# Driverless Nissan nearly takes out cyclist



## Trickedem (5 Mar 2017)

Clearly something wrong with Nissan driverless car trials. They should be taken off the road until they sort this out.


----------



## Drago (5 Mar 2017)

To be fair, most manually piloted Nissans are a danger to our kind.


----------



## Trickedem (5 Mar 2017)

Drago said:


> To be fair, most manually piloted Nissans are a danger to our kind.


Good point! The Nissan engineer behind the wheel didn't even seem to notice the problem


----------



## Oldbloke (5 Mar 2017)

Are they still built with bifocal windscreens?


----------



## srw (5 Mar 2017)

Trickedem said:


> Clearly something wrong with Nissan driverless car trials. They should be taken off the road until they sort this out.


That'll probably take roughly a week.

These are very preliminary trials to see how these cars cope with a real, tricky city. The answer so far seems to be "remarkably well".

And the prize for cyclists is so great - the prospect of a class of motorised vehicles that are, in all normal circumstances, going to be completely safe - that I'm willing to tolerate a few close passes as they get there. It's difficult to tell from a video, but as close passes go that wasn't the worst I've seen - there's another equally close by a different car earlier in the clip.


----------



## Phaeton (5 Mar 2017)

OMG Didn't the cyclist know it's illegal to ride a bike on a dual carriageway, he should be stopped & sent to jail


----------



## Milkfloat (5 Mar 2017)

I am waiting to see the close pass, the video cuts it off before it happens.


----------



## ufkacbln (5 Mar 2017)

Milkfloat said:


> I am waiting to see the close pass, the video cuts it off before it happens.



Its at 0:49 of the first video


----------



## jay clock (5 Mar 2017)

If the right hand lane had been busy I would have been ok with that as the cyclist but abolsutley no reason why the driver should not have overridden it to move out


----------



## GuyBoden (5 Mar 2017)

With the latest self riding bike this won't be a problem.


----------



## classic33 (5 Mar 2017)

[QUOTE 4708654, member: 9609"]I can't find the ideo of the cyclist - just the one where it nearly shunts a road sweeper.

Anyway - Do we already have driverless vehicles (even under trila) in the UK ?[/QUOTE]
The lorries, under trial, were taken off the motorways about a year ago


----------



## srw (5 Mar 2017)

[QUOTE 4708654, member: 9609"]I can't find the ideo of the cyclist - just the one where it nearly shunts a road sweeper.

Anyway - Do we already have driverless vehicles (even under trila) in the UK ?[/QUOTE]
Errr.....

The video that we're all talking about (which is in the link in the OP) was filmed in the UK. Yes, we do.

http://metro.co.uk/2017/03/03/drive...d-london-all-week-and-nobody-noticed-6485646/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-37618574

And there are now a lot of cars on the road which can be set to self-drive in some circumstances - such as parking.


----------



## winjim (5 Mar 2017)

jay clock said:


> If the right hand lane had been busy I would have been ok with that as the cyclist but abolsutley no reason why the driver should not have overridden it to move out


If it's fine when the right hand lane is busy then it must be fine all the time.


----------



## furball (5 Mar 2017)

As a road user I object to becoming a guinea pig when these cars are being tested on the open road. 
I guess there isn't anything road users can do about it but it just seems putting other road users at risk is wrong, wrong, wrong.


----------



## NorthernDave (5 Mar 2017)

[QUOTE 4708654, member: 9609"]

Anyway - Do we already have driverless vehicles (even under trial) in the UK ?[/QUOTE]

Yes we do and not just on trial - you can already buy a car from a mainstream manufacturer with limited self driving capabilities


----------



## raleighnut (5 Mar 2017)

Let's hope the 'autobrake' system has been improved since this,


View: https://youtu.be/_47utWAoupo


----------



## jarlrmai (5 Mar 2017)

Ready to take control is worthless, unless you are involved in the task you are not aware enough to take evasive action.


----------



## jarlrmai (5 Mar 2017)

People behind the wheel let their mind drift when the car is driving for them. That Tesla that smashed into the side of the truck because it couldn't see the trailer the driver didn't take over in time, he was doing something else.


----------



## jarlrmai (5 Mar 2017)

There are already Teslas with 'autopilot' hands off driving on the roads, it was rolled out as a software update also already people dying because the software/sensors is not perfect and people can't or didn't stay in control enough.

https://electrek.co/2016/07/01/understanding-fatal-tesla-accident-autopilot-nhtsa-probe/


----------



## srw (5 Mar 2017)

jarlrmai said:


> There are already Teslas with 'autopilot' hands off driving on the roads, it was rolled out as a software update also already people dying because the software/sensors is not perfect and people can't or didn't stay in control enough.
> 
> https://electrek.co/2016/07/01/understanding-fatal-tesla-accident-autopilot-nhtsa-probe/



One person has died. The injury and fatality rates for computer controlled cars in the real world are significantly lower than for human controlled cars.


