California To Join Nevada With Rules For Autonomous Cars 194
thecarchik writes "As of now, the only state where self-driving cars are legal on public roads is Nevada, thanks to its vast expanses of open space and lightly traveled byways. California, recognizing that autonomous cars are an inevitable progression of technology, is moving to establish its own rules for driverless vehicles. A bill proposed by California Senator Alex Padilla would set guidelines for the testing and operation of self-driving vehicles within the state. As California is home to Google, Stanford and Caltech, all of which have active autonomous vehicle programs, the state is positioned to be a leader in driverless car development. It stands to reason that self-driving cars will be allowed on California's roads, probably in the near future."
As California is home to... (Score:3, Insightful)
...some of the worst drivers in the world.
I've lived in Boston, New York and Chicago. And Northern California easily takes the cake for worst drivers. They hesitate when they should commit, they never use turn signals, roll through stop signs, drive until 7-8pm without their lights on (or just use their parking lights).
So I would welcome driverless cars, because it can't get much worse than this.
Re:so it begins (Score:5, Insightful)
Those things aren't going to go away. Parking and traffic have to do with the number of cars, not just their driver's skill. And driving death will still happen until EVERY car is driven by an infallable AI. Which won't happen for at least a few generations after the AI is developed, since people are much to attached to driving cars.
Liability mitigation is the crucial rule (Score:5, Insightful)
What is REALLY needed is a law to mitigate liability risks for automated cars. Here's how a fair law might read :
All operators of automated vehicles are required to buy additional insurance. If someone is harmed by an automated vehicle malfunction, a panel is empowered to compensate the individual with a FIXED amount of money depending on the severity of the injury and or death. This is how vaccine injuries are handled : if a vaccine harms someone, they get a certain amount of injury depending on the risk.
Neutral, third party laboratories would be paid to examine the 'black boxes' from automated cars after a crash and present their findings to the panel.
The panel would be required by law to make a decision within a certain amount of time (~180 days sounds about right)
Advantages :
1. Lawyers eat up a large chunk of the money when litigation is allowed. This way, most of the money goes to the victims.
2. Everyone gets some compensation money instead of most getting nothing and a few hitting the jackpot
3. Faster decisions instead of lawsuits that take 5-10 years.
Disadvantages :
1. Panel can be unfair or biased and little can be done
2. The amounts of money seem low compared to jury awards for successful lawsuits. Lose a hand, it might be 100k not a million, etc.
3. Legislators who are lawyers have to write the legislation for this.
The reason to do this is the same reason we do vaccines, but it would save a LOT more lives. Automobiles kill far more people than the number who would die if we stopped most vaccinations. Automated cars will occasionally malfunction and kill someone. However, on the aggregate, the total deaths per passenger mile caused by automated vehicles will very likely be more than 10 times or more lower. Automated vehicles have short reaction delays, no need to take risks, ability to see in all directions they have sensors pointing at the same time, can predict a crash is about to occur and take mitigating actions (pre-firing the airbags, etc), activates the brakes quickly enough to avoid pileups, etc.
The thing is, an automated car will have software bugs, and will occasionally make mistakes. Maybe a good model will be as good a driver as the average driver on their best day. EXCEPT, an automated car's systems cannot become distracted, board, drunk, or fall asleep. I suspect that this advantage over millions of miles will prove to be huge. Sure, the average human might be smarter, but we don't give our best effort during every minute of the many hours we drive.
Re:so it begins (Score:5, Insightful)
Parking is a much smaller problem if when you're planning to stay put at a certain location for a few hours, the car can simply drive itself to another parking location.
Also, self-driving cars are a major boon to car sharing services; which should reduce car ownership; for the user, there's a big difference between having to go to a parked car somewhere and then leave it there again than just have it parked outside his home and then leave it anywhere.
Re:Atlantic Cities article on driverless cars (Score:2, Insightful)
The usual anti-car stuff from the usual anti-car suspects. There's no point in paying any attention to that set; they'll say whatever it takes to promote their vision of how people should live, which generally means people renting tiny places in a rat warren, taking public transit to work and walking everywhere else. The private car is anathema to them, as are low-density suburbs and single family homes.
Rosy future, but there will be system failures (Score:5, Insightful)
I am wholeheartedly for the development of robot cars! I can hardly wait for the day when I can command my car to drive my drunken ass home, or tell it to go to the grocer and pick up my milk and cheese (which the grocer will load into my car for me) while I'm at work. Not to mention the possibilities for car sharing!
However, there will be system failures. The cars will have to develop "reptile brain" like functions that can make the car pull over and stop in the case of byzantine failure of the controller. Think about car-worms and viruses that command cars to crash into each other, or remote car hijacking. It is going to be *very* interesting to watch all this develop. Consider the people who will drive recklessly in their "classic cars" expecting that most other cars are autonomous, which may make the road more dangerous for those who don't have one.
That said, I'm looking forward to the robot-car only lanes on the freeway where we can have fuel-efficient car-trains and the social benefits of being able to hop out of your robot car in front of your destination and have the car valet itself.
Several Points (Score:5, Insightful)
Padilla's bill is SB 1298 at http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/postquery?bill_number=sb_1298&sess=CUR [ca.gov]. It has not yet had its first committee hearing.
I was a software test engineer for over 30 years. There is no such thing as a computer system that is completely error-free. While SOME drivers are impaired or simply have poor judgement, other drivers are alert, coordinated, and generally safe. On the other hand, all autonomous cars from the same manufacturer will have the same software errors.
The current leader in developing autonomous cars is Google. I would not drive one of Google's cars unless I knew that Google was not tracking where I went and what route I took to get there. I am concerned that, even if the car does not transmit its location and route in real-time, a mechanic might still be able to download the car's history while servicing the car. That information should be available only to law-enforcement agencies and even then only when a judge issues a warrant after being convinced there is probable cause that the history is relevant to an actual crime.
Re:so it begins (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Several Points (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no such thing as a computer system that is completely error-free.
It doesn't have to be error free. It just needs to be better than humans. That is not a high bar.
On the other hand, all autonomous cars from the same manufacturer will have the same software errors
And when one of those errors causes an accident in ONE car, it will be fixed and patched in ALL the cars. So the number of bugs, and the number of accidents will decline quickly . Autonomous cars already have millions of miles of testing, and are probably already safer than the average human driver.
Demanding absolute safety is foolish, and delaying the introduction of autonomous cars will cause many unnecessary deaths.
Re:Liability mitigation is the crucial rule (Score:5, Insightful)
Meanwhile, back in the real world, the automated ABS systems in many cars will cut the brakes on fresh snow where locking the wheels would typically result in a shorter stopping distance.
Unlocked brakes means you still have some ability to steer. Locked brakes have no steerability. Locking the wheels will often result in the car going sideways down the road with no ability to steer into the skid. If there'a one thing worse than not being able to stop, it's the car travelling sideways whilst not being able to stop.