back to article Self-driving cars doomed to be bullied by pedestrians

Self-driving cars get pitched as a way to reduce traffic fatalities, but safety may limit their appeal. In a paper published on Wednesday in the Journal of Planning Education and Research, Adam Millard-Ball, an assistant professor in the Environmental Studies Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, argues that …

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  1. Phil Lord

    Automated lifts will never catch on

    Because people will stick their hands in the doors to stop if from closing!

    1. edge_e

      Re: Because people will stick their hands in the doors

      That's exactly what people do. Your analogy is a bad one though because the attendant in an un-automated lift would likely see you coming and wait so the lift experience didn't change for the occupants of the lift or the person arriving slightly late.

      When the kids work out the new rules for chicken, I'll be getting the popcorn in.

      1. Roland6 Silver badge

        Re: Because people will stick their hands in the doors

        When the kids work out the new rules for chicken

        Least of your concerns, this means that muggers no longer need to use traffic lights or pedestrian crossings to stop a car and make a grab for the handbag etc...

        But the interesting thing about chicken is that currently if the kid misjudges it, they get the blame and we get warnings about road safety. I suspect with driverless cars, such incidents will create calls for improved safety measures in driverless cars...

        1. Ogi

          Re: Because people will stick their hands in the doors

          Not sure where you live, but here (in the UK) it is the driver that is at fault if a kid gets hit because they were in the road.

          The logic goes that if there is a kid in the street, you are in a residential area, and should be going at 30mph or less, giving you adequate stopping time. If you were unable to shop it means you were going to fast for the environment, therefore it is your fault.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Because people will stick their hands in the doors

            "Not sure where you live, but here (in the UK) it is the driver that is at fault if a kid gets hit because they were in the road."

            This is all very theoretical.

            In SOME countries the punishment is so severe, AND the social stigma of driving like an a-hole through residential areas is so high, that people actually drive carefully in such areas.

            Not so much so in the UK.

            Going too fast for the conditions (and even 30 mph may well be too fast around parked cars), is just standard fare.

            The only way to get convicted to a lengthy sentence is to go at some sllly speed, like 70mph, through a 30 zone when you hit someone.

            For all other cases the defence "he/she just ran out into the road" works just fine.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Automated lifts will never catch on

      There is a solution - disable the sensors on the lift doors.

      A few broken bones will then may teach people not to try that again.

      1. Bloodbeastterror

        Re: Automated lifts will never catch on

        "A few broken bones"

        Presumably you'll be happy to be a guinea-pig? Me, I'll wait for the next lift.

        1. Charles 9

          Re: Automated lifts will never catch on

          That won't work as the lawyers will get involved. I think this actually happened once. Can't recall if the victim survived the encounter.

          1. Yesnomaybe

            it IS rare:

            "That won't work as the lawyers will get involved. I think this actually happened once. Can't recall if the victim survived the encounter."

            But there ARE reported cases of people surviving encounters with lawyers. Quite a bit poorer, but still alive.

      2. Paul Hovnanian Silver badge

        Re: Automated lifts will never catch on

        "There is a solution"

        The solution is to ring the alarm bell after a couple of tries. Basically embarrass the a[censored]hole who holds up the elevator.

        With self-driving cars, the algorithm could be modified to stop the car but blow the horn for egregious cases of jay-walking.

    3. Tom Melly

      Re: Automated lifts will never catch on

      Not really analogous. Everyone involved still has an interest in the lift doing its job, and it's also self-limiting by the fact that the lift will become full. In addition, you are potentially making yourself unpopular with people with whom you are about to share an enclosed space.

      1. Alan Brown Silver badge

        Re: Automated lifts will never catch on

        "In addition, you are potentially making yourself unpopular with people with whom you are about to share an enclosed space."

        You're forgetting that annoyed passengers in a vehicle can get OUT and confront the sociopath.

        This is likely to be a self-limiting problem.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Automated lifts will never catch on

          You're forgetting that annoyed passengers in a lift can beat the sociopath to a pulp and dump his body at the next floor...

        2. Edward Ashford

          Re: Automated lifts will never catch on

          >> You're forgetting that annoyed passengers in a vehicle can get OUT and confront the sociopath.

          Only if the safebot lets them! The vehicle is technically "in motion" at that point.

          As an occasional cyclist I can't wait for all these cars to start giving way.

          And as for the Mercedes bloke... that's a big assumption that the law won't require it to be the other way around.

        3. Sgt_Oddball

          Re: Automated lifts will never catch on

          Until the car promptly carries on minus the passenger...