----------



## NorthernDave (5 Mar 2017)

[QUOTE 4708912, member: 9609"]I was meaning more the full autonomous, I had thought it was going through parliament this month, but a quick google shows that something got passed on 22nd feb, not really sure what it is though ? not sure the diff between full autonomous, a bloke sitting behind the wheel ready to take control and ACC / AEBS / lane departure bollocks.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/...cle-insurance-and-electric-car-infrastructure
I thought all manner of laws would need changed as the driver is no longer going to be responsible.[/QUOTE]



jarlrmai said:


> There are already Teslas with 'autopilot' hands off driving on the roads, it was rolled out as a software update also already people dying because the software/sensors is not perfect and people can't or didn't stay in control enough.
> 
> https://electrek.co/2016/07/01/understanding-fatal-tesla-accident-autopilot-nhtsa-probe/



This website explains some of the situation that's developing: http://www.thatcham.org/car-safety/driver-assistance/autonomous-driving/

The UK government is fully committed to being a world leader in automated vehicles and is supporting several trial programs across the country. There is a legal framework to change, which is complicated as it involves UN and international agreements. However, you have been able to buy cars from mainstream manufacturers (not just Tesla) that have _some_ autonomous capabilities for a while.
Some human beings like to push boundaries so it might be a bit naïve to expect that the limits of the systems might not get explored beyond what the manufacturer claims they are capable of in the handbook.
If a car can "drive" itself on a motorway - stay in lane, maintain a steady speed, adjust that speed relative to traffic in front of it and if that tech isn't geo-fenced to only be available on the motorway, what's to stop it being activated by the driver on a dual carriageway, even if the small print says not to? Or a single carriageway road? Or a road through a town centre?
And what if the car decides it can't cope with a rapidly developing scenario while travelling at 70mph and hands back control to the driver who is supposed to be constantly monitoring it (and who remains legally responsible for the vehicle), but who is sat playing on his phone (for example)? Will that driver be able to assess the situation and resolve it in the 10 seconds or so available?

The thing to remember is that despite the hype and the marketing, we're currently at the stage of driver assistance systems.
It will be a few years yet until fully autonomous cars are available to buy and a long time after that before they are the majority of cars on the roads..


----------



## Lonestar (5 Mar 2017)

*Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn is no fan of cyclists. Introducing a concept driverless car he told CBNC that the arrival of the technology could be delayed by pesky cyclists who, he said, "don't respect any rules usually."
*
P£n1$...That's most,not all.


----------



## Bazzer (5 Mar 2017)

From the same article:
_The car is confused by [cyclists] because from time-to-time they behave like pedestrians and from time-to-time they behave like cars."
_
So WTF is car behaviour? Is this the HIghway Code (or European equivalents) driver, or the tossers liberally sprinkled around the road infrastructure.


----------



## Drago (5 Mar 2017)

Whereas cars never behave like pedestrians by going up in the path...


----------



## Will Spin (5 Mar 2017)

Probably going to be easier in the long run to ban cyclists from roads that are going to be used by driverless cars


----------



## Drago (5 Mar 2017)

Ban the patient because the disease is too difficult to cure?


----------



## raleighnut (5 Mar 2017)

Will Spin said:


> Probably going to be easier in the long run to ban driverless cars from roads that are going to be used by cyclists



*FTFY*


----------



## Wobblers (5 Mar 2017)

User said:


> Really? I find that, as a passenger, I am ready to take control at all times. Powerless to but ready.



The events that followed the autopilot handing back control of the aircraft to the pilots on Air France 447 would tend to suggest that @jarlrmai has a point...



srw said:


> One person has died. The injury and fatality rates for computer controlled cars in the real world are significantly lower than for human controlled cars.



There are considerable questions about the validity of those statistics quoted by Tesla. Tesla compares the accident rate of their "autopilot" (it really isn't) with the overall US accident rate for all roads. But the autopilot is used on the safest roads, so this significantly skews the data in Tesla's favour. Which makes me wonder what biases Google might be failiing to take into account. And then there's the issue that accidents are actually a rather rare event, so it will take far more data before we have reliable statistics. I think it's too early to make any meaningful judgements (echoes of Another Thread here, aren't there?).

Actually, the Tesla "autopilot" and aircraft automation combine the worst of both worlds: most of the time the human operator does nothing, but still needs to maintain complete situational awareness, so that when the automation says "I give up, get me out of here" they can seamlessly take over. That's something humans aren't really good at. It takes time, even if you've been paying attention, to get up to speed so as to decide what the appropriate actions are. Of course, after hours of inactivity, attention is something that is likely to be at a premium.... (which takes us back to AF447).


----------



## Drago (5 Mar 2017)

Mind you, some chap in America had a heart attack and his Tesla drove him to hospital quite safely without human intervention.


----------



## jarlrmai (5 Mar 2017)

Maybe if he'd been a cyclist he wouldn't have the heart attack in the 1st place


----------



## Slick (5 Mar 2017)

jarlrmai said:


> Maybe if he'd been a cyclist he wouldn't have the heart attack in the 1st place


Maybe not.


----------



## Drago (5 Mar 2017)

Perhaps he had a coronary when almost run over by a driverless Nissan?


----------



## Slick (5 Mar 2017)

Drago said:


> Perhaps he had a coronary when almost run over by a driverless Nissan?


I know I would.


----------



## jarlrmai (5 Mar 2017)

Whereas now they are controlled by a meat computer, better designed to roam the plains of Africa than control a multiton death machine and fueled by an utmost belief in it's own self importance.


