Google's Driverless Cars Capable of Exceeding Speed Limit 475
mrspoonsi sends a report about how Google's autonomous vehicles handle speed limits. It's easy to assume that driverless cars will simply be programmed never to exceed a posted speed limit, but Google has found that such behavior can actually be less safe than speeding a bit. Thus, they've allowed their cars to exceed the speed limit by up to 10 miles per hour.
In July, the U.K. government announced that driverless cars will be allowed on public roads from January next year. In addition, ministers ordered a review of the U.K.'s road regulations to provide appropriate guidelines. This will cover the need for self-drive vehicles to comply with safety and traffic laws, and involve changes to the Highway Code, which applies to England, Scotland and Wales. Commenting on Google self-drive cars' ability to exceed the speed limit, a Department for Transport spokesman said: "There are no plans to change speed limits, which will still apply to driverless cars." In a separate development on Monday, the White House said it wanted all cars and light trucks to be equipped with technology that could prevent collisions.
Left or Right? (Score:3)
If you take an American driverless car to London, I hope it can figure out which side of the road to drive on...
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Re:Left or Right? (Score:5, Funny)
St. Peter: So, what brings you here?
Ex-Parrot: UK firmware update pushed to my car in New York.
St. Peter: Bummer. We haven't seen so many show up at once since Hiroshima. Well, go stand in line.
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Same fror French Guiana in South America.
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You jest, but that's a prety big deal in places like Thailand, which's a left-handed, but borders right-handed countries. How will an autonomous vehicle handle crossing the border?
Same fror French Guiana in South America.
If my cell phone can understand the intricacies of all the time zone rules of the world, I think we can manage for a computerized car to obey differing traffic laws.
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That said, this magical thing called 'software' can also be hacked to do things that aren't intended by the developers so it's not a panacea, but it will still be a far bit better than humans at following the rules of the road as conveyed to it - even through the normal posted speed limit signs.
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Actually, the tolerances are codified in law for some jurisdictions and discretionary in others.
The tolerances are there because speedometers and radar guns have limited accuracy. It is entirely plausible that speed limit is 70, speedometer reads 70, car is actually going 72, and radar reads 73.
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The 10% + 3mph rule in the UK is actually more of a guideline than a hard limit. You could technically be pulled over for exceeding the road speed limit by just 1 or 2 mph, although very unlikely in most cases unless you're also driving like an idiot, or if it's bad weather with poor visibility. The ACPO (Association of Chief Police Officers) came up with the 10% + 3mph as a guide for when to prosecute, or issue points against your license / ask you to partake in a speed awareness course.
Re:Left or Right? (Score:5, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Safety vs Law (Score:2, Interesting)
I bet most companies will follow google's plan and have autonomous automobiles (auto-autos??, auto-squared?) travel at the speed limit or lower, even if it makes things 'more dangerous'. But they should also do that only in the right lane, not blocking the left lane.
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Re:Safety vs Law (Score:5, Insightful)
When the law says X, you break it at your own risk.
When a stupid law says X, you follow it at your own risk.
Re:Safety vs Law (Score:5, Insightful)
When a stupid law says X, you follow it at your own risk
Which is exactly why we need driverless cars: dumb fucks who believe they're such exceptionally good drivers that the rules don't apply to them.
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Or, according to TFA, it's true.
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When a stupid law says X, you follow it at your own risk
Which is exactly why we need driverless cars: dumb fucks who believe they're such exceptionally good drivers that the rules don't apply to them.
Perhaps Google's driverless cars and their research on driving safety will someday help raise the dangerously low speed limits. Why should people risk their lives to follow an unsafe law? (Just because the official purpose of a law is to increase safety, doesn't mean it won't do the opposite.)
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Exactly how is a low speed limit 'dangerous'? It is not. It is the idiots who chose to ignore it or otherwise engage in risky behavior (following too closely, unsafe lane changes, etc) who are dangerous.
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Wrong, wrong, wrong. It is 100% the fault of the person making an unsafe lane change if there is an accident, NOT the person who was driving too slow for your taste. You still have not given a single legitimate reason why low speed limits (by themselves), or slow drivers (by themselves) are dangerous.
Re:Safety vs Law (Score:5, Insightful)
Wrong, wrong, wrong. It is 100% the fault of the person making an unsafe lane change if there is an accident, NOT the person who was driving too slow for your taste. You still have not given a single legitimate reason why low speed limits (by themselves), or slow drivers (by themselves) are dangerous.
People who are driving at a speed that is far outside the average speed on a particular road are a danger simply because the difference between their speed and others is likely to be large. Note that whether they're going "faster" or "slower" doesn't matter - it's the difference in speed.
