Google Self-Driving Car Rear-Ended In First Injury Accident 549
An anonymous reader writes: Google's autonomous car project, as of June, hadn't been in any accidents that involved an injury. That changed on July 1st, though it wasn't the technology's fault. A Lexus SUV that was self-driving while carrying three Google employees was rear-ended while stopped at a traffic light in Mountain View, California. All three employees had minor cases of whiplash, and were quickly checked out and released from the hospital. The other driver had minor neck and back pain as well. Chris Umson, head of the autonomous car project, said, "Other drivers have hit us 14 times since the start of our project in 2009 (including 11 rear-enders), and not once has the self-driving car been the cause of the collision. Instead, the clear theme is human error and inattention. We'll take all this as a signal that we're starting to compare favorably with human drivers." He also posted a short video of how the self-driving car was tracking other vehicles at the time of the crash — including the one that hit it.
Crash Mitigation (Score:5, Interesting)
If Google's self-driving car was able to track the car that rear-ended it, I wonder if there are ways to mitigate this kind of "predictable" crash. Maybe letting off the brakes a tad to lessen the impact, or (out of left field idea) deploy air bags on the bumpers?
Seems like if the real issue is "everyone else" in driving you would think Google could come up with ways to reduce the impact level of inevitable crashes.
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Why should the car leave the relatively safe road and go off-road to prevent a collision that isn't its own fault, anyways? And what happens when it plows into a bystander to avoid a crash with a drunk driver? Note in the video the stuff off to the right of the car (where it could feasibly dodge): there were objects there that it may have collided with if it tried to do this.
Having the robotic car not only drive well, but correct for the mistakes of other drivers on the road adds immense complexity and may
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Certainly swerving wildly out of the way to avoid a crash has the potential to cause more harm then good. However, small corrections to avoid passenger whiplash should be something Google looks into.
Re:Crash Mitigation (Score:5, Insightful)
You really must be out of touch with what Google is doing. They are already correcting for the mistakes of other drivers, even these of bicyclists and pedestrians. They literally had multiple cases of bicyclists who made life-threatening mistakes and horribly took over others' right of way and have been detected and protected by the self driving system. They also protected stupid drivers who had poor lane control, didn't check their blind spot, etc. They drove through hundreds of not-at-faults close calls where a human driver would allow an accident to happen even while not being at fault, but the self driving system has modified its behavior to avoid the otherwise inevitable collision.
Let me get this clear to everyone reading this: a current Google self driving car tracks all cars and pedestrians visible to it in a ~300 foot radius, and also maintains the models of temporarily obscured vehicles and pedestrians. It won't actively plow into a bystander, even if that bystander is a drunk that has stumbled onto a road, unless it'd be physically impossible to stop in time. In fact, the current behavior of the system seems to be sacrificial: it will sacrifice to a rear-end to save a jaywalking pedestrian.
People who think that such feats are "decades" away or out of reach of current technology have no idea what they are talking about.
Re:Crash Mitigation (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, there could be some optimizations for reducing damage in an imminent crash scenario. That's just fine tuning. Google's real goal is to get a machine driving a little bit better than the average human. It's looking like, at least in known, well mapped cities, they have achieved that.
As for letting off the brakes when getting rear-ended, that may not be a good idea - the guy in front of you may not appreciate turning a 2 car wreck into a 3 car wreck. Especially if said impact pushed them into crossing traffic.
There's some room for "can I dash out of the way" thinking, but in general that's probably a bad idea too. Being predictable to other cars is better than flitting around erratically, possibly causing other accidents.
Re:Crash Mitigation (Score:4, Interesting)
I've actually been in this exact scenario. I was on the freeway when traffic in front suddenly stopped due to an accident. I stopped, but noticed in my rearview mirror that the two teenage girls in the car behind me were busy yammering away with each other. They got closer and closer, before finally noticing that I was stopped and slamming on the brakes.
Here's the crucial part. Based on their distance, how fast they were going, and how quickly the brakes were slowing them down, I could estimate that they were going to stop about a meter past my rear bumper. As it turned out I had stopped with a good 3 meters between me and the car in front. So I just scooted forward a couple meters (this is the reason you're supposed to stop far enough back that you can see the rear tires of the car in front). The girls came to a screeching halt just behind me, heads flung forward against their seat belts, bounced up, and they started nervously laughing at each other. No collision, nobody got hurt, nothing got damaged.
