Self-Driving Vehicles
11-13-17, 09:49 PM
#496
Lexus Fanatic
iTrader: (20)
i'm guessing you won't get a gig with the tourism promotion department. 
11-14-17, 01:08 AM
#497
Bit, have you ever been to NYC? You need to witness how traffic works around here. It's a very congested, busy city and the pedestrians, drivers, bikers and motorcyclists are all very aggressive and will take every inch of space that they can. I walk, drive and ride motorcrycle around the city almost daily, as well as use public transportation, and without aggression this city would be standing still. It can be very frustrating to navigate around the city using any mode of transport, but when you're navigating on foot it is by far the most frustrating. The blocks here are very short, and walking 10-20 blocks may seem like a very easy and convenient task but it isn't in reality. The sidewalks here are very crowded with hordes of slowpoke tourists from Wiscohiobraka that you have to elbow through, delivery men pulling carts with boxes and construction materials towards service entrances of skyscrapers, street food vendors and crowds around them, people glued to their phones, and everyone else in general. In general you encounter a red light as you approach the end of every short block, and nobody has the patience to wait for the light to change, especially considering the fact that weather around here is horrible, and its either super hot, super cold, raining, snowing or windy. Pedestrian and bicyclists don't pay any attention to the red light (or any other traffic signals/rules), they start crossing as soon as there is an opening in car traffic, and drivers have to be aggressive and advance towards them. If a driver shows hesitation or weakness, non stop hordes of people will start crossing the road in front of him, and not only in the crosswalks but in the middle of the block, etc. And right turns in NYC are simply impossible without some aggression and eye contact.
No manufacturer would ever program their autonomous car to drive aggressively, especially around pedestrians. If NYC dedicates a part of itself to self driving cars only, it better mandate it to be pedestrian and bicycle free as well, otherwise these cars wont move an inch during rush hour traffic.
No manufacturer would ever program their autonomous car to drive aggressively, especially around pedestrians. If NYC dedicates a part of itself to self driving cars only, it better mandate it to be pedestrian and bicycle free as well, otherwise these cars wont move an inch during rush hour traffic.
Yeah, you cannot negotiate a right turn without making eye contact with someone. The drivers just do their best to slowly make a path through the ped and bicycle traffic before they get caught at a red. Sometimes you just get stuck for another traffic cycle.
There are similar shades of this in certain parts of the dense Los Angeles but it's in the most tourist trafficked areas where you encounter it. Exactly the same as NYC in those spots of L.A. except it doesn't last for very many blocks. In NYC that's how it is nearly everywhere.
I think some of the auto-cars will be programmed for that slightly aggressive creep forward at barely 1mph *into* the pedestrian crowded intersections much in the same way most drivers there do it now. But without the eye contact from someone in control of the car (good point and reminder, Och) this will still be easier for them to ignore. Or maybe Och is right that even something as innocuous as a ridiculously slow creep into the intersection on a green with people still walking in your way as if you don't exist will be considered too much of a liability when it's not a human being doing it. But then we get into even more complexity and that's probably getting into the area of programs that remove cars from city centers.
Or... we just have auto-cars that creep forward and more or less achieve the same level of forward progress block by block in NYC that humans manage right now on their own with pedals and a steering wheel.
I have seen similar pedestrian and car patterns in Tokyo as well... only there the pedestrians tend to follow the traffic signals a LOT more than people in New York do. Still, you have massive numbers of people crossing all at once and that still takes time. Cultural differences in city traffic all over the world but the mutual understanding that you have to be a little aggressive no matter how you get around seems to be universal.
Some researchers and engineers on self-driving car programming and A.I. systems have noted that they need to code in a bit of aggressiveness just to allow their cars to navigate city traffic or merge into highway traffic but I wonder if the very ethos of self-driving cars as the most dominant form of conveyance is actually at odds with this very human and universal approach to how we assert our movements and intentions in order to get around without being walked over (figuratively) left and right.
And yet... these things will still have to interact with pedestrians, bicyclists, motorcyclists and human drivers who will still demonstrate this fundamental survival behavior.
Last edited by KahnBB6; 11-14-17 at 01:27 AM.
