Car insurers recoil in horror from paying auto autos' speeding fines Red Dwarf's Kryten has told Parliament that electric cars of the future could be charged from LED lampposts – while insurers have flinched at the idea that they might have to pay speeding fines on behalf of naughty self-driving vehicles. British insurance companies don't mind paying out for driverless car traffic accidents, as …
Its as simple as that. Car manufacturers or insurers will need to be responsible for this. I for one won't buy an autonomous vehicle if I can get ticketed because it gets pranked/hacked/just responds incorrectly to changed road conditions.
"broken taillight ticket"
The manufacturer, I'm not the driver so I shouldn't have to inspect the car it should do it itself then warn me it's needs a repair and go off to the garage and get itself fixed.
The whole idea of self driving cars is that you don't have to be a driver.
That does raise another question though and that is if it needs a repair no matter how insignificant would that invalidate the insurance and if it did how would you get it to the garage?
"The manufacturer, I'm not the driver so I shouldn't have to inspect the car it should do it itself then warn me it's needs a repair and go off to the garage and get itself fixed."
Ummm... I can see where youre coming from but common sense says thats not so.
If I order a taxi and it rolls up with bald tyres and a bumper hanging off Im not getting in it... Similarly if I rent a car and they try to pass off a shed that wouldnt make it to a test station never mond pass and MOT its my responsibility if I choose to get in it and drive it on the road.
For autonomous cars the only thing that changes is that it would be the responsibility of the person planning/requesting the journey to check the car out for defects first (as the driver should do currently)
Modern cars are capable of telling you when things are wrong - mine notifies me of broken bulbs it would be trivial for this data to be logged and accessed if you are pulled for having a defective light :
LOG FILE :
31/01/2019 19:00 - Power ON
31/01/2019 19:00 - User "JOHN" logged in
31/01/2019 20:00 - Destination selected "Home"
31/01/2019 20:00 - Journey Started
31/01/2019 20:00 - ! NS/BL Failure
31/01/2019 20:00 - ! NS/BL Failure - User notification displayed
31/01/2019 20:01 - ! NS/BL Failure - User notification dismissed
31/01/2019 22:00 - Journey complete
31/01/2019 22:00 - Power Off
31/01/2019 22:01 - Charging
01/02/2019 03:00 - Charge complete
01/02/2019 08:30 - Power On
01/02/2019 08:30 - User "JANE" logged in
01/02/2019 08:30 - Destination selected "Work"
01/02/2019 08:30 - ! NS/BL Failure - User notification displayed
01/02/2019 08:30 - ! NS/BL Failure - User notification dismissed
01/02/2019 08:31 - Journey Started
...
...
...
You get the idea, now if Jane was pulled over on her way to work she would be liable as she was notified BEFORE the journey commenced that there was a problem.
If john had been pulled over on his way home the night before he would not have been liable as he was en-route when the issue came up (Though really spare bulbs take up almost no space... buy some)
If anything in future this will be better as if you genuinely did not have a fault before you set off you would be able to prove it - probably wouldn't absolve you, but would be the difference between getting a fine and points and a producer...
The owner will be responsible for maintenance. What is likely to happen is different types of tickets are the responsibility of different parties. Software issues which would be likely cause of speeding would be the manufacturer's responsibility, maintenance the owners, accidents will be split depending on fault between the manufacturer and owner.
While I agree that if it's self-driven then it is not the "passenger's" responsible (because you're not the driver anymore), I do feel that both the Parliament and the manufacturers are responsible for these road rules.
Even today, speed signs and roadway are changed with little to no informer. It's like " It was on display at the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying beware of the leopard." The parliament should be fully responsible for informing this. The manufacturers, on the other hand, should be fully responsible for updating their cars up to whatever new road rules they were informed. This means no more 'reading' speed limit, especially for self-drive car.
With the car insurers, the whole event really isn't up to them to decide. Asking them to pay for speed tickets was kind of pointless where there should be no speed tickets for self-drive car. In fact, we might not have the same owner car insurance anymore with self-drive car. Instead, there will be new extended manufactures warranty for the manufacturers, and smaller damage insurance for self-made car damage.
It will be kind of like buying an iPhone. If there's a problem due to manufacture, apple pays for and gives you a new one. If you dropped the iPhone and broke the screen however, you then have to use apple care to repair the damage.
I wish I could give you a billion more up votes.
