Self driving car project

[Ernest Jones]

I never contended red light or peed cameras are self incriminating but they basically write tickets with minimal consideration or discretion that a police officer might use.   It's a revenue generator and I'm sure that in order for Google to place their cars on the road there will be concessions that provides law enforcement agencies access to some of the data.

Peed cameras??? Good Lord!!!

[newtogolf]

Well in Dayton there isn't much discretion because they are set for 12 mph over the speed limit in an urban setting. So, tell me why a cop shouldn't be pulling you over going +10 mph over the speed limit? I don't see that argument really. Oh well the cop wasn't there, so what?

Honestly speed limit and red light cameras are more fair in terms of enforcing the traffic laws because it takes out human error and human bias. What is fair about a cop having a bad day and pulling people over for doing 2 over the speed limit, then the next day pulling people over if they only go 12 over the speed limit? Should we be penalized due to how a cop feels about giving out tickets that day.

Of course tickets are a revenue generator. I was driving around Ohio over Memorial Day weekend, I saw upwards of 20 State Highway patrol man driving to Canton and back down to Dayton. They knew that traffic was up and more people would speed. Does it bother you they generate revenue? You are breaking the law when you speed, own up to the ticket. The penalty is a monetary fee. Hence revenue generating. Revenue is kinda side effect of giving out tickets. I love how people say, "Oh its a cash grab". All I say is, "DUH!! YOUR SPEEDING!!!" Heck if I could make money off of people speeding I would.

Because with the sole purpose being revenue generation, there's little to no oversight.  What if the device malfunctions or is set intentionally to ticket motorists going over 5mph?   I was under the impression we were still innocent until proven guilty and you had the right to face your accuser in court.  The local governments gets away with it by just fining the vehicle owner and not assigning points to the driver since they have no way to validate who was driving.

I'm not sure how it's gone in Ohio, but here in NY there are issues with red light cameras giving tickets to vehicles that it shouldn't have.  It's also all but undone the right on red law as there's uncertainty how long you have to wait before turning so now no one turns on right where these camera's are positioned.

I often hear your slippery slope argument if you're not doing anything illegal you have no reason to be concerned.  I guess we should all welcome government cameras in our homes and businesses so the government can monitor everything we do to generate more revenue since only the guilty have anything to worry about.

Speed camera's, immigration check points, invasive x-ray searches at airports, and who knows what else, leads me to think we better remove the words "O'er the land of the free" out of the Star Spangled Banner.

[CarlSpackler]

Well in Dayton there isn't much discretion because they are set for 12 mph over the speed limit in an urban setting. So, tell me why a cop shouldn't be pulling you over going +10 mph over the speed limit? I don't see that argument really. Oh well the cop wasn't there, so what?  Honestly speed limit and red light cameras are more fair in terms of enforcing the traffic laws because it takes out human error and human bias. What is fair about a cop having a bad day and pulling people over for doing 2 over the speed limit, then the next day pulling people over if they only go 12 over the speed limit? Should we be penalized due to how a cop feels about giving out tickets that day. Of course tickets are a revenue generator. I was driving around Ohio over Memorial Day weekend, I saw upwards of 20 State Highway patrol man driving to Canton and back down to Dayton. They knew that traffic was up and more people would speed. Does it bother you they generate revenue? You are breaking the law when you speed, own up to the ticket. The penalty is a monetary fee. Hence revenue generating. Revenue is kinda side effect of giving out tickets. I love how people say, "Oh its a cash grab". All I say is, "DUH!! YOUR SPEEDING!!!" Heck if I could make money off of people speeding I would.

Good to know that they give you +12. I love how everyone brakes to -5 and then gun it when they pass. I actually like the red light and speed cams. I admit that I run fewer yellows not knowing.

[RandallT]

I thought the Google cars could already navigate city traffic, but I guess I was wrong.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/529466/urban-jungle-a-tough-challenge-for-googles-autonomous-cars/

Quote:

Urban Jungle a Tough Challenge for Google’s Autonomous Cars

July 24, 2014. It may be decades before autonomous vehicles can reliably handle the real world, experts say.

Google’s cars make extensive use of detailed maps that describe not only roads and restrictions such as speed limits, but the 3-D location of stop lights and curbstones to within inches. The company is now working to make its vehicles capable of seeing and understanding the kind of unexpected obstacles that don’t appear on those maps and are particularly common in urban areas, said Chris Urmson, the director of the project, last week.

“Obviously, the world doesn’t stay the same,” said Urmson, speaking at a conference bringing together academics and auto-industry engineers working on autonomous driving. “You need to be able to deal with things like temporary construction, and so we’ve been putting a lot of effort into understanding the semantic meaning of the world.”

