Electric Car Prediction - Whatdayathing???

[Orestes Munn]

No one will want that. Yelled at a lady who ran a stop right across my path while texting, this morning.

[kdh]

I'd love it if the Starbucks app didn't require 6 phone taps to order the same cup of coffee at the same store that I get every morning. So annoying.

Beau, yeah, drivers could be better and more responsible. But that woman walking across the street was in plain view, by both the driver and the car's cameras. Cars with automated systems, if there is the impression that they can be relied upon, can be more dangerous than those without.

The driver or the automated system should have slowed down the car to avoid the collision. This is quite plain.

[LarryHoward]

Larry, a few things. First, Tesla (for example) already gathers data on road conditions etc.... Yes, folks can change things by putting in new construction etc... by there are literally thousands of cars actively gathering this data passively and sending it to a central database. In the near future, that will probably be most cars, I believe Ford does it too now. (Yes, it's stripped of identifying features for the privacy of the car owner. ) So, the data isn't really "crowd sourced", which gives the impression that humans are entering it, it's "car sourced" which is probably vastly more reliable and happens without the driver either knowing it or doing anything about it.

I'm sure you realize that there is a massive concentration of truck traffic on just a few highways. Yes, there are short hauls from end points, and there are a few trucks headed up Cottonwood Canyon to deliver stuff to Alta and Snowbird. But that's why literally no one with any experience in the problem is saying that trucks will be fully autonomous. (note the qualifier) A driver will do the final delivery. What will be knocked off first will be the major routes like I-80, I-95, I-5 etc.... From data I've read, that will cover well over 80% of the truck miles driven.

Eric, it is really sad that an Uber prototype hit that woman walking her bike. It is far sadder that literally hundreds of people are killed by sleepy truck drivers and drunks. We've become immune to the latter, assuming it's just a social cost to get our stuff delivered from Amazon and Walmart, we are still startled by the death of someone at the hands of an unproven prototype. Perhaps the thugs at Uber should stop trying to test prototypes on the road. There was a driver who was supposed to be watching what was going on, so that event is precisely the same as the idiots hitting an island off of San Diego when they turned on the boat's autopilot and fell asleep.

Like I said before, all we rational thinkers have vastly underestimated the rate of improvement in autonomous systems. How many would have guessed that Waze would exist back in 1990? I almost always know "what" I just don't know "when".

Beau,

I agree that major trade routes such as 95, 81, 5, 80 carry most of the traffic. In many areas, they at at or over capacity at least twice per day and relatively often, have their capacity cut in 1/2 or more by construction. These are largely 4 lane divided highways for much of their length and your “dedicated lanes” to keep the “Boston Cabbie” and his rural friends from cutting in and out of the organized stream are probably necessary.

I’m saying that you are not going to take 1/2 of I-95 as it exists today and devote it to demonstrating that autonomous trucks can work. The public won’t buy it. I can see “test cases” of 6-10 autonomous trucks in a convoy, initially with a safety “observer” in the first and last pricing the concept but eventually we need to pick an approach. The dedicated lane that’s 1/2 way to rail or a “fit into the current architecture” and deal with the human frailty, both unintentional and intentional, that exists. I’m sure most of us have seen drivers “brake check” a semi in a near suicidal fashion. I can see that happening to an autonomous convoy. Autonomy has to accommodate that or they can’t share the road with mere humans. Accelerating, navigating, turning and stopping is easy. In studying Birds and bugs, we have pretty quickly developed self organizing swarms of UAVs that don’t run into each other. A lot harder to idiot proof autonomous vehicles operating in the chaos of a human world.

I think the technical ability will lag implementation by some years. Just the rule set boggles the mind. 50 states plus DC deciding on speed limits (posted or what traffic normally runs), left lane or right, response to failure, total number of vehicles before a second convoy XX meters behind the first forms. Things like that.

[SemiSalt]

I'd love it if the Starbucks app didn't require 6 phone taps to order the same cup of coffee at the same store that I get every morning. So annoying.

Beau, yeah, drivers could be better and more responsible. But that woman walking across the street was in plain view, by both the driver and the car's cameras. Cars with automated systems, if there is the impression that they can be relied upon, can be more dangerous than those without.

The driver or the automated system should have slowed down the car to avoid the collision. This is quite plain.

On the way back from Maine, we stopped at Walden Pond. The parking lot is across a road from the Pond itself. The crosswalk is equipped with a push-button triggered set of flashing lights. With systems like this, lack of trust triggers ambiguity. Is the car going to stop or not? It's hard to set foot across the road until the car has already slowed a lot.