I'm totally blind & *can not* drive. If I climb into the passenger/back seat of an autonomous vehicle & have it take me somewhere, *I* am not the driver & therefore not responsable for the operation of the vehicle. It's no different than had I called a cab - I'm merely a passenger, some(one|thing) else is doing the driving & assumes responsability for its operation.
I can't see to make emergency maneuvers, to snake a foot over & slam on the brakes, or even do a half decent job of changing the radio stations, so why should I accept a speeding ticket if I'm not behind the wheel?
If I'm not the driver then I'm not liable, end of discussion.
It all depends on the vehicle - if it is a driver-less, autonomous vehicle then yes I agree with you.
If it is a Tesla running in auto-pilot (i.e with driving controls and a driving position) then no I don't.
In the latter, you have to be able to take control of the vehicle. Simple as that.
You are blind and cannot drive a "normal" car, therefore the same rules apply. You can jump in a little autonomous pod, but as you could not be expected to take control of the vehicle, a Tesla is out of the question.
...and now you tell me that actors from ancient sci-fi comedies are advising our policy making members of parliament.
So the know nothings of Westminster are being helped along by comedians. That could certainly explain most government policies.
He's been making programmes about electric cars and renewable energy for years.
I've been working in the energy sector and involved with EV developments for years. He's fronted up a fucking TV programme, produced, directed, scripted, researched by other people. If his is an adequate qualification to advise parliament, then presumably Jimmy Saville's many decades of making programmes with children would make him an expert able to advise parliament on children's issues and concerns (other than being dead, and a known paedophile). And if anybody wanted policy advice on internal combustion engine transport, would you be recommending Jeremy Clarkson as the most qualified individual?
Do yourself a favour....
How about you do me a favour, and don't patronise me, when I've actually worked in this field, alongside many very, very clever colleagues, not merely stood in front of camera spouting other people's words about something I just happen to be enthusiastic about?
"TV presenters don't know a thing."
Not always. Don't know in this specific case since I've just enjoyed his shows and not looked into his qualifications, but all that aside, sometimes a "face" brings things to the attention of a wider public.
"TV presenters don't know a thing."
Generalise much. Let's start with a certain David Attenborough. And then let's follow up with a certain Brian Cox. Now I've pointed you in the right direction I'm sure you can think of more exceptions to your rule.
Now I've pointed you in the right direction I'm sure you can think of more exceptions to your rule.
Dr Jacob Bronowski.
Carl Sagan.
Heinz Wolff (I nearly wrote "Heinz Kiosk", oops, WE ARE ALL GUILTY)
Aleksandr Orlov
One of those, I'd even trust with choosing my insurance.
Attenborough had a degree from Cambridge having studied zoology before becoming a presenter, and Controller of BBC2
Cox is an astrophysicist (professor of particle physics) who presents some programmes between his other work.
Now about that TV presenter who asked Tim Peake about collecting a piece of the moon.
Depends, Chris Packham knows his stuff, Sky at Night team are all good etc.
I would agree many TV presenters know nothing about their subject matter as they are just a talking head reading someone elses words, but that's not always the case.
.. and you can get scenarios where someone who knows a lot about one subject is then waffling on about something they know nothing about (glares at Brian Cox with his crocodile comment when seeing a large reptile in teh water on a continent where the only crocs are in zoos)
He's fronted up a f***ing TV programme, produced, directed, scripted, researched by other people
Not quite right - he pretty much does it all himself (with a cameraman, and more recently with another on-screen contributor) as a hobby, paid for by Patreon subscribers and puts it up on YouTube for free. He's an enthusiast, an advocate and is good at dispelling myths and spreading news about the field. He doesn't claim to be an expert, but spends lots of his time interviewing them.
My point was that he does know something about the subject and is a good communicator, which makes him a good choice for explaining stuff to MPs. You seem to think that being a comedian disqualifies him from that.
This is hypothetical nonsense; its us poor humans who may occasionally be 'slow to respond' because our attention was distracted, visibility is poor or a host of other reasons. The car will see the sign and respond the same way every time, it won't occasionally be slow.
In fact If the car has up to date mapping (an OTA download for sure) then it will know where all the speed limit changes are without signs. Signs (other than temporary ones like road works) will not be necessary for self driving cars to perform, but if they are useful / interesting for the humans in the vehicle they will surely be an option on the car's information display system; physical signs will go the way of hitching rails and blacksmiths.