That made me wonder what the Google car does now when it sees a traffic cop at a school crosswalk, or a construction worker with a stop sign, telling your lane to stop and wait until they block the oncoming traffic. Found this:

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/04/what-happens-when-a-google-driverless-car-encounters-road-construction/361306/

Quote:

What Happens When a Driverless Car Encounters Construction

April 28, 2014. The human driver takes over, at least for now .

As they were bopping along under autonomous control, the car encountered some unanticipated roadwork. Here's what happened:

We are in the left lane on Mountain View's West Middlefield Road when some road work appears up ahead. A dozen or so orange cones guide traffic to the right. The self-driving car slows down and announces the obstruction — "lane blocked" — but seems confused what to do next. It won't merge right, even though no cars are coming up behind us. After a few false starts, Brian Torcellini takes the wheel and steers around the cones before reengaging auto mode.

So, for now, humans still have a purpose behind the wheel. But check out the rest of Eric Jaffe's article to see how long that might last. (Spoiler: not very long!)

Despite Google's engineers taking control of the car twice in a relatively short drive, the sense that the driverless vehicle's time has nearly arrived is palpable in Jaffe's story.

[Lihu]

It takes time to develop this kind of technology.

[FireDragon76]

Most of the practical applications for self-driving cars would be for the blind or visually impaired.   The sighted majority is worried about giving up control- they like the feeling that if there is a potential accident, there is somebody to blame . That tells you a lot about the subconscious motivations of many people in our, personally I find that rather a dark commentary.

[RandallT]

Mesmerizing:

http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/self-driving/why-automated-cars-need-new-traffic-laws

Some interesting thoughts in the article:

And that indicates that a problem is brewing, argues Prof Alain Kornhauser, who directs the transportation program at Princeton University. “The shame of the driving laws is that they all sort of have a ‘wink’ associated with them,” he says. “It says 55 miles per hour, but everyone knows that you can do 9 over. If that’s the situation, why isn’t it written that way—with a speed limit at 64?”

People know when to disregard a law, but it isn’t easy to reduce such implicit knowledge to an algorithm. Even if you could, there are some laws that robots should never have to observe.

“A stop sign—rather than a ‘yield’ sign—is there to make sure people have the opportunity to look both ways and see nobody is coming,” Kornhauser says. “But with 360-degree camera coverage, lidars and radars, those automated cars know in a 20th of a second whether something is coming. Why should we require them to come to a complete stop?”

[saevel25]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RandallT

Mesmerizing:

http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/self-driving/why-automated-cars-need-new-traffic-laws

Quote:

Some interesting thoughts in the article:

And that indicates that a problem is brewing, argues Prof Alain Kornhauser, who directs the transportation program at Princeton University. “The shame of the driving laws is that they all sort of have a ‘wink’ associated with them,” he says. “It says 55 miles per hour, but everyone knows that you can do 9 over. If that’s the situation, why isn’t it written that way—with a speed limit at 64?”

People know when to disregard a law, but it isn’t easy to reduce such implicit knowledge to an algorithm. Even if you could, there are some laws that robots should never have to observe.

“A stop sign—rather than a ‘yield’ sign—is there to make sure people have the opportunity to look both ways and see nobody is coming,” Kornhauser says. “But with 360-degree camera coverage, lidars and radars, those automated cars know in a 20th of a second whether something is coming. Why should we require them to come to a complete stop?”

That video is a bit scary. It would be something to get use to the automation. There was some very close incidents.

Speed Limits are set up by a few criteria.

First, Horizontal alignments. Basically is the curve in the road too tight that you can not safely take it at typical speed

Second, most speed limits are set to the 85th percentile. That means spot speed studies are done to show the speed the road should be at. This is what most MUTCD(s) recommend to set up the speed limit as long as it doesn't violated design criteria or other safety factors.

Third, government bodies have jurisdiction over what the speed limit should be. In a lot of cases that is limited by state or city law. In ohio, a lot of cities, on certain roadway types, have to put speeds at 55 M.P.H because it is written in the Ohio Revised Code as such. I believe interstates are the only roadways that can bypass this. Example would be 270 columbus is 65 M.P.H. 675 through the actual city limits of Columbus is 55 M.P.H.

The primary issue is not the speed limit. It's the enforcement of the speed limit. The speed limit is usually correct. Except cops allow for the perception that people should be driving faster than that speed limit. Cops do not get to set the speed limit, that is done by traffic departments such as DOT(s) and the city's traffic office.

