Paint and pavement
Wow, start calling the UK Hollywood. I've seen shoddy pavement and I've seen painted dirt, but painted pavement, that's livin' large...
Self-driving vehicles might be autonomous but insurance pay-outs probably won't be
I enjoy travel but I do not fly well – especially if the aeroplane’s wings are rusted, the tail has been attached with vinegar and brown paper, and the undercarriage is still sitting in the ditch it fell into at the end of the departure airport’s runway some 300 miles away. As you might have guessed, I am a big fan of the TV …
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Saturday 17th October 2015 07:34 GMT Tony S
I think that the autonomous car is a "good thing"; I suspect that this will lead away from car ownership and much more towards a business model where people simply hire or lease a vehicle when they need it. It will then go on to the next job or park itself until needed.
But there's one thing that bothers me about this scenario; how do they get cleaned?
I take care of my car interior; it general gets cleaned at least one a week, I don't smoke, eat in the car, or have any ankle biters to leave toys, or soiling from various body fluids. But a lot of people I see simply can't be bothered and the interior of their vehicle seems to go from "immaculate" to "war zone" in the time it takes for them say "Please sit still darling".
As for trains, I know that they get cleaned at night, but when you see the amount of crap that gets left behind (including soiled napkins containing, well... crap), after every single journey, it seems to show that most people don't give the furry crack of a rats arse about how much litter they drop.
It's also not just the Yoof or Chavs; I've seen people in Armani suits in Business Class that seemed to leave more litter behind than the Welly Wearing Hordes of Glastonbury. True, it's a better class of rubbish; half empty bottles of Prosecco, bags that contained sliced smoked salmon, copies of the FT and Times where they tried to pretend they were filling in the crossword, but instead were making words up, or the remains of St Agur and Ritz crackers.
At least if it's your own car, you can sit in your own feculence if you choose.
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Saturday 17th October 2015 10:55 GMT Roq D. Kasba
Cleaning the car
I can imagine half a dozen models for this - at the moment Car Clubs face this identical problem and seem to be managing it pretty well. Autonomous vehicles would have a higher duty cycle, but could also schedule in their own quick trip to a valet point every few trips, every 50 miles, twice a day, whatever. I imagine if you summon one and it arrives filthy, you can hit a 'previous occupant was scum' button and it'll take itself offline and send you a replacement, maybe even sending the previous occupant a cleaning bill.
They will need to refuel periodically, that would seem a smart time to give them a good wipe-down, far easier than a car club faces having to send humans to the vehicle as well. I really don't see this as an insoluble problem.
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Saturday 17th October 2015 11:26 GMT Terry 6
Re: Cleaning the car
Sorry, but this is a bigger deal than you make it out to be.
I decided not to use a car club, because of the penalties if something went wrong.
I don't often spill coffee in my car, or drop crumbs, or anything.
But I want to be able to feel that I can.
And for more frequent use, to have my buttons on the radio.
And not need to adjust the seat, mirrors and heating.
And be able to decide to take a detour and make a journey longer than intended, or risk getting stuck in traffic without time penalties and extra costs.
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Saturday 17th October 2015 22:43 GMT Terry 6
Re: Cleaning the car
Also if you're no longer driving, why do you think there would be mirrors?
True, I was thinking of pool cars now, rather than eventually.
But the other bits do hold. It's the feeling of familiarity I guess I mean.
(Which, by the way, is one of the suggested reasons why we don't all drive safely - the car feels familiar and safe so we are not as aware of risk as we should be, like the idiots who come out of side turnings without looking.)
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Monday 19th October 2015 09:36 GMT IanDs
Re: Cleaning the car
So carry on driving your own car, and paying for it -- nobody forces you to use a car club, nobody will force you to drive an autonomous car -- at least, not for a long time. But expect it to get more expensive to insure in the short term, and maybe prohibitively so in the long term when <10% of the cars (manual) cause >90% of the "accidents".
At the moment drivers get sued for this -- or their insurance companies do, at least in the UK -- but the general view is "well, accidents happen". When this is no longer the case, you can expect the blame (and cost) to shift much more heavily onto the driver for being stupid enough to endanger lives by driving a manual two-ton killing machine.
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Saturday 17th October 2015 15:38 GMT a_yank_lurker
Re: Cleaning the car
There are couple of ownership models. The current model where most vehicles are privately owned and one where most are owned by rental companies. The major driver will likely be insurance, particularly liability insurance. If cars are most fleet owned then it is likely the fleet owners will have refueling & cleaning stations scattered much like gas stations are today.