Compared with the complexity of interpreting the visual scene with sufficient accuracy to allow safe driving, recognizing and reading speed limit signs with the same or better performance than human drivers is a trivial challenge. There are millions of cars on the roads that already have a simple version of this technology onboard. Physical signs will be around for a long time.
The car will see the sign and respond the same way every time, it won't occasionally be slow.
Great. But given that road signage is sporadic and inconsistent, often damaged or obscured, resolute adherence to those signs doesn't help that much. A human driver will probably be able to identify a speed limit sign largely obscured by vegetation, for example, I'm less confident that AVs will be so clever.
"A human driver will probably be able to identify a speed limit sign largely obscured by vegetation, for example, I'm less confident that AVs will be so clever."
"A human driver will probably be able to identify a speed limit sign largely obscured by vegetation, for example, I'm less confident that AVs will be so clever."
In that case, the sign-posting authority should be liable for the speeding ticket. If I can be held liable for not maintaining my self-driving car, than they should be liable for not maintaining the signage.
Hmm, we may need a "Foolish Optimism" Icon.
The issue with signage is that sometimes it's a total arse trying to work out, at speed, whether the sign applies to you or not.
For example, a speed limit sign on a slip road (decelleration lane after it peels of the main carriageway) is often fully in view and angled towards the main carriageway. If you're driving along in a 70 zone I wouldn't want the auto-car to suddenly feel the need to reduce its speed to 30 just because it saw a sign attached to a slip road coming off the main road and thought that this applied to the main carriageway.
@Nick Ryan The issue with signage is that sometimes it's a total arse trying to work out, at speed, whether the sign applies to you or not.
Good catch. Similarly, in my area (Northern Oregon) I've noticed many instances where a side-road joins a main highway at a narrow angle - and hence the STOP sign at the end of the side-road is practically face-on to drivers on the highway. It's caused me & my (theoretically) adaptable, flexible, carefully-trained-over-years human brain confusion in the past... I wonder how a computer vision algorithm would cope?
One moment your level 4 self-driving car is doing 55... then it suddenly screeches to a halt because of a confusing side-street...?
I have speed-sign recognition hardware on my (2013) car, which theoretically "reads" roadside speed limit signs and represents them on the dashboard. Simple camera, not LIDAR or anything fancy. I'd say it correctly spots them maybe 85% of the time - good, but not good enough for an autonomous vehicle.
Another aspect of this is in the UK, the speed limit isn't the speed you should be driving at, it is simply the maximum speed you may drive at, because at all times you should drive at a speed appropriate to the conditions. If the police decide that your speed was inappropriate then they can charge you...
Thus a big issue is going to be driving in poor weather: the systems in a autonomous vehicle might work in fog and thus permit a vehicle to travel at 60mph when visibility is sub 10 metres, however, this may not be safe because other road users (eg. pedestrians, horse riders etc.) are relying on the human eye.
"it is simply the maximum speed you may drive at, because at all times you should drive at a speed appropriate to the conditions."
The usual metric in most countries is that the maximum speed allowed is the lower of "the speed at which you can stop in the distance of visible road ahead (half this distance if there is no centreline)" or "the posted speed limit"
Humans are very good at vastly overestimating their abilities and vastly underestimating stopping distances.
"Signs (other than temporary ones like road works) will not be necessary for self driving cars to perform,"
Yep, my 5 year old Garmin SatNav, with current maps, "knows" about speed limits within a few metres of the sign post, ie it displays the current speed limit on the screen. It's not perfect, some roads it has incorrect information, others it shows a + sign, ie it doesn't "know" the current speed limit. B ut its right far, far more often than it's wrong and I drive 60,000+ miles per years on all types of roads, all over the UK. I'd expect the data for an autonomous car to be much more accurate and be updated frequently along with regular feedback.
But, as I said in another post further up, if most cars are autonomous, not only may we not need speed limit signs, we not even need speed limits as we currently understand them. There's no reason why an autonomous car can't "floor it" down the motorway with it's live communications with other vehicles and full situational awareness other than fuel/energy consumption taking a hit.
"Signs (other than temporary ones like road works) will not be necessary for self driving cars to perform"
If you have the technology to do OTA updates to the cars, you have the technology to do OTA updates to the database when roadworks go live.
Charging from LED streetlights? Two points:
1) LED or gas discharge, the power demand is for all practical purposes the same, so why does Kryten think that LED streetlights have some mystical quality especially suitable for charging EVs? Could it be that the man knows nothing about streetlighting?
