Tarmac for America's self-driving car future is being laid right now A law proposed in the US Senate would pave the way for hundreds of thousands of autonomous vehicles on America's streets in the next few years. The AV START Act [PDF] was introduced Thursday by Senators John Thune (R-SD) and Gary Peters (D-MI), and not only represents a bipartisan effort but also reflects much of the contents …
Maybe not.
Insurers like to have modules installed that track speed, location, and other relevant data to determine accident risk profile based on the driver's activities. Has to do with charging higher premiums for higher risk drivers and lowering premiums for less risky drivers.
Also, premiums also depend on where the vehicle is actually parked at night and how far the commute is to work. People in NYC use addresses in NJ to get cheaper insurance.
The sensors on the vehicles don't come cheap and are probably located in areas where damage is possible in minor crashes. That will raise cost of repairs, which affects premiums.
I'm not shilling for the scurrilous pirates.
By sensors, meaning the ones built into the car already? most of the vehicles in the US that insurers put those devices into are OBD-II compliant, which means that all the insurer has to do is ship the insuree a box that plugs into the diagnostic port. 'least that's what one of the companies I looked at does. Not worth the discount, TBH.
'Blocking insurer access to critical data harms consumers by crippling their ability to promptly handle claims and compensate accident victims'....
They said with a straight face... I wouldn't put it past the insurance industry to turn around and sell the data to a broker who peddles it to Facebook etc, no matter what data protection laws say.
After all Facebook is now buying data from brokers including Experian, same does for Google, plus they're getting juicy credit card data soon. So much for flying cars, enjoy your latest dose of dystopia...
'After all Facebook is now buying data from brokers including Experian, same does for Google, plus they're getting juicy credit card data soon'
Care to provide me with a link or two to substantiate your claims dear AC?
I'm not saying you're wrong, I'd just like some substance to back up your comment if you could provide it please.
Experian:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/05/09/experian_audience_engine_knows_almost_as_much_about_you_as_google/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Facebook and Experian:
https://marketingland.com/9-new-semi-secret-facebook-targeting-options-184810
https://www.lrb.co.uk/v39/n16/john-lanchester/you-are-the-product
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Google Tracking Credit Cards:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/05/23/google-now-knows-when-you-are-at-a-cash-register-and-how-much-you-are-spending/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-40027706
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/24/google_to_track_credit_cards/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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On the other hand, I didn't see any mention of liability in the proposed laws, so have they not tackled the thorny problem of whose fault it is if an autonomous car is involved in an accident?
If the intention is that the car (and by extension the manufacturer) are at fault, then insurance companies access to "black-box" data from the vehicle at the time of the incident would be required, I would have thought.
I can see there being a certain amount of control input from the human, things like setting a maximum speed, even if the vehicle can reliably spot speed-limit signs (I remember one which usually spent most of the summer obscured by new growth on a roadside hedge). Also possible navigation instructions. I am sure we have all seen reports of sat-nav systems putting vehicles on the wrong road. A licence also fits with general human responsibility. Eventually, as the systems get proven, you might decide to allow a parent to send the kids to school in a self-driving car, but not yet.
things like setting a maximum speed, even if the vehicle can reliably spot speed-limit signs
Surely autonomous cars won't rely on visual cues or manually entered speed data, but will either have that data as part of the satnav feed or a built in database of all mandated limits.
No it needs to use visual clues to determine things such as temporary speed restrictions (e.g. motorways).
Whilst I don't like the idea of people being able to select a maximum speed there are plenty of drivers who for personal reasons best known to themselves like to limit their speed to something under the speed limit irrespective of road conditions. They would probably want to apply the same limit to the self driving car they were using.
No it needs to use visual clues to determine things such as temporary speed restrictions (e.g. motorways).
On the contrary, I would expect temporary speed restrictions to be broadcast direct to the car's AI, not have to be picked up from signs designed for humans to read.
@ Alister .... Whilst broadcasting the speed limits to cars is a sound idea and may well happen in time, it's not terribly helpful when there are many people on the roads who are manually driving a car not equipped to receive those broadcasts. It brings about the unpleasant scenario of two sets of vehicles on the same stretch of road with different yet equally valid versions of the limit being enforced. Visual speed limit signs have the huge benefit of being accessible to both humans and autonomous vehicles. Many new cars are already equipped with front facing cameras that read speed limit signs (with a pretty good level of accuracy) so it's not new technology that needs to be developed and is available now.
No, you are quite correct, broadcasting the limit direct to autonomous cars doesn't help manual drivers, but I envisaged it as being added to existing signage, rather than outright replacing it.