A computer-controlled car which knows exactly the distance to the car in front, distance to the car in the rear is, how fast it's approaching, and how quickly it's decelerating. It can easily make this kind of calculation and decide if its better to let off the brakes and scoot forward, or press down hard on the brake to absorb the rear collision but avoid hitting the car in front. I lucked out because I happened to be watching the entire situation develop in the rearview mirror, and could accurately estimate their speed and rate of deceleration. But a computer could calculate this at any time. And if you watch the video, the Google car had enough situational awareness that it could've easily detected cross traffic - it wasn't just tracking the cars immediately next to it.
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Let's see. We're stopped at a traffic light, presumably with cross-traffic doing its thing. So we want to let off the brakes so we get pushed farther into the cross-traffic? Hmm, two car fender-bender turns into four+ car pileup....
Yeah, that sounds like a good plan.
Physics called... (Score:3)
It's preferable for the car that is struck to not release its brakes. Basic physics. The more the struck car moves, the more injuries from the passengers in it. Also, the struck car moves and hits another car, etc.
The struck car's momentum is what mitigates the impact for its occupants. Ideal would be deploying a system to keep the struck car from moving at all. Mercedes has a braking system they've been testing that would probably do the job. It's basically an airbag on the bottom of the car, with a very h
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The car could flash up a big STOP sign in the rear window to try to alert the driver of the car about to crash.
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A human will, for the forseeable future, be potentially far greater at this kind of improvisational disaster-avoidance than any computer when dealing with limited data in situations where no course of action is clearly favorable.
That is a completely bogus argument. Machines don't have to match humans in every ridiculous driving scenario. Self-driving cars only have to be +1 better than the average human driver to take over. Google's self-driving cars are better than 90% of drivers on the road and that's
Avoidable? (Score:2)
It's good that Google's autonomous cars haven't caused any accidents, however the bigger question is if there was a human driver in those situations, would any of them have been avoidable? I try to keep an eye on vehicles coming to a stop behind me when I'm stopped, which is something the Google cars may not be programmed to do (or even have rear-facing sensors to detect that at all). I'm sure these vehicles are safer than a good many drivers on the road, but they can only react and respond in ways they w
Re:Avoidable? (Score:5, Informative)
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Northeast winters (Score:3)
...We'll take all this as a signal that we're starting to compare favorably with human drivers....
When the self-driving cars can navigate the snow and obstacles of a Northeast winter, then I'll be impressed. Until then, the self-driving cars are little more than an expensive toy.
Re:Northeast winters (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Northeast winters (Score:5, Insightful)
To be fair, you're asking the self-driving car to do something that most humans can't do. :p
Exchanging insurance information (Score:2)
Re:Exchanging insurance information (Score:5, Informative)
Right about average. The average US driver drives 13.476 [dot.gov] miles per year and goes an average of 10 years [allstatenewsroom.com] between accidents.
Re:Exchanging insurance information (Score:5, Interesting)
Insurance companies have this information at their fingertips. Here are some public numbers:
1.2-1.5 deaths for every 100M miles travelled
185 crashes for every 100M miles travelled (or 300 if only 45% are reported)
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] and http://www.caranddriver.com/fe... [caranddriver.com]
However, in my experience, those numbers are pretty low. My wife and I have been involved in 3 accidents around a mid-sized city over the past 10 years (probably about 300,000 miles, or 1 crash per 100K miles), and I remember getting into a minor fender-bender (hardly ever reported) with someone about once a year when I worked near Chicago (1 crash per 20K miles).
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Stopped at a GREEN traffic light. (Score:4, Insightful)
The driver two cars ahead of the autonomus car was stopped at a green light (according tot he video), properly avoiding entering the intersection until they could drive through it (there is a car stopped immediately at the end of the intersection according to the video).
That is some good driving on everyone's part, except the driver of the Lexus who rear-ended the autonomous car of course.
Re:Stopped at a GREEN traffic light. (Score:5, Informative)
I've driven behind one of these cars (Score:5, Interesting)
They do very unpredictable driving school-level things like slow/stop where deep shadows fall on the road. Like very suddenly. And then they stay there for a few seconds.
I'm not surprised there's finally a rear-ending. I'm actually surprised it took so long.
Re:11 rear enders (Score:5, Insightful)
Or at 11 it's still not their fault. Remember, these vehicles are logging 10,000 miles per week - there's a lot more opportunities to be rear-ended by an inattentive driver when one is on the road that much than there are for a typical driver. By way of example, in the video from the article at Medium there were two cars in front of the driverless car that had also stopped at the light - there was nowhere else for the driverless car to go.
