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Damn camera picks up inappropriate speed signs

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Wol747

Active Member
Aug 26, 2017
1,737
1,070
Tea Gardens
Following a school bus in a 50Kph zone today the speed indicator changed to 40KPh. After overtaking the bus it couldn't be moved from 40 until I passed another 50 sign later on. Annoying.
On entry to my community which has a Stop sign with a standard 10Kph below on the same pole, the car registers the "Stop" but the speed stays at the previous 50Kph. Every time.
Way to go.......
 
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Following a school bus in a 50Kph zone today the speed indicator changed to 40KPh. After overtaking the bus it couldn't be moved from 40 until I passed another 50 sign later on. Annoying.
Yep, I tested this the other day, and it sees the 40 km/h school zone sign but ignores the time periods in which it applies. The previous map-based system was much smarter than this - and would show the 40 km/h limit only during the times in which it applied (with a little clock icon on the screen to signify this).

One step forward, two steps back.

It also picks up 10 km/h signs in private roads, car parks etc which is notionally good but you then are reminded, as the car beeps at you for driving above 10 km/h, how incredibly slow 10 km/h is and that almost no-one actually drives at the signposted speed.

I’ve not yet tested it to see if it recognises or obeys the classic 8 km/h signs, which are nothing more than the old 5 mile/hr signs converted to metric measures in the 70s and then perpetuated with new signs without questioning the faulty logic that produced that number in the first place. The brain-deadness in that is something to behold.
 
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I've got an 8 in my garage that it doesn't recognise. From one of the UK YouTubers it also wasn't recognising random signs eg. 69.

For school zone signs I've often seen it identifies it along way out as a 40 and briefly shows a 40 pole, then as you get closer reclassifies it as a school zone and the 40 pole disappears (most of the time).

It suggests to me that it's pattern matching to stored images, and wording around it may cause it to not process.
Eg. A 40 Area is processed but a 40 Ahead sign is rejected, and a 40 End is correctly seem as No restrictions (default 50 in suburban areas).
The Stop 40 may be confusing it.

The cases I'm finding worst in Sydney.
1. The 40 "When lights flashing" on the back of a bus that you're passing.
2. School zones where it doesn't process the school zone part (maybe 10-20% in my experience)
3. Split 70 Cars - 40 Bus/Truck signs which seem to go to 40.
 
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I imagine it'll be a while before it fully understands the "90 when raining" on the Pacific Hwy though.
Ha ha... solvable with a bit of additional logic - if the rain sensing flag for the wipers is triggered it should set the limit to 90 or 100 otherwise. Oops, but then we have an issue with how reliable the Tesla rain sensing is :p

Further along that section of the M1 where the speed cameras are there is an overhead gantry with the applicable speed limit dynamically displayed - I assume it would recognise those.

There will always be weird and rare edge cases where this whole visual recognition thing fails. If detection of a single dimension of the driving experience is flaky (recognition of speed limits - frankly one of the easiest problems in the gamut) then reliable FSD is a long way off.
 
Today I went past a big circled 80 with fine print below “if signs above are blank”. The signs above were 60.
Car has no hope in getting it right.

I suspect in the future there will need to be major standardisation efforts for road signage and markings.

It’s inevitable that “machine readable roads” will be required.

It can’t happen with all these weird and wonderful variations. The 40 signs on moving buses are another good example.
 
The buses are a tough when as the rider "When lights flashing" is not part of the sign and typically randomly thrown about.

And if you put some logic about ignoring signs around buses, what happens if you pass a road sign at the same time as the bus.

Personally think both bus and school zones should have a different format (maybe say a orange circle rather than red) to reflect that the speed is conditional - much like the xx ahead signs use a black circle.
 
Ha ha... solvable with a bit of additional logic - if the rain sensing flag for the wipers is triggered it should set the limit to 90 or 100 otherwise. Oops, but then we have an issue with how reliable the Tesla rain sensing is :p

Further along that section of the M1 where the speed cameras are there is an overhead gantry with the applicable speed limit dynamically displayed - I assume it would recognise those.

There will always be weird and rare edge cases where this whole visual recognition thing fails. If detection of a single dimension of the driving experience is flaky (recognition of speed limits - frankly one of the easiest problems in the gamut) then reliable FSD is a long way off.

This is maybe why Elon Musk last week clarified to the US stockmarket that tesla “FSD” is always going to need a degree of driver supervision. There goes the robo taxi dream for many.
 