11-14-17, 06:09 AM
#498
Lexus Fanatic
iTrader: (20)
to answer your question och, yes i know exactly what manhattan's like, have been there a bunch. nice to visit. 
but like vegas, i'm exhausted after a couple of days.
maybe a self-driving car in nyc will have a way to make pedestrians get out of the way (noise, lights, pepper spray).
it's also possible that city cameras combined with facial recognition, phone tracking, etc., could make 'jay walking' an automatic pay for activity. so each time you block traffic crossing the road when you're not supposed to the city just takes $25 out of your pocket. that 10 block walk could become expensive.
again i still think a more likely scenario will be pedestrian only areas and car only areas. i haven't been in times square in a while, but if you can still drive in it that should be immediately stopped as it's a) so stupidly congested and b) and obvious massive terrorist risk.
so the chaotic car/pedestrian mess that is manhattan will be dramatically changed in time between politicians and tech.
but like vegas, i'm exhausted after a couple of days.maybe a self-driving car in nyc will have a way to make pedestrians get out of the way (noise, lights, pepper spray
).it's also possible that city cameras combined with facial recognition, phone tracking, etc., could make 'jay walking' an automatic pay for activity.
so each time you block traffic crossing the road when you're not supposed to the city just takes $25 out of your pocket. that 10 block walk could become expensive. again i still think a more likely scenario will be pedestrian only areas and car only areas. i haven't been in times square in a while, but if you can still drive in it that should be immediately stopped as it's a) so stupidly congested and b) and obvious massive terrorist risk.
so the chaotic car/pedestrian mess that is manhattan will be dramatically changed in time between politicians and tech.
11-14-17, 07:43 AM
#499
to answer your question och, yes i know exactly what manhattan's like, have been there a bunch. nice to visit. but like vegas, i'm exhausted after a couple of days.
maybe a self-driving car in nyc will have a way to make pedestrians get out of the way (noise, lights, pepper spray).
it's also possible that city cameras combined with facial recognition, phone tracking, etc., could make 'jay walking' an automatic pay for activity. so each time you block traffic crossing the road when you're not supposed to the city just takes $25 out of your pocket. that 10 block walk could become expensive.
but like vegas, i'm exhausted after a couple of days.maybe a self-driving car in nyc will have a way to make pedestrians get out of the way (noise, lights, pepper spray
).it's also possible that city cameras combined with facial recognition, phone tracking, etc., could make 'jay walking' an automatic pay for activity.
so each time you block traffic crossing the road when you're not supposed to the city just takes $25 out of your pocket. that 10 block walk could become expensive. again i still think a more likely scenario will be pedestrian only areas and car only areas. i haven't been in times square in a while, but if you can still drive in it that should be immediately stopped as it's a) so stupidly congested and b) and obvious massive terrorist risk.
so the chaotic car/pedestrian mess that is manhattan will be dramatically changed in time between politicians and tech.
so the chaotic car/pedestrian mess that is manhattan will be dramatically changed in time between politicians and tech.
11-14-17, 10:08 AM
#500
Lexus Champion
to answer your question och, yes i know exactly what manhattan's like, have been there a bunch. nice to visit. but like vegas, i'm exhausted after a couple of days.
maybe a self-driving car in nyc will have a way to make pedestrians get out of the way (noise, lights, pepper spray).
it's also possible that city cameras combined with facial recognition, phone tracking, etc., could make 'jay walking' an automatic pay for activity. so each time you block traffic crossing the road when you're not supposed to the city just takes $25 out of your pocket. that 10 block walk could become expensive.
again i still think a more likely scenario will be pedestrian only areas and car only areas. i haven't been in times square in a while, but if you can still drive in it that should be immediately stopped as it's a) so stupidly congested and b) and obvious massive terrorist risk.
so the chaotic car/pedestrian mess that is manhattan will be dramatically changed in time between politicians and tech.
but like vegas, i'm exhausted after a couple of days.maybe a self-driving car in nyc will have a way to make pedestrians get out of the way (noise, lights, pepper spray
).it's also possible that city cameras combined with facial recognition, phone tracking, etc., could make 'jay walking' an automatic pay for activity.
so each time you block traffic crossing the road when you're not supposed to the city just takes $25 out of your pocket. that 10 block walk could become expensive. again i still think a more likely scenario will be pedestrian only areas and car only areas. i haven't been in times square in a while, but if you can still drive in it that should be immediately stopped as it's a) so stupidly congested and b) and obvious massive terrorist risk.
so the chaotic car/pedestrian mess that is manhattan will be dramatically changed in time between politicians and tech.