However you raise an interesting point that whilst ever there is a mix of autonomous and manually driven cars on the road, there is more potential for conflict over speed limits.
If it's a given that autonomous cars will always stick to the mandated speed limits, it is equally a given that manually driven cars (in general) will not, let's be honest, very few human drivers obey temporary speed restrictions, and you will have the situation where autonomous cars will all slow down to match the temporary limit, and manually driven cars will not, creating the potential for far more accidents.
Thats what 802.11p is going to be used for i believe, the roadworks will broadcast the restriction to cars.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11p
In europe i believe its all in the ETSI ITS-G5 standard.
I presume america will have a different incompatible standard as is customary.
I've been doing that for around 10 years now. Saves a fortune in Petrol.
Sometimes you want to just enjoy the drive/ride and make it last longer.
Not everyone needs to get from A to B in as short a time as possible ALL OF THE TIME.
This past week, I've been riding around Brittany on a Motorcycle. Most of the time I ride off the main 'N' roads the exception being the N164. The roads are almost devoid of traffic in the middle of the area. The road surface is brilliant (far better than in Blighty) so cruising at 80-85kph is very enjoyable.
Driving at under the speed limit is also a lot less stressful.
"Not everyone needs to get from A to B in as short a time as possible ALL OF THE TIME."
But some of the people you're holding up need to get from A to Z and the accumulation of time spent behind those who don't means that they end up driving the latter part of their journey much more tired than they need to be.
But some of the people you're holding up need to get from A to Z and the accumulation of time spent behind those who don't means that they end up driving the latter part of their journey much more tired than they need to be.
So I'm now forced to go outside my range of comfort because some smuch can't be ars*d to leave early. Oh, joy!
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it would be nice if you'd be so kind as to pull over in a suitable lay by and let everyone else pass.
Around my way, during August~September, it would be nice if drivers observed the car with the hazards on and farm workers leaning out of the window gesticulating to the on-coming drivers to pull hard over ie. get off the road totally: There really isn't room for you to pass the £1M combine harvester that is coming up the road towards you - even if you can't see it just yet - and it isn't going to back up, even if you are the police with the blues-and-twos going...
Even as a cyclist, I don't advise trying to cycle pass - on a road where two cars can normal pass, there is around a metre of clear road if the driver pulls to one side and you ride in the gutter and are prepared to bounce through the potholes...
Power trip? You bet driving one of these monsters... :)
Surely autonomous cars won't rely on visual cues or manually entered speed data, but will either have that data as part of the satnav feed or a built in database of all mandated limits.
My current (fairly standard deisel) car detects speed signs and displays the last limit passed on the instrument cluster. It falls back to the satnav data if required. Useful, not earth shattering, but good to see it in action with the odd error (usually when signs are partially obscured) so that the process can be refined
Saving lives, obvious
Expanding mobility - for those who are too young, too old, too ill, too physically disabled or even too mentally disabled, for sure. Consider, for example, an epileptic who isn't allowed to drive.
Congestion - a factor in congestion is often poor driver behaviour, so there really is some potential there.
Congestion - a factor in congestion is often poor driver behaviour, so there really is some potential there.
I might suggest that a more consistent factor is too many vehicles trying to use the same bit of road at the same time, and quite how autonomous (or semi - autonomous) cars are going to solve that problem isn't obvious. I'm not trying to argue that poor driver behaviour doesn't exist, or that it isn't a factor in some congestion scenarios, but your comment overlooks the rather bigger contribution made by the sheer number of vehicles on the road.
commswonk
Unless you are sightseeing or an emergency vehicle then the route you take is irrelevant - the speed to destination will probably be more important. A largely centralised system will be able to dispatch routes to all vehicles that mostly avoid congestion. Proper load balancing can take place.
Around 30 years ago I travelled across West Germany and they still then had the discipline to zipper in so when the autobahn went from 3 lanes to 2 the flow of traffic was not interrupted in the way in the UK the one in the German car overtakes and pushes in at the last moment causing a wave that reduces traffic flow to a halt. Smooth, disciplined traffic has a capacity an order of magnitude above the heuristic approach. Taking away human reaction times also means vehicles can drive bumper to bumper as the car in front should be able to tell the car behind it is going to break and that only needs a couple of milliseconds which is mere centimetres at anything less than R4.
"Taking away human reaction times also means vehicles can drive bumper to bumper as the car in front should be able to tell the car behind it is going to break (sic)"
This does not hold true when there is a mixture of manually driven and autonomous vehicles on the road. A self-driving car will *not* know when a manually driven car in front of it is going to brake, nor will it inform the muppet driving the audi behind it who has no concept of safe stopping distances that it is about to slam it's own brakes on.
