Robotaxis Face 'Heightened Scrutiny' While the Industry Plans Expansion (msn.com) 19
Besides investigations into Cruise and Waymo, America's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) also announced it's examining two rear-end collisions between motorbikes and Amazon's steering wheel-free Zoox vehicles being tested in San Francisco, Seattle, and Las Vegas.
This means all three major self-driving vehicle companies "are facing federal investigations over potential flaws linked to dozens of crashes," notes the Washington Post, calling it "a sign of heightened scrutiny as the fledging industry lays plans to expand nationwide." The industry is poised for growth: About 40 companies have permits to test autonomous vehicles in California alone. The companies have drawn billions of dollars in investment, and supporters say they could revolutionize how Americans travel... Dozens of companies are testing self-driving vehicles in at least 10 states, with some offering services to paying passengers, according to the Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association. The deployments are concentrated in a handful of Western states, especially those with good weather and welcoming governors.
According to a Washington Post analysis of California data, the companies in test mode in San Francisco collectively report millions of miles on public roads every year, along with hundreds of mostly minor collisions. An industry association says autonomous vehicles have logged a total of 70 million miles, a figure that it compares with 293 trips to the moon and back. But it's a tiny fraction of the almost 9 billion miles that Americans drive every day. The relatively small number of miles the vehicles have driven makes it difficult to draw broad conclusions about their safety.
Key quotes from the article:
This means all three major self-driving vehicle companies "are facing federal investigations over potential flaws linked to dozens of crashes," notes the Washington Post, calling it "a sign of heightened scrutiny as the fledging industry lays plans to expand nationwide." The industry is poised for growth: About 40 companies have permits to test autonomous vehicles in California alone. The companies have drawn billions of dollars in investment, and supporters say they could revolutionize how Americans travel... Dozens of companies are testing self-driving vehicles in at least 10 states, with some offering services to paying passengers, according to the Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association. The deployments are concentrated in a handful of Western states, especially those with good weather and welcoming governors.
According to a Washington Post analysis of California data, the companies in test mode in San Francisco collectively report millions of miles on public roads every year, along with hundreds of mostly minor collisions. An industry association says autonomous vehicles have logged a total of 70 million miles, a figure that it compares with 293 trips to the moon and back. But it's a tiny fraction of the almost 9 billion miles that Americans drive every day. The relatively small number of miles the vehicles have driven makes it difficult to draw broad conclusions about their safety.
Key quotes from the article:
- "Together, the three investigations opened in the past year examine more than two dozen collisions potentially linked to defective technology. The bulk of the incidents were minor and did not result in any injuries..."
- "But robotic cars are still very much in their infancy, and while the bulk of the collisions flagged by NHTSA are relatively minor, they call into question the companies' boasts of being far safer than human drivers..."
- "The era of unrealistic expectations and hype is over," said Matthew Wansley, a professor at the Cardozo School of Law in New York who specializes in emerging automotive technologies. "These companies are under a microscope, and they should be. Private companies are doing an experiment on public roads."
- "Innocent people are on the roadways, and they're not being protected as they need to be," said Cathy Chase, the president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety.
Simple solution (Score:1)
Motorcycles need to stop following vehicles (never mind who is driving them) so closely.
Are they under the impression (Score:3)
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Re: Are they under the impression (Score:2)
liability and dui laws need to be changed to cover (Score:2)
liability and dui laws need to be changed to cover them.
In most states, you don't have to be actually driving to get a DUI—operating or being in actual physical control of a vehicle is enough. In states that use the "actual physical control" standard, just being intoxicated in a parked car with the electrical system (for example, the radio) or the engine turned on is usually sufficient for a DUI conviction.
It's at least plausible that programing a driverless car to take you somewhere would cou
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In some states, the threshold [tpatrialattorneys.com] for a DUI conviction is even lower than he said:
If you are in a parked vehicle and are under the influence of drugs or alcohol, police can determine that you are "in control of the vehicle," and you will be arrested.
Other states have different standards [lawyers.com] for "actual physical control" and intent to drive, but the GP described a fairly common one.
Safety is only half the problem (Score:2)
Regardless of safety, a high concentration of these vehicles will grid lock a city. Driving is AI hard, the remote control doesn't always help either :
https://sfstandard.com/2024/04... [sfstandard.com]
Mobile phone remote control can be out too and tying traffic operation in a city to mobile phone operation is needless fragility.
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The link is to a story about how a Waymo car tried to avoid going onto a highway by parking itself down a dead-end, and other cars followed, and a traffic jam occurred for w/e reasons.
Every study ever done on "what happens if ALL the cars are AI driven" shows that traffic flows smoother and the cars get to their destinations faster. There's certainly lots more work to be done on self-driving cars, but the problems are actually much easier if all the cars are AI cars teht can follow fucking speed limits and
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...but the live testing has been very, very successful, right?
I mean, I get being skeptical of the complexities of real-world versus simulation, but they've handled real-world exceptionally well in these areas, performing much better than the human drivers overall. So why assume the simulations are so far off?
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The particular case of traffic simulations is a notoriously difficult and unstable problem: a tiny misspecification can give a large change in outcome.
Furthermore, the solutions arrived at never come close to actual real world experience because the real world requires political compromises and economic considerations which immediately modify t
Put a fork in it, self driving is done (Score:2)
The only way you can get a new technology out there is to get it established before it can be strangled by regulations. Self-driving cars started way behind (since autos are already heavily regulated) and clearly the regulator attention is now getting more oppressive far faster than adoption is happening.
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The only way you can get a new technology out there is to get it established before it can be strangled by regulations
Nonsense. In North America, AI is largely unregulated. Social media is largely unregulated. Most consumer IoT devices are unregulated. On and on.
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Social media beat the regulation, as did IoT devices, With AI the jury is still out; there's bills in California trying to strangle it in its cradle.
The bulk of the incidents were minor (Score:3)
>The bulk of the incidents were minor and did not result in any injuries
Can we all just sit back and take that in? It's pretty impressive.