http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28551069
Quote:
The UK government has announced that driverless cars will be allowed on public roads from January next year.
It also invited cities to compete to host one of three trials of the tech, which would start at the same time.
In addition, ministers ordered a review of the UK's road regulations to provide appropriate guidelines.
The Department for Transport had originally pledged to let self-driving cars be trialled on public roads by the end of 2013.
Business Secretary Vince Cable revealed the details of the new plan at a research facility belonging to Mira, an automotive engineering firm based in the Midlands.
"Today's announcement will see driverless cars take to our streets in less than six months, putting us at the forefront of this transformational technology and opening up new opportunities for our economy and society," he said.
UK engineers, including a group at the University of Oxford, have been experimenting with driverless cars. But, concerns about legal and insurance issues have so far restricted the machines to private roads.
Other countries have, however, been swifter to provide access to public routes.
Business Secretary Vince Cable 'felt safe' in driverless car
The US States of California, Nevada and Florida have all approved tests of the vehicles. In California alone, Google's driverless car has done more than 300,000 miles on the open road.
In 2013, Nissan carried out Japan's first public road test of an autonomous vehicle on a highway.
And in Europe, the Swedish city of Gothenburg has given Volvo permission to test 100 driverless cars - although that trial is not scheduled to occur until 2017.
Competition cash
UK cities wanting to host one of the trials have until the start of October to declare their interest.
The tests are then intended to run for between 18 to 36 months.
A £10m fund has been created to cover their costs, with the sum to be divided between the three winners.
Meanwhile, civil servants have been given until the end of this year to publish a review of road regulations.
This will cover the need for self-drive vehicles to comply with safety and traffic laws, and involve changes to the Highway Code, which applies to England, Scotland and Wales.
Two area will be examined by the review: how the rules should apply to vehicles in which the driver can take back control at short notice, and how they should apply to vehicles in which there is no driver.
It also invited cities to compete to host one of three trials of the tech, which would start at the same time.
In addition, ministers ordered a review of the UK's road regulations to provide appropriate guidelines.
The Department for Transport had originally pledged to let self-driving cars be trialled on public roads by the end of 2013.
Business Secretary Vince Cable revealed the details of the new plan at a research facility belonging to Mira, an automotive engineering firm based in the Midlands.
"Today's announcement will see driverless cars take to our streets in less than six months, putting us at the forefront of this transformational technology and opening up new opportunities for our economy and society," he said.
UK engineers, including a group at the University of Oxford, have been experimenting with driverless cars. But, concerns about legal and insurance issues have so far restricted the machines to private roads.
Other countries have, however, been swifter to provide access to public routes.
Business Secretary Vince Cable 'felt safe' in driverless car
The US States of California, Nevada and Florida have all approved tests of the vehicles. In California alone, Google's driverless car has done more than 300,000 miles on the open road.
In 2013, Nissan carried out Japan's first public road test of an autonomous vehicle on a highway.
And in Europe, the Swedish city of Gothenburg has given Volvo permission to test 100 driverless cars - although that trial is not scheduled to occur until 2017.
Competition cash
UK cities wanting to host one of the trials have until the start of October to declare their interest.
The tests are then intended to run for between 18 to 36 months.
A £10m fund has been created to cover their costs, with the sum to be divided between the three winners.
Meanwhile, civil servants have been given until the end of this year to publish a review of road regulations.
This will cover the need for self-drive vehicles to comply with safety and traffic laws, and involve changes to the Highway Code, which applies to England, Scotland and Wales.
Two area will be examined by the review: how the rules should apply to vehicles in which the driver can take back control at short notice, and how they should apply to vehicles in which there is no driver.
Exciting times 
I foresee a huge amount of debate around legality and insurance coming up though.
I foresee a huge amount of debate around legality and insurance coming up though. 
I'm looking forward to the first time I get stuck behind a driverless car that's stuck behind a bicycle.
Happy with this as long as it doesn't become mandatory. I quite like driving sometimes.
The driverless car will simply run them over. Cyclists represent zero earnings for the manufacturer of the car.
markg wrote:
I'm looking forward to the first time I get stuck behind a driverless car that's stuck behind a bicycle.
It's ok, the bicycles will be driverless by then too.
Grim... wrote:
The driverless car will simply run them over. Cyclists represent zero earnings for the manufacturer of the car.
