (and they're so big and clunky) that they're all one-offs. It's clear that the problem can be fixed, but the market isn't there yet to do it.
Low adoption: AutoAuto == sunday driver (Score:5, Interesting)
While many drivers are comfortable in taking risks, the corporate creators of these systems will be risk averse. That excessive risk averseness will hinder public acceptance.
Re:Could be good for safety (Score:3, Interesting)
Closing the sunroof? (Score:3, Interesting)
Mercedes S-Class sedans will even start shutting the sunroof and lifting reclined seats if a collision is deemed likely.
Isn't closing the sun-roof a dangerous think to do. If the impact jams the passenger and driver doors, then the sunroof might be the only way of escape.
Re:Uh oh! (Score:3, Interesting)
Since the car would be driving instead of you, tough titty. Sit inside your cage and yell and stamp your feet all you want.
Lane drifting (Score:1, Interesting)
From the article:
On Wednesday, Nissan's Infiniti division said that it would embed a camera on the rearview mirror of its 2005 FX sport utility vehicle. It is part of a system that warns drivers if they drift from their lane, the first such system in the United States. In Japan, Honda sells a similar system that actually steers the car back into a lane if a driver does not heed a warning.
Great. So, what do you do if you want to make a lane change? In most places, using the turn signal is out of the question since it's an obvious sign of weakness on the part of the operator.
Re:Could be good for safety (Score:5, Interesting)
Where did you read that? Most traction control systems either
1) Adjust the throttle position so the wheels don't spin more than 5mph (i.e. if the gas is on the floor and the drive wheels are on ice, they only spin slowly).
or 2) They brake individual wheels to gain traction. This isn't stressing the transmission any more than normal driving. The differential is simply distributing more torque to the other wheel. And there's no way to do this without traction control or a limited-slip/locking differential. So it's not always a bad thing.
Re:It wasn't my fault, officer. It was my car. (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:What does this mean? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Could be good for safety (Score:2, Interesting)
More reduction of traffic congestion (Score:3, Interesting)
This is completely true. Another major advantage of autonomous cars is that they could simply follow more closely, letting more cars occupy the road at once, travelling at higher speeds, getting to where they're going more quickly and reducing much of the energy waste and pollution that's often associated with low speed stop-start driving.
With a road that's designed for it, as well as cars that are designed to communuicate with the road and the other cars on it, traffic congestion could be reduced hugely. As long as they have reliable data, computers are capable of reacting several orders of magnitude faster than humans are.
It might be substantially more difficult to implement a system like this for city driving, mostly due to uncontrollable parameters like pedestrians. But it doesn't seem that unreasonable to implement it on high speed roads. The main barriers are upgrading the roads to support the cars, and making the cars capable of driving on the roads. Perhaps, to do this, you might allocate a lane or two at a time for a while, as the infrastructure changes.
Solve traffic jam waves yourself (Score:2, Interesting)
You can do something about it [amasci.com], if you care to. The biggest causes of stop and go traffic jams on freways are onramps and offramps, and the "gotta win" mindset that doesn't let people merge into traffic flow or change over to exit flow. Start leaving a few car lengths of space ahead of you when you drive on freeways. By doing this, you're giving people room to merge in and out, and you're also giving the wave time to break up before you reach it. I've gotten into the habit of doing this, and wouldn't you know it that if I leave enough space ahead of me, traffic jams just seem to break up right as I approach. Most times, I don't even have to brake as I come up to them.
Yes, people will move into the gap you're leaving. That's the whole point. Most people in traffic jams don't try to change lanes, so they won't know or care that you have a few car lengths of space ahead of you. For the people that do care, they're free to move into that space (when they do, just open up another car length of space). You don't even have to go slow to do this. A few miles per hour slower than the average speed will easily open up a nice gap you can carry to the next traffic jam. As the traffic clears, you can speed up. If you do find that you misjudged your leading distance and end up having to slow or even stop, just pause a moment before starting again. That will open up a space in front of you.
None of this would be necessary if people actually had adequate driver training, but sadly that's not the case in the States. Driving is consider a "right" rather than a privilege, and driver training suffers because of that (Joe Sixpack or Jane Soccermom will throw fits if they fail a driving test and have to give up their license).
Re:Low adoption: AutoAuto == sunday driver (Score:4, Interesting)
And then you have the opposite problem from the parent poster: people are terrified to speed down the freeway only five feet from the car in front of them.
How do we know this? Because there's a stretch of Highway 8 in San Diego County where they're testing magnetic guidance for this exact purpose. They have a "platoon" of cars with sensors under them, and little hockey-puck sized magnetic guides embedded in the pavement. Sometimes early on Sunday mornings you can see them whipping by at 60 mph with five feet between them.
But when they put humans in the cars, they panic.
Re:It wasn't my fault, officer. It was my car. (Score:3, Interesting)
No Karma bonus, offtopic.
Re:What does this mean? (Score:1, Interesting)
I also wish more through-way streets had synchronized lights. What is fun is finding the streets (Salem, OR - Center Street through downtown) where the synchronized speed is slightly higher than the speed limit...
Re:What does this mean? (Score:3, Interesting)
In this age of class action lawsuits, I don't think car manufacturers are stupid enough to let a less than foolproof system on the roads.