Re:11 rear enders (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, I don't see any reason to think that the Google car is at fault. I was once rear-ended twice in the same month, while stopped at the same red light. There wasn't anything particularly wrong with the layout of the light either. It boils down to this: People are not good at driving.
To those reading this: Oh, I know, I get it. You're great at driving, and insulted by any suggestion to the contrary. Your reflexes are great, and you're in control when you're on the road. You even drive stick because you need the extra control that it gives you, and not at all because you like to imaging you're a race car driver.
But really and honestly, if you haven't been in accidents, as much as skill and safe driving may have contributed to your safety, luck has really contributed just as much. All things considered, we're generally not very good at driving, and the result is that tens of thousands of people die every year. As far as I'm concerned, we should make it a goal to work to get safe self driving cars on the road ASAP, and then get really strict on issuing drivers licenses so that almost nobody is allowed to do it.
Re:11 rear enders (Score:5, Insightful)
As far as I'm concerned, we should make it a goal to work to get safe self driving cars on the road ASAP, and then get really strict on issuing drivers licenses so that almost nobody is allowed to do it.
That goal might be a technically sound one, but I don't think it's politically viable. Telling people they are not allowed to drive their car anymore is likely to be even less popular than telling Americans they can't own a gun anymore.
A more attainable way to improve safety would be to allow people to continue to drive if they want to, but to add intelligent accident-avoidance software to the automobile so that when the person is driving, if the car notices he is about to cause a crash, it can step in and take the necessary actions to avoid or minimize the crash. In this case, if the car noticed that the driver wasn't braking sufficiently to avoid rear-ending the car in front, it could start applying the brakes for him. This approach is not only possible, but is already implemented in some cars.
Re:11 rear enders (Score:4, Interesting)
A more attainable way to improve safety would be to allow people to continue to drive if they want to, but to add intelligent accident-avoidance software to the automobile so that when the person is driving, if the car notices he is about to cause a crash, it can step in and take the necessary actions to avoid or minimize the crash.
Let me fix this for you...
Your auto insurance deductible is $100 when the car is self-driving, but $1,000 when you're manually driving. If the car is self-driving and it causes a wreck, the auto manufacture is liable, if you're driving, then you are.
You don't have to ban people from driving, you just use carrots and sticks to make people want to stop driving.
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That goal might be a technically sound one, but I don't think it's politically viable. Telling people they are not allowed to drive their car anymore is likely to be even less popular than telling Americans they can't own a gun anymore.
I don't think those situations are analogous at all. We already have examples of this in action with our elderly, who are indeed very resistant to having their licenses taken away as their driving abilities wane. But what they really resent is the loss of the freedom of not being able to hop in their own car and go where and when they want. If the alternative was having the computer do the mechanics of driving for them, most elderly folks would be all over that. From my experience with them, towards the end
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That goal might be a technically sound one, but I don't think it's politically viable... A more attainable way to improve safety would be to allow people to continue to drive if they want to, but to add intelligent accident-avoidance software to the automobile so that when the person is driving
Here's a compromise, then: don't do it all at once. To start with, only make it a little harder to maintain a driver's license, such as requiring people to take the test more often (especially the elderly), while also putting in the intelligent accident avoidance systems.
After a few years of this, increase the accident avoidance systems' level of control a little bit, so that not only will it kick in when someone is about to crash, but also... let's say for example, you make it so if someone is tailgating
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To start with, only make it a little harder to maintain a driver's license, such as requiring people to take the test more often
*snip*
Meanwhile, keep making the driving tests more strict. Not impossibly difficult, but maybe difficult and expensive is roughly the same range as getting your pilot's license.
I've been in favor of doing just that for a long time now, before self-driving cars were involved or even a thing.
It's ironic you mention the test shouldn't be impossible difficult, but it seems the primary argument for handing out drivers licenses like candy is that for way over half the US population a test that is possible to fail effectively is impossible (which never sounded like a valid reason against it to me, but alas)
A funny story that happened to me when I went to take my first driving test,
Re:11 rear enders (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course there will be a time where manual driving will be outlawed
Why "of course"? If automatic-crash-avoidance technology can make it so that even (semi)manually-driven cars can't get into accidents, then there would be no safety benefit to outlawing (semi)manually-driven cars.
