Driverless cars in New Zealand

Forums › Transport (cars, bikes and boats) › Driverless cars in New Zealand - thoughts?

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#1793032 1-Jun-2017 12:12

frankv:

I think that most NZ open road isn't good enough for self-driving cars; exceptions would be motorways and expressways. I'm not sure about city streets.

So you will still end up doing a lot of driving for years to come.

I'd like to think they're going to be an option for 'within the city limits' or on a few 'certified' major highways in the forseeable future.
Pass the sign that says "Autonomous vehicles" as you enter the motorway and press the "auto" button..

They're not going to tow your boat to the lake, take you to the beach bach, or drive along the beach to your favourite fishing spot anytime soon.
There'll still be a big market for 'normal' cars.

My daily driving's on gravel roads, with 3 dusty corduroy wheel tracks - an oncoming vehicle means leaving the shared centre one and drifting past each other in loose gravel - or goat tracks around washouts and mud puddles.
Possums are to be run over, the neighbours dog - not so much.. and a bunch of cows**t on the road means there's a herd of cattle just over the rise, easing through them without causing a stampede's a skill..
I can't ever see them working where I live.
Even in the city you'll still need a to be able to take them under manual control anytime your Lidar unit is damaged by hail or computer registers a sensor fault.

robjg63

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#1793041 1-Jun-2017 12:30

vexxxboy:

dclegg:

vexxxboy:

the reason i drive a car is because i enjoy it and i still dont trust what they will do in a life or death situation .

Once the AI is sufficiently advanced, they will do far better than the majority of humans on the road. Reaction times alone will be far superior.

dont care about reaction times , i mean what is the car programmed to do if a child or person runs out or an animal, who does it decide to save, if avoiding the person means you end up dead.

People make similar decisions - though less rationally. The argument is whether a machine has the right to make that decision. I guess the machine will do what the code tells it - so a human decided that.

The machine will still make it quicker (potentially saving lives) and I dont have an issue with that.

There is actually quick an interesting video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfRqNAhAe6c of a prototype Nissan Leaf driving itself. I think this will be the full 'self-drive' unit they hope to build. They mention that car has about 10 computers stacked in the car - at production that all disappears into 1 tiny unit. Watching the journey and what it is 'seeing' is actually pretty interesting. Its also very smooth.

Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself - A. H. Weiler

WyleECoyoteNZ

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#1793045 1-Jun-2017 12:34

vexxxboy:

dclegg:

vexxxboy:

the reason i drive a car is because i enjoy it and i still dont trust what they will do in a life or death situation .

Once the AI is sufficiently advanced, they will do far better than the majority of humans on the road. Reaction times alone will be far superior.

dont care about reaction times , i mean what is the car programmed to do if a child or person runs out or an animal, who does it decide to save, if avoiding the person means you end up dead.

This.

In an extreme example, 2 kids chase a ball into your lane, and there is only 1 of you in the car. What does the car do? Run over the 2 kids, or swerve into the other lane into the path of another vehicle? An extreme example, but one assume the car is programmed to deal with such scenarios.

The other point is as mention in the Herald article. Who is at fault in a crash?

And also as SideStep has mentioned, gravel\dirt country roads, are they able to cope?

Even, can they cope in the city? Let me explain, at night when it's been raining with the street lights and other motorists lights it difficult to see the lane marking on the hotmix road surface, then on top of that it the road marking have changed, and the previous road markings have been painted over, it's even more difficult. How would a self driving car cope then?

afe66

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#1793046 1-Jun-2017 12:38

Swerve into the other car which as inbuilt protections unlike the two kids.

I would thought that extra sensors which are better than the human eye would add to safety. ie LIDAR

Whos is at fault in any system goes wrong. Planes, manual cars, factory machinery. This isnt a new issue.

Batman

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#1793048 1-Jun-2017 12:39

if it comes with a race mode that would be good

Behodar

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#1793053 1-Jun-2017 12:48

robjg63: Also could have the big plus of people not actually needing to own their own cars. If you can just call up a 'taxi' that drives itself safely and drops you off wherever you need to go - why own a car?

Part of it's going to depend on cost. It only takes two minutes* to drive to work; would it be economic to hire a car over that distance? If everyone's hiring a car at the same time then what's the lead time between requesting it and it actually turning up? And, particularly for the return trip, will it be clean or will it still have a KFC wrapper in there from when Fred used it to get lunch?

*I should be walking, but that's beside the point...

MackinNZ

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#1793054 1-Jun-2017 12:49

Driverless cars don't have to be perfect, they just have to be better than us, which won't be hard, because on the whole, we're pretty crap at driving.

Many people hold the view that they wouldn't trust a computer to drive them, but actually, the computer will likely be a better driver than they are.

