Author Topic: Autonomous vehicles.  (Read 53551 times)

Jocko

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Re: Autonomous vehicles.
« Reply #15 on: November 21, 2017, 05:53:08 PM »
Motorways are the safest roads in the country. Of the 2173 miles in the UK, Scotland has just under 160 miles. The worst roads for road deaths are single carriageway. Most of Scotland's main trunk routes are single carriageway. The Highlands have the worst winter weather, miles between settlements and no other way to get about except by road. Summer sees these same roads choked with foreign coaches and tourists. I don't think Scotland's drivers are any better or worse than the rest of the UK. It is just that we have such a poor road system. Some roads in Scotland are terrible for accidents, especially involving tourists, and a road closure to deal with it can mean a 150 mile detour.
It is not all shortbread and Bonnie Prince Charlie.

Jocko

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Re: Autonomous vehicles.
« Reply #16 on: November 23, 2017, 07:02:11 AM »
Singapore has announced it will introduce driverless buses by 2022, albeit in three new neighbourhoods which will have less-crowded roads designed to accommodate the buses. From what I remember of Singapore this will be like "Croydon" instead of "Central London". I think they will need Mad Max to do the programming.
It was 50+ years ago I was working out there, but the traffic was total mayhem, with Raffles Square like the Daytona 500. The only time the cars go slow are when the F1 GP is in town!

culzean

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Re: Autonomous vehicles.
« Reply #17 on: February 25, 2018, 03:38:48 PM »
I have been watching a series on National Geographic channel covering air crash investigations and a frightening trend is emerging, once the autopilot disables itself when a sensor fails or other control system incident the modern pilots seem incapable of flying the plane manually - strangely they were not taught to do it in training WTF.    I would call them plane minders rather than pilots - one standout case was Air France flight 447 from Argentina to Paris in an AirBus A330 airliner - they flew through a storm and the pitot heads sensors got coated with ice and the planes computer lost its airspeed inputs so the autopilot disengaged itself.  The two man crew (senior officer was asleep  having a mandatory rest period after about 5 hours of flying into an 11 hour flight).  The one pilot immediately put the plane onto full engine power and into a climb,  which in thin air at 35,000 feet and a full fuel load was not a good idea, the stall alarm sounded and both controls sticks began to shake which is done by control system when stall alarm goes off to warn pilots physically what is happening - the co-pilot tried to push stick forward to gain airspeed and stop the stall but the aircraft was confused by conflicting control inputs,  the crew were not watching altimeter which would have shown them plane was pointing upwards but falling towards the ocean at about 2,500 feet per minute,  by the time the senior captain had been woken up and assessed the situation the plane was only a few thousand feet above ocean and too far gone to recover,  the plane pancaked into the ocean at about 200mph in the middle of Atlantic killing everyone.   I think once humans lose the skills for driving they will be in bad shape if things go wrong with computers, and we will all be at the mercy of technology controlled by a few huge global tech companies.  Hacking of systems will be a daily occurrence , the only saving grace with road vehicles they wont fall out of the sky.
Some people will only consider you an expert if they agree with your point of view or advice,  when you give them advice they don't like they consider you an idiot

Beaver

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Re: Autonomous vehicles.
« Reply #18 on: February 25, 2018, 06:57:49 PM »
With passenger airliners, the perfect crew is a pilot and a dog.

The pilot is there to feed the dog.
The dog is there to bite the pilot if he touches anything.

Jocko

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Re: Autonomous vehicles.
« Reply #19 on: March 19, 2018, 06:05:53 PM »
Uber have suspended test of self driving cars in the US after a pedestrian was killed in an accident in Arizona. The only saving grace is they will have more data than an airliner's black box.

culzean

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Re: Autonomous vehicles.
« Reply #20 on: March 19, 2018, 06:46:06 PM »
Uber have suspended test of self driving cars in the US after a pedestrian was killed in an accident in Arizona. The only saving grace is they will have more data than an airliner's black box.

Apparently there was a tech in the car, watching a Harry Potter video on his laptop......
Some people will only consider you an expert if they agree with your point of view or advice,  when you give them advice they don't like they consider you an idiot

sparky Paul

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Re: Autonomous vehicles.
« Reply #21 on: March 19, 2018, 07:04:10 PM »
Uber have suspended test of self driving cars in the US after a pedestrian was killed in an accident in Arizona. The only saving grace is they will have more data than an airliner's black box.

I wonder how many pedestrians were killed today by cars with drivers?  :-X

culzean

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Re: Autonomous vehicles.
« Reply #22 on: March 19, 2018, 07:08:06 PM »
Uber have suspended test of self driving cars in the US after a pedestrian was killed in an accident in Arizona. The only saving grace is they will have more data than an airliner's black box.