11-15-17, 12:04 AM
#501
doesn't matter whether some are opposed or not, they're coming, and soon.
every manufacturer is working on it. major tech companies are working on it (intel, apple, google, ...). there's just too much money, momentum, tech advances, and brainpower working on it for it to not happen.
there's entire sections and artices of major media devoted to it.
https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...f-driving-cars
https://www.wired.com/tag/self-driving-cars/
https://www.wired.com/2016/12/google-self-driving-car-waymo/
https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science...ake-ncna819111
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/6...f-driving-car/
will there be setbacks, problems, accidents, political issues, hell protests? yes. some people still think humans didn't go to the moon and think nasa is a waste of money. well they're just wrong.
every manufacturer is working on it. major tech companies are working on it (intel, apple, google, ...). there's just too much money, momentum, tech advances, and brainpower working on it for it to not happen.
there's entire sections and artices of major media devoted to it.
https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...f-driving-cars
https://www.wired.com/tag/self-driving-cars/
https://www.wired.com/2016/12/google-self-driving-car-waymo/
https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science...ake-ncna819111
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/6...f-driving-car/
will there be setbacks, problems, accidents, political issues, hell protests? yes. some people still think humans didn't go to the moon and think nasa is a waste of money. well they're just wrong.
11-15-17, 04:36 AM
#502
Driver School Candidate
Join Date: Nov 2017
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What I think...
I don’t personally preffer self driving cars, as in like the car won’t need a driver. It ruins the whole point of “driving”. I do support cruise control because it can help when you’re in the freeway and the driver can still control the vehicle.
11-15-17, 08:05 AM
#503
Lexus Champion
100% agreed on New York traffic I don't see how an autonomous vehicle of any type could navigate for even for 5 minutes. Driving in NY requires being aggressive, you have to.
There is much truth here.
There is much truth here.
11-15-17, 08:25 AM
#504
Lexus Champion
It doesn't necessarily have to be an either/or scenerio as people are making it out to be, ie. worst case - best case outcomes. Like all tech there is likely going to be a kind of ramping up of the tech in small ways, then bigger and eventually more widespread.
Robo-trucks are already being tested on safe stretches of highway between Texas and California at this point already, making deliveries. They have human nannies monitoring them but the driving's all being done by the trucks themselves for the stretches between cities.
https://www.wired.com/story/embark-s...ck-deliveries/
No Manhattan may not get self driving cars mixing it up with human drivers and pedestrians, but that doesn't mean you can 't re-engineer you traffic lanes to allow for self drivers as a test to work out the details. At some point somebody is going to step up and take the plunge.
https://www.engadget.com/2017/11/14/...onsin-highway/
The problem with human drivers is human error. Car tech has advanced in magnitudes, while driving skills have declined precipitously. Take the human out of the equation and you have a different road environment. That aggressive tailgating speeder over here and the idiot over there cutting off people, doesn't factor into it anymore. That's probably the goal of traffic engineers and the self driving industry.
Think about any sort of light rail transit system you might have ridden on. The one in Vancouver has no "drivers", it's all automated. Controlled by humans in a control center somewhere while it rides on its own dedicated tracks. Airport shuttle trains run on their own dedicated track and take you from terminal to terminal with no driver on board. These are the small advances that are leading the way.