[kdh]

My neck of the woods. I'll be crossing that on the way to meet some buddies for a beer Friday night at the Colonial Inn in Concord, where Thoreau used to stay when he wasn't camping.

[Orestes Munn]

I remember crossing that road many times, but there was no HAWK beacon then.

I once pushed the button on one near here and stepped out in front of a driver going about 35, who had a good 4 sec to stop. Turned out neither they, nor the car behind had any intention of doing so.

[BeauV]

Larry, I'm sure it's obvious that the automated platooning of trucks will NOT happen during rush hour. Indeed, one of the giant benefits is that all this platooning can happen while normal people are asleep. The VAST majority of I-80 is two lanes each way, as is I-5. Yes, I-95 in the NE is four or more lanes each way, but that is a tiny piece of the interstate system as a percentage of miles. But, I don't really think we need to have dedicated lanes right away. Earlier I said that eventually we're probably want them; not just for semi-trucks but for busses and car pools and private cars. Once the software works, then anyone with the software should happily choose to go faster and not be bothered with driving.

As I've said MANY times, I don't know when this will happen. What I do know is that we humans are terrible at predicting this sort of change. Who would have predicted that over 1/2 the paid rides in NYC would be with a ride-sharing company and Taxi medallions would be crashing in value ten years ago - zero of us.

Yes, there are certainly problems, but I'm pretty optimistic that they'll be overcome. Having had someone drive me around while I was working in a company that included that as a perk, I have to say that NOT driving is much much better than driving and I'd pay a lot to avoid it. I don't think I'm alone. So it will happen, we're just debating when, not if.

[BeauV]

I remember crossing that road many times, but there was no HAWK beacon then.

I once pushed the button on one near here and stepped out in front of a driver going about 35, who had a good 4 sec to stop. Turned out neither they, nor the car behind had any intention of doing so.

Many folks in SF carry spray paint cans and just run a line down the side of a car that runs through a cross walk in front of them. I've seen cops watch and laugh.

[BeauV]

I'd love it if the Starbucks app didn't require 6 phone taps to order the same cup of coffee at the same store that I get every morning. So annoying.

Beau, yeah, drivers could be better and more responsible. But that woman walking across the street was in plain view, by both the driver and the car's cameras. Cars with automated systems, if there is the impression that they can be relied upon, can be more dangerous than those without.

The driver or the automated system should have slowed down the car to avoid the collision. This is quite plain.

Kieth,

At the Apple Dev. show yesterday the Apple folks announced exactly what you want with their Siri Shortcuts. You won't have to even look at your phone, just say: "Hey Siri, order me a half-cafe, full-fat, zapichino!" and it will just happen. We're nearly there.

The guy driving the Uber prototype was a pro, he was NOT a normal consumer. Hitting that woman was entirely his fault. There was no illusion that the Uber self-driving is really working. The guy screwed up and, in my opinion, should be charged with manslaughter; just as he would have been if he was driving a normal car.

Of course, he may have been charged. We wouldn't hear about that because it's not unique and newsworthy. People run down folks in cross walks all the time, but the score, so it appears no one is interested.

[BeauV]

Returning to electric cars. There is news about Tesla and the Model 3. It looks like it is doing the same thing the Model S did, clobbering the German and Japanese offerings in its market segment.

[Orestes Munn]

I remember crossing that road many times, but there was no HAWK beacon then.

I once pushed the button on one near here and stepped out in front of a driver going about 35, who had a good 4 sec to stop. Turned out neither they, nor the car behind had any intention of doing so.

Many folks in SF carry spray paint cans and just run a line down the side of a car that runs through a cross walk in front of them. I've seen cops watch and laugh.

I actually caused a nasty rear-ender and was very glad no one was hurt. Paint is a good idea.

[kdh]

I remember crossing that road many times, but there was no HAWK beacon then.

I once pushed the button on one near here and stepped out in front of a driver going about 35, who had a good 4 sec to stop. Turned out neither they, nor the car behind had any intention of doing so.

Many folks in SF carry spray paint cans and just run a line down the side of a car that runs through a cross walk in front of them. I've seen cops watch and laugh.

Let's just say Boston is no San Francisco. I was astonished driving in San Fran when a bicyclist complained that I didn't have my right turn signal on in a right-turn-only lane. Freaks!

In Boston a turn signal, in any situation but mostly merging, is viewed accurately as providing information which results in a strategic disadvantage.

[kdh]

Returning to electric cars. There is news about Tesla and the Model 3. It looks like it is doing the same thing the Model S did, clobbering the German and Japanese offerings in its market segment.

That's impressive. Fact is, Teslas are cool. Shit, everything out of Silicon Valley is cool. Even here saying "I'll take an Uber" is cooler than a cab or even a coach service. Even though you might get picked up by a stranger moonlighting in his crappy Toyota.