----------



## johnnyb47 (5 Mar 2017)

I'm really against these self driving cars. The thought of having some guided missile hammering down the roads controlled by a computer using sensor's and cameras sends a shudder through me. It's feels even worse if I were on a bike as we are obviously more vulnerable to being injured. Whilst driving, your presented with thousands of split decisions on a journey and a lot of them are not just black or white situations. Will a driverless car have any moral situations built into its software for instance. What happens if a driver less car is in a situation as to where it had a choice as to whether it either ploughs head on into a truck or veer off to the left into some innocent pedestrian. Does the self drive car put safety of its occupants first over the pedestrian on the pavement or does it slam into the truck. Me personally would rather take my own life rather than a self preservation attitude. Others would take a different view , but with a self drive car these decisions would be made for you. I know you can most certainly take back control of such a car but in a few years time even this option will not doubt be taken away. Using one of this cars day in day out will eventually make a driver less observant over a long period and when the day a driver needs to react to something unexpected it will all be to late. The best thing for these car is to put them in the crusher and turn them into bikes.


----------



## johnnyb47 (5 Mar 2017)

Yes I have and thankfully I escaped relatively unharmed.


----------



## johnnyb47 (5 Mar 2017)

Maybe my previous post should be worded as i would prefer to put my life in danger before anybody elses. Happy now !:-)


----------



## KnackeredBike (5 Mar 2017)

johnnyb47 said:


> What happens if a driver less car is in a situation as to where it had a choice as to whether it either ploughs head on into a truck or veer off to the left into some innocent pedestrian. Does the self drive car put safety of its occupants first over the pedestrian on the pavement or does it slam into the truck. Me personally would rather take my own life rather than a self preservation attitude. Others would take a different view , but with a self drive car these decisions would be made for you. I know you can most certainly take back control of such a car but in a few years time even this option will not doubt be taken away. Using one of this cars day in day out will eventually make a driver less observant over a long period and when the day a driver needs to react to something unexpected it will all be to late. The best thing for these car is to put them in the crusher and turn them into bikes.


The two smart things about self driving cars is that, with time, they can be networked together so that the car and the truck can take co-ordinated action to minimise any harm.

Also a human's driving is based on their limited driving experience. Self driving cars will be able to learn from hundreds of millions of miles of driving so that in any given situation they can choose the best or least worst course of action based on thousands or millions of "real" experiences.

Of course they will not be perfect and the media will seize on the first pile up or pedestrian/cyclist fatalities. But they are guaranteed to be safer than human drivers because computers will be much better at calculating risks and even basic things like the speed of an oncoming cyclists before pulling out which human drivers are notoriously poor at.


----------



## Salty seadog (5 Mar 2017)

I'm a bit scared of this.I hope my car is good for another twenty years.(probably only a 5 in it)I would rather be in control


----------



## KnackeredBike (6 Mar 2017)

Salty seadog said:


> I'm a bit scared of this.I hope my car is good for another twenty years.(probably only a 5 in it)I would rather be in control


Almost certainly at some stage within my lifetime human controlled cars will be banned at least in urban areas, in the same way we prohibit high risk drivers today.

After all would you like a car that is ten times more likely to have a collision driving past your child?


----------



## Salty seadog (6 Mar 2017)

KnackeredBike said:


> Almost certainly at some stage within my lifetime human controlled cars will be banned at least in urban areas, in the same way we prohibit high risk drivers today.
> 
> After all would you like a car that is ten times more likely to have a collision driving past your child?



A vehicle driven with a conscience....yes please.


----------



## KnackeredBike (6 Mar 2017)

Salty seadog said:


> A vehicle driven with a conscience....yes please.


The thing is that driving is very like chess, you need to monitor lots of variables and evaluate hundreds or thousands of different different paths and choose the optimum one. It is something that humans are good at but computers for the most part superior.

Certainly there will be a small number of drivers who can "beat the computer" but the vast majority can't and many will fall far short. As cyclists, some of the most vulnerable road users, we should be embracing any increase in safety. I'm happy to sacrifice "conscience" if it drastically reduces the number of cyclists killed and injured.


----------



## srw (6 Mar 2017)

McWobble said:


> The events that followed the autopilot handing back control of the aircraft to the pilots on Air France 447 would tend to suggest that @jarlrmai has a point...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Actually I was thinking mainly of Google's tests, which are much more widespread and real-world than Tesla's. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waymo

I'm no starry-eyed technoevangelist, but like any new tech people jump to conclusions about safety based on limited information. Sometimes those conclusions are justified.


----------



## jarlrmai (6 Mar 2017)

Googles tests are ran by Google in a much more controlled way

For one their SDC is far more sophisticated hardware and software wise than Tesla (expensive LIDAR setups etc)
Most importantly they have a Google/Waymo employee behind the wheel, a person probably involved in the project who's job it is to monitor things and take over if required this person is arguably not a reasonable test for how an average person will behave when told "this car will drive itself, but be ready to take over."

On the other hand Tesla is just giving the feature to regular people who own a Tesla after sale, calling it "autopilot" and seeing what happens (hint normal people watch Netflix and use Facebook)

I have no doubt eventually Google style SDC's will be here and be awesome but at the moment I feel these half and half solutions being "trialled" on the roads is not acceptable.


