I drove a motorcycle at the age of 15 (could do that before driving a car), so for a year I took the gladiator training of staying alive (this was in Ft. laud, very rough traffic crowd). Nothing will teach you how to defensively drive like a year on a bike. Good driving is way more than obeying traffic laws, its about predicting the unpredictable. This is why concentration is so important (not to mention training and thinking ahead). I have made it clear why I think the push is on for driverless cars, while I don't think much of most of the human drivers on the road due to the distractions of the cellular age (just makes my job as a defensive driver that much harder), I don't think there is a substitute for GOOD undistracted drivers.

Edited March 21, 20187 yr by Dave WM

A few reports from Waymo (Google's program):

https://medium.com/waymo/the-worlds-longest-and-toughest-ongoing-driving-test-44464867865b

https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/wcm/connect/42aff875-7ab1-4115-a72a-97f6f24b23cc/Waymofull.pdf?MOD=AJPERES

This one gets into a fair amount of detail and is good reading for anyone curious about autonomous vehicles:

https://storage.googleapis.com/sdc-prod/v1/safety-report/waymo-safety-report-2017.pdf

One thing to note: my understanding is that Waymo is the consensus leader in AVs. The standards and capabilities of Waymo won't necessarily be the same for Uber, GM, or any of the numerous other companies that are racing to make it work.

That, to me, is the bigger concern to worry about. Self driving cars are not an impossible problem: the technology is already here and it will only get better.

The Geely that killed in Tempe was Chinese.  Not sure if you ever used software from China... I have.... it was poorly written and useless for what it was supposed to do.

35 minutes ago, Dave WM said:

I drove a motorcycle at the age of 15 (could do that before driving a car), so for a year I took the gladiator training of staying alive (this was in Ft. laud, very rough traffic crowd). Nothing will teach you how to defensively drive like a year on a bike. Good driving is way more than obeying traffic laws, its about predicting the unpredictable. This is why concentration is so important (not to mention training and thinking ahead). I have made it clear why I think the push is on for driverless cars, while I don't think much of most of the human drivers on the road due to the distractions of the cellular age (just makes my job as a defensive driver that much harder), I don't think there is a substitute for GOOD undistracted drivers.

Ruined it for me. To get calm enough to ride I was in DUI Arabia.

Edited March 21, 20187 yr by siteunseen

What should really be happening is that these self-driving cars should have giant bells and whistles on them so that people understand the danger.  Maybe with a big clown head on the top.  Just like train horns and crossing gates.  People run out in front of drivers, as opposed to cars, all the time, assuming that there will be a certain reaction time and functional brakes.  We all assume that there is a person inside the car.  We're supposed to make eye contact before stepping off of the curb.

Overall though, this is a typical giant corporate effort, with the parties responsible shielded by distance from the reality of the harm it causes.  The guy in the car, that was supposed to "take control", is a pawn in a bigger game.  Just like all of the people downloading apps that use Facebook for sign in.  We're all pawns.

Some old friends of mine recently used these guys after a night out for some sushi:

Old friends as in no more after the Whipz and sushi?

Haha! No, it wasn't quite that bad.

Old friends as in I hadn't seen anything from them in quite some time. But after a long time away they're back.   

that was a great episode, so glad they are back. kudo's to hitch's the birds scene (drones).

Edited March 22, 20187 yr by Dave WM

I knew I couldn't possibly be the only X-Files fan!  And I'm with you... I'm so glad they're back.

There have been two really campy episodes lately with lots of references to other things like that. The one with the automation, and the one a couple weeks back where they were talking about the Mandela Effect. That one made me laugh out loud a couple times.

Thanks for pulling me off "The Island of Misfit References". I've dropped a couple lately that have stayed dropped. I think I'm getting a little too obscure. 

Edited March 22, 20187 yr by Captain Obvious

21 minutes ago, Captain Obvious said:

I knew I couldn't possibly be the only X-Files fan!  And I'm with you... I'm so glad they're back.

There have been two really campy episodes lately with lots of references to other things like that. The one with the automation, and the one a couple weeks back where they were talking about the Mandela Effect. That one made me laugh out loud a couple times.

Thanks for pulling me off "The Island of Misfit References". I've dropped a couple lately that have stayed dropped. I think I'm getting a little too obscure. 

Love the Xfiles being back. I enjoy the little things they through in like needing progressive reading glasses because they are getting old. 

The drones episode was priceless. 

Tempe police released video of the accident: 

It's dark and low res, but based on that video alone, I think it would be tough for any human driver to have avoided the collision.

This is one of those situations where you'd actually think newer technology (not just self driving tech, but the current crop of driver assist/collision avoidance, too) should help -- LiDAR/RADAR don't care about shadows -- but it's been widely reported that the car didn't slow or brake beforehand. I'm going to guess that the car a couple hundred feet ahead probably mucked things up. At least in this case, it would have for me if I were driving.