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#16
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Self-driving Uber kills Arizona woman in first fatal crash involving pedestrian
On Wed, 21 Mar 2018 09:41:43 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote: In message , Char Jackson writes: [] Uber Trucking has a good initial approach. A human drops off a semi trailer at a hub near the edge of a city, then an Uber truck is hooked up. The Uber truck takes the trailer to the next city or across the country, where it's once again dropped off at a trucking hub and a human takes it into the city. Out on the highway, there's still a human in the truck, but he or she is there just in case, not as a primary driver. Isn't that just a variation on rail freight? OK, it's more flexible in terms of being able to set up new "railheads", and there isn't as much time spent building up trains (though if it takes off I can see "road trains" as in Australia being pushed), but the principle isn't that different as I see it. No disagreement here, but a country like the U.S. isn't going to make it on rail freight alone. We don't have the infrastructure for that, and likely never will. What we do have is a decent highway system. OK, it's crumbling due to neglect, but that can be fixed. They apparently just need to build a wall first. They'll get to the highways and bridges sometime after that. ;-) |
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#17
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Self-driving Uber kills Arizona woman in first fatal crash involving pedestrian
"Mayayana" on Wed, 21 Mar 2018 09:11:50
-0400 typed in alt.windows7.general the following: If you do favor auto-driven cars.... why? So you can safely diddle your phone on your way to work? Because you don't want to have to bother to drive? Because you don't want to deal with other people on the road? What rational reason is there, after all, to have auto-driven cars? Same reasons exist as to why have someone else drive the car. One less skillset to master, _I_ do not have to worry about finding parking, "Tony" can get me home when I'm too "tired and emotional" to be safe on the streets. And while Tony drives, I can "diddle" the Times, the Daily Fishwrap, the Fizzbean Prospectus. Or I can say my prayers, read a book, take a nap, have a cup of coffee. Or because I can't drive, due to sensory issues, age issues, etc, etc. For whatever reason I might not be safe on the roadways with a car. What we've seen happening over the last decades is the replacement of humans with 'robots'. Robots "type" my papers, check my spelling, will check my grammar (for some values of "checking"), etc, etc,. The whole "smart house" Smart 'things', Internet of things, we've now got 'bots to replace the hired help. And still, as it always was - it is so hard to get good help. That is why I would like to see autonomous cars. So that "someone else" can drive me & the missus to the gym on our schedule. Sure we can take the bus - it's only an hour and a half trip and a 55 minute wait before the class. We don't really have that much else we consider is important, which we wanted to do today, right? But I agree - these are the teething problems of a new technology. And it is so hard to get good help these days. tschus pyotr -- pyotr filipivich Next month's Panel: Graft - Boon or blessing? |
#18
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Self-driving Uber kills Arizona woman in first fatal crash involving pedestrian
On Tue, 20 Mar 2018 20:03:17 -0400, Keith Nuttle
wrote: [snip] While there is currently great enthusiasm for auto driving vehicles I am afraid the complexity of the system is more than current technology can handle. Getting the first bits is easy. Getting it all is much more difficult. We have already seen a death where the automated system did not understand that it was looking under the truck, and the human occupant was killed. It will be difficult for the software to be designed to make the reaches that are slightly beyond the facts. And the driver was not doing his job. Having one's hands on steering wheel is rather basic. Many automated devices allow a person to pay less attention. Where attention is then required to handle an emergency, trouble may ensue. When you are in a car and not the driver, do you pay as much attention to the road? I doubt it. (I do not either.) I had one case where I was driving a company vehicle and my supervisor queried me about a turn I had just made. It was a perfectly legal turn. What my non-driver supervisor was not aware of is that the road had been redone and there were now two turning lanes. I was in the new one. He did not have to know or even pay attention, but I did and had. One of the problems that I see is a simple one. Yes the car will slow down and stop in traffic, but what will be used to increase the speed as traffic thins. What will trigger start ups after it stops in stop-and-go traffic? Greater distance between the vehicle and the one in front. Oh, but what if it is the first car in line? While in some places the placement of traffic lights are somewhat