First driverless cars allowed on roads this year

My Honda Civic has almost killed us 2x with automatic emergency braking.
I’m getting to the stage now where I’m going to start turning it off.
 
jsmoke said:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-56906145.amp

I can't imagine how they are ready for this, I thought you'd need a dedicated lane and how will they handle AI and location. They can't be using Google maps surely?
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If the were using Apple maps, all the test cars would have gotten lost already.

Will never work around here as only the Departmental roads have a full set of markings. My local roads are gravel over tar and edged by ditches or banks.
 
Imagine your driving down a narrow street with cars parked at both sides, the carnage!

Or driving under a railway bridge, or potholes, so many scenarios.
 
Begbie said:
Not really, most accidents happen at 30mph. So if it can prevent a load of them. Plus surely it has to start somewhere?
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I'd have thought starting it on the motorways would be easiest, nice open clearly defined lanes, nowhere near the number of obstacles you find in 30 zones, no narrow lanes, no parked cars. I don't think UK towns and cities are anywhere near ready for driverless cars.
 
200sols said:
I'd have thought starting it on the motorways would be easiest, nice open clearly defined lanes, nowhere near the number of obstacles you find in 30 zones, no narrow lanes, no parked cars. I don't think UK towns and cities are anywhere near ready for driverless cars.
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I suppose the chance of failure at lower speeds means less likely chance of fatalities?
 
system will rely on confirming driver is alert from eye tracking too, from earlier dft consultation - with the software upgrade for mask wearing.

Not sure I'd want to use the system on the A10, the car is unlikely to avoid the pot-holes.
 
200sols said:
I'd have thought starting it on the motorways would be easiest, nice open clearly defined lanes, nowhere near the number of obstacles you find in 30 zones, no narrow lanes, no parked cars. I don't think UK towns and cities are anywhere near ready for driverless cars.
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Well, UK towns and cities aren't anywhere near to being ready for driver-cars but that hasn't stopped drivers.
You just have to observe a bit to see how readily car drivers currently:
  1. drive too fast especially down rat-races (pretty sure that on one 'short-cut' near me over 90% of the traffic going through there has no real business there).
  2. bully pedestrians by
    • crossing pavements,
    • turning in and out of side roads,
    • using roundabouts at great speed even in central locations. I often see - especially elderly - pedestrians waiting for ages near roundabout trying to cross.
  3. and so on
to realise that far too many drivers simply don't care about anything but themselves.

CaptainRAVE said:
Can’t be worse than many of the drivers I come across on my daily commute.
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Yes, people keep going on about how impossible driverless cars will be, but wordwide over 1.4 million people are killed each year by cars and other vehicles.

Per capita fatalities in the UK are a lot less, but at least some of that it can be argued is due cars having scared away pedestrians and cyclists.

So few children are allowed to go outside these days.

EDIT: there are actually many far simpler devices which would improve road safety but which the car lobby resists. Like
  • Enforced automatic speed limits
  • A black box in all cars so that each collision (euphemistically usually called 'accident') gets investigated and possible the driver prosecuted
  • Remove driver's ability to accelerate like crazy.
 
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It's very much needed, and a great first step. We have to start somewhere. You simply can't go from nothing to a perfect system in one go.

Considering the diabolical drivers we have on the roads today, the sooner the better!

Maybe it's just where I live, but I see people doing very dangerous things most days. It wasn't that long ago I witnessed someone stop at a green light, to only then go through at red. Last week some idiot decided to park his car in the middle of a road for 2 hours lol.
 
200sols said:
^ People seem oblivious to the fact the UK has some of the safest roads anywhere.
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Well, I am not the only one to think that motorist suppress other users from walking/cycling etc:
KompuKare said:
Per capita fatalities in the UK are a lot less, but at least some of that it can be argued is due cars having scared away pedestrians and cyclists.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repor...pression_of_activity_by_vulnerable_road_users
Suppression of activity by vulnerable road users
Another independent report challenged the government's claim that falling casualty rates meant that roads were becoming 'much safer'. Mayer Hillman, John Adams and John Whitelegg suggest that roads may actually be felt to be sufficiently dangerous as to deter pedestrians from using them. They compared rates for those whose transport options are most limited, the elderly and children and found that:[27]
  • Britain's child pedestrian safety record is worse than the average for Europe, in contrast to the better than average all-ages figure.
  • Children's independent mobility is increasingly curtailed, with fear of traffic being cited as a dominant cause
  • Distances walked have declined more than in other European countries
  • Similar (though less well-defined) observations can be made regarding the elderly
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The two things are not mutually exclusive: low road casualties can be because drivers are safe, or because pedestrians have been suppressed and modern cars are actually quite well designed so that the occupants survive 'accidents'.

But a few minutes spent with Google Streetview in random locations in NL, DK, etc. shows that towns and cities are a lot more pleasant to walk over there.

Even places like Spain and Portugal have zebra crossing at their roundabouts.
 
It's quite predictable they the reason given is to improve safety. But it will inevitibly result on a loss of personal freedom long term. It's a slippery slope away from personal vehicle ownership and away from being legally allowed to drive your own vehicle.
 
Who is responsible when one goes wrong and crashes? AVs have run in wall because they cant figure out how to make them handle certain situations, which are trivial for a person but not a machine. Also they are super vulnerable to being hacked with simple stuff like fake road signs (what happens when someone sticks a stop sign on the back of their car?).

But yes its yet another path to something fun being killed off in the name of health and safety.

If they want to make the roads safer they should start by ditching "smart" motorways and a lot of the distractions such as the millions of cameras...
 
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Nasher said:
Who is responsible when one goes wrong and crashes? AVs have run in wall because they cant figure out how to make them handle certain situations, which are trivial for a person but not a machine. Also they are super vulnerable to being hacked with simple stuff like fake road signs (what happens when someone sticks a stop sign on the back of their car?).

But yes its yet another path to something fun being killed off in the name of health and safety.
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Well I would guess the driver is responsible and probably you will have a warning about this as well.
 
CaptainRAVE said:
Can’t be worse than many of the drivers I come across on my daily commute.
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When I'm driving my pickup I seem to be a target on the dual carriageway for people who seem to be using adaptive cruise control or something, possibly other stuff like lane assist as well. I not infrequently get people sitting way to close on my tail obviously their attention mostly off the road taking a phone call or eating, etc. with the vehicle far too precisely adjusting to my speed changes to not be a computer in control. Then if I speed up to overtake something instead of smoothly following on as other drivers do they speed up, slow down (or hit a threshold and stop speeding up), speed up, slow down before the driver reacts to the situation.

How anyone is dumb enough to think that a good idea boggles my mind.
 
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