    4. Gordan

      Re: Automated lifts will never catch on

      Very simple solution. Have a realistic looking dummy in the driver's seat. As long as you cannot tell at a glance whether it's a real human in the driver's seat or not, problem solved.

      1. Paul Cooper

        Re: Automated lifts will never catch on

        You mean, like a JonnyCab?

        https://youtu.be/1H37k00DNow

      2. IsJustabloke
        Trollface

        Re: Automated lifts will never catch on

        "Have a realistic looking dummy in the driver's seat"

        Might just as well leave 90% drivers in there then

  2. Unep Eurobats
    WTF?

    Wait a minute...

    So we shouldn't have autonomous vehicles ... because they're too safe? Their occupants reduced to powerless passengers, stripped of their ability to kill annoying pedestrians.

    Please, please save me from this stultifying future.

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: Wait a minute...

      "stripped of their ability to kill annoying pedestrians."

      Just because you have that ability doesn't mean we all have it. Some of us have moral standards and a belief in law that stops us from having that "ability" in the first place. It's sad that you measure everyone else by your own low moral standards.

      1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

        Re: Wait a minute...

        No, we all have the ability.

        Most of us have ethical and moral standards*/beliefs that prevent us from using the ability.

        * Might be as low as "isn't worth the paperwork that goes with it", though.

        1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          Re: Wait a minute...

          "Most of us have ethical and moral standards*/beliefs that prevent us from using the ability."

          Judging by the downvotes, I may have phrased my thoughts poorly :-)

    2. bazza Silver badge

      Re: Wait a minute...

      The point is that no one will want a self driving car in town, nor ones that have autonomous anti-collision self braking systems that won't let the car run over a pedestrian. If every vehicle has these things then pedestrians can safely walk out in front of any vehicle and not get run over.

      And the problem is that pedestrians will do that, and the car driver won't get anywhere at all. Result - driving a car in town becomes a very slow way to travel.

      Then there's kids. They'll be jumping out in front of cars just for the laughs. It will be really annoying for car driver's, but if these systems are mandated by governments that's what will happen.

      That would also lead to some unfortunate accidents. During the transition from driven to self driving / self stopping cars there will come a point where kids are used to most cars being automatic. And that means they're at some point going to prank an older car that doesn't have the automation and will get run over...

      1. werdsmith Silver badge

        Re: Wait a minute...

        It already happens where 20MPH zones have been imposed. Because of the slower traffic pedestrians take more risks venturing into the road, and the number of pedestrian impact accidents increase. The accidents are less serious but there are more of them.

        1. tiggity Silver badge

          Re: Wait a minute...

          Already happens in a town I drive through - even though there might be a zebra crossing, lights controlled pedestrian crossing juts a few yards away, people will blithely step into the road.

          With the mass of lights / zebras in that town a car never gets to much of a speed before it has to slow again so it's a similar scenario to the 20 MPH zone werdsmith mentioned.

          So, knowing the cars are not travelling particularly fast (& so a good chance even a massively inattentive driver might notice them / impact will not be fatal) people just happily cross wherever they want.

        2. Alan Brown Silver badge

          Re: Wait a minute...

          "Because of the slower traffic pedestrians take more risks venturing into the road"

          The interesting part is that the idea that pedestrians don't belong on the road is relatively recent, pushed by motor vehicle makers (The idea of 'jaywalking' bring a crime in the USA being one very specific example)

          This is a movement for pedestrians to take the road BACK - and quite frankly it's about time.

          If pedestrians start walking confidently into the road despite the presence of cars then city traffic will revert to the old days where the vehicles would simply slowly roll through. They don't need to stop unless there's a wall of bodies in front of them or someone lays down in front of the car.

          With London traffic averageing less than 10mph (probably less than 5mph in the core), this won't produce much in the way of slowdown - and with robot cars meaning that the desirability of personally-owned vehicles being lowered (insurance costs of owning, vs lower labour costs for being driven meaning that in most cases it will be more expensive to own than hire), the number of vehicles on the road (AND parked on the sides - a parked car isn't earning revenue) is likely to plummet, making streets far less crowded and congested than they currently are.

        3. Daz555

          Re: Wait a minute...

          Have you got some stats to support that?

      2. Dr. Mouse

        Re: Wait a minute...

        If every vehicle has these things then pedestrians can safely walk out in front of any vehicle and not get run over.

        And the problem is that pedestrians will do that, and the car driver won't get anywhere at all. Result - driving a car in town becomes a very slow way to travel.

        This already happens. Look at city centers on a Friday/Saturday night. People, esp after a few drinks, think "They won't run me over, I'll just cross and ignore the traffic".