I can imagine a law requiring manually-driven cars to have crash-avoidance technology installed, though.
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This is one instance where the market can really help. Insurance for these autonomous cars will be lower than manual cars, as they are in fewer accidents. That will encourage their uptake. Of course there will be a time where manual driving will be outlawed, and if you really like driving so much then, take it to the race track and don't let your hobby endanger people who are merely trying to live their lives.
When self-driving cars can negotiate in bad weather conditions (i.e. ice, snow, slush, etc.), that's when I'll buy into your future. There is a reason why Google chose relatively warm, dry areas with typically good weather. Bad weather and poor roads makes things 100x harder for self-driving cars. Not to mention the ability to handle out of ordinary conditions or events. Figure these out, then get back to me about giving up manual driving. Until then, it's a mote point....
Re:11 rear enders (Score:5, Insightful)
This is one instance where the market can really help. Insurance for these autonomous cars will be lower than manual cars, as they are in fewer accidents. That will encourage their uptake. Of course there will be a time where manual driving will be outlawed, and if you really like driving so much then, take it to the race track and don't let your hobby endanger people who are merely trying to live their lives.
When self-driving cars can negotiate in bad weather conditions (i.e. ice, snow, slush, etc.), that's when I'll buy into your future. There is a reason why Google chose relatively warm, dry areas with typically good weather. Bad weather and poor roads makes things 100x harder for self-driving cars. Not to mention the ability to handle out of ordinary conditions or events. Figure these out, then get back to me about giving up manual driving. Until then, it's a mote point....
Oh, and I forgot to mention that they need to be able to tow things, like boats... Towing is the last thing on Google's mind...
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When self-driving cars can negotiate in bad weather conditions (i.e. ice, snow, slush, etc.), that's when I'll buy into your future. There is a reason why Google chose relatively warm, dry areas with typically good weather. Bad weather and poor roads makes things 100x harder for self-driving cars. Not to mention the ability to handle out of ordinary conditions or events. Figure these out, then get back to me about giving up manual driving. Until then, it's a mote point....
Interestingly you don't mention how much harder bad weather conditions make driving for human drivers, as well. There is a reason that many more than usual accidents happen when the weather is bad, when it's snowing, late at night (sleepy drivers - never heard about a robot getting sleepy), or when the roads are bad and human drivers think they know it all and can continue at top speeds.
Of course they start in good weather - that's also how you got your driving lessons. First make sure you can handle the go
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Yes, Moores Law won't help at all.
Self driving cars are (not even) where the original iPhone was 10 years ago. Think where another two or three generations of chip evolution will get things to.
This applies to cpu speed to analyze. It also applies to gpu's to analyze video. It also applies to all of the sensors and radar and lidar units required.
Everything will be cheaper and faster with higher resolution.
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My insurance premium is £350/year. Cut it to zero and you're still going to struggle to cover the cost of the sensors, the software and the maintenance of the autonomous system.
Market forces are going to do fuck all.
Re:11 rear enders (Score:4, Insightful)
My insurance premium is ã350/year. Cut it to zero and you're still going to struggle to cover the cost of the sensors, the software and the maintenance of the autonomous system.
Will that remain true when your premium rises to £3,500/year without those things?
Re:11 rear enders (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it is perhaps *partly* the Google car's fault.
Thank goodness we don't use your thinking processes as law
I wonder if the Google car itself serves as a distraction to other drives.
Only the ones who would also be distracted by many other things, they are already a menace.
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distracting things are distracting
If you can't drive without being distracted by the world out there, then seriously you should not be driving. That's all.
Re:11 rear enders (Score:5, Informative)
While perhaps true in some cases, it is rather clear from the linked video [youtube.com] that it is entirely the human's fault in this case. Unless you have different 'rules of the road' than we do here and the driverless car was expected to do something else (what exactly are you expecting the driverless car to do? It isn't clear that there were lots of options from the video - perhaps move ahead a foot but it seems like that would at best delay the crash). There were two cars stopped at the light, the Google car was behind it, and there were about four or five car lengths between the Google car and the car that rear ended it. The two cars ahead and the Google car stopped well ahead of the at fault vehicle and the at fault vehicle did not slow down.
