Driverless Nissan nearly takes out cyclist

[Slick]

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

Maybe not.

 

[Drago]

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

 

[Slick]

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

I know I would.

 

[jarlrmai]

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]

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]

Yes I have and thankfully I escaped relatively unharmed.

 

[johnnyb47]

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

 

[KnackeredBike]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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...



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).

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]

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]

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.