----------



## Inertia (6 Mar 2017)

Salty seadog said:


> A vehicle driven with a conscience....yes please.


We can't guarantee that with now with humans. With a computer you can specify a safe passing distance for cyclists, the car doesnt need a conscience, just its programmmers.


----------



## Jody (6 Mar 2017)

johnnyb47 said:


> The thought of having some guided missile hammering down the roads controlled by a computer using sensor's and cameras sends a shudder through me. .



Yet we allow inexperienced drivers on the road after passing their test, people to be trusted with high power cars, ditractions like phones and sat navs etc. Althought the tech is in its infancy I like the idea that a computer will follow the rules. The self guided car would not be hammering down the roads as it would be obeying the speed limit. What about a youth hammering down the road in a barry boy'd Corsa teetering on the edge of control. Or the drunk that got behind the wheel.


----------



## jarlrmai (6 Mar 2017)

It's interesting to see what effect following the rules will have when dealing with traffic that largely doesn't.


----------



## johnnyb47 (6 Mar 2017)

Jody said:


> Yet we allow inexperienced drivers on the road after passing their test, people to be trusted with high power cars, ditractions like phones and sat navs etc. Althought the tech is in its infancy I like the idea that a computer will follow the rules. The self guided car would not be hammering down the roads as it would be obeying the speed limit. What about a youth hammering down the road in a barry boy'd Corsa teetering on the edge of control. Or the drunk that got behind the wheel.


Good point and well said buddy


----------



## KneesUp (6 Mar 2017)

Oldbloke said:


> Are they still built with bifocal windscreens?


AS first offered on the Allegro, which also featured an Incontinence Warning Light on the Vanden Plas.


----------



## Low Gear Guy (6 Mar 2017)

I cannot see the benefit in having a self driving car which the driver can over use.

For example, consider a vehicle waiting at a side road to join a busy main road. A computer controlled system will wait until there is a suitable gap no matter how long it takes. The human driver get's impatient and accelerates out after a period of time.

As a result the driver tends to take over at the point where he/she should not.

Would you permit the factory worker to remove the safety cage for operational convenience?


----------



## Inertia (6 Mar 2017)

jarlrmai said:


> It's interesting to see what effect following the rules will have when dealing with traffic that largely doesn't.


Well if I can manage it, Im sure a computer eventually could.


----------



## jarlrmai (6 Mar 2017)

The main thing about self driving cars is that most of the benefits are only realised when they are 100% self driving. If someone still has to be ready to take over then they can't be used as a taxi to transport non drivers or drunk people on a night out without a designated driver, they can't self park after dropping you off, they can't drive themselves to your house/location on order or drive themselves to the local supercharger to top up the battery, essentially you have to maintain the driver who must be qualified, not incapacitated and have all the required controls to take over should the AI not be able to cope.


----------



## Inertia (6 Mar 2017)

Low Gear Guy said:


> I cannot see the benefit in having a self driving car which the driver can over use.
> 
> For example, consider a vehicle waiting at a side road to join a busy main road. A computer controlled system will wait until there is a suitable gap no matter how long it takes. The human driver get's impatient and accelerates out after a period of time.
> 
> ...


I think the car that can be overridden will be an intermediate step, long term hopefully the human wont be involved at all.


----------



## Drago (6 Mar 2017)

Wouldn't it be nice if self driving cars couldn't be programmed to move between 2 points under 5 miles apart? Make the bone idle masses walk or cycle and relieve some of the environmental pressure.


----------



## Drago (6 Mar 2017)

Lazy sods probably would too.


----------



## jefmcg (6 Mar 2017)

People are ignoring the dangers as illustrated by this important documentary from the 1990s.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWgrvNHjKkY


----------



## KnackeredBike (7 Mar 2017)

Drago said:


> Wouldn't it be nice if self driving cars couldn't be programmed to move between 2 points under 5 miles apart? Make the bone idle masses walk or cycle and relieve some of the environmental pressure.


Would just mean when I am doing a family supermarket run I would have to drive five miles away. Can't see many people putting twelve bags of shopping on the back of a pushbike.

And for all the talk of "programming" it's important to understand that self driving cars won't be programmed with "give cyclist three metres of space", they will have the very basics (road signs etc) hard programmed and the rest will be learnt behaviour, e.g. "this road is wide so I will overtake with more space as I have seen in xxx,000 other incidences", "we are approaching a cycle path on the right so I will not overtake in case the cyclist needs to turn" etc.


----------



## MarkF (7 Mar 2017)

KnackeredBike said:


> Would just mean when I am doing a family supermarket run I would have to drive five miles away. Can't see many people putting twelve bags of shopping on the back of a pushbike.



That's only 1.7 bags per days trip instead of a run!


----------



## KnackeredBike (7 Mar 2017)

MarkF said:


> That's only 1.7 bags per days trip instead of a run!


Whenever I've used 0.7 of a bag it's all fallen out on the way home.