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Saturday 17th October 2015 18:10 GMT Anonymous Coward
it seems to show that most people don't give the furry crack of a rats arse about how much litter they drop
Given the general shortage of rubbish bins on stations (largely due to the activities of assorted terrorist groups over the years), what do you expect people to do, carry their crud around all day? And what's more, when I leave my litter on a train, I am proudly keeping somebody in a job. And rail is no different to airlines, where the peasants disembark from an aircraft whose cabin then looks like the inside of a dustbin lorry, and a small horde of heroes climb into the be-shitted hulk, and rapidly convert it into a nearly presentable cabin. Cleaners of the world, I salute you!
According to the Institute for Employment Research at the University of Warwick, there's 448,000 people employed in the UK cleaning industry. I'd argue that at least a third of those are employed in dealing with avoidable litter (as opposed to day to day grime and soiling), so that's about 115,000 people kept in a job by people leaving stuff on trains, planes, or round the office.
So, Tony S, I kept 115,000 people in a job today. What did you do for society?
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Sunday 18th October 2015 06:20 GMT Tony S
@Ledswinger
"So, Tony S, I kept 115,000 people in a job today. What did you do for society?" I suspect that's meant ironically; I don't think that you would actually be proud of littering. On top of that, you didn't keep 115,000 in a job, just made work for some poor schlep, probably on minimum wage.
Some of the clean-up work is actually done by volunteers; the big beach clean-up for one. I've also assisted in several other major clear-up operations as a volunteer over the years. Last year, I was working 2-3 days a week, helping out with relief & recovery after a disaster, right through from January to December. I'm supporting a former colleague's charity that runs a food distribution operation in some fairly unstable parts of the world; they are currently on the Turkey / Syrian border, Haiti, Nepal, Punjab. (Sadly he was taken very ill a few months ago, although he is on the slow road to recovery).
Currently, I'm working for a business that's providing a much needed service to society, moving people around. Waiting for yesterday's numbers, but on Friday it was 29,000 people we carried (an increase of 3% over previous Friday). (Oh and we employ a large team of 40 cleaners to wash and remove litter every night!) Of the approx. 500 staff employed by the company, about 90% of them are actually sending money home to support families in poorer countries.
On top of that, I have a small amount of money "invested" in providing micro loans. It will never pay me a dividend, but it allows people in the third world to get a small loan that a bank would not be interested in; this helps a lot of people slowly move themselves out of the poverty trap. I have other money invested in "ethical" investment funds; of course they could be feeding me a line of BS, but they do report on activities and they seem to be focussed on doing the right thing.
You might also like to know that I'm a blood donor; more specifically, a platelet donor. I used to be able to donate every 3 - 4 weeks, but as I'm out of the UK a lot of the time, I can only do this once every 3 months or so. It's a triple unit donation each time; one donated unit can provide enough for 3 or 4 adult recipients or 10 - 12 children, primarily those with major immune problems, mostly caused by chemo or radio therapy. Although 60% of the adult population in the UK could give blood, only 4% do. I've been a donor since 1981.
There's nothing wrong with donating money; but I feel that I would rather give up some of my time, or provide my knowledge and skills.
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Sunday 18th October 2015 16:55 GMT Doctor Syntax
"I suspect that this will lead away from car ownership and much more towards a business model where people simply hire or lease a vehicle when they need it."
The snag with this is that people generally seem to need vehicles at more or less the same time to get to & from work. A hire model is going to have one of two outcomes. There probably won't be a vehicle when and where you need it or the investment needed to provide sufficient vehicles is going to make using them about as expensive as owning your own anyway.
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Sunday 18th October 2015 21:52 GMT Adam 1
> The snag with this is that people generally seem to need vehicles at more or less the same time to get to & from work
Two options for handling this.
1. Some sort of Uber style auction model. You want a car at that time or wait 30 minutes and save 5 quid. Moves discretionary journeys out of the peak times (which in itself is a good thing).
2. Ride sharing. Are you the only one travelling that particular route? Does someone three streets away work in the next building. Surge pricing (point 1) is less of a problem when the bill is split 2, 3 or 4 ways.
Also note that once your car drops you it will go straight to the next job, meaning no parking hassles or fees. That job will likely be close in distance to your drop off point so it means another otherwise empty car that would have had to fight traffic into the city can be avoided.