2) The basic arithmetic doesn't work. If you've got low density housing (ie few cars per streetlight) then you have in general got housing with off road parking, so there's no point in putting chargers on streetlights. If you've got high density housing (think flats, urban terraced housing) then you'll typically have heavily utilised on-road parking, and a ratio of about thirty cars to each streetlight, which means you can charge a tiny fraction of the fleet. And you can't even fast charge because streetlighting is a low current application, and the power distribution wouldn't support the fast charging.
Even the idea of forcing petrol stations to have EV chargers is typical civil servant dumb-think, because the dwell time isn't convenient. The best place would be supermarket car parks, where a fast charger could load up a week's worth of driving in the typical dwell time of a weekly shopping visit. We did try and tell government, but they didn't listen, and now they're taking advice from actors on the matter.
I'd also like to point out in high density areas (like mine, terrace housing), the street lights are on the house side of the pavement a lot of the time. So you'd still have lovely trailing cables running from the house side to the road over the pavement.
No one will have an issue with that, right?
1. Yes LED is irrelevant. Has this statement been mangled after multiple hops... probably.
2. Streetlights aren't a silver bullet but they definitely helps as it avoid installing lots of additional posts in the road and so is much cheaper. Yes, there are several cases it doesn't cover and it doesn't work for everything. Flats typically have dedicated parking, so that's solvable though recalcitrant landlords will probably need "encouraging".
Of course the wiring needs in to the streetlights needs upgrading but it helps to avoid the posts for initial take up unless you think everyone will be in an EV in 2 years. The channels are there already. This reduces the costs considerably.
As for wrong side of the street Chloe, you could just park on the other side to avoid trailing cables.
ok yes, I know for high density terrace housing where there's no room for the cars anyway, it's not the whole solution but there are other (more expensive) options like kerb side chargers.
Other solutions like wireless charging are proven to work but are not (yet) cheap.
You start with the easy stuff, expand to the more awkward stuff later.
At this moment in time, it's hard to recommend an EV unless you have off-road parking.
Now they're looking at the next step to get _some_ people who don't have that onboard.
Blimey people, it's just electricity. It's not exactly a new problem.
Streetlights on one side of the street- or alternating - only are a thing. So that would mean trailing cables across the whole street.
Solar panels on the roof of the cars. Park under the streetlights, or within the cast of their light, and get a charge. Simple. And LED bulbs are efficient, typically for a 5W bulb you get 60W worth of light.
Sheesh, so much for these so-called "experts"....
(please note: Trollface icon. With logic like this, I should be giving evidence to Parliamentary committees)
"Flats typically have dedicated parking, so that's solvable though recalcitrant landlords will probably need "encouraging"
Most new build flats I see going up don't have dedicated parking at all. From what I've heard about a block that went up in Guildford, the council wouldn't grant planning permission if it included a car park as they wanted to decrease the amount of cars in the area. The result was predictable - when the owners of the new flats moved in their cars overflowed the available parking in the neighborhood and the area for streets around got clogged up with parked vehicles. The council don't care - if anything it just improved their parking fine revenues for the area.
I'm really not sure what you think landlords - recalcitrant or otherwise - could do about this situation. Or was that just a way to imply that you think this should be made to be somebody else's problem?
"As for wrong side of the street Chloe, you could just park on the other side to avoid trailing cables."
Chloe actually mentioned the wrong side of the pavement. Unless you are going to drive the car up on to the kerb, that would require leads to lay across the walking path and pose a tripping hazard.
Yes, but it's how much electricity that's the problem. If you want to fully charge an electric car with a a range comparable to an ICE-powered car in, say, half an hour, (so, a power requirement on the order of 200kW) then that's equivalent to about 8 substantial houses all on the point of popping the master fuse on their mains supply. For one car.
"Of course the wiring needs in to the streetlights needs upgrading "
Bringing up the problem of what happens to the national grid when all those EVs are charging simultaneously.
We're going to need batteries at every wind/solar farm to smooth output (Elon will be happy and they should be mandatory to be allowed to grid connect) as well as batteries in every charge point so the substations don't melt (street chargers are unlikely to have cars attached more than 1/3 of the time)
with the speed limits is not that the car will get a speeding ticket or who will pay for it, but the car will get a ticket as a result of being unable to read the f**king sign because the council allowed greenery to grow out and cover it.
I'm looking at you west sussex council.....(also theres plenty of thoers out there...)
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