Self driving minibus has bad first day in Vegas

[WMGroomAK]

When I go out driving, I tend to take the position that everyone else on the road received their license from a box of Cracker Jack's and maybe autonomous vehicles should be doing the same...  A test pilot project in Las Vegas involving an autonomous minibus for up to 15 people was being rolled out onto the roads yesterday when within the first few hours of operation it was hit by a delivery truck.  According to the official report, the fault of the accident lies with the truck driver and not the AI-vehicle, which operated as it was supposed to.  

http://bgr.com/2017/11/09/self-driving-shuttle-accident-las-vegas/

Quote

The autonomous vehicles of the future are already (sorta) here, and it won’t be long before you start seeing them on a street near you. Safety is, of course, a huge concern when it comes to cars without drivers, and the ability of AI-powered vehicles to avoid accidents has been called into question countless times. The debut of a self-driving shuttle bus in Las Vegas this week probably isn’t going to ease anyone’s fears, as it managed to get into an accident just hours after it was put into operation.

The accident, as was reported by KSNV, involved the self-driving shuttle and a semi truck. It was a minor collision, and the human driver of the semi truck was actually the one at fault, but the shuttle was still unable to avoid the accident, and that’s not going to gain the self-driving shuttle many votes of confidence.

“Truck making delivery backed into shuttle, which was stopped,” a spokesperson for AAA, which is sponsoring the shuttle’s free operations in Las Vegas, explained on Twitter. “Human error causes most traffic collisions and this was no different. Driver of truck was cited. No one hurt except a bruised bumper!”

The city of Las Vegas took the accident in stride, and even went so far as to suggest that if the semi had also been autonomous, the accident probably wouldn’t have happened at all. “The autonomous shuttle was testing today when it was grazed by a delivery truck downtown,” a statement from the city reads. “The shuttle did what it was supposed to do, in that it’s sensors registered the truck and the shuttle stopped to avoid the accident. Unfortunately the delivery truck did not stop and grazed the front fender of the shuttle. Had the truck had the same sensing equipment that the shuttle has the accident would have been avoided.”

So not sure whether this means that cities should speed up the implementation of autonomous vehicle deployments or maybe as a part of future driver's license exams, there should be a section on how to deal with driving on the same roads as autonomous vehicles...  The future of these vehicles seems to be on the way so long as we learn how to share the roads with them.

 

Local News Story: http://news3lv.com/news/local/driverless-shuttle-crashes-on-first-day-of-service-in-downtown-las-vegas

BBC Article: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-41923814

[Crunchy Dragon]

#PrayForVegas

[RagnarokDel]

Not news.

[crystal6tak]

Really hope this doesn't give the public bad impressions of autonomous driving.

 

If it does...well, I guess all anti-self-driving activist has to do is to "accidentally" bump into self driving cars and we won't have nice things anymore  (not saying the truck driver did it on purpose of course) 

[WMGroomAK]

1 minute ago, crystal6tak said:

Really hope this doesn't give the public bad impressions of autonomous driving.

 

If it does...well, I guess all anti-self-driving activist has to do is to "accidentally" bump into self driving cars and we won't have nice things anymore  (not saying the truck driver did it on purpose of course) 

I do wonder how much the truck driver may have been unaware of how the bus would react and may have made an error in judgement based on that...  Maybe he didn't realize what the bus would have done and had expected it to be in a different location than where it was?  It's one of those things on maybe unless/until all vehicles become autonomous, drivers should also be trained on how these vehicles will operate.

[SansVarnic]

So a delivery truck hits the "autobus" and everyone blames the "autobus" am I getting this straight? welp sucks for them because I am pretty sure I read this correctly

"“The shuttle did what it was supposed to do, in that it’s sensors registered the truck and the shuttle stopped to avoid the accident. Unfortunately the delivery truck did not stop and grazed the front fender of the shuttle." So let flip out because the autobus did nothing wrong. 

 

On a serious note this good for the auto-automobile industry. It did as it was programmed to do, it avoided the incident and did nothing to initiate the contact.  