standardize, will a auto car be able to find the traffic light in all occasions? What about the stop sign that is mostly hidden by vegetation, will it recognize them. Not a fair question. Some people might not be able to see them. How will it be able to detect a person directing traffic? Could be a policeman, but could be a construction worker of a civilian directing traffic around an accident. Or a prankster. The beginning and ending of speed zones will also be a problem, There are several places I drive where there is a sign as you come into a small community, but none after you leave the area for 10 miles, Will the self driving car know it is suppose to return to the default speed limit after passing through the community. Good one. The same applies after a construction zone. Since some highways have varying speed limits, this is not trivial. What if a regular speed change sign is within the construction zone? It should get ignored until the "Thank You Resume Speed" sign whereupon the regular speed is that new speed (and not actually resuming the previous speed). Yes Garmin shows speed limits but there are times when the posted speed limits are different than what Garmin shows. How will the auto car no the difference. For that matter, I do not know how to handle signs of the form speed X unless otherwise posted. (I just called the police to find out.) What about a brand new highway that has just opened. Last summer we drove for 20 miles on a newly opened high ways that completely confused the Garmin. Will a self driving car be able to handle that situation? If it follows instructions as given by the system I used on one rental, it would have multiple opportunities to drive off the road. I sure did. These are just few common situations that I have encountered. Until these are reliably resolved, I will put my auto driving car in the garage next to my flying car. Remember when we got those about 50 years ago. What about the Segeway that was going to revolutionize transportation. The owner of the company went off a cliff in one. Wrong kind of difference. There is more to driving than start, stop, and staying in the lane. Quite. Sincerely, Gene Wirchenko |
#19
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Self-driving Uber kills Arizona woman in first fatal crashinvolving pedestrian
Paul wrote on 3/21/2018 6:35 AM:
Keith Nuttle wrote: On 3/20/2018 7:08 PM, Char Jackson wrote: On Tue, 20 Mar 2018 15:12:19 -0600, Jeff Barnett wrote: Char Jackson wrote on 3/20/2018 10:07 AM: On Tue, 20 Mar 2018 19:53:13 +0800, "Mr. Man-wai Chang" wrote: Self-driving Uber kills Arizona woman in first fatal crash involving pedestrian https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/19/uber-self-driving-car-kills-woman-arizona-tempe [multiple groups removed] AFAIK, the facts are still being gathered, but I'd be curious to know how many pedestrians were killed by human drivers over the same period. If it's more than 1, which I'm assuming is the case, then I'm not alarmed by this incident other than having sympathy for the deceased and her family. Initial reports said she was crossing the street, but not in or near a crosswalk, so I wonder if it would have made a positive difference if a human had been driving. I hope testing doesn't get curtailed by this incident. I believe the number last year was 6000. The real question is how do auto driven car accident statistics compare with human drivers. The Uber accident was not necessarily the car/drivers fault. A woman was walking a bicycle and started to cross the street, not in the crosswalk, and was hit just as she went into the street. The car was traveling around 40-45mph. In other words, it was HIGHLY likely she didn't look before crossing. The municipal police are still investigating and certainly have not assigned any blame yet. In fact they have speculated that this might be one of those where no primary blame is asserted. As someone else said: You should be wary and afraid of those automated vehicles. But you should be god-awful more afraid of all those idiots out there jacking off with their smart phones while driving. My personnel bet is that 5 years from now we will see self drive cars doing spectacularly better than human drive cars - better safety, better millage, faster trips - and still a bunch of idiots (the same ones who opposed autopilots and computer assisted landings for planes) bitching about the supremacy of human drivers, vinyl records, doctors reading x-rays, etc, etc, etc. I'm with you 100%. From everything I've read, the technology is coming along much faster than I would have ever thought. There are two major hurdles that I see. The first, of course, is the technology itself. We already have anti-lock brakes, lane departure warnings, adaptive cruise control, blind spot monitors, and automatic parallel parking, oh and 360-degree virtual overhead view on the dashboard stitched together from multiple exterior cameras, on virtually all new vehicles. ICBW, but I think all of those things are mandated by 2020. With that much automation already in place, it's a logical (but difficult) next step to stitch it all together