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I'm not trying to justify it but she was on a dark road, dark clothing and no reflectors on the bike. I have pretty good night vision and more than once I've come along people in same situation and never would have been able to stop if they were in the road.
And ONE little tid bit, The Driver was watching a video
I'm not trying to justify it but she was on a dark road, dark clothing and no reflectors on the bike. I have pretty good night vision and more than once I've come along people in same situation and never would have been able to stop if they were in the road.
At the same time, where the accident occurred is a frequently jaywalked and congested area. As a human who lives near the area, I know to drive very cautiously and defensively, scouring sidewalks for drunk and homeless pedestrians because I have had people dart out into the road over there before. A computer does not know this. A human paying attention would have had a good chance of seeing her on the sidewalk before she made her way out to the street.
Moreover, if you've been to the Phoenix area, you know that it is not dark at night, especially in that area. This area has no shortage of street lights.
Reading thru the 2 pages of comments, I cant see any difference! Can anyone else think of why this debate is different from the time when horse and buggy transitioned to the motorized car? Most people are worried about safety...thats why some people wanted horse and buggy to remain the dominant mode of transportation.
This should have happened years ago imo, they suppress SO much auto related technology its almost comical.
Many of us don't want it for more reasons than that. Going from Horse and buggy to a car is not the same thing as going from a car to a driver-less car.
i hear it said all the time that self driving cars are going to be the norm in just 8 - 10 years. all i can say is: please let me die before then. I don't get any of all this stooooopid new technology. i just don't. that goes for alexa and smart tv's that can listen in to anything you say in the same room. what's up with people who don't care and buy this stuff anyway? is it just a cool factor to have the latest tech toys and the hell with rational holding onto your own autonomy with your own life??? Since when did having smart appliances, tv's, doorbells, cars and thermostats take over from our own ability to spend a matter of minutes to do it ourself? I can fully admit it, i'm a geezer gammer, and i feel there are too many consequences to all this technology taking over our lives
Are the GPS systems in self driving cars better than GPS systems we use now in our human driven cars? They better be, because right now GPS systems are not fool proof at all. Not even close.
Yes and they will keep getting better. And its more than just a GPS there are cameras in every possible direction.
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Originally Posted by peebola
Another thing. Will self driving cars ever really be able to drive in snow? I really do not see that happening. I live in an area of the country that gets on average 125 inches of snow a year. Driving in snow is treacherous. I am sorry, I just don't see self driving cars being the "norm." It sounds good on paper, but in reality there are just too many variables to overcome.
BTW, what about car insurance on a self driving car? If I am not driving the car why should it be my fault if my car gets in an accident? It should be the car's fault. What about driver's licenses? Why should I have one if I am not driving the car. If I am required to have one in order to "take over the car" in an emergency, how well do you think I will be able to drive? Will one be required to drive normally for a few years to get used to driving before being allowed to be in a self driving car?
So many questions...
I follow this sort of thing daily. Not just self-driving cars but the advances in robotics and AI. It seems like there is a breakthrough almost every day.
My belief is self-driving cars will be common during the next decade. Many people will no longer need their own car and simply order one like Uber when they need to go somewhere. Without a human driver like Uber is now costs should should be lower. Those that still need their own cars will see insurance premiums go way way down. They will be safer drivers than we are and that is not even accounting for things that people do like distracted driving, drunk driving or road rage type of situations. Sure sometimes things will go wrong and that is up to the insurance companies to sort out. I cannot see how a passenger of a self-driving car would at all be responsible for any accidents if they are not at the wheel. And there may not be a wheel to be at.
Regarding snow. People seem to have lots of trouble driving in snow. There are all the youtube videos of people driving poorly in snow and chain reaction accidents. I am sure the self-driving cars will do just fine.
Plus the technology will allow these self driving cars to communicate with each other in real time. They can operate in sycronicity and avoid potential problems that humans just cannot do.
It is the future, there will be some hiccups along the way but it is not if but when.
Last edited by Oklazona Bound; 06-28-2018 at 08:26 PM..
i hear it said all the time that self driving cars are going to be the norm in just 8 - 10 years. all i can say is: please let me die before then. I don't get any of all this stooooopid new technology. i just don't. that goes for alexa and smart tv's that can listen in to anything you say in the same room. what's up with people who don't care and buy this stuff anyway? is it just a cool factor to have the latest tech toys and the hell with rational holding onto your own autonomy with your own life??? Since when did having smart appliances, tv's, doorbells, cars and thermostats take over from our own ability to spend a matter of minutes to do it ourself? I can fully admit it, i'm a geezer gammer, and i feel there are too many consequences to all this technology taking over our lives
You are using some sort of technology to get online and make the comments you did above. You are not that out of touch. There are lots of people who would call what you are doing as stupid technology. Why be online when you can talk to people face to face?
