One of the biggest obstacles currently facing researchers is the fact that driverless cars are engineered to always follow the law. So human drivers, who obviously don’t do the same, keep crashing into them when they’re “moving too slow” — AKA actually doing the speed limit.
As a result, according to a recent report from Bloomberg, driverless cars are now seeing a crash rate twice as high as cars with humans at the wheel. The report notes that they’re all “minor scrape-ups for now”, that they’re always the human-driver’s fault (usually human drivers hit the slower-moving computer-driven cars from behind), and that none of these accidents have caused any injuries.
But now researchers have to decide whether driverless cars should be taught how to break the law in small ways — like humans so often do — in order to make sure that they can safely do things like merge with high-speed highway traffic. Which gets into some murky ethical territory.
The problem is that the speed limits are a joke, at least on freeways and highways. Nobody drives the speed limit, and if they do they are creating traffic jams and very dangerous situations. I believe that slow drivers are possibly the most dangerous drivers on freeways, as everyone has to shuck and jive to get around them changing lanes and taking their eyes of the road in front of them to do it. Raise the speed limits, and ticket slow drivers in the fast lane. Self-driving cars and everyone else should stay out of the passing lane unless they are passing.
When someone posted that video here a few days back of the car getting airborne and disintegrating against a bridge, it led me to a series of other car crash videos - terrible stuff. The worst ones are when someone just crosses over into the opposing lane for no reason, sometimes a truck meets them, and that is not enjoyable. Watching that stuff will make you slow down... for about a day. I'm over it now, so get out of my way.
"I can't drive 55!" or 65 for that matter, unless I'm texting and doing my nails.
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The problem is that the speed limits are a joke, at least on freeways and highways. Nobody drives the speed limit, and if they do they are creating traffic jams and very dangerous situations. I believe that slow drivers are possibly the most dangerous drivers on freeways, as everyone has to shuck and jive to get around them changing lanes and taking their eyes of the road in front of them to do it. Raise the speed limits, and ticket slow drivers in the fast lane. Self-driving cars and everyone else should stay out of the passing lane unless they are passing.
When someone posted that video here a few days back of the car getting airborne and disintegrating against a bridge, it led me to a series of other car crash videos - terrible stuff. The worst ones are when someone just crosses over into the opposing lane for no reason, sometimes a truck meets them, and that is not enjoyable. Watching that stuff will make you slow down... for about a day. I'm over it now, so get out of my way.
"I can't drive 55!" or 65 for that matter, unless I'm texting and doing my nails.
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