If I'm going 90MPH and I bump someone going 89MPH we'll be fine and have minimal damage to our cars. If I'm going 45 and bump someone going 44 it's the same. But bumping someone who's going 45 when you're going 90 will result in a major accident.
I remember reading something a few years ago said by a patrol officer. Basically, fast drivers and slow drivers cause the same number of accidents. But in his experience the fast drivers were part of the accident while the slow drivers caused other people to have an accident (trying to avoid the slow poke) and drove off possibly unaware that they had caused an accident.
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The low speed limit is not dangerous, the change in speed limit without warning is dangerous.
And learn some defensive driving. Here's a tip: if you are approaching a blind curve (as you claim) where you can't see what it around it, and someone is following you too closely, SLOW DOWN before you get to the 'have to slam on brakes' stage. If you can't see a 'dangerous' speed limit sign, you also might not see people, animals, disabled vehicles, etc that could also cause you to 'slam on the brakes'.
Re:Safety vs Law (Score:4, Informative)
I have seen speed traps like that. They were like that for years. They have slowly gone away as the area has become less rural. I wouldn't be shocked to see them still in existence further out though. It's very real. Good luck getting THE judge (aka the police chief's brother in law) to invalidate the ticket in towns like that.
In more urban areas they prefer to use red light cams and dangerously short yellows to force people to break the law for safety reasons. Generally, the traffic engineering 'rules' are legally just guidelines or recommendations.
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Increase the speed limits? Then there will be idiots driving even faster.
Yes there will. Simply changing the rules without adequate training after decades of an undesirable behavior isn't going to change said behavior overnight.
Trying to change a systemic behavior in a system as vast and (in the US) as untrained as the driving public isn't a small undertaking.
Re:Safety vs Law (Score:5, Insightful)
Increase the speed limits? Then there will be idiots driving even faster.
No, studies have shown that people drive at a speed that feels reasonable, regardless of limit.
Raising a speed limit often means just making legal what everyone is already doing.
There will always be crazy people going faster but they were already ignoring the speed limit entirely to begin with.
Many drivers already drive too fast for the road condition, traffic situation and the limitations of both their car and their driving abilities.
What studies show that?
Instead raising the speed limit in various states has lowered accident rates.
Re:Safety vs Law (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, studies have shown that raising speed limits can reduce speeds. For example, people who drove at 50mph in a 30 limit that was set far too low would often reduce their speed to obey a 40mph limit, because it was sensible enough that they weren't willing to break it any more... once they'd decided to break the 30mph speed limit, they'd already broken it, so were as likely to drive at 50 as 40.
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It's not safety vs law. This car is driving in California, where the law says that you should do this. I'm sure in areas where the law says you shouldn't do this, it will not.
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Differences in speed are far more dangerous than moderate increases in speed. When cars have to brake/weave to avoid the one or two people driving significantly slower than everyone else is when accidents happen. So the goody-two-shoes who think that the speed limit is the law and exceeding it is dangerous are actually making the roads more dangerous for the 95% of people that are driving a tad bit faster.
Why speed only a little? (Score:5, Interesting)
With this in place, and with computer reflexes why not speed like a maniac? I for one would buy Google car tomorrow if it could get me to work at 120mph shaving time off my commute.
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It is within Google's capability to dynamically map every speed trap and even moving police cars.
If a police car can be tracked so can you.
If a speed trap is fullt automated, how does Google detect it before you have been ticketed?
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Re:Why speed only a little? (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is that few speed limits are set based on the laws of physics, so when people run into one of the few that is, they ignore it and crash.
The vast majority were just made up by some bureaucrat. If you're lucky, they were made up by some bureaucrat based on the performance of a 1970s road yacht, so they bear some tiny resemblance to reality, rather than just pulled out of thin air.
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Why would you want to get there at 120 MPH if you were not stuck behind the wheel on the way? You can use that time for yourself, catching up on some reading or sleep, watching TV or posting on /.. Going that fast shaves a little time off but costs you an awful lot more in fuel and maintenance costs.
I can see the commute becoming a golden time for many people. No family, no distractions.
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It also lacks the self and situational awareness of humans.
Re:Why speed only a little? (Score:5, Insightful)
Come now. What percentage of people on the road actually have any situational awareness? They're not looking around to track voids in traffic should they need to change lanes in an emergency. They're not looking downstream to see that accident half a mile away and traffic backing up. They're watching no further than the brake lights in front of them. Even if they are trying to pay attention, it takes a hell of a lot of concentration and practice to constantly track a dozen cars around you in all directions, and a hell of a lot more to anticipate movements when those cars leave line of sight. This sort of thing is trivial for a computer.
