Confirmed: Driverless cars to hit actual British roads by end of year Driverless cars will hit the streets of Britain by the end of this year, the government has confirmed. In a briefing document titled Action for Roads, the Department for Transport confirmed that Oxford University boffins will start trials of autonomous cars later this year. The scheme to take the human element out of motoring …
If only there was some way to make it fully automated on motorway / dual carriages. But then leave the driver fully in control in more built up or rural areas.
This would make long journeys easier e.g I had to drive from Maidstone to Preston the other day - M20 - M25 - M1 - M6. If the car could have done the main bulk of that for me it would have made life easier.
+1 for that. In addition, all of my driving delays are from people rubber necking accidents on the motorway. Although this doesn't guarantee these particularly mentally deficient individuals wont drop out of auto-pilot to gawp, it might at least reduce this particular plaque on the roads.
Definitely more use for Motorways than smaller roads- the idea of a driverless car trying to manage the tricky etiquette of negotiating oncoming tractors on wiggly, muddy, single track roads with passing places would require a degree of hard AI that I fear is a considerable distance into the future. Also the car would be hard pressed to perform the single finger wave ( not that one ) of understated greeting applied in these circumstances.
"the idea of a driverless car trying to manage the tricky etiquette of negotiating oncoming tractors on wiggly, muddy, single track roads with passing places would require a degree of hard AI that I fear is a considerable distance into the future."
The problem I have with that is that if a car can't handle that sort of situation, I wouldn't trust it to drive in any situation.
I feel the AI needs to be better than a human in ALL driving circumstances before it can be let loose on its own...
When it takes 5 years just to make a stretch of existing motorway a "managed motorway" - in other words put up some CCTV cameras and build a few refuges so the hard shoulder can be used - then 2040 seems woefully optimistic to get affordable fail-safe fully autonomous vehicles designed, tested and into production, and make all the legal and infrastructure changes necessary.
I thought Audis had taken over from BMWs in the last few years?
Anyway, I drive an old but high end BMW (bangernomics yay!) and a similar spec Audi. I let people out at junctions just to confuse them.
Personally I find its not the make of the car but the proximity to large cities that seems to determine the quality of the driving. Closer = More aggressive.
"Personally I find its not the make of the car but the proximity to large cities that seems to determine the quality of the driving. Closer = More aggressive."
Not all cities, Bristol is pretty chilled out, driving wise. As you go down the M4, the general standard of driving gets worse as you go east.
"Anyway, I drive an old but high end BMW (bangernomics yay!) and a similar spec Audi. I let people out at junctions just to confuse them."
Me (although in a little A3 cab) too ! I stopped for a cyclist yesterday and he looked *really* confused. My wife pictured him at the cafe where all the MAMILs (middle-aged-men-in-lycra) hang out: "Hey this Audi stopped for me on a single track road and waited for me to pass" Chorus: "No! Don't be stupid, what do you take us for? Have you been drinking? .. etc."
I love the idea of autonomous cars, but I think there are some serious challenges for them.
Picture the scene: A packed London side street - parked cars on both side of the road, only one car can pass in either direction. This situation requires drivers to recognise the problem and co-operate (flash one car through, hope the five cars behind dont follow and cause gridlock).
How will auto cars work this out without being able to communicate with an oncoming human driver? How will we prevent the robot car from following a car into the tight spot? Will the robot car realise that it needs to reverse back to the nearest gap? Etc etc. Would hate to have to program the code for this!
I can't wait until these things are sorted - it's v tricky for people (who often fail in this situation).
When both cars are AI controlled, there is no reason they can't communicate and negotiate an optimal solution much quicker and more reliably than two human drivers. It's the mixing of human drivers and AI ones that represent most of the issues like this, because the way humans tend to indicate their intentions are subtle and varied.
i was initially somewhat concerned about this, but then I thought about the near misses I've had due to idiots with no roadcraft or roadsense, to myopic morons who dont know left from right, to aggressive and reckless micro-penised drivers of 4x4's, jeeps and redneck wagons and concluded that a system that removes the human element simply cannot be any worse.
As a motorcyclist an organ donor, I have the right to overtake on blind bends and hills and on single lane roads with oncoming traffic. Those solid white lines in the middle of a road do not apply to me and the lane markings on motorways are only there for me to use as a guide when I squeeze between two cars moving at 40mph on a congested motorway. The side of my tyres must wear faster than the bottom otherwise it shows I haven't been cornering fast enough and when I start off from lights I must accelerate so fast that I have to fight to keep the front wheel in contact with the road. Under no circumstances must I accept any blame for any accident, it is always the other drivers fault.