It may be many years before we stop thinking car ownership is quaint, but the "second car for work" use case starts to become difficult to justify.
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Saturday 17th October 2015 07:37 GMT Steve Davies 3
Road Markings
as in the UK, the authorities simply haven’t bothered to retouch the flaking paint on its motorways for decades?
If you think that is bad then take a trip to the USofA. There the road markings are in yellow. Our white (no matter how faded) markings are a gazillion times better than those on the other side of the pond.
Sometimes (and even with LED headlights) it is hard to make them out.
If we as mere slabs of meat (a.k.a. Humans) have problems then at the current level of AI I really would not want to try out a automated vehicle in the USA especially at this time of year with all that leaf fall which .... seems to be very close in colour to the road markings said leaved inveitably obscure.
BSOD's in a flash methinks (or the ARM/whatever equivalent) as the poor computer gets horribly confused.
It might be ok for the likes of Google to test this kit in calm benign California Cities but try it in The Applachians/Rural New England at this time of year. I'll bet that the results are anything but a success.
Now Mr Dabs, would you care to explain about this £59 quid plug you have trouble with on Trains?
I guess that you are talking about the whole PSU including brick? Don't they come with pretty standard leads these days. Even an Apple laptop power brick will take a standard 2 pin Figure of 8 lead.
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Saturday 17th October 2015 09:25 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Road Markings
If you think that is bad then take a trip to the USofA. There the road markings are in yellow. Our white (no matter how faded) markings are a gazillion times better than those on the other side of the pond.
Sometimes (and even with LED headlights) it is hard to make them out.
If we as mere slabs of meat (a.k.a. Humans) have problems then at the current level of AI I really would not want to try out a automated vehicle in the USA especially at this time of year with all that leaf fall which .... seems to be very close in colour to the road markings said leaved inveitably obscure.
I'm not sure it's that bad - cameras have a different perception to ours, and may see colour differences that are too subtle for us. By way of illustration, I have an app on my phone which can tell my heartbeat simply from scanning my face. Due to a calm temperament and a lack of alcohol abuse I lack the throbbing veins on my face that would have made that easy, so it does it on colour alone. I happen to have very good colour vision (well above average, also known as "even better than a woman"), but I can't see it - yet the app can. I extrapolate from that a possibility that this may also apply to lines on the road.
Even if they don't throb rhythmically.
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Monday 19th October 2015 05:34 GMT Sarah Balfour
Re: Road Markings
What's alcohol, then…? Or caffeine…? Or don't you drink coffee/tea/cocoa/energy drinks, either…?
People seem to be of the belief that drugs = substances prohibited by law, or those which the quack scripts 'em (same thing in many cases).
Least you're not the government, alcohol isn't a drug according to it, either. According to a clause in the heinous Psychoactive Substances Bill, alcohol only becomes psychoactive if a psychoactive substance is added to it (yes, seriously; if it ever becomes law - and, please Offler, I hope it doesn't, I'm campaigning to get the Misuse of Drugs Act pemanently repealed - it would, effectively, make DUI legal, if you consider the definition of 'psychoactive' to be 'affecting the brain and influencing behaviour'. My tolerance for stupid people is low anyway but, when stupid people are in charge of the country. What the fuck am I saying…?! These are TORIES we're talking about, it's not so much stupidity, as calculated wilful ignorance).
G'night.
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Saturday 17th October 2015 10:59 GMT Phil O'Sophical
Re: Road Markings
If you think that is bad then take a trip to the USofA.
Or France, where (no doubt after years of Gallic research) they have come up with road marking paint which disappears in the rain at night. All markings then appear as black-on-black.
This may explain why French drivers treat road and lane markings as optional, of course.
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Sunday 18th October 2015 02:54 GMT Mark 85
Re: Road Markings
How about a snowstorm? One of the ones in the Midwest that go for a day or two and the plows can't keep up with it? You drive by following the tire tracks of the previous trucks and cars. There is only one color... white. Everything is white including that normally big blue semi-tractor/trailer combination coming down the road.
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Sunday 18th October 2015 09:22 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Road Markings
How about a snowstorm? One of the ones in the Midwest that go for a day or two and the plows can't keep up with it?
Yup, that needs a system that can work even when the snowplough marks have gone. Where I live they have sticks next to the road that still give you a rough idea where the road is, because the snowplough needs to have that info too to "rediscover" the road.