I find the 2nd paragraph stupid. Why should robots take that into consideration? If you design the robot, set the max speed and let it go that speed unless other things force it to reduce speed. The concept of speeding is basically a human decision.

If you are driving down a residential street where houses are very close to the roadway. Can radar bend around a house to see if a car is coming? What if you have a very strange angle for an intersection, and a wall or other obstruction keeps the car from seeing down the road effectively?

Even if the computer can make a decision in the fraction of the time a human can. The laws of physics still say there is a required stopping distance such that a vehicle can avoid getting hit by another car. The only way around this would be to have very accurate GPS to give position, direction and speed data to the vehicle. If it relies on radar of some sort then obstructions will become an issue.

Lets say you have an intersection where you only have 20 FT of distance between two vehicles colliding that the vehicles can react for one to stop. A good example would be vehicles were parked very close to a side street that you can not see past those vehicles without edging forward. At 20 MPH, the vehicles would have to be traveling less that 15 mph to just cover the braking distance. Yes you would still need stop signs.

Cameras are really not that impressive in traffic related stuff. We use them for actuating a traffic signal and we get false calls all the time because something like an animal will cross the road and set it off. They have gotten better, but they are not really accurate.

I think the future of driverless cars is in the realm of bluetooth and very accurate GPS data. Let the car get data on vehicles traveling around them, even when they can't be visually picked up by radar or video camera.

I found the professor's words to lack real world application experience.  Which is typical of academia type.

As a traffic engineer there is one fundamental rule. Drivers will do what ever the hell they want. You can sign the road to death. You can give them as much warning as possible. You can try to guide them. In the end you get this,

[dennyjones]

The testing is pretty impressive. Ann Arbor has a small city for autonomous vehicles. At my work, the testing has been ramped up. It is exciting to see.

[dennyjones]

I drove a new Buick last month that had adaptive speed control. I set the cruise at 75 and never had to touch the brake or accelator until I chose to exit the expressway. It slowed and accelerated based upon the traffic. It was very nice in the heavy driving rain where it was difficult to see the vehicle in front.

[RandallT]

That video is a bit scary. It would be something to get use to the automation. There was some very close incidents.

Speed Limits are set up by a few criteria.

First, Horizontal alignments. Basically is the curve in the road too tight that you can not safely take it at typical speed

Second, most speed limits are set to the 85th percentile. That means spot speed studies are done to show the speed the road should be at. This is what most MUTCD(s) recommend to set up the speed limit as long as it doesn't violated design criteria or other safety factors.

Third, government bodies have jurisdiction over what the speed limit should be. In a lot of cases that is limited by state or city law. In ohio, a lot of cities, on certain roadway types, have to put speeds at 55 M.P.H because it is written in the Ohio Revised Code as such. I believe interstates are the only roadways that can bypass this. Example would be 270 columbus is 65 M.P.H. 675 through the actual city limits of Columbus is 55 M.P.H.

The primary issue is not the speed limit. It's the enforcement of the speed limit. The speed limit is usually correct. Except cops allow for the perception that people should be driving faster than that speed limit. Cops do not get to set the speed limit, that is done by traffic departments such as DOT(s) and the city's traffic office.

I find the 2nd paragraph stupid. Why should robots take that into consideration? If you design the robot, set the max speed and let it go that speed unless other things force it to reduce speed. The concept of speeding is basically a human decision.

If you are driving down a residential street where houses are very close to the roadway. Can radar bend around a house to see if a car is coming? What if you have a very strange angle for an intersection, and a wall or other obstruction keeps the car from seeing down the road effectively?

Even if the computer can make a decision in the fraction of the time a human can. The laws of physics still say there is a required stopping distance such that a vehicle can avoid getting hit by another car. The only way around this would be to have very accurate GPS to give position, direction and speed data to the vehicle. If it relies on radar of some sort then obstructions will become an issue.

Lets say you have an intersection where you only have 20 FT of distance between two vehicles colliding that the vehicles can react for one to stop. A good example would be vehicles were parked very close to a side street that you can not see past those vehicles without edging forward. At 20 MPH, the vehicles would have to be traveling less that 15 mph to just cover the braking distance. Yes you would still need stop signs.

Cameras are really not that impressive in traffic related stuff. We use them for actuating a traffic signal and we get false calls all the time because something like an animal will cross the road and set it off. They have gotten better, but they are not really accurate.

I think the future of driverless cars is in the realm of bluetooth and very accurate GPS data. Let the car get data on vehicles traveling around them, even when they can't be visually picked up by radar or video camera.

I found the professor's words to lack real world application experience.  Which is typical of academia type.