I wonder how many pedestrians were killed today by cars with drivers?  :-X

You mean by one of the 99.9% of human drivers in the world,  the reason it makes the news when a robot car goes wrong is that there are not many of them.  One fatality per 100 million miles for cars driven by humans in USA.

Not even safe if you are on a crossing controlled by a red light  maybe Uber did not want to install a colour camera.
Some people will only consider you an expert if they agree with your point of view or advice,  when you give them advice they don't like they consider you an idiot

Jocko

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Re: Autonomous vehicles.
« Reply #23 on: March 19, 2018, 07:25:07 PM »
when a robot car goes wrong
That's an assumption that's not yours to make. I had a pedestrian run into my front wing at 30 mph. 0.1 of a second quicker and he would have been in front of the car and probably dead. There are also reports of people running in front of driverless test cars then starting litigation. Perhaps the pedestrian miscalculated.
Quote
Apparently there was a tech in the car, watching a Harry Potter video on his laptop......
That is just a libellous statement. Unless you can prove otherwise? Google certainly doesn't report that anywhere I can find. Seemingly it was a Tesla driver who crashed while watching Harry Potter on his laptop. Well reported on the internet.

sparky Paul

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Re: Autonomous vehicles.
« Reply #24 on: March 19, 2018, 07:38:38 PM »
I wonder how many pedestrians were killed today by cars with drivers?  :-X

You mean by one of the 99.9% of human drivers in the world,  the reason it makes the news when a robot car goes wrong is that there are not many of them.  One fatality per 100 million miles for cars driven by humans in USA.

Not even safe if you are on a crossing controlled by a red light

maybe Uber did not want to install a colour camera.

I couldn't find a tongue-in-cheek emoji.  ;)

I'm not sure what the total number of miles racked up by autonomous vehicles is so far, but imho it's unreasonable to expect them to never be involved in a fatal accident. As unfortunate it is for the pedestrian, and undoubtedly embarrassing for the designer and operator of the car, it is essential to establish the cause before jumping to any conclusions. If the cause is a vehicle or system defect, this will have to be addressed and proven safe.

It's funny you should mention the red light video, I watched a Transit tipper go straight through a red light as I was negotiating a junction yesterday. Human driver, well he looked almost human.

Jocko

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Re: Autonomous vehicles.
« Reply #25 on: March 19, 2018, 09:32:33 PM »
I'm not sure what the total number of miles racked up by autonomous vehicles is so far
Waymo had racked up 4 million miles about 6 months ago, and Uber had covered 2 million to December.
My comment about aircraft black box was appropriate. The NTSB, who investigate air crashes of US carriers or US manufactured aircraft, are investigating the crash

Jocko

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ColinB

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Re: Autonomous vehicles.
« Reply #27 on: March 20, 2018, 07:44:03 AM »
http://fortune.com/2018/03/19/uber-self-driving-car-crash/
At the risk of speculating on a preliminary report without the full facts, that report shows all the hallmarks of “spin” on someone’s part. So the pedestrian came out of the shadows and couldn’t be avoided ? But isn’t the hype about AVs supposed to be all about them being safer than human drivers ? I could believe a human would have had difficulty seeing someone in poor light, but surely the car’s lidar sensors aren’t affected by shadows, and aren’t they supposed to be constantly scanning for hazards ? Notice also it passes lightly over the fact that the car was speeding. If it had been within the speed limit perhaps the outcome would have been different. And what difference does it make if the victim is homeless, this is totally irrelevant to the incident so why mention it ? If the report of the facts is accurate then this still looks like something the car ought to have been able to avoid even if the human couldn’t, it all looks like a sad and shameless attempt to gloss over the shortcomings of the AV by discrediting and blaming the victim.
« Last Edit: March 20, 2018, 08:49:22 AM by ColinB »

ColinS

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Re: Autonomous vehicles.
« Reply #28 on: March 20, 2018, 08:09:13 AM »
I agree with Colin's comments.  Whats more, the statement "“The driver said it was like a flash, the person walked out in front of them,” Moir said. “His first alert to the collision was the sound of the collision.”" is contradictory.  How did the driver know that the victim walked out if their first alert was the collision itself? 
« Last Edit: March 20, 2018, 08:17:29 AM by ColinS »

Jocko

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Re: Autonomous vehicles.
« Reply #29 on: March 20, 2018, 08:42:39 AM »
The full facts will come out eventually. In fairness, if you read the report, the driver didn't say "first alert was the collision itself". The driver said "it was like a flash, the person walked out in front of them". It was the police chief who said "first alert was the collision itself". Regarding the homeless bit, that is the paper adding its comment. Not having a home doesn't make you invisible. Until the NTSB makes its report, all the rest is speculation.

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