and make it work without significant human intervention. The second hurdle is the transition period, where semi-autonomous vehicles are forced to share the world with us humans. We're the weakest link by far, so the sooner we can get the humans out of the picture the better off we'll be. If people insist on playing with Facebook while they drive, let them play on Facebook while the car drives itself. Uber Trucking has a good initial approach. A human drops off a semi trailer at a hub near the edge of a city, then an Uber truck is hooked up. The Uber truck takes the trailer to the next city or across the country, where it's once again dropped off at a trucking hub and a human takes it into the city. Out on the highway, there's still a human in the truck, but he or she is there just in case, not as a primary driver. While there is currently great enthusiasm for auto driving vehicles I am afraid the complexity of the system is more than current technology can handle. We have already seen a death where the automated system did not understand that it was looking under the truck, and the human occupant was killed. The occupant of that vehicle (Model S), insisted a Level 2 design drive at Level 5. Here's the new DMV written test for Model S [potential] owners. 1) In your Model S, you can be Â*Â* a) Drunk and slumped over asleep, in the driver seat. Â*Â* b) Playing Nintendo while the car drives me home. Â*Â* c) Driving with my hands on the wheel, in case I need to take over. If you don't answer "C", you can't get your plates for your Model S. The Model S has a camera and a radar system (no Lidar). If the software had paid attention to the radar a bit more, the car might have stopped in time. From what I read, she was hit just after stepping in the street by a car gin a legal 45mph. That doesn't sound like lack of driver or computer attention or lack of reflexes. I await a full investigation by LEOS, technologist, and pseudo pundits (the media). Let's hope they get their facts straight. Let us also hope that somewhere along the line we get comparison statistics between human and automation. https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/11/te...model-s-crash/ -- Jeff Barnett |
#20
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Self-driving Uber kills Arizona woman in first fatal crash involving pedestrian
On Wed, 21 Mar 2018 08:47:33 -0400, Keith Nuttle wrote:
What ever the licensing requirement the software must be capable of Correctly analyzing the situations I mentioned in my post, plus a million other situations that do not have yes/no answers. No it just has to be better than the average human. This leads to a reduction in accidents/deaths on the road. |
#21
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Self-driving Uber kills Arizona woman in first fatal crashinvolving pedestrian
Mayayana wrote on 3/21/2018 7:11 AM:
"Jeff Barnett" wrote | As someone else said: You should be wary and afraid of those automated | vehicles. But you should be god-awful more afraid of all those idiots | out there jacking off with their smart phones while driving. | I hope you're not referring to me. I referred to the phone problem in the time zone thread. Not in particular - I don't recall reading the "time zone" thread. What I said above, my pseudo quote, has been said in one way or another by almost every rational observer of the of the evolving technology and its inherent problems. The capabilities of average human beings in most areas is rather pathetic and only awesome in a few. Chess was once considered to be a test of intelligence but many 1960s computer players could beat 98% of all humans. So was the computer intelligent? No. We decided that chess wasn't a good test. Auto drivers will soon be much better than we are; it's silly to not believe that. Yet we still think we are superior, but not for long. We neither have the attention span, reflexes, or the scene recognition speed and accuracy to compete (a few years from now). I for one will be happy to see texting drivers, road rage idiots, etc, removed from car control. Hence my pseudo quote. -- Jeff Barnett |
#22
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Self-driving Uber kills Arizona woman in first fatal crashinvolving pedestrian
On 3/21/2018 1:41 PM, Wolf K wrote:
On 2018-03-21 13:17, Gene Wirchenko wrote: [snip interesting discussion] Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* Good one.Â* The same applies after a construction zone.Â* Since some highways have varying speed limits, this is not trivial.Â* What if a regular speed change sign is within the construction zone?Â* It should get ignored until the "Thank You Resume Speed" sign whereupon the regular speed is that new speed (and not actually resuming the previous speed). [...] AHA! The speed limit/change signs will have to be "live", and transmit the data to the car. IOW, the (car+driver) is part of a system. When the driver is not human, the highway has o be adapted to it. Best, This will take years, and a lot of money which many governments organizations do not have. Even then what will happen when the Live speed sign is vandalized, hit by a car, or a deer is standing where the car can not communicate with the sign -- 2018: The year we learn to play the great game of Euchre |