As a traffic engineer there is one fundamental rule. Drivers will do what ever the hell they want. You can sign the road to death. You can give them as much warning as possible. You can try to guide them. In the end you get this,

Great insights, thanks!

And I think only an academic type would propose something like in that video. I don't think reality would ever match those close tolerances in that autonomous intersection, except at an amusement park.

[Lihu]

Another 20 years before cars can drive themselves, pretty much as I've been saying. . .

http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/30/12072408/tesla-autopilot-car-crash-death-autonomous-model-s

[saevel25]

9 minutes ago, Lihu said:

Another 20 years before cars can drive themselves, pretty much as I've been saying. . .

http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/30/12072408/tesla-autopilot-car-crash-death-autonomous-model-s

I doubt it. It will be here sooner. 

Quote

In the blog post, Tesla reiterates that customers are required to agree that the system is in a "public beta phase" before they can use it, and that the system was designed with the expectation that drivers keep their hands on the wheel and that the driver is required to "maintain control and responsibility for your vehicle." Safety-critical vehicle features rolled out in public betas are new territory for regulators, and rules haven't been set.

If the driver took their hands of the steering wheel, or was being distracted then they violated the user agreement on the beta phase autopilot and it was their own fault. 

In the US there are one fatality per 94 million miles driven. So far the Tesla has had one fatality per 130 million miles drive. 

That would save the US 8800 lives a year. 

 

[Lihu]

18 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

I doubt it. It will be here sooner. 

The current technology to drive is still very primitive. Most of it is based upon the Darpa grant challenge projects. The mapping and localization systems are not accurate enough yet. In another 3 years the technology might be adequate, but it will take a lot of work testing under all conditions. It will likely take more than just mapping and simple obstacle avoidance systems to drive safely. There might be a requirement for some cognitive reasoning especially if there are many manually drive cars around. So, technology-wise it could take yet another 30 years for slightly more cognitively intelligent robots.

1) Sensors are primitive.

2) GPS not accurate enough.

3) Visual SLAM technologies are still in infancy.

4) Obstacle avoidance still uses heuristic processing, and might need to be enhanced with some cognitive ability to work properly under all conditions. Networking with applications like "Waze" are still in their infancy.

5) Roads are too unpredictable and might require some more cognitive skills to navigate properly without a persistent map of the region.

6) It will be difficult to figure out all the laws and insurance regulations within a shorter period of time.

7) I'm not convinced that people are willing to give up their driving privileges that soon.

There are many more reasons and I could go in depth in each category, but it really looks daunting.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to sound pessimistic about the technology, and I really wish for it to happen sooner.

 

Quote

If the driver took their hands of the steering wheel, or was being distracted then they violated the user agreement on the beta phase autopilot and it was their own fault. 

In the US there are one fatality per 94 million miles driven. So far the Tesla has had one fatality per 130 million miles drive. 

That would save the US 8800 lives a year. 

Possible, but it would take a lot of convincing that these cars will statistically improve our odds of survival on the roads. The main thing is robotic cars typically drive slower (or they should be because the current processing technology can't keep up with faster driving), and that in itself could reduce the risk of death.

[Abu3baid]

2 hours ago, saevel25 said:

I doubt it. It will be here sooner. 

If the driver took their hands of the steering wheel, or was being distracted then they violated the user agreement on the beta phase autopilot and it was their own fault. 

In the US there are one fatality per 94 million miles driven. So far the Tesla has had one fatality per 130 million miles drive. 

That would save the US 8800 lives a year. 

 

I'm not willing to jump to the conclusion that the rate would continue though.  It was luck the guy wasn't driving with a wife and 2 kids..  It would have been 4 fatalities in 130 million miles.

[saevel25]

6 minutes ago, Abu3baid said:

I'm not willing to jump to the conclusion that the rate would continue though.  It was luck the guy wasn't driving with a wife and 2 kids..  It would have been 4 fatalities in 130 million miles.

That math is a bit off, but I get your point. 

You can say that for any vehicle on the road. Still, stats show so far that Tesla vehicles are safer than other vehicles. 

More and more vehicles are adding adaptive technology. 

[Abu3baid]

14 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

That math is a bit off, but I get your point. 

You can say that for any vehicle on the road. Still, stats show so far that Tesla vehicles are safer than other vehicles. 

More and more vehicles are adding adaptive technology. 

Yeah, I didn't calculate the new fatalities rate :), but what stats are you talking about?  My point is that you don't have enough data points to come to any conclusion yet.. After 40-50 total billion miles maybe.

 

[newtogolf]

I'm sure these cars can handle normal driving situations quite well but I wouldn't trust them in major cities where the rules of the road are there are no rules.