No options for normal people, Google did 1/2 bette (Score:4, Interesting)
> It isn't clear that there were lots of options from the video - perhaps move ahead a foot but it seems like that would at best delay the crash). There were two cars stopped at the light, the Google car was behind it
The way most people drive, they wouldn't have any option to avoid the crash. According to the video, though, the Google car did better. It did as taught is advanced driving classes and left enough room that it could have pulled to the right, into the turn lane, and even driven away, as it detected the fast-moving car approaching from behind. That's taught as a more safe way to stop - think car jackings, a cement truck coming up fast from the rear, or an ambulance trying to get through. You can get out of the way or leave the area entirely if you leave six to eight feet between you and the car ahead.
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Clear sign of a conspiracy, amirite?
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Obeying every traffic law guarantees getting in accidents. It might not legally be the robot's fault but they did cause it because they aren't following the rules of the road. Because of that, they flow against the normal progression of traffic and cause disruptions which lead to accidents.
How interesting. I hope you don't pull bongs while you're driving anything other than the couch. Maybe the Google car should have floated over the cars that had stopped in front of it? Maybe the driver behind should have been watching the fucking road instead of pulling bongs?
Which rules of the road was the Google not following oh wise one?
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Obeying every traffic law guarantees getting in accidents. It might not legally be the robot's fault but they did cause it because they aren't following the rules of the road. Because of that, they flow against the normal progression of traffic and cause disruptions which lead to accidents.
This is complete and utter bullshit. Far be it for me to defend Google (*spit*) but to even suggest that the Google car had any culpability here is incredibly stupid.
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Obeying every traffic law guarantees getting in accidents. It might not legally be the robot's fault but they did cause it because they aren't following the rules of the road. Because of that, they flow against the normal progression of traffic and cause disruptions which lead to accidents.
They caused the accident because they stopped at a red light?
The light wasn't red (according to the indicator top-right in the video). They stopped because they had no where else to go with two cars stopped in front of them. And, agreed - knightghost is an idiot, possibly a mult-skilled idiot. It's pretty obvious from watching the video at half speed in an endless loop that the Google car was exceeding the speed of the kerb.
Re: 11 rear enders (Score:4, Funny)
the car was hit by another Google employee.
It was hit by a Yahoo car.
Re:11 rear enders (Score:5, Informative)
1) You were tailgating.
2) You weren't paying attention and hit the brake too slow.
It is PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE to hit the rear of a car that is not moving toward you if. A) you leave the legally required amount of distance behind it, and B) You hit the break when it slows down.
Re:11 rear enders (Score:5, Insightful)
3) You haven't had a brake job on your car for years and you have the stopping distance of a fully loaded train
Re:11 rear enders (Score:4, Insightful)
4) The road is covered with ice, snow, gravel, oil or other substances that eliminate your tires' ability to engage with the road.
(This is why those of us in the northern part of the country are cheering for driver-less cars, but realistically think they might only be useful six months out of the year.)
You are supposed to drive with consideration of the stopping distance. Shitty road conditions do not mean the accident is faultless.
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And then there's this thing, reality. You might have heard of it. In reality, you just simply can't make allowances for everything that could possibly go wrong, or traffic density would fall to a point where it's hopelessly ineffective.
If the snow and ice and road conditions make the above true, then perhaps people should STAY HOME AND STOP DRIVING IN IT.
Just saying...
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The car behind you speeds up, overtakes you, fills up the gap and awaits next opportunity to overtake the car that previously was in front of you. Meanwhile, you slip back to keep your distance, only to have the procedure repeat it self.
The process you are talking about happens to me all the time. Don't really see what the issue is. Let them rear-end somebody if they want to. Getting overtaken by a few people in a hurry never cost me any real time. In fact, I frequently see the overtakers at the same stop light I'm at once we both get off the freeway.
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Re:11 rear enders (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:11 rear enders (Score:5, Informative)
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Pardon me for being rural, but why is this a problem?
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because now you are following too closely and you will hit the car in front of you if they slow down quickly
Mod parent up (Score:3)
So many times I'm driving correctly and then some idiot pulls into the "safe" space that I had AND THEN HITS HIS BRAKES BECAUSE HE ALMOST HITS THE GUY IN FRONT!!!
With an autonomous car the situation will still be the same BUT there will be a lot more data showing the circumstances that lead to the accident.
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Actually, from my experience, they may have a good reason, but the most likely reason is impatience with their lane. And it is frequently combined with sudden acceleration from a low speed, or even a stop, where the offender sees an opening to accelerate into so that they can just go faster. And no signal. There's no turn to be made, they often proceed for miles afterward on the same road.
Unless unfamiliar with the area, most people know when they need to get over to make their turn without having to gen
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Car merges infront and suddenly decelerates.