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Self-driving Uber kills Arizona woman in first fatal crash involving pedestrian
On Wed, 21 Mar 2018 09:11:50 -0400, Mayayana wrote:
What rational reason is there, after all, to have auto-driven cars? Safety. |
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Self-driving Uber kills Arizona woman in first fatal crash involving pedestrian
On Wed, 21 Mar 2018 14:03:22 -0400, Keith Nuttle
wrote: On 3/21/2018 1:41 PM, Wolf K wrote: On 2018-03-21 13:17, Gene Wirchenko wrote: [snip interesting discussion] ***** Good one.* The same applies after a construction zone.* Since some highways have varying speed limits, this is not trivial.* What if a regular speed change sign is within the construction zone?* It should get ignored until the "Thank You Resume Speed" sign whereupon the regular speed is that new speed (and not actually resuming the previous speed). [...] AHA! The speed limit/change signs will have to be "live", and transmit the data to the car. IOW, the (car+driver) is part of a system. When the driver is not human, the highway has o be adapted to it. Best, This will take years, True. Most prognosticators that I've read are saying it will take 2-5 years for fully autonomous cars to be roaming among us. That's years, but not a lot of years. and a lot of money which many governments organizations do not have. I haven't seen anything that puts a financial burden on governments. So far, it's private industry that's funding the bulk of the R&D. Obviously, they hope to gain in the long run. That includes Google, Uber, Toyota, Nissan, Tesla, and probably a few I'm forgetting. Even then what will happen when the Live speed sign is vandalized, hit by a car, or a deer is standing where the car can not communicate with the sign Exactly the same thing that happens when a human driver encounters such a thing, except that the computer will analyze the situation and make a decision much faster than humans can. |
#25
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Self-driving Uber kills Arizona woman in first fatal crash involving pedestrian
On Wed, 21 Mar 2018 10:17:52 -0700, Gene Wirchenko
wrote: On Tue, 20 Mar 2018 20:03:17 -0400, Keith Nuttle wrote: [snip] While there is currently great enthusiasm for auto driving vehicles I am afraid the complexity of the system is more than current technology can handle. Getting the first bits is easy. Getting it all is much more difficult. We have already seen a death where the automated system did not understand that it was looking under the truck, and the human occupant was killed. It will be difficult for the software to be designed to make the reaches that are slightly beyond the facts. And the driver was not doing his job. Having one's hands on steering wheel is rather basic. Many automated devices allow a person to pay less attention. Where attention is then required to handle an emergency, trouble may ensue. When you are in a car and not the driver, do you pay as much attention to the road? I doubt it. (I do not either.) I had one case where I was driving a company vehicle and my supervisor queried me about a turn I had just made. It was a perfectly legal turn. What my non-driver supervisor was not aware of is that the road had been redone and there were now two turning lanes. I was in the new one. He did not have to know or even pay attention, but I did and had. One of the problems that I see is a simple one. Yes the car will slow down and stop in traffic, but what will be used to increase the speed as traffic thins. What will trigger start ups after it stops in stop-and-go traffic? Greater distance between the vehicle and the one in front. Oh, but what if it is the first car in line? Exactly the same as you do now. You evaluate the information available to you and respond accordingly. The beginning and ending of speed zones will also be a problem, There are several places I drive where there is a sign as you come into a small community, but none after you leave the area for 10 miles, Will the self driving car know it is suppose to return to the default speed limit after passing through the community. Good one. The same applies after a construction zone. Since some highways have varying speed limits, this is not trivial. What if a regular speed change sign is within the construction zone? It should get ignored until the "Thank You Resume Speed" sign whereupon the regular speed is that new speed (and not actually resuming the previous speed). From what I've read, all current testing has abandoned the notion of driving according to pre-loaded maps, including pre-loaded speed zones. Think Garmin, for example. Instead, they've moved to an adaptive system that is closer to how humans do it: pay attention to the surroundings, including informational road signs, and respond accordingly. Yes Garmin shows speed limits but there are times when the posted speed limits are different than what Garmin shows. How will the auto car no the difference. See