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Further along that section of the M1 where the speed cameras are there is an overhead gantry with the applicable speed limit dynamically displayed - I assume it would recognise those.
This was covered in another thread #1494 . Apparently speed sign recognition is not currently implemented on freeways and furthermore even it it was it cannot recognise electronic signs. If you were to view them in your dashcam you will see they are illegible.

I do a lot of country driving and for this I see the speed sign recognition as a major improvement. Entering towns it now slows at the the "60 ahead" sign when it sees it, allowing it cross the 60 sign at reduced speed. Like I would drive myself. With the previous system it did not slow until after entering the speed restriction area, which lead to an uncomfortable period of exceeding the limit while it slowed up into every town. Loads of road works in the Victorian countryside and it does and excellent job of recognising and slowing for them too.
 
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This is maybe why Elon Musk last week clarified to the US stockmarket that tesla “FSD” is always going to need a degree of driver supervision. There goes the robo taxi dream for many.
Not that I’m actually interested in Robotaxi but that sounds astounding in the realm of all things Musk. I can’t find it - care to share a link?
 
>>Not that I’m actually interested in Robotaxi but that sounds astounding in the realm of all things Musk.<<

I think Mr Musk is talking BS anyway. I cannot imagine the present generation of cars being able or allowed to act unsupervised outside carefully fenced areas if even there. And if monitoring drivers are in the car the finances go out of the window.
 
Its in the recent tesla earnings call. Its fairly buried in there. No time to re-search for it at the moment but if you go to yahoo finance you should find it in a recent item if you search tsla.
This one?
Tesla has increased the price of its 'Full Self-Driving' option to $10,000
“able to be autonomous but requiring supervision and intervention at times.”
Author quotes Musk from the 2019 Q3 earnings call where he describes what the "Feature Complete" version would be able to do.
skip to 1:34:20
Omitted from the article was the next utterance where Musk explained the next two levels, which were full autonomy and regulator acceptance of full autonomy. To me, "Feature Complete" describes the beta out in the wild now - a little late but that's expected.
Perhaps more interestingly, in this year's Q3 earnings call, Musk describes a horse as autonomous - we have horses, some of them are downright mean - I don't want a randomly capricious car.
 
Ha ha... solvable with a bit of additional logic - if the rain sensing flag for the wipers is triggered it should set the limit to 90 or 100 otherwise. Oops, but then we have an issue with how reliable the Tesla rain sensing is :p

Further along that section of the M1 where the speed cameras are there is an overhead gantry with the applicable speed limit dynamically displayed - I assume it would recognise those.

There will always be weird and rare edge cases where this whole visual recognition thing fails. If detection of a single dimension of the driving experience is flaky (recognition of speed limits - frankly one of the easiest problems in the gamut) then reliable FSD is a long way off.
Here in Adelaide, My Model 3 doesn’t do a very good job of seeing the Dynamic / Electric overhead speeds on the freeway. I also often misses 40 Area ones (and some times shows the image on the display but ignores it. Other times it picks it up. Very inconsistent. Also inconsistent on the End 40 Area one, though it always seems to show an end speed limit image on the screen, but often does not increase the speed limit. Then I have the speed alert beep for ages till I see another sign.
 
This looks to be an older thread, but whilst it’s back, overhead electronic speed signs are the new norm here in Vic. The car doesn’t see them whatsoever on any of our freeways.
However mine does seem to pickup the school zone stuff perfectly unlike some of the other reports above, so well in fact I have actually wondered how.
 
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This looks to be an older thread, but whilst it’s back, overhead electronic speed signs are the new norm here in Vic. The car doesn’t see them whatsoever on any of our freeways.
However mine does seem to pickup the school zone stuff perfectly unlike some of the other reports above, so well in fact I have actually wondered how.
I suspect that the problem is that the sign refresh rate in incompatible with the cameras’: with a fixed sign the computer can “see” several images in successive scans and interpret them as say “60”. If a refresh mixmatch shows one scan with just the top of a number, the second with nothing and the third with the bottom the system probably rejects them all as noise.
 
I suspect that the problem is that the sign refresh rate in incompatible with the cameras’: with a fixed sign the computer can “see” several images in successive scans and interpret them as say “60”. If a refresh mixmatch shows one scan with just the top of a number, the second with nothing and the third with the bottom the system probably rejects them all as noise.
If that is the case, FSD will never work in Australia.