People Keep Crashing into Google's Self-driving Cars: Robots, However, Follow the Rules of the Road - Polidicks

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csvt6JBAwBk[/media] [url]https://medium.com/backchannel/the-view-from-the-front-seat-of-the-google-self-driving-car-46fc9f3e6088[/url] [QUOTE]About 33,000 people die on America’s roads every year. That’s why so much of the enthusiasm for self-driving cars has focused on their potential to reduce accident rates. As we continue to work toward our vision of fully self-driving vehicles that can take anyone from point A to point B at the push of a button, we’re thinking a lot about how to measure our progress and our impact on road safety. The most common accidents our cars are likely to experience in typical day to day street driving — light damage, no injuries — aren’t well understood because they’re not reported to police. Yet according to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) data, these incidents account for 55% of all crashes. It’s hard to know what’s really going on out on the streets unless you’re doing miles and miles of driving every day. And that’s exactly what we’ve been doing with our fleet of 20+ self-driving vehicles and team of safety drivers, who’ve driven 1.7 million miles (manually and autonomously combined). The cars have self-driven nearly a million of those miles, and we’re now averaging around 10,000 self-driven miles a week (a bit less than a typical American driver logs in a year), mostly on city streets. If you spend enough time on the road, accidents will happen whether you’re in a car or a self-driving car.[B] Over the 6 years since we started the project, we’ve been involved in 11 minor accidents (light damage, no injuries) during those 1.7 million miles [/B]of autonomous and manual driving with our safety drivers behind the wheel,[B] and not once was the self-driving car the cause of the accident[/B]. Lots of people aren’t paying attention to the road. [B]In any given daylight moment in America[/B],[B] there are 660,000 people behind the wheel who are checking their devices instead of watching the road[/B]. Our safety drivers routinely see people weaving in and out of their lanes; [B]we’ve spotted people reading books, and even one playing a trumpet[/B]. A self-driving car has people beat on this dimension of road safety. With 360 degree visibility and 100% attention out in all directions at all times Intersections can be scary places. Over the last several years, 21% of the fatalities and about 50% of the serious injuries on U.S. roads have involved intersections. And the injuries are usually to pedestrians and other drivers, not the driver running the red light. [B]This is why we’ve programmed our cars to pause briefly after a light turns green before proceeding into the intersection [/B]— that’s often when someone will barrel impatiently or distractedly through the intersection. Turns can be trouble. We see people turning onto, and then driving on, the wrong side of the road a lot — particularly at night, it’s common for people to overshoot or undershoot the median.[/QUOTE]

Yes, yes, yes, extol the virtues of the google car while completely ignoring the fact that, unlike real people's cars, this thing gets all the necessary maintenance on time. All the computers in the world will amount to fuck all when the neglectful owner never has the tires replaced or the brakes serviced.

[QUOTE=TestECull;47712482]Yes, yes, yes, extol the virtues of the google car while completely ignoring the fact that, unlike real people's cars, this thing gets all the necessary maintenance on time. All the computers in the world will amount to fuck all when the neglectful owner never has the tires replaced or the brakes serviced.[/QUOTE] And then the car promptly says "no, fuck you" when you try to go somewhere with it. As a car manufacturer, it is in your interest for your self driving car to not be involved in accidents. To that end, making the car mandate maintenance is the logical next step.

Reading "robots, however, follows the Rules of the Road" with R capitalized, makes it sound there are some robots ala Mad Max which step down from the vehicle and apply the "Rule of the Road".... With no mercy and remorse.

It does highlight the need for an automated car accident database because nobody is being transparent about these crashes to save face and I don't think they are inherantly unsafe but I'd rather not take googles word on what constitutes a minor scrape

Well yeah, expecting self driving cars to avoid accidents themselves as well as other drivers human error would be ridiculous

Self driving cars are going to be REALLY easy to troll aren't they......

but can it handle the two lane rotary in the legendary soccer mom district? I don't think anything, not even a robot will be able to survive that

[QUOTE]and even one playing a trumpet[/QUOTE] Fucking trumpet players

[QUOTE=Silence I Kill You;47712678]Self driving cars are going to be REALLY easy to troll aren't they......[/QUOTE] Just because they're automated doesn't mean there isn't anyone in them to kick your ass if you purposely fuck up their driving.

[QUOTE=Electrocuter;47712723]Just because they're automated doesn't mean there isn't anyone in them to kick your ass if you purposely fuck up their driving.[/QUOTE] They will be busy waiting for a cyclist who can't make up his mind while I drive my sports car away from him.

[QUOTE=Silence I Kill You;47712747]They will be busy waiting for a cyclist who can't make up his mind while I drive my sports car away from him.[/QUOTE] So you'd dangerously push past the indecisive cyclist? Just because the cyclist isn't being very courteous doesn't give you the right to put his life at risk.

[QUOTE=Silence I Kill You;47712747]They will be busy waiting for a cyclist who can't make up his mind while I drive my sports car away from him.[/QUOTE] Yeah, there's no way to ever improve programs.

[QUOTE=Silence I Kill You;47712678]Self driving cars are going to be REALLY easy to troll aren't they......[/QUOTE] not everyone thinks its funny to fuck with people though

[QUOTE=Roll_Program;47712766]And what would you do if you were driving a normal car? Dangerously push past the indecisive cyclist? Just because the cyclist isn't being very courteous doesn't give you the right to put his life at risk.[/QUOTE] Sure, because there are no possible ways to safely pass a cyclist without injuring anyone, besides exactly how the google car does it. It's amazing cyclists ever live through a single ride nowadays without google cars doing the passing.....