above. The auto car will read the road signs. For that matter, I do not know how to handle signs of the form speed X unless otherwise posted. (I just called the police to find out.) Unless you're a brand new teenage driver, I'd say that's a troubling admission. Most towns in the US seem to use that system, so surely you've seen it numerous times. What about a brand new highway that has just opened. Last summer we drove for 20 miles on a newly opened high ways that completely confused the Garmin. Will a self driving car be able to handle that situation? If it follows instructions as given by the system I used on one rental, it would have multiple opportunities to drive off the road. I sure did. They no longer use preloaded maps. Instead, they use sensors to drive where the road goes, just like us humans do. |
#26
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Self-driving Uber kills Arizona woman in first fatal crash involving pedestrian
In message , Char Jackson
writes: On Wed, 21 Mar 2018 14:03:22 -0400, Keith Nuttle wrote: On 3/21/2018 1:41 PM, Wolf K wrote: [] The speed limit/change signs will have to be "live", and transmit the data to the car. [] I haven't seen anything that puts a financial burden on governments. So The above would. Not just the cost of the signs, but their supporting infrastructure, and its and their maintenance. Even just the cost of the wire, in some areas, would not be insignificant. far, it's private industry that's funding the bulk of the R&D. Obviously, they hope to gain in the long run. That includes Google, Uber, Toyota, Nissan, Tesla, and probably a few I'm forgetting. Even then what will happen when the Live speed sign is vandalized, hit by a car, or a deer is standing where the car can not communicate with the sign Exactly the same thing that happens when a human driver encounters such Good point. a thing, except that the computer will analyze the situation and make a decision much faster than humans can. -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf Of course some of it [television] is bad. But some of everything is bad - books, music, family ... - Melvyn Bragg, RT 2017/7/1-7 |
#27
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Self-driving Uber kills Arizona woman in first fatal crash involving pedestrian
On Wed, 21 Mar 2018 11:39:35 -0600, Jeff Barnett wrote:
From what I read, she was hit just after stepping in the street by a car gin a legal 45mph. That doesn't sound like lack of driver or computer attention or lack of reflexes. I wonder if she saw the lidar on top of it and thought 'it's one of those computer cars, it'll stop if I step out in front of it'. Unfortunately since she didn't survive we will never know. -- Faster, cheaper, quieter than HS2 and built in 5 years; UKUltraspeed http://www.500kmh.com/ |
#28
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Self-driving Uber kills Arizona woman in first fatal crash involving pedestrian
On Wed, 21 Mar 2018 21:12:12 +0000 (GMT), "Rodney Pont"
wrote: On Wed, 21 Mar 2018 11:39:35 -0600, Jeff Barnett wrote: From what I read, she was hit just after stepping in the street by a car gin a legal 45mph. That doesn't sound like lack of driver or computer attention or lack of reflexes. I wonder if she saw the lidar on top of it and thought 'it's one of those computer cars, it'll stop if I step out in front of it'. Unfortunately since she didn't survive we will never know. Right, there's no way to know for sure. But lots of us have a very good guess: no, she didn't. I'm not a gambling man, but I'd put money on that. |
#29
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Self-driving Uber kills Arizona woman in first fatal crash involving pedestrian
On Wed, 21 Mar 2018 17:59:45 +0000, mechanic
wrote: On Wed, 21 Mar 2018 08:47:33 -0400, Keith Nuttle wrote: What ever the licensing requirement the software must be capable of Correctly analyzing the situations I mentioned in my post, plus a million other situations that do not have yes/no answers. No it just has to be better than the average human. This leads to a reduction in accidents/deaths on the road. Not necessarily. One issue is that people do not know how these cars will react. If they are supposedly better but cause accidents ostensibily by motorists but actually caused to due unpredictable actiions, there might be more accidents overall. They would then be a net minus. Parts of systems interact. Just looking at one part is not enough. Sincerely, Gene Wirchenko |
#30
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Self-driving Uber kills Arizona woman in first fatal crash involving pedestrian
On Wed, 21 Mar 2018 14:03:22 -0400, Keith Nuttle
wrote: [snip] This will take years, and a lot of money which many governments organizations do not have. Even then what will happen when the Live speed sign is vandalized, hit by a car, or a deer is standing where the car can not communicate with the sign True. It is bad enough when snow covers the sign so it can not be read. I have encountered this many times in British Columbia, Canada. Sincerely, Gene Wirchenko |
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