The Trolley Problem is constantly brought up in these discussions but really, the decision the computer has to make is no different to a human in the same circumstances.

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robjg63

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#1793057 1-Jun-2017 12:57

MackinNZ:

Driverless cars don't have to be perfect, they just have to be better than us, which won't be hard, because on the whole, we're pretty crap at driving.

Many people hold the view that they wouldn't trust a computer to drive them, but actually, the computer will likely be a better driver than they are.

The Trolley Problem is constantly brought up in these discussions but really, the decision the computer has to make is no different to a human in the same circumstances.

"Better than us" does it for me - that video link I posted above shows the car noticing things way before a person would normally notice them - I was quite impressed - Nissan says they expect it to be 'standard' on production cars around 2020. Not far away at all.

Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself - A. H. Weiler

ubergeeknz

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#1793067 1-Jun-2017 13:12

WyleECoyoteNZ:

In an extreme example, 2 kids chase a ball into your lane, and there is only 1 of you in the car. What does the car do? Run over the 2 kids, or swerve into the other lane into the path of another vehicle? An extreme example, but one assume the car is programmed to deal with such scenarios.

Stop safely. Because it already saw the children and the car and slowed down so it was ready to stop if they ran out.

MikeAqua

7785 posts

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#1793068 1-Jun-2017 13:13

WyleECoyoteNZ:

In an extreme example, 2 kids chase a ball into your lane, and there is only 1 of you in the car. What does the car do? Run over the 2 kids, or swerve into the other lane into the path of another vehicle? An extreme example, but one assume the car is programmed to deal with such scenarios.

The other point is as mention in the Herald article. Who is at fault in a crash?

With apologies to Isaac Asimov ...

A car should do it's utmost to protect its occupant(s) without making any pro-active choice that increases the danger to any person. It shouldn't run down one pedestrian to save three occupants, and it shouldn't kill the occupant(s) to save two kids who run onto the road.

I don't think we want auto cars taking evasive actions that involve leaving the road e.g. mounting the kerb. I don't think those situations are predictable enough for an AI to cope with. The AI should stay in its lane (unless another lane is free) and prepare to take its lumps.

A limitation of many of the collisions protection systems in a modern car (e.g. airbags) is their reactivity and inflexibility. They only deploy when the car hits something and they only deploy one way.

An AI will know a collision is coming and the characteristics of the impending impact. It could protect you pre-emptively and much more appropriately: Slow down as much as possible, pre-deploy air bags (external and internal), tension seatbelts, move headrests ... it could (almost literally) wrap you in cotton wool. The incidence of and consequences of accidents will be much reduced.

Mike

dafman

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#1793070 1-Jun-2017 13:16

I wonder what the impact of driverless technology will be on society?

I wonder what the most popular job was in each state of the US (in 2014)?

ubergeeknz

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#1793079 1-Jun-2017 13:30

MikeAqua:

An AI will know a collision is coming and the characteristics of the impending impact. It could protect you pre-emptively and much more appropriately: Slow down as much as possible, pre-deploy air bags (external and internal), tension seatbelts, move headrests ... it could (almost literally) wrap you in cotton wool. The incidence of and consequences of accidents will be much reduced.

This is understated. The possibility is there for the AI to even deploy external airbags, ie to protect pedestrians. The advances in safety possible when AI is controlling the vehicle's systems instead of a person with only two hands, two feet, and dealing with a panic response, is huge.

bluedisk

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#1793100 1-Jun-2017 13:57

Some things should never be connected to the internet like cars, fridges. ovens etc. Look at what happened to BA this week, a fault in their massively engineered multi- backed up computer system completely failed costing millions of pounds and disrupted the travel of millions of people.

What happens when a hacker decides that you are going in the wrong direction, or wouldn't it be fun to cause a crash? Sound far-fetched, I don't think so.

Basically we are being trained to accept technology taking over more of our lives and in the process doing away with heap of unskilled jobs.

Life is a daring adventure or nothing at all...

Coil

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#1793115 1-Jun-2017 14:14

MikeB4:

My thoughts are and probably wrong.....

1. It will be along time before the technology is ready for mainstream and has consumer acceptance.

2. It will be a very long time before they are at a price that will bring about general uptake.

3. They will be okay in large metropolitan centres and specialist applications but with NZ's makeup I cannot see them going much beyond there.

I think we will be seeing Driverless LineHaul sooner rather than later. Most likely before consumers see it in a car.

gzt

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#1793116 1-Jun-2017 14:15

Driverless cars are awaiting the development of AI capable of driving them.

The current 'race' to develop the 'driverless' technology is a bit of a goldrush.

Ie; small amount of gold, a lot of rush to stay ahead of the guy behind

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