Thread: Autonomous Vehicles

Originally Posted by tact

“The trouble with leaving a 2sec gap is when others dive in...”



Presumably an autonomous vehicle with today’s tech will leave a bit more of a gap and not have a mitigation strategy that get precious about others possibly diving in (ie no closing up the gap to keep others out, with retaliatory horn strikes when the competitive strategy fails)

maybe in future an an autonomous vehicle can collaborate with the vehicle(s) in front (where similarly equipped) and rocket along safely with millimetres of gap.

That would be fine if they were on a road with them only.Or for trains on a track.
It will never work on roads as they are now.
Who is going to fund the building of these new roads just for autonomous vehicles?
Or maybe an extra lane in some areas?

There is no money around now to even maintain the existing road system,yet alone upgrade it.

Originally Posted by tact

Presumably an autonomous vehicle with today’s tech will ...... not have a mitigation strategy that get precious about others possibly diving in (ie no closing up the gap to keep others out, with retaliatory horn strikes when the competitive strategy fails).

When people dive in it creates a dangerous situation. Technically, the preferred response is to gently apply the brakes. The problem with that is that there is no educational component, and it leads to even more diving in, and hence dangerous situations. Until the government starts doing its job properly and starts addressing critical safety issues like this the task is in the hands of individuals.

Originally Posted by scarry

That would be fine if they were on a road with them only.Or for trains on a track.
It will never work on roads as they are now.
Who is going to fund the building of these new roads just for autonomous vehicles?
Or maybe an extra lane in some areas?

There is no money around now to even maintain the existing road system,yet alone upgrade it.

None of this is really that difficult to solve. Seeing that many big city cars already carry transponders (for toll roads) it's no big stretch of the imagination to think that soon all vehicles will have to carry them as part of their registration. That way every AV will know when a vehicle piloted by a squishie is invading their space and they'll act accordingly. Non tagged (ie unregistered) vehicles can be herded into the gutter by drone cop cars and subsequently towed away.

People here may passionately hate the idea but tracking everyone and everything in real time is what the future holds for us plebs. It's already started with sheep:

How ear tags are transforming the sheep and goat industry - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

The usa government hacked into a iranian nuclear facility and made it self destruct.

Cyberwarfare is considered one of the biggest threats to the world.

We should enact the precautionary principle. We should look at the likely positives and negatives of putting vulnerable technology into play and be confident it is worth it before we do it.

Think about all the things in your life that are very reliable and fine enough as they are, like household doorknobs and light switches, zips on jackets, manual automotive bonnet releases, etc. Think about just how many of such things there are in your life. Then think about them all becoming much less reliable, more complex, more expensive to buy, more expensive to fix, vulnerable to software issues, updates or hacking. Life would become a long winded nightmare.

Autonomous cars sound like a long winded nightmare.

Originally Posted by rammypluge

When people dive in it creates a dangerous situation. Technically, the preferred response is to gently apply the brakes. The problem with that is that there is no educational component, and it leads to even more diving in, and hence dangerous situations. Until the government starts doing its job properly and starts addressing critical safety issues like this the task is in the hands of individuals.

Or we change the road rules, toss out that book full of confusing rules and have just one rule, the one as practiced in Malaysia: "Me First"

Let me explain... In Malaysia there is a book full of road rules and its not much different to Australian or British road code. Knowledge of this code is tested, much as in Oz et al. But in practice what you get on the roads is just one rule in force - me first. And it WORKS! (Mostly, until some polite bugger from overseas actually gives way to some innocent unsuspecting local who is totally unprepared for this and an accident ensues!)

"Me First" functions as per its surprisingly unrefined and simple naming suggests... just one clarification is needed: Whilst everyone strives for "me first" the one who actually goes first is the one who's nose is in front.

e.g. We are in vehicles merging.
- It does not matter who is on the right or left, or even if one of us is not even in an actual marked lane (no one pays any notice to road markings anyway),
- If the chrome on my bumper is even micromillimetres ahead of any portion of your vehicle as we creep (or race) forwards, each trying to assert our "me first", just one paint thickness before we collide you will back off and I go first. I was, afterall, in front of you. So I go first.

"Me first" does away with any preciousness around people barging in to your 2-5 second safe space. In fact it demands you be prepared for such a thing happening as a matter of course. Being therefore prepared for this happening there is no risk around the actions of the barger-in.... the only risk of an accident sits with the one being barged in upon. (i.e. if they didn't observe one simple qualification to "me first" which is "who is in front")

First step, what are their accident statistics versus ours?

Originally Posted by rammypluge

First step, what are their accident statistics versus ours?

them: 1 kanagroo, 1 cyclists
me: never had an at fault accident.

Maybe the "me first" rule works in Malaysia, but I don't think it is as clear cut as you suggest.

If two vehicles are approaching a merging point at different speeds, the slower one could be in front at one moment and a split second later, the faster one will be in front.

So you not only have to decide who was in front; you also have to decide the precise moment in time when the relative positions of the two vehicles will be determined.