Against a bright spring sky, the car’s sensors system failed to distinguish a large white 18-wheel truck and trailer crossing the highway, Tesla said. The car attempted to drive full speed under the trailer, “with the bottom of the trailer impacting the windshield of the Model S”, Tesla said in a blog post.

It eliminates a lot of the convenience aspect, but they're very much pushing the idea that overall the driverless car is a safer driver than you are.

You'd need to work out how many miles Teslas have driven themselves without killing anyone vs the stats for human drivers to get a meaningful comparison. But a car that can drive itself only not very well so you need to not drive it but still give the road your full attention as though you were driving seems like a pretty half arsed thing that's not ready for the road.

How many people died in human-driven (drove?) cars in avoidable accidents yesterday?

It's a litigation shield. Tesla (and I'm willing to bet, every driverless manufacturer) is never going to assume full liability for accidents that occur in their vehicles.

It's a litigation shield. Tesla (and I'm willing to bet, every driverless manufacturer) is never going to assume full liability for accidents that occur in their vehicles.

I've been thinking about this and my thoughts lead on to stopping distances but then I thought about speed limits.

Would self driving cars be programmed to stick to the speed limits no matter what?

Almost certainly.

It's not up to them whether they exclude liability for negligence, though. There will be ways around Tesla saying "can't rely on this system" arguing on the size of font.

I'm not saying negligence though. Say that today 5% of accidents are genuinely unavoidable (kid runs out from behind a parked van, no way to spot, no way to stop in time, even when at a safe speed for the conditions). If Tesla can reduce that to 2%, that's fantastic. But they're not going to trade that 5% of driver liability for 2% of Tesla liability.

But they don't get to decide, though.

But they don't get to decide, though.

I just wonder whether human drivers and pedestrians will take the piss out of them. You can imagine every kid everywhere realising that if they run across a pavement when one's coming that it'll slam the brakes on. Or other drivers realising that as soon as they go to overtake the robocar will slow down to let them etc.

Surely they get to decide to some extent by saying 'you need to remain alert' rather than 'feel free to have a kip'?

Will Robocars fall for the 'invisible rope across the road' trick?

Or unscrupulous chalk artists drawing gaping holes in the floor?

Oh, do they actually scan the road surface for potholes and stuff?

That's arguable - your responsibility from a product liability point of view is dependent on "reasonably foreseeable use", and you can’t necessarily get around that by just putting warnings/disclaimers in the product manual saying "don't do this".

Myp makes a very good point though, but I suspect if we get to the situation where the government has to pass a law saying "driverless car manufacturers won't be liable if their cars flip out and murder people" the line of people prepared to buy one might end up quite short.

I wonder if Robocar will get pissed off if I cut him up.

I don't know what that means. Other than you've broken the page.

I don't know what that means. Other than you've broken the page.

Myp makes a very good point though, but I suspect if we get to the situation where the government has to pass a law saying "driverless car manufacturers won't be liable if their cars flip out and murder people" the line of people prepared to buy one might end up quite short.

If only had to design them for that scenario then it would have been way easier as they could just all talk to each other or at least know with a high degree of certainty what the other cars are going to do.

As an IT security bod, *shudder*

Rather than use the wireless networks, they could communicate car to car using some kind of flashing light system.

Put one on the corner of each car, and have the light flash when you intend to move or turn in roughly that direction.

And a light for when they're slowing down maybe.

I think for a lot of people it'll be even simpler than that, if the sales pitch for a driverless car isn't just 'Get in and tell it where you want to go, then do something else for however long it takes to get there', a lot of folks will lose interest.

Opinions differ. That's one idea. The other idea is that the moment of transfer of control from computer to human is so perilous that it's best avoided entirely; hence driverless cars should have no manual controls at all beyond a hidden override joystick for service mode. The humans are only ever passengers in this scenario.

What about when you're turning onto a main road in traffic? Normally some kind soul lets you out eventually - won't driverless cars sit there forever until the end of rush hour?

Christine.