Vehicles driven in close convoy pose an elevated risk to manually driven vehicles because they can cause other vehicles to be "boxed in" or potentially be the cause of an accident at a motorway slip road where a lack of a gap in traffic for a vehicle joining could prove fatal, especially with our new "smart" motorways which don't have a hard shoulder some of the time.
The fact is, autonomous vehicles are going to have to drive like "perfect" manual drivers unless the manually driven vehicles are legislated off the road.
@ Tom 7: A largely centralised system will be able to dispatch routes to all vehicles that mostly avoid congestion. Proper load balancing can take place.
I think you have just introduced a whole new level (or levels) of possible FAIL, because as described your system would require each vehicle to upload its destination details to some Deep Thought somewhere so that routes can be allocated per vehicle and downloaded to each vehicle. Where is the bandwidth for all that going to come from?
If such an idea was to "work" the most likely outcome would be that the solution to congestion on (say) the M25 would be to introduce congestion on all the surrounding roads, assuming of course that they aren't already clogged up.
I live near the M6 and am only too aware of what happens locally if anything really major happens on it; in case you haven't guessed the result it is local roads become completely impassable, as opposed to being just very busy.
I am of the view that too many people see "autonomous" vehicles being some sort of panacea for all the current driving ills; your optimism may be admirable but in my opinion it is simply the stuff of dreams; it is highly unrealistic. A (large) degree of scepticism is required.
Congestion - a factor in congestion is often poor driver behaviour, so there really is some potential there.
Did you see the live traffic and congestion in Florida in the days before hurricane Irma?
Do you watch the UK live traffic reports for the morning and evening rush hours?
Whilst some drivers could move their journey to another time, I suspect the numbers - particularly during school term time, would be insufficient to make a noticeable effect.
Also any benefits arising will be lost on additional vehicles/journeys arising from your second point "expanding mobility". In fact if the pixie land dreams of the self-driving advocates are to be realised, there will be significantly more vehicles on the roads and hence the congestion we experience today will be nothing like the congestion arising from self-driving cars.
There will not be an immediate reduction in traffic, but there will be an increase in ride sharing as the cultural norm is affected by economics. If most cars are cabs with multiple riders then there will be a significant one time increase in through put. This will reduce costs for basic transportation and widen job market competition.
"Why should I be delayed for what is after all a minority hobby?"
Why should I increase traffic congestion and parking problems around my kid's school because someone else can't grasp that the bicycle is a valid means of transport? Why should I put an extra car on the road for my commute? Both journeys can be acheived by bike at least as quickly as by car, and the car journey is gradually getting slower due to the increasing numbers of cars on the road...
"If you think it is acceptable to endanger childrens'(sic) lives by careening around one(sic) one of those idiotic contraptions instead of driving a car like an adult then we have nothing more to discuss."
I'm sorry you feel that way, but just in case you come back and read this, perhaps next time you discuss something you could check your spelling and grammar, and please avoid slinging insults, because that just turns a discussion into a farce. And no, I don't endanger my children's lives, but deliberately chose a slightly longer but safe, quiet and quick back road route to cycle to their school. (A school which has recently threatened to *close* the car park to parents due to the dangerous behaviour of drivers endangering other people (including children) whilst dropping off their own children at school.)
Every time I see another Chelsea tractor on the school run, I despair a little more for the human race.
Re: "If you think it is acceptable to endanger childrens' lives by careening around one one of those idiotic contraptions instead of driving a car"
Well, as a REAL MAN, it's either the bike or the tank!
[ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2877265/I-know-school-run-battle-ridiculous-Father-drops-children-morning-17-tonne-TANK.html ]
While that would be absolutely hilarious in my part of the world, except that the fuel efficiency on those monsters is rated in litres per kilometer, and they are pretty noisy.
That, and I'd probably get a police escort the first couple times I pulled that stunt, both the local PD near my residence, and the local PD near my work. Maybe.
" Maybe."..
So thinking about how it might be do-able... :)
The Abbot is relatively quiet and fuel efficient compared to the Centurion - You can't discretely start one of these and the neighbours will complain as whilst the triple glazing might keep the noise out, it doesn't stop the ground vibration or the aroma of unrefined engine exhaust. [ https://www.armourgeddon.co.uk/our-mk13-centurion-tank.html ]
The problem is that these mechanical toys need to be used to keep them running, so it makes sense to use the "road legal/friendly" ones for short journeys eg. school trips, whilst the big stuff gets used off-road for paintballing and experience days.
Aside: If you are interested in the (now non-existent) British tank industry, El Reg did an article on it a while back [ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/30/tank_industry_checks_out/ ]
Us country bumpkins (i.e. anyone outside a city), have these things called single track lanes.