        I can see this becoming annoying, but I don't think it's a strong argument against autonomous vehicles. I'd rather have the ability to engage the self-driver and sit back than have the stress of watching out for these ****s myself, not to mention all the idiot drivers.

        Bottom line is, IMHO, that self-driving cars are coming, and they will save a lot of lives. They will be more convenient in most situations. With the ability to just hail one (probably for a darned sight less than the total cost of owning a car) will leave most with little reason to buy their own. It's the future and, while it won't be here next year, I foresee them being everywhere a decade or so from now.

      3. Dazed and Confused

        Re: Wait a minute...

        There is also the question of manners. Pedestrians to some extent feel they are sharing the space with drivers and drudgingly accept they have the right to drive down the road. When a computer is driving down the roads it quite clearly doesn't have any rights. It obviously should have to wait for me, so I'm just going to walk across when it suits me and the computer can wait.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Wait a minute...

          Drivers have a license to drive on a public road. They do not have the right to. Pedestrians, cyclists, horse riders have a right.

          1. Kubla Cant

            Re: Wait a minute...

            An interesting opportunity for us cyclists to become even more unpopular. We no longer have to bump along in the gutter, running the gauntlet of broken glass and drain covers. Now we can share the spacious traffic lanes with cars, as is our right.

            This won't make much difference in city centres, where bikes travel faster on average than cars, but it will be fun to see how many driverless cars you can collect on a country road.

            1. Dr. Mouse

              Re: Wait a minute...

              This won't make much difference in city centres, where bikes travel faster on average than cars, but it will be fun to see how many driverless cars you can collect on a country road.

              So you are one of the inconsiderate road users who decides that they don't care about the traffic behind?

              While using the roads, if you find that you are "collecting cars", the polite thing to do is to move (or pull) over and allow them past. I do this in the car (e.g. if out for a nice leisurely drive in the country), trucker friends do it in their trucks, but there are SO many who just hold up a long queue of traffic for ages for no good reason. In my experience they tend to be cyclists or cars going much slower than is safe and legal (e.g. car doing 40 or less on a long, straight, open national speed limit country road where they should be doing 60).

              So tell me, when there is a queue of 5-6 cars stuck behind you, why don't you pull over for 10 seconds to let them past, rather than delay them for several minutes?

              By the way, I am a cyclist, although generally a mountain biker who uses the roads to get to good off road tracks. I appreciate that we are entitled to use the whole road and, for safety, it is best not to be in the gutter. However, a little consideration for others goes a long way.

            2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

              Re: Wait a minute...

              "it will be fun to see how many driverless cars you can collect on a country road."

              Round here, where the country roads are steep, part of the cyclists' idea of fun seems to be charging at top speed down twisting lanes in the middle of the road. And no amount of braking by autonomous cars is going to avoid a collision with a cyclist who's already contributing most of the closing speed.

            3. Geoffrey W

              Re: Wait a minute...

              RE "but it will be fun to see how many driverless cars you can collect on a country road"

              A pleasure enjoyed right now by farmers in tractors protected by big lumps of iron armed with huge metal spikes.

          2. FU_EU

            Re: Wait a minute...

            Ahh yes; licensing! When the state removes one of your rights and then sells it back to you.

    3. nijam Silver badge

      Re: Wait a minute...

      > Please, please save me from this stultifying future.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/With_Folded_Hands

    4. You aint sin me, roit
      Trollface

      Re: Wait a minute...

      Too safe? Pedestrians playing chicken with cars? Robbers forcing cars to stop?

      Simple solution: determine an "acceptable" failure rate and implement an appropriate RNG.

      "Sometimes the car stops in time, sometimes it doesn't. Feel lucky punk?"

  3. tr1ck5t3r

    Some smart arses finally get it with autonomous vehicles, playing chicken will never have been easier.

    You can see the gangs of hoodies lining up in the hood to see who can judge when to step out in order to get the autonomous vehicle to stop closest to them without it running them over.

    Stand and deliver will have never been so easy when you smash the door windows and take what you like, having made it stop. Just how do you get those sensors to detect when someone is a friend or foe in order to decide when to run them over or make some other get away.

    Programming the laws of the jungle is no Sunday afternoon drive in the countryside you know.

    The Darwin awards evolve.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      How about the first time a hoodie does this and finds out a second too late that the "robot car" he is directly in the path of is no such thing, and the all-too-human driver is arthritically slow on the brakes?

      The obvious solution is to visually identify the robot cars (similar to cop cars) so they can be played with safely . Anything less would be criminal endangerment of pedestrians!

