Robocars - Autonomous Drive, Self-driving, Driver-less cars

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

That's where I was going with the 'control traction' bit but yeah I've seen drivers just jump on the accelerator too so that's a handy one... like this bus driver carrying us to Ghent...

And this is a "professional" driver, carting 70 people around in a huge vehicle.. fucking it up in a frickin' carpark.

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.

And this is a "professional" driver, carting 70 people around in a huge vehicle.. fucking it up in a frickin' carpark.

I have little doubt that machines can drive cars better than "average" drivers but that still does not make accidents "impossible".

Why is the car travelling at 100km/h on a road with high numbers of pedestrians on "a crowded walkway" alongside?

The car might not know.

Indeed... It just would not happen. In any area where there are peds autonomous cats would actually stick to a speed limit which they could come to a stop from in the shortest possible distance. Unlike humans.

On top of this, as Hippy said, these cars will all talk to each other, a bit like a company of soldiers all marching off together or stopping together, autonomous cars will be able to read the road tens of meters, kms even, ahead of their current position.

These cars already have sensors designed to know exactly what is around them. They adjust to their surroundings.

Of course accidents are unavoidable but they will be reduced by considerable factors.

Yes, people will still die. Tough shit - people still need to get around.
The point is FAR FEWER will die with computer controlled drivers.

It's not about reaction time though, which the human is already inferior at, the car already has data on possible movement from the pedestrian on the footpath. It could be detecting a ball in motion from much further away than a human is paying attention to and already be feeding this back to all the other cars so everything is ready to avoid the possibility of a kid running out in the road.

ABS is computer controlled. My point exactly. It's better to let a car's systems manage emergency braking. Now imagine if you can also remove the possibility of the driver stomping on the accelerator or doing anything else stupid.

I don't do 'math'.

Did I say accidents would be made impossible?

I said the complete opposite in fact so don't quote your lies.

"Lose a few people in the name of progress - who cares! Get me robocars!"

The point is, it does know and unlike a typical cager it won't prioritise getting to the McDonalds drive-thru over the lives of other citizens.

It seems probable to me that, at some point, a human will do something unpredictable (possibly on purpose) that will cause an unavoidable accident. With trillions of mile driven every year I don't see why it is unlikely that there is at least one incident where there is potential injury to one party or another and the action of the car will define which get injured.

Of course. But this happens ALL THE TIME now.

Removing most of the problem, ie. human error when driving and you reduce massively the accidents and costs of accidents.

"More than 90 percent of road accidents are caused by human error."

http://www.alertdriving.com/home/fleet-alert-magazine/international/human-error-accounts-90-road-accidents

Dude... This already happens multi times every hour around the world. What's your point? That it will still happen with robot cars? It might, but it'll happen only rarely rather than the whole fookin time.

I don't see why it is unlikely

Yeah, it's not. EdZ is just making it sound as though that's what we're saying.

What we're actually saying is that it'll be a hell of a lot less likely, so we breathlessly await the Coming Of Our Robocar Overlords.

Edit: the other two got there first. I bet they are ACTUAL ROBOTS and that's how they did it so fast.

• Nearly 1.3 million people die in road crashes each year, on average 3,287 deaths a day.
  
• An additional 20-50 million are injured or disabled.
  
• More than half of all road traffic deaths occur among young adults ages 15-44.
  
• Road traffic crashes rank as the 9th leading cause of death and account for 2.2% of all deaths globally.
  
• Road crashes are the leading cause of death among young people ages 15-29, and the second leading cause of death worldwide among young people ages 5-14.
  
• Each year nearly 400,000 people under 25 die on the world's roads, on average over 1,000 a day.
  
• Over 90% of all road fatalities occur in low and middle-income countries, which have less than half of the world's vehicles.
  
• Road crashes cost USD $518 billion globally, costing individual countries from 1-2% of their annual GDP.
  
• Road crashes cost low and middle-income countries USD $65 billion annually, exceeding the total amount received in developmental assistance.
  
• Unless action is taken, road traffic injuries are predicted to become the fifth leading cause of death by 2030.
  
  

http://asirt.org/Initiatives/Informing-Road-Users/Road-Safety-Facts/Road-Crash-Statistics

I agree. But the question is still there, what do you program the car to do?

Problem is, once you program a specific action some people will wish to hold you accountable for that action, no matter how unfair.

I'm like you, I can't wait for the driverless revolution.

I'm not comparing the situations, it's a no brainier having autocars.

Yeah, it's not. EdZ is just making it sound as though that's what we're saying.

I think i have missed the central point of this argument.

Why do i even bother, my only point is that situations such as this

are, in my opinion, likely to happen. So, what do you program the car to do? Me asking that question does not = me arguing against the development of driverless cars.

I thought that bothwell/hippy were constructing an argument that these situations were unlikely but they seem to be saying that they were of no consequence (in the grand scheme of things (which I agree with)). I try not to read what EdwardZ writes.

I think the car should be programmed to blow itself up in a controlled explosion that takes out the car itself and all of the people in a 0.5 mile radius, as a compromise.

Then just erase all lost from history, rope off the site and never speak of it again.

Unless I'm close, then its save me first, everything else 2nd

Or at least to have the ability to do a jump.

Seriously though... the best thing to do in nearly all of the cases above is to do an emergency stop in a straight line. Attempting to corner will cause a loss of control and in all cases may end up a lot messier than just putting the brakes on and hitting people at a reduced pace.

Not even a super wicked hand break turn. If you pull the hand break turn any survivors will think you are pretty cool, or at least your car is.

people will wish to hold you accountable for that action

I came here to say exactly this. The issue is blame, if someone gets killed/hurt by an autonomous car (and I fully believe it will happen) then where does the blame lie and how does the company who produced the car deal with it? What should the car be programmed to do?
I don't know what the answer is but I think the answer will be standard across autonomous vehicles

Volvo have upset the software engineers by saying that they will be to blame if their vehicles hit someone.

http://www.theverge.com/2015/10/7/9470551/volvo-self-driving-car-liability