As for "self", are you referring to the current state of the car? Surely autonomous control tied into your vehicle's data bus with direct access to engine sensors, accelerometers, gyroscopes, suspension deflectometers, and all manner of other equipment would have a much better chance of assessing the current state of the vehicle than the driver.
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Lately, I think you're lucky if the cars around you have situation awareness extending as far as the brake lights in front of them. Too often it extends not beyond their smartphone.
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And it's also driving around lots of humans. Humans who will do unpredictable things, and who can't necessarily deal with such a high speed differential from other cars.
Speed limits are not always obeyed. (Score:3)
Yeah, going the speed limit in certain areas will simply result in google cars getting shot at, or ran off the road.
IE, the 101 or I-17 in Phoenix. LOL@75mph. Unless there's a traffic jam of course.
just wait until someone hack google-cars (Score:2)
How to cripple a city (Score:5, Funny)
If I were a terrorist group and wanted to cripple any city in America, I would get a group of 20 people together and simply go back and forth on all the major roads, driving the speed-limit abreast with one another in all lanes.
After a few days of that the city would do whatever you demanded.
That is, if you all survived the road rage.
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I thought about that also but if if each row had a second car behind them it would be easy enough to keep up the rolling blockade even if one or two cars got pulled over.
Also in some places the "can't drive slow in the left lane" applies only to roads with a speed limit of 65 or higher, which is higher than many in-city highway limits.
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How can it be obstructing traffic if they couldn't be passed anyways without breaking the law? Or does that mean the government is acknowledging that the "speed of traffic" overrides the legal speed limits?
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Obstructing traffic means just what it says: Obstructing traffic. The language of such a law is about relative speeds and of particular actions (such as, say, intentionally blocking a freeway).
Exceeding the speed limit is a whole different law.
The two are independent constructs. Indeed, I see no reason why one could not be cited for both "obstructing traffic" and "speeding" at the same time.
There is no conflict here.
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You can't be obstructing traffic if you're driving as fast as the law allows you to.
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Obstructing traffic (including "convoys") is just as illegal as reckless driving, and both can occur when the speed limit is being observed.
Its been done (Score:5, Interesting)
Some people already tried it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... [youtube.com]
Rolling roadblocks (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Rolling roadblocks (Score:5, Interesting)
Dunno about the US, but in the UK there aren't 4 lanes. There is one lane, and other overtaking lanes.
Technically, if you have four cars all at the same speed in all four lanes, at least three of them would be breaking the law (dunno about the US, assume it's similar). If they're overtaking, it's not a problem, because they have to pull back in when they've completed the maneouvure and you can overtake them then.
To be honest, robots obeying rules will make the roads I travel on move faster. It's the dickheads who constantly change lanes and try to "beat" the queues when speeds come down that cause most of the slowdowns and "phantom braking waves" that I witness every day.
And, to be honest, I'd rather get somewhere at 65 predictably than 70 unpredictably, in spasms and spurts and with sudden braking.
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Given that rolling roadblocks are illegal, perhaps the autonomous cars will avoid participating in one.
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Is this at least user-selectable? (Score:3, Interesting)
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By the time it's asked you "Do you want to allow me to potentially save your life by exceeding the local speed limit Dave?", and you've noticed the question and answered it, it could well be too late!
So let's assume you've given it permission to save your life by exceeding the speed limit, and something happens and your GoogleCar guns it and saves your life, but your vehicle is spotted and you get a ticket. Who pays?
If GoogleCar had dec
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That would be one hell of a career...
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Because I would not want any driverless car I own to *EVER* decide that it is safe to exceed the speed limit if I didn't explicitly allow it to.
In some places you will be pulled over for going too slowly should you not exceed the posted speed limit.
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It's still an assumption (Score:2)
10Mph is still an arbitrary assumption, just like legal limit. Correct speed varies far too much for such a static definition. There was an article (with video) on slashdot awhile back that explained how their heuristics work, and it said the whole stack was basically built from prefabricated scenarios, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
ya no (Score:5, Insightful)
In a separate development on Monday, the White House said it wanted all cars and light trucks to be equipped with technology that could prevent collisions.
And finally law enforcements wet dream of being able to remotely disable your car becomes a reality. If you think this is anything but that, you're very naive.
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go directly to jain and do not pass go. setting new destination.