Driving a Tesla signals "I'm modern and edgy." Around here driving one of the alternatives, a Prius say, signals "Hillary supporter." I imagine Trump supporters drive pickups for the most part.

[Ajax]

OM once said "the turn signal is a sign of weakness" or something to that effect. That's how it's viewed around here.

[Orestes Munn]

Consumer tech, while ubiquitous and permanent, is rapidly becoming boring and uncool and its producers are now blue chips. The whole CEO in a t-shirt thing—or Lizzie Holmes in a black turtleneck—now looks pathetically inauthentic and out of date. I expect many of them to be caught completely and smugly unaware by the next whatever.

[kdh]

Consumer tech, while ubiquitous and permanent, is rapidly becoming boring and uncool and its producers are now blue chips. The whole CEO in a t-shirt thing—or Lizzie Holmes in a black turtleneck—now looks pathetically inauthentic and out of date. I expect many of them to be caught completely and smugly unaware by the next whatever.

Good point. That Facebook is lame as viewed by the young has yet to fully propagate, for example. Zuckerberg looks less like a disrupter than a conniving douche.

The young tend to think they'll be cool forever, even that they'll be young forever.

[LarryHoward]

I remember crossing that road many times, but there was no HAWK beacon then.

I once pushed the button on one near here and stepped out in front of a driver going about 35, who had a good 4 sec to stop. Turned out neither they, nor the car behind had any intention of doing so.

Many folks in SF carry spray paint cans and just run a line down the side of a car that runs through a cross walk in front of them. I've seen cops watch and laugh.

I actually caused a nasty rear-ender and was very glad no one was hurt. Paint is a good idea.

I admit to kicking out a BMW tail light in Australia. Streets have high square cut granite curbs. I got squeezed into the curb by a lady who thought her BMW could get past another car into a turn lane if only that bike rider wasn’t in the way so she ignored me. Fortunately, she didn’t fit and had to stop. Unfortunately, she stopped with my front wheel overlapping her rear fender and my feet even with the back of her car. Wonder what she had to pay to replace that lens assembly?

My point in the infrastructure is that more than many technology innovations, autonomous driving cars will have to fit into and adapt to the existing network and that includes clueless and sometimes irrational actors. I wonder how a “polite” autonomous vehicle, following the rules precisely, will survive Boston or Manhattan or the west side of Ft Worth. I imagine the fun robot sent cross country that was found brutalized and broken less than 20% of the way across.

[BeauV]

I remember crossing that road many times, but there was no HAWK beacon then.

I once pushed the button on one near here and stepped out in front of a driver going about 35, who had a good 4 sec to stop. Turned out neither they, nor the car behind had any intention of doing so.

Many folks in SF carry spray paint cans and just run a line down the side of a car that runs through a cross walk in front of them. I've seen cops watch and laugh.

Let's just say Boston is no San Francisco. I was astonished driving in San Fran when a bicyclist complained that I didn't have my right turn signal on in a right-turn-only lane. Freaks!

In Boston a turn signal, in any situation but mostly merging, is viewed accurately as providing information which results in a strategic disadvantage.

Keith, I hear you on the "strategic disadvantage" of using a turn signal in Boston. Hell, even making eye contact is a tactical disadvantage. For grins-n-giggles I asked finance at SGI to plot employee accidents per mile in rental cars. Boston was 5 TIMES the national average and about twice anyplace else. On the basis of that we discovered it was less expensive to put the executives in town-cars than it was to have them drive a rental. !!

When Stacey and I live on Nob Hill we had a view of Huntington Park and the corners of California St. with both Mason and Taylor. There is a LOT of traffic there and a lot of classic little-old-ladies. My favorite was a woman with a cane who carried a nightstick. When a car would run through the cross walk doing a right turn on red without stopping, and also without looking as they were looking left, this lady would beat a tattoo down the side of the car as it went by with her nightstick. One cab driver actually stopped and got out yelling at her, she waved the night stick over her head and screamed: "Bring it you asshole!"

We saw her a few days later and congratulated her on her law enforcement skills. She stood up a little straighter and smiled.

BTW, on many SF Streets now, Bikes outnumber cars by a significant number. Many use their bike locks the way that granny used her nightstick. Be careful.

[BeauV]

My point in the infrastructure is that more than many technology innovations, autonomous driving cars will have to fit into and adapt to the existing network and that includes clueless and sometimes irrational actors. I wonder how a “polite” autonomous vehicle, following the rules precisely, will survive Boston or Manhattan or the west side of Ft Worth. I imagine the fun robot sent cross country that was found brutalized and broken less than 20% of the way across.