Most commercial truck driver out there will tell you this has happened to them as a close call or actual accident atleast once in their career on an interstate. Usually an inattentive driver or someone who just sees the required space between the semi and the next person infront of them as wasted driving space. But sometimes it's an idiot who doesn't understand physics and wants to brake check a semi.
So yes, it is entirely possible for the car you're rear ending t
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Yes, but compare the rate which it might happen between people and automated systems. People do call the police all the time, but that's not the same thing as every vehicle on the road becoming the eyes of the government on you.
Just like it is not Orwellian to call the police when you suspect a crime is in progress, but it is Orwellian to have cameras on every house reporting any suspicious activity back to central. It isn't the reporting, it is the panopticon nature of the sensors. People do suspicious
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4) You were traveling at normal speed with no visible traffic in front of you, crested a hill and then ran into the traffic that was stopped just over the crest of the hill.
This happened to me once, I had stopped behind the car in front of me (in a line of stopped traffic extending down the hill for about 1km), two cars had stopped behind me. A third car came over the hill, impacted into the last car which shunted into the car behind me, who shunted into my car with enough force that my car was put off the
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If you hit a car that suiddenly slows down, than one of two things happen.
1) You were tailgating.
2) You weren't paying attention and hit the brake too slow.
3) The car in front of you hit something, which made them stop much more abruptly than would have been possible through use of their own brakes.
4) The car that was in front of you changed lanes to avoid the stopped car, which that you couldn't see due to that first car being in the way, and you had no way to get out of the lane like he did due to cars next to you.
3 and 4 weren't what happened in this case (according to the video), but about once or twice a decade I have 4 happen to me. I haven't hit the
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According to their tracking data on the cars near them, there was more than enough stopping distance for this particular case. Humans can get distracted.
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Looking at the linked video, I was amazed to see the number of surrounding cars and objects being tracked. Also looking at the video, you could tell for almost a second that the trailing car was going to be a problem. Perhaps self driving cars that realize they are going to be rear ended could blink/flash lights, blow a LOUD rear facing horn, or something to catch the attention of the trailing driver.
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It may not actually be the fault of the Google car per se but I think it definitely is worth considering that it might be driving in a way that would increase the number of accidents around it. I've certainly seen human drivers do so.
Heck, I have possibly even done so myself. Twice, I have been at a red light turning right, started to go and stopped, (having seen vehicles coming too quickly for me to pull out safely) and been rear ended by people who thought I was going. Clearly I was not at fault but that
Re:11 rear enders (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not as simple as assigning fault.
YES, it IS.
Otherwise losers like you would be clogging up the courts with your lame excuses as to why you rear-ended someone. It's your goddamn fault and that's the end of it.
YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE IN CONTROL OF YOUR CAR AT ALL TIMES.
That's not so hard, is it?
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Twice, I have been at a red light turning right, started to go and stopped, (having seen vehicles coming too quickly for me to pull out safely) and been rear ended by people who thought I was going. Clearly I was not at fault but that start-stop action was definitely a factor.
Frankly, it sounds like US drivers are just fucking terrible. I guess it's because you have very lax driving tests and never ban anyone from driving (in any kind of serious way), but I've NEVER been rear-ended in the UK because of som
Re:11 rear enders (Score:5, Insightful)
I've NEVER been rear-ended in the UK because of something like that. People just fucking well pay attention.
Really, that's your logic? "X has never happened to me personally, therefore it must never happen in the UK"?
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Rear-ending is something that always comes up in /. discussions about driving, especially by US drivers (the site is rather US centric). Everyone and their dog seem to have been in at least one such accident. I have never been in such an accident, nor have I heard of any European friends that had such an accident.
Add to that, statistics show that US drivers have far more accidents, injuries and deaths per distance (per km or per mile, whatever you like to use) than European drivers, especially those from we
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Twice, I have been at a red light turning right, started to go and stopped, (having seen vehicles coming too quickly for me to pull out safely) and been rear ended by people who thought I was going. Clearly I was not at fault but that start-stop action was definitely a factor.
Frankly, it sounds like US drivers are just fucking terrible. I guess it's because you have very lax driving tests and never ban anyone from driving (in any kind of serious way), but I've NEVER been rear-ended in the UK because of something like that. People just fucking well pay attention.