As a chavved-up Nova/BMW owner (brain donor) I have the right to overtake on blind bends and hills and on single lane roads with oncoming traffic. Those solid white lines in the middle of a road do not apply to me and safe distances on motorways are only there for me to use as a guide when I squeeze between two cars moving at 70mph on a congested motorway. My tyres must wear faster than everyone elses, otherwise it shows I haven't been spinning the wheels enough and when I start off from lights I must accelerate so fast that I have to fight to keep the back end under control. Under no circumstances must I accept any blame for any accident, it is always the other drivers fault. Motorcyclists, cyclists and pedestrians are a target, and shouldn't be on *my* road anyway.
In the Department Against Transport's preferred future, there won't be any motorcycles, so although your antagonists may be automated away, so will your petrol powered stallion.
Will you still wear leather and have a ZZ Top beard when you're in the Mk 7 Toyota Prius, sans steering wheel, and offered only in DfT Universal Beige?
So they are spending billions on trying to teach a computer to drive a car safely and reduce congestion, wouldn't it be simpler to spend a fraction of that teaching humans to drive properly? and for the ones that simply can't grasp it, take away their driving licence and give them a bus pass. Less drivers on the roads and the ones who are left know how drive properly, Problem solved. Except there'll be busses full of idiots (which we could just drive off a cliff young ones style which would solve many other problems)
>You appear to be under the misapprehension that there are buses everywhere to carry the idiots. This is not the case. I live 7 miles from the nearest bus stop.
Provided you are not an idiot, that is irrelevant... all we need to do is prove that all idiots live close to bus stations, and we can close this case!
So, every now and then we get reports of a driver following their GPS system and ending up somewhere they really shouldn't have gone, and if they were not following the GPS slavishly they wouldn't have gone. If an automated system uses GPS in the same way, there could quite well be issues.
From
http://www.argo.ce.unipr.it/argo/english/tour/node2.html#SECTION00011000000000000000
"In order to extensively test the vehicle (i.e. under different traffic situations, road environments, weather conditions,...) a 2000 km trip was scheduled for June 1-6, 1998. During this test, ARGO drove itself autonomously along the Italian highway network, passing through flat areas, mountains including high bridges and tunnels. The Italian road network is particularly suited for such an extensive test since it is characterized by extremely different road scenarios, thus including varying weather conditions, and is generally highly crowded. For speed reasons, the tour took place mainly on highways and freeways, although the system has been designed and tested to work also on rural extraurban roads."
I followed it in 1998 (online, not physically, and not in real time, either), and I found it extremely impressive then. I think it is still impressive now.
More details on
http://www.argo.ce.unipr.it/argo/english/index.html
Thinking to the future, I don't trust this at all. The RAC reckon there are 34,000,000 cars on British roads (2011). Knowing the state of the IT industry and the inability for anyone to actually do their job properly (working partially in IT support, and work in general has made me really pessimistic about the ability of people in general), I am seriously scared of a bug/hardware malfunction/bad design at 70mph.
Not to mention that the costs for this would spiral out of control and nobody would take any responsibility for anything, and the project will change direction many times and be massively overdue.
So when the general population have been trained out of being able to reverse bay park, or are seriously out of practise, what happens when a manual override is required?
The concession I can make is that this should only be for motorways as mentioned above, essentially an auto-pilot type system as long motorway driving is burdensome and this seems more achievable than rural driving.
I like driving, and we all make mistakes (lack of attention/judgement/timing etc) but I don't like the idea of losing freedom - I don't need my car to be driven for me.
Sure, fit a breathalyser, attention monitor, sleep monitor to my car so I cant be irresponsible, but let me do the driving.
Also (just remembered!), it said in the article that the human driver will be there to override the car to prevent mowing down pedestrians. In actual fact the human will be day-dreaming, reading a book, on their phone, or watching the countryside go by and will totally fail to react in time. Seriously, who is going to pay full attention when they have no actual need to control the car?
There is no "project". It's just a car. That's the point - Google's car, for example, doesn't need any of these third-party aids. Everything it needs is in the vehicle. And after several million miles of autonomous travel, it's been crashed into once (in stationary traffic) and never hit anything. That's a better record than anyone I know has. Furthermore, software and hardware do not get tired, pissed, annoyed with the kids in the back, distracted by a low-cut top and a short skirt, distracted by someone else's car having a dent in it on the hard shoulder, blinded by the reflection off the bald head of the old man in the convertible in front... and they can quite easily concentrate on the behaviour of every moving object, no matter its size, within LIDAR range.
When is a manual intervention required? Never. Human beings should not be trusted with a two-ton lethal weapon.