[QUOTE=Silence I Kill You;47712835]Sure, because there are no possible ways to safely pass a cyclist without injuring anyone, besides exactly how the google car does it. It's amazing cyclists ever live through a single ride nowadays without google cars doing the passing.....[/QUOTE] If you're just trying to shit on the concept of automated cars, good job, you failed to do that in a way that actually showed they're objectively incapable of doing tasks you deem easy.

[QUOTE=TestECull;47712482]Yes, yes, yes, extol the virtues of the google car while completely ignoring the fact that, unlike real people's cars, this thing gets all the necessary maintenance on time. All the computers in the world will amount to fuck all when the neglectful owner never has the tires replaced or the brakes serviced.[/QUOTE] Why would maintaining a self-driving car be any different from a normal one? Do you think people will just forget to maintain them? Or are you implying that most road accidents are caused by under-maintained cars?

This just proves that everyone around the self driving car doesn't follow the rules of the road

[QUOTE=Trumple;47712848]Why would maintaining a self-driving car be any different from a normal one? Do you think people will just forget to maintain them? Or are you implying that most road accidents are caused by under-maintained cars?[/QUOTE] Walk around a parking lot while looking at cars and you'll probably be pretty amazed at how many cars are driving on heavily worn tires, and that's one of the most obvious signs of wear on a car, without getting into stuff like worn brake pads or suspension geometry that people only notice when they fail catastrophically.

[QUOTE=Silence I Kill You;47712835]Sure, because there are no possible ways to safely pass a cyclist without injuring anyone, besides exactly how the google car does it. It's amazing cyclists ever live through a single ride nowadays without google cars doing the passing.....[/QUOTE] Ask any cyclist who uses roads and they will happily go on for hours about how fucking terrible most drivers are at avoiding them reasonably. Humans are just terrible at driving; we make dumb assumptions, rash decisions and are never as in control as we like to think (hence why we have so many assists today). A whilst it is early days, the Google Car software can already drive on par with a human in a large number of situations. With a bit more work it should handle all of the common ones with ease. You're in a multi-ton vehicle, you need to be more careful and courteous to those who are not surrounded by various safety measures and a few tons of steel. Zipping past a cyclist who has shown intent to change lane, then opted not to instantly is fucking stupid and puts lives at risk.

[QUOTE=TestECull;47712482]Yes, yes, yes, extol the virtues of the google car while completely ignoring the fact that, unlike real people's cars, this thing gets all the necessary maintenance on time. All the computers in the world will amount to fuck all when the neglectful owner never has the tires replaced or the brakes serviced.[/QUOTE] there are no ill-maintained cars on the road at all because everyone who owns a car not only knows how to drive it perfectly with no accidents but how to recognize and fix mechanical issues google cars might be the first instance in the history of humanity of a machine breaking down

[QUOTE=Silence I Kill You;47712678]Self driving cars are going to be REALLY easy to troll aren't they......[/QUOTE] yeah, and i'm sure the punishment for possibly risking someone's life for a "troll" will be perfectly fitting any idiot who thinks that's a good idea

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;47712845]If you're just trying to shit on the concept of automated cars, good job, you failed to do that in a way that actually showed they're objectively incapable of doing tasks you deem easy.[/QUOTE] I never tried to shit on anything. It's doing very fucking well for being the first automated car like this. I made a simple joke about how easy a car like this would be to troll, to which I got a reply about drivers still being there to "kick my ass" for messing up their driving. Well, if someone's going to "kick my ass", they better be able to catch me first, wouldn't you say?

[QUOTE=Silence I Kill You;47712678]Self driving cars are going to be REALLY easy to troll aren't they......[/QUOTE] What a great idea to do illegal things/'troll' near a robot that records everything it sees.

Driving recklessly risking the life of everyone around you - "just a prank guys".

[QUOTE=Zeke129;47712969]Driving recklessly risking the life of everyone around you - "just a prank guys".[/QUOTE] callinf Google cars the n word IN THE HOOD PRANK

[QUOTE=Silence I Kill You;47712939]I never tried to shit on anything. It's doing very fucking well for being the first automated car like this. I made a simple joke about how easy a car like this would be to troll, to which I got a reply about drivers still being there to "kick my ass" for messing up their driving. Well, if someone's going to "kick my ass", they better be able to catch me first, wouldn't you say?[/QUOTE] so not only do you think it's okay to fuck with people and troll people in traffic, you think it's acceptable to speed away from those situations? I hope you get your license revoked for a hit n run that doesn't hurt anyone because that's just wrong of you.

[QUOTE=Zeke129;47712880]there are no ill-maintained cars on the road at all because everyone who owns a car not only knows how to drive it perfectly with no accidents but how to recognize and fix mechanical issues google cars might be the first instance in the history of humanity of a machine breaking down[/QUOTE] I think you may have misread his post because he's arguing that the Google cars are working great because they're being serviced and maintained constantly, while cars actually out in regular driving conditions are typically under-maintained and that contributes to accidents. Which I'm pretty sure is an asspull considering how many accidents are caused by just straight-up negligence and incompetence, but at least understand the post you're mocking.

Man coming out of nightclub piss drunk, then calling your car to pick you up will end up the most lonely ride home ever.

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;47713121]so not only do you think it's okay to fuck with people and troll people in traffic, you think it's acceptable to speed away from those situations? I hope you get your license revoked for a hit n run that doesn't hurt anyone because that's just wrong of you.[/QUOTE] So where in any of this does it say that I'm ok with, or "condone" trollling traffic and speeding away from those situations? Honestly, this is stereotypical facepunch right here. Saying something automatically means you condone it 100%. Please, tell me more about who I am.