Where I see real automation challenges is handling iced up hill roads. I'm a reasonable driver in those conditions, but I'm not sure I would manage without all 4 wheels driven (and by that I mean a decent system, not the excuse they seem to fit to BMW X5s). To get an AI to behave correctly in those conditions is going to take a while..
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Sunday 18th October 2015 13:09 GMT IanDs
Re: Road Markings
Why would it take so long, it's a relatively simple problem in physics to do with grip, slip angles, coefficient of friction, spotting ruts and so on? For sure, most drivers can't behave correctly in these conditions either going by the number of 4x4s you see in ditches every time it snows...
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Monday 19th October 2015 06:54 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Road Markings
Why would it take so long, it's a relatively simple problem in physics to do with grip, slip angles, coefficient of friction, spotting ruts and so on?
Well, a correctly configured AI would tell you to fit snowchains, full stop. There are really a LOT of variables involved, many of which you can't measure until it's too late to do anything about it. Black ice and wet, glacial surfaces are examples of them. Besides, just because you can /measure/ something doesn't mean you can do something about it - I've done enough emergency work to know that the *sane* option would be to go home and have a cup of coffee, but that doesn't help anyone.
For sure, most drivers can't behave correctly in these conditions either going by the number of 4x4s you see in ditches every time it snows...
Confirmation bias: the ones you see ditched are a minority to the ones that managed - or you would see those too. Driving in snow does take some training and experience, but if you have a modicum of exposure you'll pick it up. It's mostly about anticipation and retraining your immediate reactions, like hitting the brakes when things go wrong (NOT a good idea with limited grip).
I suspect the people who ditched are the sort of idiots who think that having 4WD somehow magically alters the laaaws of Physics (sorry, channelled Scotty there), and that's where Darwin eventually tries to remove them from the gene pool.
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Monday 19th October 2015 01:08 GMT Alan Brown
Re: Road Markings
"Where I see real automation challenges is handling iced up hill roads"
An AI only needs to be taught how to handle that _once_ - and in a lot of cases I've observed the meatsack will keep going long after it got far too dangerous to consider doing without adding chains - which invariably results in a hill near me having 5-8 crashed cars/4wds on it every time it snows (which then get trashed and burned by the local ne'er-do-wells before recovery trucks can get in)
The AI will at least refuse to continue and find an alternate route if possible.
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Sunday 18th October 2015 22:02 GMT Mark 85
Re: Road Markings
I didn't say I could see better but you have a point. The catch is "high-res camera" possibly with IR, maybe. Will they actually be "high-res" and imaged processed as such, or will we see the makers saving a few coins by using cheaper equipment? When the snow get really deep and the plows have made the road into a canyon things get shall we say, less than optimal.
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Monday 19th October 2015 09:45 GMT IanDs
Re: Road Markings
You're still fixating on the relatively rare occasions where a *good* driver (not many of them about, in spite of what everyone thinks) might do better than an automated one.
These are massively outnumbered by all the rest of the time when the reverse will be true, because most drivers on the road today are *not* good -- and certainly not all the time. Automated cars don't get tired, inattentive, phone or text during driving, run red lights, ignore road signs -- all the things that people do all the time which cause most "accidents".
The statistics will be hugely in favour of automated cars, and it's this that will drive things like insurance and lawmaking, not the exceptions -- which will undoubtedly get rarer as the cars get better.
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Monday 19th October 2015 20:47 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Road Markings
You're still fixating on the relatively rare occasions where a *good* driver (not many of them about, in spite of what everyone thinks) might do better than an automated one.
I think it has more to do with 30+ years of experience with computers and the people that program them. You may point out that computers may not tire, but the code is written by humans. Worse, in the case of Google it's written by people who have no problem running a permanent beta and who "accidentally" managed to install full WiFi intercept kit in their
surveillanceStreetview cars. I wouldn't trust these people to write code for an electric toothbrush, let alone for something that can kill me if it goes wrong.
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Saturday 17th October 2015 08:22 GMT mr.K
This is what regulation is for
This is just one of these things that can't be left to the industry as it isn't today either. What a third party insurance (I think that is what you call it at least) covers is defined by the government, or rather governments, and not the insurance companies. Whether this the insurance comes from the car company itself or an insurance company should not really matter. And we can easily see that we will be required to keep the third party insurance regardless do have an insurance company cover us for any liability that the car company manages to put on us in the legally dubious EULA.
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Saturday 17th October 2015 08:26 GMT John Hawkins
Urban buses replaced first?