I second that. I think the hysteria over these vehicles, including deployment are unnecessarily pessimistic. If there is one thing that the Google car has shown is that the problem is solvable, now we just wait for some degree of technological miniaturization, cost reduction etc...
Here in the USA many cities already have "commuter" lanes, so a robot lane is not a stretch of the imagination.
Once there is a critical density of these vehicles, it is easy to imagine a scenario where humans only drive vehicles outside of urban environments i.e. roads.
Finally, parking and traffic management become "solved" problems. For example, you leave your house in North London for an address in central London, which will immediately reserve a space for the time you will arrive. Traffic lights are only there for the humans anyway, and was was pointed out by Rob M. computers do not get tired or distracted, and they can communicate any change in road conditions throughout the driver network.
The only problem with this technology is the government is going to be tempted to screw it up by spying/selling/limiting/taxing/obstructing and delaying the uptake of this technology.
P.
"Human beings should not be trusted with a two-ton lethal weapon." And you presumably also think that we shouldn't be trusted with fire, pointy sticks, or stones.
FFS - people like you should be made to live on a nice safe island somewhere, where there is nothing that can hurt you. The rest of us could take bets on how long you would survive (it would last about the same time as a series of a reality show, so it could be televised).
"Seriously, who is going to pay full attention when they have no actual need to control the car?"
This is the single most intelligent and accurate comment in the whole debate. Think about it.
From the main article:
"It's a great area to be working in because it's IT and computers and that's what changes things."
And that's the stupidest justification for doing anything. Does nobody think about the effects and consequences of the jobs they do anymore? Just because somebody will pay you to do something doesn't mean it's a good idea, it just means that they think they can make money out of you. We've totally forgotten personal responsibility in our career choices, and it depresses me.
This post has been deleted by its author
... we need to - and I feel dirty for saying this - take a leaf from America's book. We need to introduce byelaws and spot fines for idiotic people who 'jaywalk' in urban areas. There are ridiculous amounts of pedestrians pouring over our city centre roads who show complete disregard for traffic, as if they have a right to walk alongside - and in front of - cars, as and when they see fit. These are the people who will scupper autonomous driving, especially with our police forces' thought process in the event of accidents almost invariably being 'Car hits pedestrian. Driver's fault. Arrest driver. Ask questions later.' The first idiot to run across the road and get hit by a car controlled by Android will stop the plans dead in their tracks.
There are only 2 ways to stop this that I can see;
1. Make hitting dick headed people legal (rewarding, yes. But not likely to happen.)
2. On the spot fines for breaking the rules
Education for pedestrians won't work. Safer cars won't work. The only two way to stop this type of behaviour is by hitting pockets, which apparently works very well in Hong Kong and other places.
In the US the right of way is size biggest to smallest.
In the UK and most of Europe it's smallest to biggest.
Jaywalking makes sense under the US rules where the car is bigger than the pedestrian. In the UK the pedestrian always has right of way. Except where pedestrians are not allowed.
> There are ridiculous amounts of pedestrians pouring over our city centre roads who show complete disregard for traffic, as if they have a right to walk alongside - and in front of - cars, as and when they see fit.
They do indeed have that right. Read the Highway Code. As DJ2 has pointed out, pedestrians always have the right of way in the UK (except on motorways). The law that says they shouldn't be in your way exists purely in your self-aggrandising imagination.
What is far more ridiculous is the number of drivers who apparently think "It's OK to kill someone if the light's green" and actively accelerate towards pedestrians they see in the road, as if murder would even be a reasonable way to prove your point if your point were right, which it isn't. I see from your suggestion 1 that you think the problem with hitting a pedestrian with your car is merely that it's illegal, and that you are therefore one of these sociopaths. The sooner you're all replaced with robots, the better.
@Squander Two
"The law that says they shouldn't be in your way exists purely in your self-aggrandising imagination"
Where did I say a law preventing pedestrians from being in my way existed? Certainly nowhere in my comment. I said there SHOULD be one. This has nothing to do with self-aggrandisation, it's a matter of safety for pedestrians and motorists.
"I see from your suggestion 1 that you think the problem with hitting a pedestrian with your car is merely that it's illegal, and that you are therefore one of these sociopaths."
No, there's also the matter of the cost to repair the damage to the front end of my car. I didn't mention it, but it's certainly a factor.
If I'm doing 30 on an urban road and some twat on a phone steps out in front of me from between parked cars (or across a busy urban road when my light is green and his light is red) without looking and I hit him, the current system would deem that to be my fault. In an automated car, this would be the software development/ manufacturer/ insurance company's problem. The twat on the phone wouldn't ever factor into it, despite his obvious stupidity.