----------



## Drago (7 Mar 2017)

KnackeredBike said:


> Would just mean when I am doing a family supermarket run I would have to drive five miles away. Can't see many people putting twelve bags of shopping on the back of a pushbike.
> 
> And for all the talk of "programming" it's important to understand that self driving cars won't be programmed with "give cyclist three metres of space", they will have the very basics (road signs etc) hard programmed and the rest will be learnt behaviour, e.g. "this road is wide so I will overtake with more space as I have seen in xxx,000 other incidences", "we are approaching a cycle path on the right so I will not overtake in case the cyclist needs to turn" etc.



Don't do it all in one go. Spread the shopping and the consequential load. Book your shopping online and have it delivered...

Look on Mr Money Mustache's website at the people who move ladders, cookers and fridges across town quite comfortably on cycle trailers. If you're able bodied none of these issues are insurmountable - one of my projects for this year is to build a cargo trailer for my own use, and thus dispense with car number 2 entirely.

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011...y-getting-your-groceries-with-a-bike-trailer/


----------



## KnackeredBike (7 Mar 2017)

Drago said:


> Don't do it all in one go. Spread the shopping and the consequential load. Book your shopping online and have it delivered...
> 
> Look on Mr Money Mustache's website at the people who move ladders, cookers and fridges across town quite comfortably on cycle trailers. If you're able bodied none of these issues are insurmountable - one of my projects for this year is to build a cargo trailer for my own use, and thus dispense with car number 2 entirely.


I did an Ocado delivery once, bloke said he had driven from their depot seventy miles away. Never bothered with that again.

I did actually get a nice bike trailer with a proper ball joint connecting it to the bike. Problem is the roads around here are so poor that half the stuff ended up smashed, squashed, or falling out of the trailer entirely. Also it is sodding heavy to get up even moderate hills. Other than that it worked great.


----------



## Drago (7 Mar 2017)

Our Ocado chap comes about 40 miles from Coventry, but upon chatting to him in depth once it emerged I was at the apogee of a loop of about 20 deliveries. So that's one vehicle doing an 80+ mile loop, or 20 vehicles all doing return journeys and all the pollution, congestion, and human existence wasted - even at our distance the maths still work very well.


----------



## KnackeredBike (7 Mar 2017)

Drago said:


> Our Ocado chap comes about 40 miles from Coventry, but upon chatting to him in depth once it emerged I was at the apogee of a loop of about 20 deliveries. So that's one vehicle doing an 80+ mile loop, or 20 vehicles all doing return journeys and all the pollution, congestion, and human existence wasted - even at our distance the maths still work very well.


It might be nice to think of it as a "loop" but as everyone has chosen their own delivery time I doubt it is a particularly loop shaped loop.


----------



## jefmcg (7 Mar 2017)

KnackeredBike said:


> It might be nice to think of it as a "loop" but as everyone has chosen their own delivery time I doubt it is a particularly loop shaped loop.


But they have variable prices for different delivery slots, and also show you "green" slots, when they are already delivering in your area, so they can "shape" customers to the most economical slots.


----------



## jefmcg (7 Mar 2017)

KnackeredBike said:


> And for all the talk of "programming" it's important to understand that self driving cars won't be programmed with "give cyclist three metres of space", they will have the very basics (road signs etc) hard programmed and the rest will be learnt behaviour


What are you talking about? This makes no sense at all. Are you suggesting that each car will have to "learn" to drive itself? Of course the will be know all the road rules, and much much more about safe driving and many heuristics to decide what to do in every imaginable situation. Compared to building the imaging systems, this part will be a piece of cake.


----------



## KnackeredBike (7 Mar 2017)

jefmcg said:


> What are you talking about? This makes no sense at all. Are you suggesting that each car will have to "learn" to drive itself? Of course the will be know all the road rules, and much much more about safe driving and many heuristics to decide what to do in every imaginable situation. Compared to building the imaging systems, this part will be a piece of cake.


Learning to drive is about much more than learning a list of rules and then rigidly applying them. A driver will be picking up loads of information: a car at a junction with the driver looking in the wrong direction, a cyclist glancing behind them, a child straining at a parent's hand towards the road.

Self driving cars will learn these same cues in the way human drivers do, seeing a pattern and recognising that pattern next time. Obviously production self driving cars will have this AI built in from millions of miles of test driving, in future cars will almost certainly network together so that a car in Glasgow may behave differently from one in London just as human drivers do, or for that matter foreign drivers noticeably do.

An easy example would be zebra crossings, it's one thing to know the rules but another to read pedestrians so that you stop when needed, and for that matter don't slow to a crawl when everyone is walking past. Or an accident in front of me where someone T-boned someone at a junction, I had hung back and left greater distance because the driver was clearly a confused old dear hence didn't pile into the back of her.


----------



## classic33 (7 Mar 2017)

Drago said:


> Don't do it all in one go. Spread the shopping and the consequential load. Book your shopping online and have it delivered...
> 
> Look on Mr Money Mustache's website at the people who move ladders, cookers and fridges across town quite comfortably on cycle trailers. If you're able bodied none of these issues are insurmountable - one of my projects for this year is to build a cargo trailer for my own use, and thus dispense with car number 2 entirely.
> 
> ...


Bikes at work.

Having dropped the old machine off at the "recycling centre", and gone on to pick the new one up a further 3/4 mile away. It was worth it for the looks of disbilief alone.