Autonomous cars can't use V2V (Score:3)
I think the V2V proposal should be scrapped altogether. It would take decades to implement, be very expensive (at hundreds of dollars per car) and it won't actually make cars safer compared with relatively simpler collision avoidance using cameras and other relatively cheap proximity sensors that don't rely on everyone else having functioning V2V systems in their car.
Autonomous cars have cameras and other fail safe sensors they can rely on. GPS is for navigational way points and route planning. Just getting a signal from another car that it is at a certain position is not a sufficient replacement for actually seeing that car with a camera. In all cases I would program that car to trust the camera and distrust the V2V and if it didn't have a camera then the car should stop as safely as it can and not continue to try and drive automatically. GPS is better for navigational way points where precision on the scale of feet and inches is not as important. For collision avoidance in close proximity you want to rely on sensors.
Who pays the ticket? (Score:4, Insightful)
You are "driving" a Google automated car. You get pulled over for doing 10 over the speed limit. You didn't tell the car to do it, the programmers did. Who gets the ticket?
If you do, then that suggests that you have liability for the control of the vehicle. If that's the case, you probably shouldn't allow the car to make the choice whether or not to exceed the speed limit without your input.
If the programmer has liability, then say good by to automated automobiles! No one wants this liability.
Thus, Google cars will not automatically speed... but they may allow you to tell the car to exceed the speed limit... thus reducing the safety of the product overall.
Re:Who pays the ticket? (Score:4, Informative)
Actually no. The reason Google's cars do this is because they (for now) drive in California. The driver's handbook in California explicitly states that you should at all times keep up with traffic, even if it means exceeding the speed limit a little bit, so that all cars are driving at roughly the same speed. You won't get a speeding ticket, because you are following the law. Presumably, in other areas, the car will be reprogrammed with knowledge of that area's driving rules, and will or won't do this as appropriate.
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The driver's handbook in California explicitly states that you should at all times keep up with traffic, even if it means exceeding the speed limit a little bit, so that all cars are driving at roughly the same speed.
Got a citation for that? I just checked the California driver's handbook, and it said no such thing. (The relevant sections are Speed Limits [ca.gov] and Traffic Speeds [ca.gov].) The handbook did warn against driving slower than other traffic, but that doesn't imply that there is an exception. The handbook only recommends keeping to the right-hand lane to allow faster traffic to pass, not exceeding the posted speed limit.
Note that the Driver's Handbook is not authoritative. The actual laws relating to speed limits can be fo
Re:Who pays the ticket? (Score:4, Informative)
The 2014 manual says, on page 69 [ca.gov]:
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You are "driving" a Google automated car. You get pulled over for doing 10 over the speed limit.
Won't happen, barring a software bug, and a software bug IS an unavoidable liability of writing software. Google allows their autonomous vehicles to maintain pace with the flow of traffic, up to ten miles per hour above the posted speed limit. If the average flow of traffic exceeds the posted speed limit, it indicates the posted speed limit is much too low for the conditions of the road. Further, it would require everyone on the road to be similarly breaking the speed limit, which would mean those other
Surprised no one has mentioned revenue generation (Score:5, Insightful)
10 MPH over will not cut it on I-294 (Score:3)
They need to test year around in the chicago area.
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no need to "cut it", you can get arrested and fined for doing that on I-294. In fact, for five miles over limit on I-294.
-- 50 year resident of Chicago area
"OK, Mr. Googlebot... (Score:2)
"We have you for no drivers license, old title and insurance, no learners permit, failure to submit for blood test, failure to take field sobriety tests, 11 miles over the limit, and an open oil can. Son, you is in a HEAP of trouble, you hear me? BIG trouble. why, you haven't even posted your code online in open forum. we are going to haul you in, toss your butt in the scrapyard, and impound the vehicle for forfeiture. you have the right to remain silent, you have the right to a hardcopy of the indictm
Basis? (Score:2)
From the story:
Research shows that sticking to the speed limit when other cars are going much faster actually can be dangerous, Dolgov says, so its autonomous car can go up to 10 mph (16 kph) above the speed limit when traffic conditions warrant.
Anyone know what "research" Dolgov is referring to? It's always been self evident to me that a car travelling slower than the flow of speeding traffic is a danger, but actual evidence would be nice.
Not that it matters. We don't really prioritize safety. We pay lip service to safety and then pursue other agenda. If safety was our first priority small cars wouldn't be allowed on roads; mortality and injury severity is substantially higher [wsj.com] for light vehicles. And no, it's not because SUVs a
If everyone drove autonomous vehicles (Score:2)
I wouldn't have a problem with going the speed limit.
