Google self-driving Cars are officially on the road

[gimmi80]

I don't see any reason the human in the car should be doing anything but the pattern-matching to watch for 'weirdness'. Everything routine should be automated. But that isn't fully automated: the human has to be alert at all times.

I think the most like scenario for self-driving car will be urban taxi or the typical ride airport-downtown, for which I think they would work great probably even at the current state of progression.
Second will be highway vehicle going on sort of HOV lanes with no problems.
I agree the more difficult scenario is the farm road. I live in a deer "infested" are and I doubt a software will be able to recognize and act properly when the deer is standing on the side of the road looking at you.

the semi-automated scenario is the most dangerous one. Because human driver will be lazy not hold the steering wheel let the car so all the job and the pattern recognition thing will occur too late once they already crash.
Wasnt it on this forum that I read of a guy crushing his tesla out to the dealer because was trusting blondly the TACC...

impelnt autosafety (such as the one you mentioned of the car not letting you crash the other driver in you blind spot) should be implemented ASAP.

Regarding the 50 year thing, that's obviously an exaggeration. Progress will come much quicker specially as UBER and other like-über innovative company find a way to monetize on it. I don't know how long it will take by if I was a soon-to-be taxi driver getting ready to buy a $150'000 license/permit I would probably think twice about it.

 

[eloder]

I doubt a software will be able to recognize and act properly when the deer is standing on the side of the road looking at you. /quote]

If you look into Google cars, they are exceedingly careful--even to the point that human riders will it annoying at times.

Not to mention a computer will be able to see far hundreds of feet into the distance in pitch black or poor weather conditions because they don't solely rely on visual cues.

 

[GasDoc]

Saw on our local news that the first autonomous Google car was in an accident yesterday. A self driving car was rear ended. Three Google employees in the self driving car were taken to the hospital, examined and declared fit to return to work.

I wonder if the person who rear ended the Google car was distracted taking pictures of it.

 

[heltok]

Here's how the accident looked like:

 

[doug]

Drove behind on of these in downtown Mountain View the other day. It was pretty impressive dealing with the afternoon rush hour and did everything right.
I observed it

• make an unprotected left turn at the right moment.
• stop for a pedestrian that entered a mid block crosswalk from the other side of the street.
• pass a double parked car on the left by briefly crossing the double yellow line when traffic in the opposite direction was clear.

It was funny to see so many people on the sidewalks pull out their phones to take video. I guess I had to snap a quick photo too:

 

[TEG]

With the Lexus SUVs, I frequently wonder if it is the autopilot driving, or the engineer in the drivers seat. With those little "pod cars" I guess you know it is 100% autopilot all the time as there are no driver controls, as far as I know.

A couple weeks back I saw a Lexus sedan (like an ES style) with side sensors and the LIDAR dome on top... I wonder if that was a Google vehicle too, or some other "competitor".

Also, I recently saw a black Lexus SUV with the Google kit... I guess they are going beyond their original fleet of all white RX450Hs.

 

[roblab]

With the Lexus SUVs, I frequently wonder if it is the autopilot driving, or the engineer in the drivers seat. With those little "pod cars" I guess you know it is 100% autopilot all the time as there are no driver controls, as far as I know.

I was in Palo Alto a few weeks ago and had two Lexus SUVs pass me as I drove in the far right lane. They signaled to turn left, and at that point, the driver of the second SUV looked over at me, smiled, and held up his hands as his car waited for oncoming traffic and then turned.

It looked like it was NOT the engineer driving.

 

[adamsmithpr]

i thinks no one is better than human being.

 

[replicant]

i thinks no one is better than human being.

Does it really matter? Most people would certainly prefer reading/knitting/working in their car over driving. Besides, autonomous cars would come to you directly, so you don't waste time looking for a parking space / picking someone at the other end of town / driving intoxicated...

PS: Welcome to the forum!

 

[adamsmithpr]

Does it really matter? Most people would certainly prefer reading/knitting/working in their car over driving. Besides, autonomous cars would come to you directly, so you don't waste time looking for a parking space / picking someone at the other end of town / driving intoxicated...

PS: Welcome to the forum!

Thanks...
but i am talking about the security point of view.

 

[Mookuh]

Picking up some furniture at IKEA yesterday made me ponder autonomous driving cars again, specifically the type that would come without a steering wheel.

This specific IKEA was set up so that you couldn't take the trolleys out into the parking lot, but rather roll them to a dedicated loading area and fetch the car - which is sensible, as dozens of trolleys with large, unwieldy boxes in them would probably make the parking lot kinda dangerous and whole lot less efficient as for traffic flow. Anyway... how would parking a car without a steering wheel in a specific spot work? Do you input exact coordinates, like you get an overhead-map of the area and you instruct it to go to the loading area specifically, backing up into it as well because you want to access the trunk?

Likewise, say you're taking your car onto a meadow because you're delivering tents you're putting up for some kind of outdoor celebration, or any other scenario where you're not really on roads and need your car to go to a specific spot?
The problem surely isn't unsolveable, but it feels like going without a steering wheel or other means of direct input is foolish for anything other than "get around the city" taxis.

 

[Skotty]

Totally automatic highway cruise is possible and even desirable for long trips, but may require roads specifically made for that (built in markers that computer systems can "see" easily in all weather, and probably road signs to warn regular drivers that it's a self-driving enabled highway, specific rules for road construction, good shoulders that cars can easily pull over on). Now I'm not talking about Tesla autopilot; you still have to be alert for that, so it's really not doing all that much for you. I mean like you can take a nap or read a book and not be endangering anyone's safety. This is a realistic goal, and takes care of the biggest driving problem -- long boring drives -- while leaving the complex non-highway stuff to humans. (this also has interesting implications for long haul trucking)

As for self driving cars in cities and (gasp!) without steering wheels at all? Mark my words. It will be just like fusion power. Not impossible, might happen someday, but for a long long time will be always be 10 years away.