I can see urban buses getting replaced by autonomous vehicles first - fairly predictable conditions and in many cases right-of-way lanes. Autonomous minibuses every 5 minutes instead of articulated monsters every half-hour.
Pedestrians could be dealt with using small water cannons - would provide entertainment for the bus passengers also.
Tractors might be first in rural areas - $action = "plough"; $depth = "b"; $field = "nw_wood"; $gps = true; $start_date = "2020-09-10"; run(); - would save cropping farmers a lot of time.
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Tuesday 20th October 2015 21:02 GMT Mark 85
@John Arthur -- Re: Urban buses replaced first?
They don't even need full autonomy. Many of the farmers I've been around, start down the field, watch TV, etc. At the end of the row, they turn it, line it up and go back to their movie. They usually get the kids to drive the tractor for plowing and planting... little skill required.
Some of the newer ones are almost ready... including the harvesters.
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Saturday 17th October 2015 09:29 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Urban buses replaced first?
I can see urban buses getting replaced by autonomous vehicles first - fairly predictable conditions and in many cases right-of-way lanes. Autonomous minibuses every 5 minutes instead of articulated monsters every half-hour.
Not a chance. You're dealing with a transport union. If they are happy to go on strike if transport is trying to sack a driver for being drunk on the job, do you really think they will go quietly if you tell them they will no longer have a unionised member driving the bus? It's not that they care for the driver, but every driver/member removed means less power and leverage.
Which happens to be just about the best possible argument for automation.
I do like the water cannon idea. If you mount them inside the bus you could also automate dealing with drunk idiots about to vomit during night service, people using their phones on loudspeaker (music or call, both are irritating) and idiots smoking right next to the door.
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Saturday 17th October 2015 10:47 GMT Charles 9
Re: Urban buses replaced first?
Thing is with a driverless bus you can go nuclear on the drivers' union. If you fire the whole lot for redundancy, there's little recourse left; even the courts will find it difficult to rule in favor of inefficiency.
But will an autonomous bus be able to negotiate sabotage like caltrops and barricades?
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Saturday 17th October 2015 12:37 GMT John Hawkins
Re: Urban buses replaced first?
Drivers, or lack of requirement for drivers, is the big improvement I see for public transport for lots of reasons. More engineers probably, but not as many.
Sabotage stops buses today; don't think that would make a difference. Punctures and other breakdowns are dealt with by a couple of mechanics in a van already; would be the same with an urban autonomous bus.
Biggest risk I see is buses getting hacked, but the way things are going all new vehicles - drivered or not - are likely to be at risk by then anyway.
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Saturday 17th October 2015 13:01 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Urban buses replaced first?
Point is there wouldn't be reason to sabotage buses until this point. Look at what happened to Uber in France. What did the traditional taxi riders start doing? Physically attacking Uber cars and drivers. The same could happen to driverless buses. The fired drivers will likely engage in a sabotage campaign on the driverless buses. Maybe caltrops for starters to puncture hundreds of bus tires at once (so as to overwhelm the repair crews), next probably find ways to lure buses to crash into other cars, walls, etc. so as to demonstrate they're not safe.
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Saturday 17th October 2015 17:00 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Urban buses replaced first?
This result would mirror what happened when lifts became automated. Originally they needed operators to handle them, and when that need ended (via automation) the operator job persisted for some time. Some of this was due to featherbedding and some was because people felt nervous without the operator. I expect the same will happen with autonomous cars.
Actually there are still some lift operators here and there, but their job is now to control the passengers, not the lift. ;-)
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Saturday 17th October 2015 08:28 GMT Herby
Traffic? Traffic!!
Having passed TWO Google self driving cars in the past 24 hours (they were going in opposite directions), I wonder as well. We here in the golden state do drive a bunch, and with family in the opposite ends of the state (300+ miles away) I wonder if they can actually handle it. The mix of city highway and Parcheesi playing on I5 (with
truckslorries), it becomes exciting. Oh, and how does one re-fuel the vehicle.As for traffic, we have that as well. I280 southbound at 5pm is a nice moving parking lot.
Life goes on, and how does one cross a BOFH with a self driving car. THAT would be exciting.
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Saturday 17th October 2015 09:14 GMT Fred Flintstone
You shouldn't be worried about falling 20,000 feet vertically. That's perfectly fine. You should be worried about the sudden stop at 0 feet. That's the painful bit.
Like this? :)
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