They have a 60 mph speed limit (yes humans also think it's a target, not a limit)
They have bugger all phone signal
They often have high sides / overhanging trees / big hedges
They have passing places, usually consisting of one or both of you reversing 50 metres or shoving your vehicle up an embankment, into a ditch or hedge. Non of these are marked on any map.
They very often have blind bends or bumps.
Discuss.
"The DoT will develop, with the industry, new standards to cover cybersecurity in cars, including disclosing security holes."
We're going to trust the people who deal with asphalt and concrete to set standards for the security of the autonomous systems? Maybe I'm being harsh, but that looks like a recipe for disaster. Although, yeah they do have the FAA under their wing, so maybe all hope isn't lost. But it still doesn't sound promising.
Look at what Tesla has to do to sell their cars directly to the consumer. It's not legal to sell a Tesla in the state of New Jersey (first hand, reselling is obviously a consumer right).
This is because antiquated laws dictate in most areas that cars must be sold through independent dealers. Independent from the manufacturer that is.
Unless this changes, you won't get many new startups. We'll all be reliant on Ford, GM, Volkswagen DEALERS to take the initiative.
With things like ride-sharing (i.e. you only need you care at certain times, if it can drive itself, it can do other things while you're at work or sleeping), that would mean less car sales, and why would Dealers support that?
Just over a week ago I an driving to work, in one heck of a rainstorm, when my adaptive cruise control and lane departure systems shut down. The dash says "sensors blocked" and to my unpleasant surprise, I could not just turn them back on even after the rain had slowed. Sure I had always figured that snow, mud, and on the long end a really bad rain storm like this one, would mess up the autonomous controls (it pretty much says so in the manual), however, I did not expect to have to shut the darn car off and turn it back on to restore functionality.
I say good luck to those that go all-in on this stuff. You are undoubtedly going to find frustration down the road, and maybe even a loss of freedom. Loss aside from the privacy issues that is. Want to head to the lake by taking that dusty road? Not. Want to head to the slopes in the storm to hit the fresh powder? Better plan on taking the bus. Want to change lanes to get out behind the slow vehicle in front of you? Over my dead gas pedal (no way I am letting you in, and your car won't do it for you).
Scenario;
One lane in each direction, child runs on road chasing ball, there is not sufficient distance for the self-driving car to brake but there is sufficient distance to veer around the child. Coming in the opposite direction is another car carrying four people which the self-driving car will hit head-on if it veers around the child.
Who decides?
Depends on the country and the insurance costs.
Most humans would instinctively avoid the child.
The truly fully autonomous car would have time to calculate legal, moral and repair costs then submit a Darwin award application for the loser.
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Who could, of course, be the people who chose to ride in an autonomous vehicle.
Well if you have enough time to spot the car coming towards you has four people you haven't been paying attention to the road conditions right in front of you...
From experience, you stamp on the brakes and use the ABS to avoid the child and either aim for a straight head-on with the oncoming car (and hope the other driver is also stamping on their brakes and doesn't try to avoid you) or go through the hedge - the crumple zones, air bags etc. give you and the other occupants the greatest chance of survival - which you stand better than 50/50 chance of doing if the combined impact speed is less than 40mph; hit the child at any speed greater than 20mph - they are dead.
The other scenario is to have a muntjac deer run out from undergrowth in front of you: thinking/reaction time at 40mph means the deer is sub 5 metres in front of you by the time you hit the brakes ie. odds are you are going to hit it - what do you do?
NB. Whilst an elk or other large animal will go over the bonnet, the muntjac, being the size of a large dog will tend to go under the vehicle...
"Coming in the opposite direction is another car carrying four people which the self-driving car will hit head-on if it veers around the child."
Easy, hit the other vehicle head on. The chances of a serious injury or death occuring are *lower* than if you hit the child. The sooner everybody grasps this, the better.
Easy, hit the other vehicle head on. The chances of a serious injury or death occuring are *lower* than if you hit the child.
Reflecting on the scenario, I see we are all missing the key piece of information: "self-driving car".
The big selling point of self-driving cars is that they will have fewer accidents etc. etc. ie. safety, safety, safety. Thus I expect manufacturers/operators, particularly the new entrants eg. Uber, Google etc. to argue (successfully) that self-driving cars don't need all the safety features of our current cars, such as airbags, seat belts, head restraints, which only add weight and cost...
Thus rerunning the scenario, the self-driving car will, having determined there is no zero fatality course of action, accelerate towards the child to improve odds of a fatality and thus lower insurance payout since that course of action will potentially only result in one fatality...
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