It's a common "bingle" (it's not an accident) all over the world. Though in most of the world I'm familiar with you don't turn at a red light unless it's a specially marked intersections. In the quoted scenario it's the driver behind at fault, and the driver who was rear ended. If you move into an intersection before checking it's safe - you're at fault. If you run into a car that's started to move through an intersection, and then stopped, you are also at fault (and the latter is the one whose insurance co
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Considering how often I've seen people driving slowly (relative to the flow of traffic) in the passing lanes, I'd say no.
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Do you have an example of how they prepare you more for driving than other countries, including the US?
My experience is that in my driver's education class, we spent ZERO time in high speed driving, ZERO time in congested traffic. We got NO practical experience of ANY sort in ANY kind of defensive driving or even how to drive on anything other than a flat straight road in broad daylight.
I failed my UK driving test on Tuesday.
I reached around 50mph (the speed limit), in heavy traffic on a dual carriageway in London. Had I not reached at least some "reasonable" speed (40mph?) on that road, I would have failed for that reason. I turned left on a roundabout to get onto that road, and turned right at a big (multi-lane) roundabout to get off it (so I had to move over to the "fast" lane for that).
The examiner asked me to do a three-point-turn in the road, he could alternatively have asked me to
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By default it's usually the other persons fault, but I have seen cars slowing down quickly or suddenly causing rear enders so maybe at "11" it is their fault.
Legally and technically it is always the persons fault that rear-ends someone. However, stopping abruptly or in a poorly chosen place can be a contributor. Also, I have more than once seen a car coming up behind me rapidly and have moved to help increase stopping distance for them.
I am not saying any of these apply to Google cars incidents, just making the general point regarding rear-enders. Safe driving doesn't just mean not being at fault.
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suddenly causing rear enders so maybe at "11" it is their fault.
there is a simple legal concept at work here:
It is your responsibility to be in control of your vehicle at all times.
If you allow your vehicle to strike another, it's your fault.
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By default it's usually the other persons fault, but I have seen cars slowing down quickly or suddenly causing rear enders so maybe at "11" it is their fault.
No need to invest so much in maybe - the video makes it pretty much not maybe. The video shows the Google car gently slowing to a stop from 17 mph, the car behind is 4+ car lengths away and still plows right into the back without slowing down at all. Not watching the cars in front until after the impact. More than 3 car lengths of space in a 35 zone and it's not the fault of the person sitting behind the wheel of the rear car? The Google car didn't suddenly stop, and it didn't have a choice about stopping.
Re:Something wrong there (Score:5, Informative)
It's not the same car each time, dummy. They've already stated their accident rate per miles logged over their whole fleet of cars is lower than then the national average.
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Re:Something wrong there (Score:4, Insightful)
Computer driving system needs to avoid all accidents, not just proclaim after each one "its not its fault!"
Maybe you can explain how a car is supposed to avoid getting rear-ended when there is no place to go.
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Flight.
Re:Something wrong there (Score:4, Insightful)
Look, I'm not a perfect driver but to assume others will break the rules as you do is just asking for trouble.
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Those 14 crashes are with 23 (or more) vehicles. And none of them have been the fault of the software. They were either being driven manually or were the fault of others.
Re:Something wrong there (Score:5, Insightful)
It's possible that the Google car is not giving out "body language" that telegraphs behavior before it happens. If you are about to slow down, you might move your head to check your mirrors, let off the gas a little bit, possibly maneuver in the lane, little things that humans could detect subconsciously. If the Google car just enters a slowing-down event, it might be undetectable.
I know as a motorcycle rider, I've suspected someone was about to do something stupid just before they did and it's saved me a few times.
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It's possible that the Google car is not giving out "body language" that telegraphs behavior before it happens. If you are about to slow down, you might move your head to check your mirrors, let off the gas a little bit, possibly maneuver in the lane, little things that humans could detect subconsciously. If the Google car just enters a slowing-down event, it might be undetectable.
I know as a motorcycle rider, I've suspected someone was about to do something stupid just before they did and it's saved me a few times.
That's actually a really good point. After 20 years of driving, it seems like I have about 90+% accuracy in predicting what people will do over the next 5 seconds or so. I'm guessing that's not atypical for anyone that actually pays attention while they're driving. A robot isn't going to give up a lot of those clues.
On the other hand, though, the robot *should* be fairly deterministic, so it might be possible to predict it based on what's going on around it (or actually force it to react how you want it to!