----------



## Drago (7 Mar 2017)

KnackeredBike said:


> It might be nice to think of it as a "loop" but as everyone has chosen their own delivery time I doubt it is a particularly loop shaped loop.


 good for him to do 20 odd drops in a dingle tour of duty. Whichever way you angle it, chummy in one van is significantly less miles and pollution than 20 chummies in 20 vehicles making 20 cold starts.


----------



## DaveReading (7 Mar 2017)

KnackeredBike said:


> Learning to drive is about much more than learning a list of rules and then rigidly applying them. A driver will be picking up loads of information: a car at a junction with the driver looking in the wrong direction, a cyclist glancing behind them, a child straining at a parent's hand towards the road.
> 
> Self driving cars will learn these same cues in the way human drivers do, seeing a pattern and recognising that pattern next time. Obviously production self driving cars will have this AI built in from millions of miles of test driving, in future cars will almost certainly network together so that a car in Glasgow may behave differently from one in London just as human drivers do, or for that matter foreign drivers noticeably do.
> 
> An easy example would be zebra crossings, it's one thing to know the rules but another to read pedestrians so that you stop when needed, and for that matter don't slow to a crawl when everyone is walking past. Or an accident in front of me where someone T-boned someone at a junction, I had hung back and left greater distance because the driver was clearly a confused old dear hence didn't pile into the back of her.



So every driverless car needs to learn those lessons independently, rather than being programmed on the basis of a pool of shared knowledge about the environment ?

Please tell me you're joking.


----------



## KnackeredBike (7 Mar 2017)

DaveReading said:


> So every driverless car needs to learn those lessons independently, rather than being programmed on the basis of a pool of shared knowledge about the environment ?
> 
> Please tell me you're joking.


Of course not, they will come out of the factory with a level of AI knowledge built in. But it is inevitable that over time they will network and create a "hive mind" to refine the AI further. Why tap the experience of millions of miles when you can machine analyse billions or trillions.

Apart from anything else after the first few big crashes there will be pressure to amend the programming "so that it can never happen again". Makes sense to build a networking "hive mind" ability in from day one rather than constantly needing to go to the garage for updates.


----------



## raleighnut (7 Mar 2017)

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rc...317786&usg=AFQjCNErgu2ESgL-DV2mx2vy0gBacjz_tw


----------



## winjim (7 Mar 2017)

raleighnut said:


> http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=11&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjTt6aYmcXSAhUrBcAKHQjgBE0QFghiMAo&url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38317786&usg=AFQjCNErgu2ESgL-DV2mx2vy0gBacjz_tw


http://www.robotswanking.com


----------



## NorthernDave (7 Mar 2017)

This is a more likely future - fully autonomous cars that you call on demand. A Super-Uber, if you like.


----------



## DaveReading (7 Mar 2017)

NorthernDave said:


> This is a more likely future - fully autonomous cars



Why does that thought send shivers down my spine ... ?


----------



## growingvegetables (7 Mar 2017)

KnackeredBike said:


> Would just mean when I am doing a family supermarket run I would have to drive five miles away. Can't see many people putting twelve bags of shopping on the back of a pushbike.


Hate to be a spoilsport. But ... how much of your "family supermarket run" ends up in the bin? "The average UK household wasted £470 worth of food." 

"Buying-by-bike" means a few more, but much smaller, shopping trips. I'll bet my "bike-shopping" food wastage is a tiny fraction of a "shopper-by-car's"; and know that my "bike-shopping" is a damned sight more interesting, fresh, and varied than a "family supermarket [car] run". Trust me - I won't ride a couple of miles to Leeds Market only to haul back stuff to waste!

Which leaves your suggestion, awkwardly (?), choosing to drive further, to add yet more waste? Ah well .......


----------



## growingvegetables (7 Mar 2017)

KnackeredBike said:


> ... it is inevitable that over time they will network and create a "hive mind" to refine the AI further. ... after the first few big crashes there will be pressure to amend the programming "so that it can never happen again". Makes sense to build a networking "hive mind" ability in from day one rather than constantly needing to go to the garage for updates.


I admire your optimism. What suggests your "hive mind" will be positive for vulnerable road users? Given the Nissan incident, and the predilections of its management, the new "hive mind" could be .......... extremely negative?


----------



## Drago (8 Mar 2017)

The thing that really worries me about these Nissan autonomous cars.... the electrics will be supplied by Renault. Names such as Omega, Sabatier and Mag, are associated with products of the highest quality, precision and dependability. Renault does not which, in a product that regulates it's own behaviour with regards to the safety of those around it, is rather worrying.

I mean, if you had heart surgery would you want the surgeon to use a scalpel made by Renault?


----------



## srw (8 Mar 2017)

McWobble said:


> Actually, the Tesla "autopilot" and aircraft automation combine the worst of both worlds: most of the time the human operator does nothing, but still needs to maintain complete situational awareness, so that when the automation says "I give up, get me out of here" they can seamlessly take over. That's something humans aren't really good at. It takes time, even if you've been paying attention, to get up to speed so as to decide what the appropriate actions are. Of course, after hours of inactivity, attention is something that is likely to be at a premium.... (which takes us back to AF447).



One thing that occurred to me as I was driving back this lunchtime along the A3, M25 and M40 was quite how little active attention a normal driver pays most of the time. Driving is _mostly_ done subconsciously rather than with alert and highly active conscious attention. I don't know enough about human psychology to know what that means for the times that the human driver needs to take active and conscious control.