Robo-trucks are already being tested on safe stretches of highway between Texas and California at this point already, making deliveries. They have human nannies monitoring them but the driving's all being done by the trucks themselves for the stretches between cities.
https://www.wired.com/story/embark-s...ck-deliveries/
No Manhattan may not get self driving cars mixing it up with human drivers and pedestrians, but that doesn't mean you can 't re-engineer you traffic lanes to allow for self drivers as a test to work out the details. At some point somebody is going to step up and take the plunge.
https://www.engadget.com/2017/11/14/...onsin-highway/
The problem with human drivers is human error. Car tech has advanced in magnitudes, while driving skills have declined precipitously. Take the human out of the equation and you have a different road environment. That aggressive tailgating speeder over here and the idiot over there cutting off people, doesn't factor into it anymore. That's probably the goal of traffic engineers and the self driving industry.
Think about any sort of light rail transit system you might have ridden on. The one in Vancouver has no "drivers", it's all automated. Controlled by humans in a control center somewhere while it rides on its own dedicated tracks. Airport shuttle trains run on their own dedicated track and take you from terminal to terminal with no driver on board. These are the small advances that are leading the way.
11-15-17, 10:13 AM
#505
Lexus Fanatic
iTrader: (20)
great post mattyg 
another possibility is to use carpool / hov lanes for self-drivers
another possibility is to use carpool / hov lanes for self-drivers
11-15-17, 10:33 AM
#506
Driverless vehicle lanes on I-94 being studied for Foxconn
Related to Self-Driving Vehicles, some authorities and groups are investigating Driverless vehicle lanes. Another driverless lane is being considered between Seattle, Washington and Vancouver, British Columbia.
Source
Spurred by Foxconn Technology Group and its plans for a mega-factory in Racine County, state highway planners are studying the possibility of including special lanes for driverless vehicles on I-94.
Should that come to pass — and at this point it is only something being contemplated — it would put Wisconsin in the vanguard of what many believe will be a key part of transportation in the future.
Driverless cars have been developed and are being tested, but there are no highway lanes dedicated to so-called autonomous vehicles, a spokesman with the U.S. Department of Transportation said.
Word of the possible development here emerged Monday from Tim Sheehy, president of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, as he spoke at a meeting of the Greater Milwaukee Committee on the challenges the region faces in preparing for Foxconn.
Among those challenges are increased traffic and the problem of getting huge numbers of workers — Foxconn says it will employ as many as 13,000 — to a semi-rural area 8 miles west of downtown Racine and more than 20 miles from downtown Milwaukee.
But with state money earmarked to widen I-94 to eight lanes and plans in place to improve local roads, Sheehy said regional officials “thought we were ahead of the curve” on traffic issues.
Then they briefed Foxconn on the accomplishments.
“And we were all dumbstruck,” Sheehy said, “when they looked at us and said, ‘So where’s the autonomous vehicle lane?’”
As a result, he said, state transportation planners were asked to consider the possibility. The Department of Transportation is doing just that, a spokesman said Monday.
“Yes, it is something we are looking at,” said Michael Pyritz, spokesman for the department’s southeast region.
Pyritz said the process of evaluating and making final decisions on upgrades to I-94 and other roads near the planned Foxconn complex in Mount Pleasant “is a work in progress,” with many options being weighed.
“It’s on the table,” he said of dedicated lanes for driverless vehicles, “but boy, there’s a lot of stuff on the table.”
One possibility, Sheehy said, would be driverless lanes between the Foxconn plant and Milwaukee’s Mitchell International Airport as a way to move supplies and products to and from the factory.
Should that come to pass — and at this point it is only something being contemplated — it would put Wisconsin in the vanguard of what many believe will be a key part of transportation in the future.
Driverless cars have been developed and are being tested, but there are no highway lanes dedicated to so-called autonomous vehicles, a spokesman with the U.S. Department of Transportation said.
Word of the possible development here emerged Monday from Tim Sheehy, president of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, as he spoke at a meeting of the Greater Milwaukee Committee on the challenges the region faces in preparing for Foxconn.
Among those challenges are increased traffic and the problem of getting huge numbers of workers — Foxconn says it will employ as many as 13,000 — to a semi-rural area 8 miles west of downtown Racine and more than 20 miles from downtown Milwaukee.
But with state money earmarked to widen I-94 to eight lanes and plans in place to improve local roads, Sheehy said regional officials “thought we were ahead of the curve” on traffic issues.
Then they briefed Foxconn on the accomplishments.
