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Sensors connected to brakes. Cars stop.
They stop much quicker than humans operating car brakes.
Apart from spotting the hazard earlier, they can control traction and communicate the hazard to other vehicles, preventing other injuries.
hippy-
They stop much quicker than humans operating car brakes.
They also don't panic and stamp madly on all the pedals, mix the pedals up entirely, or thrash the steering wheel around wildly to swerve all over the road.
But it's so daaaaaaaaaaaangerouuuuuuuuuus
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They stop much quicker than humans operating car brakes.
Yes but still limited by the same Newtonian physics. Total breaking distance is reduced but not to ZERO. While the reaction distance would be shorter (but still not more than 0.75 seconds shorter than an average adult driver) the braking distance can't change much. The system can also optimize but they are already doing that and today's ABS do a very good job of getting around user sub-optimization. Back to the calculation... A motorcar going 100 kmh on a road will need (using the standard traffic code coefficient), at least on average, 59 meters to stop under ideal conditions (dry road etc.). That is too much to "avoid an accident". We can also work back and determine the distance to be rear-ended etc.. Anyway you do the math it ends up with a pile-up.
bothwell
EdwardZ
And how is a self-driving car to "avoid" contact? Or are they fair game--- objects to sacrifice to save itself and other autonomous vehicles on the road? A child, for example, runs out into a two lane road with cars speeding along in both directions and people crowded on the walkway..