I use technology to operate my business. It allows me to be much more proactive with my customers. I don't buy anything to be cool, only to be productive. My smart phone was $60 new. My smart TV was $140 three years ago. I have a laptop and desktop computer I purchased used. I could trade them out for the latest and the greatest but it would not change much for me so I am fine with what I have.
I admit many people have to buy the newest most expensive thing and most of the time that is not necessary. But it is their money so they can do what they want.
Imho, I dont think it will last. Some car will hit and kill some, there will be a multi-million dollar lawsuit, and that will be the end of. The lawyers will be able to sue someone with huge pockets, a major corporation, not some average joe shmoe, thats what will end it.
This sounds good in theory, but I have yet to hear about its actual development. What progress has been made on this so far? This is going to be much more difficult to implement in practice than the "good weather" functionality.
The fully functioning autonomous systems are all retrofitted so they would be limited by what was available in the car. Gas, steering and braking are all moving to "drive by wire" tech so implementing it to some degree is possible now.
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my question/concern is about the ability of a human to override the AI and when that will be exercised. Will it be a complete override (i.e. you could turn off the AI if needed and drive the car the way we drive today), or will a minimum level of AI always be operative that will render it impossible to drive like an a******.
It's inevitable these cars will have no conventional inputs in the future so there will be no way for the human to "drive" it, perhaps a PS joystick for emergencies or where manual driving is possible. Someone had asked in a previous thread about when they were hunting and driving through the field. I suggested they would simply point on the onboard display where they would want to go. Maybe you would just think it and that's where it would go. ... that's not science fiction.
It's anyone's guess how these things would be implemented and these types of things are way off in the future. As I suggested previously it might be 30 or 40 years before this tech is fully implemented and that is just a matter of being practical and nothing to do with limitations of the tech.
Regarding snow. People seem to have lots of trouble driving in snow. There are all the youtube videos of people driving poorly in snow and chain reaction accidents. I am sure the self-driving cars will do just fine.
Plus the technology will allow these self driving cars to communicate with each other in real time. They can operate in sycronicity and avoid potential problems that humans just cannot do.
It is the future, there will be some hiccups along the way but it is not if but when.
I don't believe the self driving cars will drive better in the snow than human driven cars. They may drive slower, but not better. A self driving car can spin out or get stuck in snow just as easily as a human driven car. Where I live, we have intersections that can get 6-8 inches of snow piled in it with deep tracks from cars trying to get through. If the intersection happens to be on a hill, and you have a car that has a low wheel base, you are SOL. You are going to get stuck and end up spinning your wheels. Then you have to get out and start pushing. Fun times.
Explain how self driving cars will maneuver better through the scenerio above? Will the self driving car magically not get stuck in the snow ruts? Will it try to avoid such an intersection, unfortunately in a snow storm (which we get a lot, we had over 150 inches of snow this past winter) most intersections are snow covered. Usually when I drive in a snowstorm, I creep through the snow covered intersection, and hope I can get through it without stopping. Will a self driving car do that?
I just don't see it. If Uber decided to test self driving cars in Syracuse, NY for an entire winter season than maybe I would be more apt to believe self driving cars are going to be the norm within a decade. But Uber always seems to pick nice dry, sunny, flat locations with wide roads (no Pittsburgh doesn't count as a snowy location, in my opinion, even though Pittsburgh does have crappy roads).
What happens if the sensors get covered with snow and ice? Will the cars then be able to communicate with each other. My XM radio goes out when I go by tall mountains or buildings, will car communications also fail under certain driving conditions?
When I want to park in a parking lot, what spot does the self driving car choose? I heard parking lots will need sensors put in so the self driving cars know where the spaces are. Really? My local grocery store is going to add sensors to its parking lot, they can barely fix the massive potholes in it from the salt and the snow plow drivers.
Has any testing been done on gravel surfaces yet? I live in an area with curvy roads surfaced with loose gravel,
Going back to 2005 the very first use of these cars was in the desert. They were given a set of GPS data points and had to navigate the road themselves between those points and that would include curves etc.
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Roads that double as mud pits seasonally. Does the car just go 5 MPH when the surface is questionable? Does an automatic flotation device launch when the water level is high enough inside the vehicle?
Joking aside this is where things get difficult, is that seasonal steam running across the road that you have gone across thousands of times a danger? As these cars are implemented they will be collecting data real time and be able to share it with other cars so it may even know more about that situation than you if you are in unfamiliar territory. I'd imagine this is where a manual override would come into play, "Do you really want to cross this stream?" LOL
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... that's not science fiction. 