If thinking the twat in my scenario should be recognized to be at fault means I am 'therefore one of those sociopaths', then I must be. Either that or your logic could be completely arse about face.
> Where did I say a law preventing pedestrians from being in my way existed? Certainly nowhere in my comment.
You said "as if they have a right", which can only imply that you believe they do not have such a right. Wrongly.
> This has nothing to do with self-aggrandisation, it's a matter of safety for pedestrians and motorists.
All road users, pedestrians included, have a responsibility to act safely. But what you were talking about was making it a criminal offence for any pedestrian to have the temerity to walk in the road. The current system gives pedestrians the right of way, giving drivers a clear unambiguous obligation to try to avoid hitting them. You're telling us that taking away their right of way and telling drivers that the roads belong purely to cars will somehow make pedestrians safer? Got any stats to back that up? Last I checked, the UK's roads were safer than the US's, where they have the anti-jaywalking laws you want.
> If I'm doing 30 on an urban road and some twat on a phone steps out in front of me from between parked cars (or across a busy urban road when my light is green and his light is red) without looking and I hit him, the current system would deem that to be my fault.
Er, no it wouldn't. Really. The current system says that the pedestrian has right of way, so you are supposed to stop for them if you can. If you can't, fair enough -- and that is the police's and CPS's view. They would deem it to be your fault if you had time to react but just ploughed right through them anyway -- for instance, because you thought you shouldn't have to stop because they had no "right" to be in your way, as a lot of drivers do.
> If thinking the twat in my scenario should be recognized to be at fault ...
But you didn't say that anyone who steps out carelessly in front of cars and then gets hit by a driver who can't stop in time should be deemed responsible for putting themselves in a dangerous situation (no argument from me there); you said that anyone who walks in the road at all -- not just people on phones, not just people who aren't paying attention -- should be fined because you incorrectly believe that they have no right to be there while you in your car do, i.e., they should be given a criminal record for getting in your way. If that's not self-aggrandising, what is?
"You're telling us that taking away their right of way and telling drivers that the roads belong purely to cars will somehow make pedestrians safer?"
Not at all. It's all about etiquette. When it's my turn to use the road, pedestrians should wait. When it's their turn, I should wait. If either party breaks this rule and ignores their own traffic light, they should be fined. At present, only motorists are subject to this. If this situation was evened up, busy city roads WOULD logically be safer.
"stop for them if you can. If you can't, fair enough -- and that is the police's and CPS's view."
Yes, eventually, and hopefully. But I still maintain the fact that the police will usually side with the pedestrian until an investigation is carried out, thus 'asking the questions later' and putting the motorist through a bigger ordeal than the one they're already going for having hit someone.
"you said that anyone who walks in the road at all"
Nope. The 'as and when they see fit' qualifier I added, in addition to the term 'jaywalking', was a reference to people who choose to walk across the road when advised not to by pedestrian lights (the red man), thus putting themselves in danger. Obviously if my light is red, it's their turn to use the road and I'm not going to complain about that. My point is that in cities, the red light for pedestrians should be compulsory, not advisory.
"you said that anyone who walks in the road at all -- not just people on phones, not just people who aren't paying attention -- should be fined because you incorrectly believe that they have no right to be there while you in your car do, i.e., they should be given a criminal record for getting in your way"
Yet again, no and no. I didn't say either of those things. For one, this line (a direct quote from my comment):
"spot fines for idiotic people who 'jaywalk' in urban areas"
states quite clearly that I was referring to 'idiotic' people, those who don't pay attention; not to every single pedestrian who uses the road. You chose to ignore this obvious statement and instead formed your own incorrect interpretation of what I actually wrote.
Secondly, an on the spot fine issued by a local council for jaywalking wouldn't constitute a criminal record. It would be akin to a parking fine; annoying, severe enough to make you think twice next time, but no long term repercussions.
Honestly, you should actually read things through before jumping to conclusions. I have no problem with pedestrians who use the roads safely, only with those who choose not to, and subsequently put my safety at risk.
Oh, I SEE. Jaywalking would be illegal, but the police would only fine IDIOTIC jaywalkers. Anyone who broke the law but the police deemed to be sensible, they would just leave alone. Of course. You're right: that was so obvious. And yeah, it would totally work.
M'lud, while my client admits to having jaywalked, he vigorously denies the allegation that he was jaywalking idiotically, as the prosecution put it, "as and when he saw fit". My client is known to be a sensible man with good etiquette, who jaywalks only after careful consideration and if there is an R in the month.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
