http://www.umich.edu/~umtriswt/PDF/UMTRI-2015-34_Abstract_English.pdf

 

http://www.umich.edu/~umtriswt/PDF/UMTRI-2015-34_Abstract_English.pdf

Only first page is showing.

I also do not believe that all the data is in since the google at, at least, is required to have a human behind the wheel at all times. That makes it a computer assisted car. There is one report that blames one accident on the human's interference/intervention when it was not needed, however, there are no reports (that I've seen) of accidents that the human prevented.

 

Only the Abstract is currently on-line.

http://gizmodo.com/study-humans-driving-cars-are-more-likely-to-hurt-othe-1739440432
http://www.roboticstrends.com/article/are_self_driving_cars_more_or_less_crash_prone/news

If the cars just follow the speed limit and the most basic of safety rules they will be better than some humans.

Typical LA traffic day.
http://ktla.com/2015/10/30/person-a...eway-sign-following-griffith-park-area-crash/

 

USA Today article
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2015/10/31/study-self-driving-cars-accidents/74946614/

 

Lots of research going on for the self driving car. Some happening right here in Pittsburgh. My co-worker's nephew is the wrench for one of the projects here.

Will we see a real self driving car in our life time? I just don't see it outside of experimentation under controlled conditions. When humans drive it is amazing the number of seemingly simple decisions we make that would be extremely complex for a computer to perform.

Encounters with flagmen or police directing traffic for example. The police might direct you into a lane that might have normally been an on coming lane. Or perhaps a road that had an unscheduled closure. A sign is posted. The human reads the sign and makes a simple adjustment to his route.

I just can't see the computer being able to recognize these cues and then be able to react to them appropriately.

Perhaps it would work in a closed system like a campus but I just don't see the self driving car going out into the real world. At least not for some time to come.

A self driving flying car might actually be easier to implement.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...ts-featuring-driverless-pods-smart-roads.html

 

http://www.computerworld.com/articl...-as-clever-as-you-think-says-toyota-exec.html

Pratt explained what researchers already know but perhaps others don't: Autonomous cars look great in controlled environments but soon fail when faced with tasks that human drivers find simple.

 

Meh. It's just code and sensors. Computers will be better than humans, because they don't get bored and they don't nod off. Will they hit more deer? Maybe, in the first few years. But what kills people is drunkeness and being asleep. It's not usually about solving complex pattern recognition problems, it's about being there.

 

http://www.mercurynews.com/peninsula/ci_29110712/mountain-view-google-self-driving-car-pulled-over

In a blog post, the Mountain View Police Department said the officer noticed traffic backing up behind a slow-moving car in the eastbound No. 3 lane, near Rengstorff Avenue.

The vehicle was traveling at 24 mph in a 35 mph zone.

 

http://www.mercurynews.com/peninsula/ci_29110712/mountain-view-google-self-driving-car-pulled-over

This brings up an interesting topic. Assuming the occupants have no control over the vehicle other than giving it a destination, who will be responsible for traffic violations? A common one will most likely be speed issues but I imagine other violations will be possible. Who will be at fault? The manufacturer? Who will be at fault in the event of an acident?

 

This brings up an interesting topic. Assuming the occupants have no control over the vehicle other than giving it a destination, who will be responsible for traffic violations? A common one will most likely be speed issues but I imagine other violations will be possible. Who will be at fault? The manufacturer? Who will be at fault in the event of an acident?

The CEO.

 

The CEO.

The lab rats who tampered with the software.......................

 

The lab rats who tampered with the software.......................

Actually, in the end, the shareholders. Figuratively and literally.

 

Actually, in the end, the shareholders. Figuratively and literally.

Speaking of which................lately; lots of adverts on the radio for very attractive terms on approved used VW cars.

 

If self driving cars can eliminate the need for a human driver, then most jobs now performed by humans can also be done by robotics.

If most humans can be replaced by robots, people will become economically extinct and there will be one hell of an overpopulation problem.

 

Actually, in the end, the shareholders. Figuratively and literally.

And the rest of us. In the end it will be all about insurance, and Warren Buffet will make sure that HE isn't the one to lose out. Those of us that pay premiums will absorb the risk of whatever is on the road.

I think I predicted earlier in this thread that a day will come when the insurance companies will demand that you don't interfere with the automatic drive computer, because the risk is higher.

 

Whoever makes the automatic drive control will need a load of product liability insurance.

My suggestion to who ever is developing automatic drive control is to sell their design and patents to the automakers who already carry a huge amount of product liability insurance.

That way, Google (or who ever else is pursuing the driverless car technology) can wash their hands of liability, take the profits, and fly like a lark.

By the way, I believe the buyer's share of the auto manufacturer's liability insurance is now over $1000 per vehicle.

 

Will we see a real self driving car in our life time?

it will have disadvantages because driver will lose his job.

 

My suggestion to who ever is developing automatic drive control is to sell their design and patents to the automakers who already carry a huge amount of product liability insurance.

Wow. It's impressive that you are in a position to make such a suggestion. What'd they say?

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-into-driverless-cars-and-exposing-a-key-flaw

The glitch?

They obey the law all the time, as in, without exception. This may sound like the right way to program a robot to drive a car, but good luck trying to merge onto a chaotic, jam-packed highway with traffic flying along well above the speed limit. It tends not to work out well. As the accidents have piled up -- all minor scrape-ups for now -- the arguments among programmers at places like Google Inc. and Carnegie Mellon University are heating up: Should they teach the cars how to commit infractions from time to time to stay out of trouble?


“It’s a constant debate inside our group,” said Raj Rajkumar, co-director of theGeneral Motors-Carnegie Mellon Autonomous Driving Collaborative Research Lab in Pittsburgh. “And we have basically decided to stick to the speed limit. But when you go out and drive the speed limit on the highway, pretty much everybody on the road is just zipping past you. And I would be one of those people.”
...
They’re usually hit from behind in slow-speed crashes by inattentive or aggressive humans unaccustomed to machine motorists that always follow the rules and proceed with caution.


“It’s a dilemma that needs to be addressed,” Rajkumar said.

How do you program self driving cars to break the law just a little bit to increase safety or at least drive like humans that take small risks daily while driving? How can a machine cope with the imperfections of humans in a uncontrolled environment.

Google is working to make the vehicles more “aggressive” like humans -- law-abiding, safe humans -- so they “can naturally fit into the traffic flow, and other people understand what we’re doing and why we’re doing it,” Dolgov said. “Driving is a social game.”

I would love to see all law-abiding, safe humans driving but we all know there is a sizable percentage of drivers that most of us can spot subconsciously as cars to avoid or watch for stupid moves in traffic. Bad driver detection would seem to an important area to research.

 

Here's the problem: The owner of the self driving car will still be liable for accidents.

That's basic "Tort Law" which defines liability for the manufacturer of products and their owners and users.

Elevators are self operating vehicles and the passengers (and the owner of the building where the elevator is installed) have little or no control over the details of their operation.

However, the owner of the building is still liable to be sued for personal injuries due to alleged malfunction of the elevator. In many cases, the elevator manufacturer and the service contractor take the brunt of the damages, however the building owner can (and often does) get dragged into the legal fray.

The same legal jurisprudence used to assess liability for building owners for elevator accidents will also apply to the owners of self driving cars.