Re:Something wrong there (Score:5, Insightful)
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There are 50ish cars with over 200 "drivers" of them in California. These are used by more than one person, and get a lot of miles on them. And this is just in California. With the amounts of miles these cars get on them, they're not typical driving patterns: Google claims that their fleet has clocked over 1 million miles on the road. 11 "not at fault" accidents over 1 million miles doesn't sound out of the realm of possibility.
Re:Something wrong there (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Finally the problem is clear (Score:5, Insightful)
Notice how the self driving car stopped when the car in front of it stopped. the human driven car didn't....
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Or the self-driving car in back could, you know, STOP before hitting the car in front of it. As for the car in front, even if there was enough gap to get up on the sidewalk, and the car didn't bottom out trying to do so, and it could rev up the curb in time to make a difference, and there was no pedestrian on the sidewalk to get run over (better to get rear-ended than to kill a pedestrian due to panic), the human in a properly stopped car at a red light would not be vigilantly looking back at every intersec
Re:Defensive action (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm replying to this... and in the process undoing a bunch of mods I just did, because it appears nobody else is going to say it...
Defensive driving is not as cool as you think it is! I'll give you two examples:
1) I had a buddy who owned a Comp/TA. It's a fairly rare car, and his was pristine. He was approaching an intersection on a highway, about 50 mph, when he saw flashing lights approaching from the side. He stopped to allow the cop to cross traffic against the light, but looked up at his rear view mirror and saw that the truck behind him wasn't going to stop in time, as evidenced by the skidding and fishtailing. He lit it up it despite the cop almost being in the intersection, and pulled over on the opposite side. The truck slid into then through the space my friend had previously been occupying. The cop made a left (causing him to drive past my friend) and gave him a look like "not recommended, but ok", and continued on to whatever emergency he was headed to.
2) I had a girlfriend driving in stop-and-go traffic on a rural street, light turns green, but the second we cleared the intersection traffic slowed again, and the driver behind us didn't notice. She crept forward close to the service truck in front of us to try to give a little more space, but to no avail, the driver behind us hit us anyways, and pushed us into the truck. The driver who hit us paid for our damage, but my girlfriend was at fault for hitting the truck... "Why" you ask??? Because the space in front of you is the safety buffer to prevent multiple car accidents when there doesn't need to be.
My personal experience is that story #1 is the ONLY INSTANCE I HAVE EVER HEARD of defensive driving successfully preventing a major accident, while the second story is so common as to be the flavor I hear nearly every time. It's quite rare to hear a story like yours where moving forward 1/2 car length was enough to save the day. The problem is this: you are gambling that by moving forward a tiny bit that you buy the idiot behind you enough time to realize what is going on and react. But the cost you incur is the loss of your buffer if they don't notice, and thus involving one more poor schmo in the accident. In other words, you actively chose to bring another party into the accident by your decision, and therefore you are at fault.
I'm sure that defensive driving techniques can be incorporated into self driving cars for situations like story #1, but you'll probably see that in Mercedes before you see it in Fiat.
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My wife and I were in a very similar situation yesterday, stopped about 1/2 a car-length behind a stopped truck. When she realized we were about to be rear-ended, she gunned it to bring us a few inches behind the truck. We weren't hit. The video doesn't indicate that the google car tried anything like that.
The problem with that approach is SOMETIMES you will avoid the crash (you did), however the rest of the time you are now in the middle of the chain of crashes. That both damages your vehicle more, and makes your insurance payout and court problems much worse. "We both hit the truck" is different than "that guy hit me and fortunately I didn't hit the truck" in court.
Cops will even give tickets out to everybody in line except the first one and now the court battle is "get your insurance payout and shut up
Re:How did it react during the accident? (Score:4, Informative)
You are crazy. And I mean it. CRAAAAZY.
In a rear impact, the impact energy is redistributed into: 1. Braking friction, if brakes are applied. 2. Crushing energy. 3. Inertia of the car. When you reduce #1 - apply less brakes - more energy gets redirected towards #3. Assuming a slow crash with no significant incursion into the passenger compartment, the injuries scale with accelerations. The more energy you pass to your car's inertia, generally higher the accelerations will be. The braking force is replaced by inertial forces, but these are simply proportional to acceleration of the car, and its occupants - meaning you.
In a rear impact, if you release the brakes, you will experience higher impact acceeleration and deceleration than if you didn't. This directly translates into the trauma your neck and other body parts are subject to. All that in the name of what? Less damage to your car? Yes, you are crazy, unless your car is worth more than human life ($10M+).