[WMGroomAK]

1 hour ago, SansVarnic said:

So a delivery truck hits the "autobus" and everyone blames the "autobus" am I getting this straight? welp sucks for them because I am pretty sure I read this correctly

"“The shuttle did what it was supposed to do, in that it’s sensors registered the truck and the shuttle stopped to avoid the accident. Unfortunately the delivery truck did not stop and grazed the front fender of the shuttle." So let flip out because the autobus did nothing wrong. 

 

On a serious note this good for the auto-automobile industry. It did as it was programmed to do, it avoided the incident and did nothing to initiate the contact.  

I think it does present the question though that as we integrate more autonomous vehicles into the road system, whether we need to retrain people who will still be driving as to how these vehicles are programmed to behave.  I honestly don't see autonomous driving being something that happens on all the city streets overnight so there will be several years or a decade or two where we will be seeing these accidents cause by human error as they are not trained on how the computer is going to act or react to all given situations.

 

Agree that it's good the computer did as it was programmed and that is a good thing, but do wonder if there was something more it could have been programmed to do, like maybe sound a horn or siren once the truck got within a certain distance.  Not sure if that would have stopped it, but it might have gotten the drivers attention...  Hopefully works as a learning lesson all around.

[paddy-stone]

Sorry, but this reeks of trigger points to me. "The AI was unable to avoid a collision with the truck" - well, I'm guessing that it was possibly hit in the side, and short of backing up quickly or trying to speed ahead to avoid (if that was possible in any way at all), I'm guessing that human drivers wouldn't be able to do that either, even heavily trained in most cases. The AI would most likely have a reaction time many times better than a human, yet the general public and authorities seem to want the driver-less cars to be superhuman and able to avoid everything, that's not gonna happen until the day humans and our innate ability to fuck-up are not there any more. I've seen people doing some very weird and very dangerous things while driving, and if you expect an AI or anyone for that matter, to avoid those assholes... then you're crazy. People's mind's wander even at the best of times, and even the most talented drivers too. I think driver-less is the way forward to stop our many many roads in the world from continuing to be the death-traps they are.

[Drak3]

2 hours ago, SansVarnic said:

So let flip out because the autobus did nothing wrong.

That's a great idea. Let's start a riot.

[bcredeur97]

was waiting for someone to make a shortb... nevermind

[mr moose]

9 hours ago, WMGroomAK said:

I think it does present the question though that as we integrate more autonomous vehicles into the road system, whether we need to retrain people who will still be driving as to how these vehicles are programmed to behave. 

I am trying to work out if that actually works or not, we already don't know how other drivers are going to respond/behave.  Would we even know if the other car was autonomous or not? and if we did, would we be able to react quick enough to avoid an accident that we were going to cause anyway?

[System Error Message]

perhaps if autonomous vehicles were built like a tank it would make people think twice about driving badly and hitting one of these

[Thony]

38 minutes ago, System Error Message said:

perhaps if autonomous vehicles were built like a tank it would make people think twice about driving badly and hitting one of these

Good point.  We well know that majprity of accidents on the roads is due to human error. 

 

This could easily protect passengers in autonomous vehicles.  Its the only way actually... Humans will always fail in something at some point.

[leadeater]

12 hours ago, WMGroomAK said:

I think it does present the question though that as we integrate more autonomous vehicles into the road system, whether we need to retrain people who will still be driving as to how these vehicles are programmed to behave.  I honestly don't see autonomous driving being something that happens on all the city streets overnight so there will be several years or a decade or two where we will be seeing these accidents cause by human error as they are not trained on how the computer is going to act or react to all given situations.

Yes this should be covered with video demonstrations of examples for how an autonomous car might act in different situations. Autonomous cars aren't going to hesitate or be indecisive like humans might be, if they take an action it's going to instantaneous and the same way every time. Actually knowing how something will act is important to avoiding an accident.

[Okjoek]

For the longest time I've been skeptical of self driving vehicles. I find it hard to believe that it will work as long as older manual (not the other kind of manual) vehicles are sharing the motorways.

 

Adoption and Money are the two biggest issues.

 

Where does the 100+ years of automotive history go?

How do everyday people with our basic levels of income afford yet another expensive machine?