KnackeredBike said:


> Apart from anything else after the first few big crashes there will be pressure to amend the programming "so that it can never happen again".



But by then it will be too late. My observation is that the people who are pushing the technology (scientists, car companies, insurance companies) are alive to all the very knotty ethical problems they'll have to solve, and solutions will be built in at design stage. And if one of the constraints isn't _make sure that the number of big crashes, especially ones involving children, is demonstrably considerably lower than with human drivers _I'd be gobsmacked. If a car can cope with a completely unpredictable child it can certainly cope with a reasonably predictable adult on a bike or on foot.


----------



## jarlrmai (8 Mar 2017)

Some more possibilities with driverless cars

1. Governments will be forced to come up with some clear rules for passing cyclists because good luck writing a computer programme that tells a robot car to "give motorcyclists, cyclists and horse riders at least as much room as you would when overtaking a car." This option will be interesting in the US where laws vary per state.

2. Companies will be left to their own devices for how a car should react to a cyclist, now given the tech is new they will probably/hopefully opt for caution, god forbid they allow the settings to be user configurable.

3. Big companies decide cyclists are too difficult a problem for driverless cars and lobby for law changes to ban cyclists, using car accident reduction as a wedge.

I'm a programmer by trade and I see problems like the child on the road as possibly easier to solve, for one a child on the road is a rare unexpected event but a foreseeable one and second essentially the car performing an emergency stop is basically the best option this (you may get rear ended but this is infinity preferable to running over a child) , so "child in road = emergency stop." Now knowing its a child and not a dog is whole different kettle of logical and ethical problems.

A car cannot emergency stop every time it meets a cyclist, so it has to be able to adapt driving behaviour to cope with the situation and keep driving. So this might be more difficult for programmers.


----------



## potsy (8 Mar 2017)

jarlrmai said:


> . Big companies decide cyclists are too difficult a problem for driverless cars and lobby for law changes to ban cyclists, using car accident reduction as a wedge.


I still don't ever see these cars becoming reality on our roads, but if they do then I fear this could come true.

Much easier to get rid of the 'problem'.


----------



## jarlrmai (8 Mar 2017)

Does the phrase mean "leave as much room between the side your car and side of the bike as you would if you were going past a car" or does it mean "imagine there's a car and then give as much room as that."

It specifies nothing concrete so it becomes difficult to programme and actually have the programme match the law/advice, you need specifics to tell the computer what to do, perhaps the self driving car in the original video was told, when you go past a car leave 30 cm between you and the car then it it was told "give motorcyclists, cyclists and horse riders at least as much room as you would when overtaking a car." so it gave 30 cm


----------



## KnackeredBike (8 Mar 2017)

jarlrmai said:


> Does the phrase mean "leave as much room between the side your car and side of the bike as you would if you were going past a car" or does it mean "imagine there's a car and then give as much room as that."
> 
> It specifies nothing concrete so it becomes difficult to programme and actually have the programme match the law/advice, you need specifics to tell the computer what to do, perhaps the self driving car in the original video was told, when you go past a car leave 30 cm between you and the car then it it was told "give motorcyclists, cyclists and horse riders at least as much room as you would when overtaking a car." so it gave 30 cm


The rule around here is

If there is nothing oncoming overtake on the opposite side of the road.

If there is oncoming traffic leave at least a fag paper width when squeezing past.

If there is not a fag paper width drive as close to the back wheel of the cyclist as possible, do emergency stops whenever the cyclist slows so the driver behind knows how inconsiderate the cyclist is being. Ensure you floor it and swerve around the cyclist at the first opportunity. Then go home and write into the Daily Mail about how cyclists are clogging up your roads and not paying road tax.

This is why it's important self driving cars are networked, otherwise how will they contact the DM.


----------



## jarlrmai (8 Mar 2017)

The photo might just show how much space that specific driver gives a car when they over take.


----------



## jarlrmai (8 Mar 2017)

I am familiar with it are you saying that for sure that rule in the highway code means give a cyclist a cars width of space as if there were a car were the cyclist is.

Because you could argue that "as much room as you would when overtaking a car" could be interpreted differently depending on who reads it.

A computer needs unambiguous specific statements, not judgement calls or the judgement calls of the person programming it.


----------



## jarlrmai (8 Mar 2017)

They could of course be programmed to do that, but they will be likely programmed to match the law, but when the law has no specifics then how do you programme them?

So you need to amend the law if it's not specific, or make a specific rule for self driving cars which then conflicts with the rule for normal cars. Or rely on SDC companies to decide what's safe for cyclists.


----------



## Smokin Joe (8 Mar 2017)

Before driverless cars will be allowed for public use they will be tested to death and back to eliminate any risks as much as possible. The number of accidents they will be involved in will almost certainly be small enough to not even make a statistic.


----------



## KnackeredBike (8 Mar 2017)

Smokin Joe said:


> Before driverless cars will be allowed for public use they will be tested to death and back to eliminate any risks as much as possible. The number of accidents they will be involved in will almost certainly be small enough to not even make a statistic.


Doesn't matter, any near miss or accident will be reported in a sensational style even if it is a tiny fraction of those caused by human drivers per km.