“And we were all dumbstruck,” Sheehy said, “when they looked at us and said, ‘So where’s the autonomous vehicle lane?’”
As a result, he said, state transportation planners were asked to consider the possibility. The Department of Transportation is doing just that, a spokesman said Monday.
“Yes, it is something we are looking at,” said Michael Pyritz, spokesman for the department’s southeast region.
Pyritz said the process of evaluating and making final decisions on upgrades to I-94 and other roads near the planned Foxconn complex in Mount Pleasant “is a work in progress,” with many options being weighed.
“It’s on the table,” he said of dedicated lanes for driverless vehicles, “but boy, there’s a lot of stuff on the table.”
One possibility, Sheehy said, would be driverless lanes between the Foxconn plant and Milwaukee’s Mitchell International Airport as a way to move supplies and products to and from the factory.
11-15-17, 04:48 PM
#507
Lexus Champion
There will be a confluence of technologies that are going to change everything we know about conventional automotive infrastructure. Trucking may lead, since mass transit is already doing this. If you can automate the tedious task of driving a highway or delivery truck and combine that with electric technology, you've got something.
Elon Musk has his hands in many pies, and electric trucking is one of them. Given his somewhat questionable delivery on promises track record, it's not a done deal. But you can bet he's planted the seed of an idea with trucking companies, environmentalists and governments.
https://www.wired.com/story/teslas-e...veryone-elses/
If you don't know where this type of tech comes from, watch the numerous cockpit vidoes of the world's most advanced airliners which are capable of landing themselves with no intervention from their pilots. The Boeing 787 Dreamliner in the video below heads into a foggy Brussels airport and lands itself no problem. And you thought the pilots fly the approaches while you were eating your peanuts and drinking that small cup of ginger ale.
Elon Musk has his hands in many pies, and electric trucking is one of them. Given his somewhat questionable delivery on promises track record, it's not a done deal. But you can bet he's planted the seed of an idea with trucking companies, environmentalists and governments.
Whatever Musk’s solution is, the truck world isn't waiting to roll out electric truck designs of their own. Some are pure electrics for local deliveries to cut city pollution, some use hydrogen fuel cells, others crack the long distance issue with cables over the freeway that deliver electricity on the move. “You have different possibilities to feed the electric motor, from overhead contact lines, to inductive charging, to batteries, but the future is electric drive, definitely,” says Andreas Thon, vice president for electrification at Siemens. He’s running a trial on a congested section of street near the Ports of LA and Long Beach, in Southern California. In conjunction with the South Coast Air Quality Management District, Siemens has strung overhead cables above a one-mile section of highway, and they’re nearing the end of a six month trial involving three trucks that are adapted with overhead pantographs, like a street car, to grab power from the cables.
So far, Thon says, the results have been positive. Similar trials in Germany and Sweden have also gone well, and Siemens is hoping to propose a longer test route on the 710 freeway, which is wall-to-wall with trucks from those Californian ports to inland distribution centers.
So far, Thon says, the results have been positive. Similar trials in Germany and Sweden have also gone well, and Siemens is hoping to propose a longer test route on the 710 freeway, which is wall-to-wall with trucks from those Californian ports to inland distribution centers.
If you don't know where this type of tech comes from, watch the numerous cockpit vidoes of the world's most advanced airliners which are capable of landing themselves with no intervention from their pilots. The Boeing 787 Dreamliner in the video below heads into a foggy Brussels airport and lands itself no problem. And you thought the pilots fly the approaches while you were eating your peanuts and drinking that small cup of ginger ale.
11-15-17, 05:07 PM
#508
Lexus Fanatic
T
If you don't know where this type of tech comes from, watch the numerous cockpit vidoes of the world's most advanced airliners which are capable of landing themselves with no intervention from their pilots. The Boeing 787 Dreamliner in the video below heads into a foggy Brussels airport and lands itself no problem. And you thought the pilots fly the approaches while you were eating your peanuts and drinking that small cup of ginger ale.
If you don't know where this type of tech comes from, watch the numerous cockpit vidoes of the world's most advanced airliners which are capable of landing themselves with no intervention from their pilots. The Boeing 787 Dreamliner in the video below heads into a foggy Brussels airport and lands itself no problem. And you thought the pilots fly the approaches while you were eating your peanuts and drinking that small cup of ginger ale.