      1. Dagg Silver badge
        Trollface

        The obvious solution is to visually identify the robot cars (similar to cop cars) so they can be played with safely . Anything less would be criminal endangerment of pedestrians!

        Aah, a new sport, Disguise a normal car as a robot car and go hunting for idiots.

        Your defence was "They just jumped out in front of me you honour and I did not have enough time to react!"

        The tree of life is self pruning....

        1. tr1ck5t3r

          Are those fake CCTV camera's fitted to your building sir?

          Even if car manufacturers fitted fake sensors to the vehicle, doesnt take much to put in the registration plate of the car seen further down a road into say Autotrader when placing an advert and pull up the cars details?

          5G superfast broadband will have its uses in the City after all!

          And on that point of looking up data quickly and easily, if you think you are not on the public electoral role, find out by putting your details into this website. https://www.bensonandhedges.co.uk/

          Lets just hope they monitor their website activity and its not been used for phishing unknown unknowns as Donald Rumsfeld would say.

      2. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

        visually recognise self driving cars?

        Easy, just have someone with a Red Flag walk in front of the car at all times.

        The law that mandated that might even still be on the statute book.

      3. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. MrT

      Hoodies playing chicken...?

      There was one Zebra crossing in the Chapeltown area of Leeds where car-jacking was common (typically of cars with single young and/or female drivers, but I recall one report involving an elderly couple). One guy would walk out on the crossing in front, then the least done was bags from passenger seats nicked through an open window or by opening the passenger door, but the one with the elderly couple was where two guys jumped in the back seats when the car stopped, forced the driver down a side road before ejecting driver and passenger out of the car and making off with it. In other countries the outcome might be more lethal.

      It wasn't the only place that this sort of thing happened, and part of the the response was to adapt the tech that created the situation. Drive-off auto-locking became popular in cars that had central locking fitted, and the Chapeltown crossing was altered to a Pelican one that changed the priorities. However, if self-driving cars are set to automatically stop for pedestrians straying in front of them, then any suitable spot could become that Zebra crossing.

      Obviously we can't have cars just mowing down peds all the time and never stopping - some places might be bad, but it's not quite got to the original Deathchase 2000 - so what's the tech response? Especially in cars like the Merc F 015 concept and the Google pod where the driver is the car.

      1. tr1ck5t3r

        Re: Hoodies playing chicken...?

        Re Drive off auto locking systems, the ones that locks doors when speed goes above a certain amount, like all hoodies are Linford Christie or Hussain Bolt. Bringing car to a halt or crawl unlocks the door, and even if said system didnt unlock door, a brick through a car window is very easy. Do it properly and you dont even set off the car alarm if its a parked car whilst the brick exits through the door window on the opposite side.

        Theres so much tech around which actually doesnt work or solve any problems.

        1. Bowlers

          Re: Hoodies playing chicken...?

          First car I had with remote central locking was in the 90's. Going into garage for fuel on a rough Manchester estate there was group of youths hanging around. While filling up I thought their behaviour a bit suspicious so for the first time ever I locked the car while I went to pay. From the queue to pay I saw the older of the 'gang' trying the tailgate of my estate, locked but my tool bag and laptop visible. They drifted away then and I congratulated myself on still having my stuff for my next call. The exit of the filling station was just a few yards from a pedestrian crossing and who should be hovering there but the youths. As I approached the crossing one of them sauntered onto it and stood still to try and stop me. By this time I was a bit nervous so activated the central locking, again for the first time while in a car, and kept moving slowly forward. When I reached the crossing I steered around the youth who seemed too surprised to move in front again.

          The point of the story; a safety first self driving car, presumably GPS equipped and programmed with all crossings, would have stopped and waited at the gangs pleasure.

          1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

            Re: Hoodies playing chicken...?

            "kept moving slowly forward"

            Stop a few yards clear. Put evil grin on face. Ostentatiously check seatbelt's tightness. Rev engine....

        2. nijam Silver badge

          Re: Hoodies playing chicken...?

          > Bringing car to a halt or crawl unlocks the door

          No it doesn't.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Hoodies playing chicken...?

            There were some GM vehicles that unlocked the doors when you moved the shifter to Park.

            That didn't work well for some DEA agents in Mexico when their armored vehicle was blocked.

            The driver put the vehicle in Park, the doors unlocked, and armor was for nought as the doors were opened and the agents shot.

            Something to think of when you armor a vehicle.....

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Hoodies playing chicken...?

          My car locks the doors as soon as you put it in 'drive' and stays locked until you pull the door handle from the inside.

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