I hear ya, and I agree. Either the people have to change - very low probability. Or, the cars have to be equipped with cameras and the police have to start enforcing the law on that basis. Unlike a human witness, the computer has to be actively taught to lie. As a result, offenders may find that watching a record of what they've done on a video that is emailed to them along with a ticket for damages or penalties might modify behavior. It has had that effect in Europe with speed cameras and with scoff-laws running tolls.

Of course, bodegas almost all have cameras and humans are too stupid to realize they'll get caught. My favorite are bank robbers. The number of bank robbers who are "free" one year after committing a bank robbery is something around 0.5%. But stupid people still think they'll get away with it.

[Orestes Munn]

Of course, bodegas almost all have cameras and humans are too stupid to realize they'll get caught. My favorite are bank robbers. The number of bank robbers who are "free" one year after committing a bank robbery is something around 0.5%. But stupid people still think they'll get away with it.

If only our streets and highways were more like bodegas and banks.

[Rob McAlpine]

Just don't try to cross the road unless you're in the database.

[Orestes Munn]

https://www.bikebiz.com/news/bike-beacons

Or we can all just get RF chipped.

[Ajax]

https://www.bikebiz.com/news/bike-beacons

Or we can all just get RF chipped.

No one's putting an inventory chip in my body. I'd rather get run over by an autonomous vehicle.

[kdh]

Keith, I hear you on the "strategic disadvantage" of using a turn signal in Boston. Hell, even making eye contact is a tactical disadvantage. For grins-n-giggles I asked finance at SGI to plot employee accidents per mile in rental cars. Boston was 5 TIMES the national average and about twice anyplace else. On the basis of that we discovered it was less expensive to put the executives in town-cars than it was to have them drive a rental. !!

The problem might be that driving in Boston safely requires driving like everyone else.

The rules are different. A yellow light here means "speed up," for example.

[Orestes Munn]

The problem might be that driving in Boston safely requires driving like everyone else.

The rules are different. A yellow light here means "speed up," for example.

It does, or at least one has to assimilate the culture in order to predict the behavior of other drivers.

I have heard the traffic signal rule stated as, "Yellow means speed up and red is purely advisory." It's also true here.

In Boston the rules of the road for traffic circles have been inverted by generations of aggressive drivers, so those entering exercise a de facto right of way. Likewise, there used to be a couple of sets of flashing lights on Somerville Ave, where the traffic continued on the red side and stopped on the yellow because you'd have to be nuts not to expect everyone to run the red and they knew you knew it.

[LarryHoward]

I’m sitting here imagining a fleet of autonomous Fiat 500s trying to cooperate around Rome with just one Taxi driver mixed in.

[TheOffice]

Yeah, in New England when we see a car pulled over by a cop we speed up.

In DC everyone slows down. Can't tell you how many times I almost rear-ended the guy in front of me. The cop is busy - its OK to speed!

Getting ready to sign off until Bermuda.
Joel

[Rob McAlpine]

Seen in Taos last weekend:

IMG_0252.jpg

[Jamie]

The problem might be that driving in Boston safely requires driving like everyone else.

The rules are different. A yellow light here means "speed up," for example.

It does, or at least one has to assimilate the culture in order to predict the behavior of other drivers.

I have heard the traffic signal rule stated as, "Yellow means speed up and red is purely advisory." It's also true here.

In Boston the rules of the road for traffic circles have been inverted by generations of aggressive drivers, so those entering exercise a de facto right of way. Likewise, there used to be a couple of sets of flashing lights on Somerville Ave, where the traffic continued on the red side and stopped on the yellow because you'd have to be nuts not to expect everyone to run the red and they knew you knew it.

I found my Asia driving skills perfectly at home in Boston. Normally my kids are yelling at me to stop driving like an Asian.

[Ish]

The problem might be that driving in Boston safely requires driving like everyone else.

The rules are different. A yellow light here means "speed up," for example.

It does, or at least one has to assimilate the culture in order to predict the behavior of other drivers.

I have heard the traffic signal rule stated as, "Yellow means speed up and red is purely advisory." It's also true here.

In Boston the rules of the road for traffic circles have been inverted by generations of aggressive drivers, so those entering exercise a de facto right of way. Likewise, there used to be a couple of sets of flashing lights on Somerville Ave, where the traffic continued on the red side and stopped on the yellow because you'd have to be nuts not to expect everyone to run the red and they knew you knew it.

I found my Asia driving skills perfectly at home in Boston. Normally my kids are yelling at me to stop driving like an Asian.

Around here, that's driving your Porsche/Ferrari/McLaren really fast and hitting something about 400 feet from where you started.