 

I hate driving, it gives me anxiety. I'd love to have a self driving car do it for me, but it's impractical on the private ownership level I feel. For public transit on the other hand. Imagine if there was a holding area with tons of these self-driving taxis and everyone was distributed accounts to call for these things for whenever you need to go somewhere.

 

Affordable Self-Driving Taxi/Lyft/Uber on steroids. That's what I would like to see take off. I think it would finally end the automotive clusterfuck of a world I live in.

[potoooooooo]

31 minutes ago, Okjoek said:

For the longest time I've been skeptical of self driving vehicles. I find it hard to believe that it will work as long as older manual (not the other kind of manual) vehicles are sharing the motorways.

 

Adoption and Money are the two biggest issues.

 

Where does the 100+ years of automotive history go?

How do everyday people with our basic levels of income afford yet another expensive machine?

 

I hate driving, it gives me anxiety. I'd love to have a self driving car do it for me, but it's impractical on the private ownership level I feel. For public transit on the other hand. Imagine if there was a holding area with tons of these self-driving taxis and everyone was distributed accounts to call for these things for whenever you need to go somewhere.

 

Affordable Self-Driving Taxi/Lyft/Uber on steroids. That's what I would like to see take off. I think it would finally end the automotive clusterfuck of a world I live in.

Why would self driving cars erase automotive history? How does that make any sense to you?

 

People with lower incomes will wait for the technology to trickle down and become cheaper. It's only a matter of time.

 

There is no reason self driving cars aren't practical on a private ownership level. It will just take time for the tech to be cheaper and ubiquitous.

[apm]

20 minutes ago, Okjoek said:

For the longest time I've been skeptical of self driving vehicles. I find it hard to believe that it will work as long as older manual (not the other kind of manual) vehicles are sharing the motorways.

 

Adoption and Money are the two biggest issues.

 

Where does the 100+ years of automotive history go?

How do everyday people with our basic levels of income afford yet another expensive machine?

 

I hate driving, it gives me anxiety. I'd love to have a self driving car do it for me, but it's impractical on the private ownership level I feel. For public transit on the other hand. Imagine if there was a holding area with tons of these self-driving taxis and everyone was distributed accounts to call for these things for whenever you need to go somewhere.

 

Affordable Self-Driving Taxi/Lyft/Uber on steroids. That's what I would like to see take off. I think it would finally end the automotive clusterfuck of a world I live in.

honestly car sharing is the future or already a thing in big cities.  

most people dont need a private car just to drive to work or to get groceries.

[Okjoek]

5 minutes ago, potoooooooo said:

Why would self driving cars erase automotive history? How does that make any sense to you?

 

People with lower incomes will wait for the technology to trickle down and become cheaper. It's only a matter of time.

 

There is no reason self driving cars aren't practical on a private ownership level. It will just take time for the tech to be cheaper and ubiquitous.

I'm just under the impression that a road shared by traditional vehicles and self driving ones isn't a very efficient solution.

[The Benjamins]

1 minute ago, Okjoek said:

I'm just under the impression that a road shared by traditional vehicles and self driving ones isn't a very efficient solution.

well unless we create autonomous only roads, a lot of laws need to change.

 

One issue with self driving taxis/uber/lift is how do they make sure the inside of a car is clear for the next rider. I think they will have to create service centers that has the car go to to have it checked/cleaned. no one want to order a uber and have the car pull up with vomit on the seats.

 

also if their becomes a lot of autonomous cars a company can create a subscription service for car rides, were you can call a car for every daily task with out high cost. it can displace the owning a car by creating a cheaper subscription taxi service.

[asand1]

I wonder if the bus was in a blind spot or another compromising position that a thinking human would have avoided. Semi trailers swing it in the rear because the trailer tires are locatedquite always from the rear of the trailer.

[System Error Message]

14 hours ago, VegetableStu said:

We're two steps away from Skynet... how do we pitch in to add a cannon onto them? ?

how about a vulcan cannon instead. That high rpm gattling cannon that some copters and planes carry

Some ships use an even higher rpm variant for missile and small craft defence.