See, here's the thing. A lot of the traffic jams are because people are hopping lane to lane or cutting people off or really just not doing enough planning about where they want to go. Autonomous vehicles would know what lane to go in and what cars are around it so it would be able to plan appropriately. No more traffic jams (or at least greatly reduced)
When I drive from MA to NY, I may break the speed limit at times, but the average speed is still 50-
V2V like the "baby on board" sticker (Score:2)
We've all seen those "baby on board" stickers/signs, with the intention being that you should keep your distance or take extra caution.
If I've got V2V enabled, I'd want to broadcast that my vehicle that is bigger than it really is. Or you could screw with people and spoof their car to tell other cars that the semi-truck is really a miata.
Re:A limit is a limit (Score:5, Insightful)
When it comes to breaking the speed limit or being run over by a semi, I'll break the speed limit every time.
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I'm pretty sure people wouldn't argue with that stance and are almost certain to come to the same conclusion.
It's just such a shame that some people on the road believe they are in a perpetual state of potentially being run over by a semi.
Re:A limit is a limit (Score:5, Insightful)
It's just such a shame that some people on the road believe they are in a perpetual state of potentially being run over by a semi.
Similar logic of some carrying guns everywhere. [Not trying to start an argument, just sayin' ...]
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problem is it allows for selective enforcement due to personal disposition of the cop, ticket quotas, or racial profiling. it's just not a good idea to have unspoken law breaking. just change the fucking limits and enforce it strictly. make the hwy limit 75 and anything over 80 is an automatic ticket.
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When it comes to breaking the speed limit or being run over by a semi, I'll break the speed limit every time.
To what advantage if the semi is also being driven far above the speed limit?
Realistically, what are your chances of actually keeping pace with the thing or out-running it without losing control of your own vehicle?
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Yep, lorries, then delivery vans, then taxis, then busses, then private vehicles.
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And just how often does that situation arise (outside of movies). By far, most 'getting run over by a semi' incidents do not occur when the car in front actually had the option to speed up. They happen because traffic suddenly slows or stops. So that leaves really only a few possibilities: the truck is out of control (runaway truck), the driver is asleep or incapcitated, or the driver is intentionally trying to hit you. None of those situations are likely to be solved by increasing your speed a few MP
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or your just going a few mph faster than a Semi trying to pass on the interstate and due to high winds the truck is fighting to keep it in the lane... I consider that almost getting hit and because I rack up tens of thousands of miles a year on interstates in midwest it happens ALOT.
Just accelerate past the speed limit and get around the hazard as quickly as possible = safest.. It should not become a several min encounter/maneuver passing someone because your autopilot wont go faster than a couple mph more
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(EDIT) Symptom of Greater Issue (Score:2)
If the speed limit is unsafe, that means that too many people around the car are traveling above the speed limit. This, in turn, means that there is insufficient traffic enforcement. I see two solutions...
Solution A: Allow automated vehicles to routinely exceed the speed limit thus contributing to the unsafe environment.
Solution B: Implement appropriate traffic enforcement and raise city revenue on the reckless habits of traffic offenders.
Why the hell is Solution A even being considered?
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Solution A is being considered because it's the law in California. The driver's handbook is explicit that you should keep up with traffic around you, rather than opt for a lower speed that is dramatically different from the cars around you. I'm sure in other states/countries, where this is not the law, this will not be the case.
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You are correct about the Driver's Handbook and and the state law in regards to unsafe speed, but I think you missed the point. Why is everyone allowed to uniformly break the speed limit in the first place? Why not do some proper enforcement to bring the speeds back down?
If you're programming a module to complete a task and find that it needs to be written in such a way as to break existing rules to facilitate the rules being broken by other modules, don't you try to fix the problem from the ground up?
Addit
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Solution C: Deputize driverless cars to enforce traffic rules of surrounding cars and report it to the authorities. Make it enourmously expensive to drive cars manually, causing the free market to make driverless cars mandatory. When you include all the little potential violations, the frequency at which drivers violate traffic rules is probably several times per mile.
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I'm OK with this. How can I get you on the Google Car sales team? ;)
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Why does road safety always have to mean lowering the speed limit? Faster roads require more driver attention. If you set the limits too low not only will people not respect the limit, but they'll become inattentive as well. I'm driving at this slow ass speed, might as well check my texts or fiddle with the radio, this is making sleepy.. zzz... *crash*
Re: so... (Score:2)
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"Regardless of the posted speed limit, your speed should depend on: - The number and speed of other vehicles on the road. - (...)" [California Drivers Handbook, page 33]
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offtopic to raise possibility of feds using tech to stop or crash your car? the mods have limited imaginations