11-17-17, 11:34 AM
#509
Lexus Fanatic
That is, unless you support your family by driving a truck.
"Automation" doesn't excite me for this reason.
"Automation" doesn't excite me for this reason.
11-18-17, 01:27 AM
#510
Sigh...
If self-driving technology is getting as good as it truly needs to be then it should not require dedicated lanes to weed apart traffic. It should be robust enough to handle ALL driving conditions and scenarios, so this is not really necessary. Self-driving cars should be able to operate just fine alongside human driven cars. Traffic is not going to magically be solved or lessened by giving up the steering wheel. That might actually increase traffic over time.
Further, if driver distraction from portable devices and car infotainment systems are the huge problems that studies have already confirmed they are, why isn't there a more narrow "driver lockout mode" mandated for most or all of them, starting with our cellphones? So long as the tradeoff is voice commands and GPS systems that actually warns you ahead of an upcoming lane change with enough time to actually make that lane change safely before missing an exit... I've got zero issues with my phone's screen input and buttons not working while it can tell I'm driving. If we can design something as complicated and expensive (in the many tens of billions invested to date!) as truly human-free self-driving cars then we should be able to design and implement a lockout on devices a driver might be tempted to touch while driving a car rather easily... and still be able to differentiate when it's a passenger operating them.
Additionally, since drunk driving is the obvious problem that it has been since the dawn of the automobile, why don't we have standard breathalyzer ignition interlock devices in all new cars that are mandated just like airbags? Why? Again, if we can design Level 5 self-driving cars then we can design a more compact and passive alcohol detection/immobilizer system to nearly eliminate this enormous safety epidemic.
And you can add such ignition interlocks to older cars so as not to make any case that those older cars are a hazard since a drunk person could operate them.
Those two very obvious major safety issues are inexplicably not being addressed at this time and the only answer to solving them isn't necessarily driverless cars.
Nearly eliminating both would increase the safety of all drivers significantly in human driven cars. Perhaps that would make too much sense however. Or maybe it doesn't help the push for predominant self-driving cars if the standard list of criticisms against human driving is whittled down a bit.
If self-driving technology is getting as good as it truly needs to be then it should not require dedicated lanes to weed apart traffic. It should be robust enough to handle ALL driving conditions and scenarios, so this is not really necessary. Self-driving cars should be able to operate just fine alongside human driven cars. Traffic is not going to magically be solved or lessened by giving up the steering wheel. That might actually increase traffic over time.
Further, if driver distraction from portable devices and car infotainment systems are the huge problems that studies have already confirmed they are, why isn't there a more narrow "driver lockout mode" mandated for most or all of them, starting with our cellphones? So long as the tradeoff is voice commands and GPS systems that actually warns you ahead of an upcoming lane change with enough time to actually make that lane change safely before missing an exit... I've got zero issues with my phone's screen input and buttons not working while it can tell I'm driving. If we can design something as complicated and expensive (in the many tens of billions invested to date!) as truly human-free self-driving cars then we should be able to design and implement a lockout on devices a driver might be tempted to touch while driving a car rather easily... and still be able to differentiate when it's a passenger operating them.
Additionally, since drunk driving is the obvious problem that it has been since the dawn of the automobile, why don't we have standard breathalyzer ignition interlock devices in all new cars that are mandated just like airbags? Why? Again, if we can design Level 5 self-driving cars then we can design a more compact and passive alcohol detection/immobilizer system to nearly eliminate this enormous safety epidemic.
And you can add such ignition interlocks to older cars so as not to make any case that those older cars are a hazard since a drunk person could operate them.
Those two very obvious major safety issues are inexplicably not being addressed at this time and the only answer to solving them isn't necessarily driverless cars.
Nearly eliminating both would increase the safety of all drivers significantly in human driven cars. Perhaps that would make too much sense however. Or maybe it doesn't help the push for predominant self-driving cars if the standard list of criticisms against human driving is whittled down a bit.
Last edited by KahnBB6; 11-18-17 at 01:41 AM.