They are somewhat inevitable in the same way some pushbike accidents are inevitable: the roads are designed for cars and anyone else is using a resource for which they are as out place as a car driving down a pavement is.


----------



## Smokin Joe (8 Mar 2017)

KnackeredBike said:


> Doesn't matter, any near miss or accident will be reported in a sensational style even if it is a tiny fraction of those caused by human drivers per km.


It will be very easy to publish comparative figures of before / after driverless to show a significant improvement in safety.


----------



## KnackeredBike (8 Mar 2017)

Smokin Joe said:


> It will be very easy to publish comparative figures of before / after driverless to show a significant improvement in safety.


I'm not sure that numbers will convince the Daily "curse the EU and their ban on incandescent bulbs" Mail. Sensationalism sells papers.

My father in law still insists that incandescent bulbs are more efficient and that the reason why don't last as long is because the electric company send "too much power" to their house. It's difficult to argue with abject stupidity.


----------



## srw (11 Sep 2017)

I thought it was worth resuscitating the thread to post a link:


https://www.engadget.com/amp/2017/09/11/waymo-self-driving-car-simulator-intersection/

Real data is being tweaked by adding cyclists, pedestrians and so on, so that virtual models of driverless cars can learn how to cope.


----------



## stedlocks (11 Sep 2017)

I don't know whether someone has already mentioned it, but I know I worry about this....apparently, Mercedes have adopted an algorithm that prioritises the driver/occupants so much, that if the 'options' are either hit a fence or hit a cyclist/pedestrian/mother and baby etc, then it will take the softer, sqidgier option. I find that a bit scary, particularly when the artificial intelligence will make that decision based on what a computer decides is the best option......and of course, computers are infallible?


----------



## Inertia (11 Sep 2017)

stedlocks said:


> I don't know whether someone has already mentioned it, but I know I worry about this....apparently, Mercedes have adopted an algorithm that prioritises the driver/occupants so much, that if the 'options' are either hit a fence or hit a cyclist/pedestrian/mother and baby etc, then it will take the softer, sqidgier option. I find that a bit scary, particularly when the artificial intelligence will make that decision based on what a computer decides is the best option......and of course, computers are infallible?


That was a while ago and I think Mercedes denied it at the time. The best solution is to not hit anything and a driverless car probably offers us the best chance to attain that goal.


----------



## jarlrmai (11 Sep 2017)

I think they backtracked once they realised that saying the driverless car will protect the driver ahead of others only really sold the idea to potential buyers. The dichotomy still exists. Humans have a 'survival instinct' that is very hard to argue against in legal proceedings but if a car is programmed to do something ahead of the incident happening that can be challenged in court.


----------



## stedlocks (11 Sep 2017)

Still don't trust em!


----------



## gaijintendo (11 Sep 2017)

I'm holding out for cyclistless bicycles.


----------



## MacB (11 Sep 2017)

stedlocks said:


> Still don't trust em!



which is fair enough but are they likely to be more or less trustworthy than their existing meatware counterparts?

Can you imagine cycling everywhere and not having to guess what the drivers around you are going to do? Not having that little knot in your stomach as you come to a large/complex/fast junction or see a sideroad ahead as you're going at speed.


----------



## Inertia (11 Sep 2017)

stedlocks said:


> Still don't trust em!


I don't trust car drivers either but I think its less likely for a self driving car to be; farking around with their phone, radio, newspaper, breakfast or whatever else they think is more important than my safety.


----------



## jefmcg (11 Sep 2017)

Inertia said:


> That was a while ago and I think Mercedes denied it at the time. The best solution is to not hit anything and a driverless car probably offers us the best chance to attain that goal.


Yes, I have never got close to a situation where I have had to chose between endangering myself and endangering others. I believe that situation will be rare in the extreme in a thoughtfully driven vehicle, controlled either by wetware or software.


----------



## Inertia (11 Sep 2017)

jefmcg said:


> Yes, I have never got close to a situation where I have had to chose between endangering myself and endangering others. I believe that situation will be rare in the extreme in a thoughtfully driven vehicle, controlled either by wetware or software.


I think someone posted this recently, it seems appropriate


----------



## jefmcg (11 Sep 2017)

Inertia said:


> I think someone posted this recently


I think that someone may have been me


----------



## Inertia (11 Sep 2017)

jefmcg said:


> I think that someone may have been me


oops


----------



## stedlocks (11 Sep 2017)

I'm going to have to learn computer code though, so I can rant at them properly!

And I wonder how they react if their wing mirror gets a *ahem* caress?


----------



## MacB (11 Sep 2017)

stedlocks said:


> I'm going to have to learn computer code though, so I can rant at them properly!
> 
> And I wonder how they react if their wing mirror gets a *ahem* caress?



Risky, you've seen Transformers yeah?


----------



## Inertia (11 Sep 2017)

Interesting article on the subject of sensors



> Cutting out the human error that causes 90 percent of crashes could start to save some of the 35,000 lives lost on American roads every year. Manufacturers are convinced that people will happily use at least partially autonomous cars when they’re proven to be safer than human drivers,* but that’s a pretty low bar. *



https://www.wired.com/story/why-self-driving-cars-need-superhuman-senses/


----------