Indeed crippling a cyclist creates a potential new customer for your driverless car business; it's a win-win.
Driverless dustbin lorry, surely?
markg wrote:
I'm looking forward to the first time I get stuck behind a driverless car that's stuck behind a bicycle.
I'm hoping such vehicles are fitted with laser cannons for this very purpose.
Ah, the ever onward march of progress.
<DIRECTIVE 4>
<CLASSIFIED>
Asimov's laws of robotics would prevent this.
Only if we are now regarding cyclists as human beings.
MaliA wrote:
Asimov's laws of robotics would prevent this.
It didn't in RoboCop, so it must be true. Yes.
@Markg: aha! Yes, good point.
/grabs coat
Wait, they are legalising the cars on public roads at the same time they are starting trials?
That'll be fun!
That'll be fun!
Curiosity wrote:
Wait, they are legalising the cars on public roads at the same time they are starting trials?
That'll be fun!
That'll be fun!
I can't see how else they would trial cars on public roads.
MaliA wrote:
Curiosity wrote:
Wait, they are legalising the cars on public roads at the same time they are starting trials?
That'll be fun!
That'll be fun!
I can't see how else they would trial cars on public roads.
Well, yes, but hopefully they're only legal for the trials and not in general at that point. In which case it's a much smaller story, and you'd assume they won't just chuck a few on the M25 'for the lulz'
Curiosity wrote:
MaliA wrote:
Curiosity wrote:
Wait, they are legalising the cars on public roads at the same time they are starting trials?
That'll be fun!
That'll be fun!
I can't see how else they would trial cars on public roads.
Well, yes, but hopefully they're only legal for the trials and not in general at that point. In which case it's a much smaller story, and you'd assume they won't just chuck a few on the M25 'for the lulz'
This story is a joyous one and you're sucking all the fun out of it. You're a mypster, with your beard and stuff!
I assume that even though they are called driverless there will be a human in them when they are out on the road??
So I guess they could override the car etc?
So I guess they could override the car etc?
asfish wrote:
I assume that even though they are called driverless there will be a human in them when they are out on the road??
So I guess they could override the car etc?
So I guess they could override the car etc?
Driverless delivery vehicles?
Slightly Green wrote:
asfish wrote:
I assume that even though they are called driverless there will be a human in them when they are out on the road??
So I guess they could override the car etc?
So I guess they could override the car etc?
Driverless delivery vehicles?
Yodal would go for those, could blame a computer problem for dumping your parcel on your drive in the rain then driving off
asfish wrote:
I assume that even though they are called driverless there will be a human in them when they are out on the road??
So I guess they could override the car etc?
So I guess they could override the car etc?
For the trials, almost certainly. Once they're released though, probably not.
asfish wrote:
I assume that even though they are called driverless there will be a human in them when they are out on the road??
So I guess they could override the car etc?
So I guess they could override the car etc?
Not in the latest Google ones, no. They have no manual controls.
Doctor Glyndwr wrote:
asfish wrote:
I assume that even though they are called driverless there will be a human in them when they are out on the road??
So I guess they could override the car etc?
So I guess they could override the car etc?
Not in the latest Google ones, no. They have no manual controls.
They have a go and a stop, right?
All cars should have a big red "stop" button.
Yes, it does have that. I wonder if "stop" does "emergency stop right here" ie. in the middle of the road or "pull over." There are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches.
It's a self destruct mechanism, obviously.
It should stop right there, if you want to pull over you should say pull over. There's still too many scenarios where a person might see an accident about to happen where a computer won't, I'm sure everyone has seen someone about to pull out from a side road and you can see that they haven't looked. And that's even without accounting for some malfunction or other.
markg wrote:
It should stop right there, if you want to pull over you should say pull over.
I agree. The big red button should slam the brakes on and cut all the power as soon as you press it.
markg wrote:
There's still too many scenarios where a person might see an accident about to happen where a computer won't
I disagree. From what I've seen and read, the computers are phenomenal at prediction, especially when it comes to collisions*. The main problem seems to be if they come across a situation they can't understand - right now they come to a halt and ask the driver to take over (the ones with controls, of course) because they'll always play it safe. Then they can take the data back to the lab and run a simulation to see what the car would have done.
I'm fascinated by this stuff, as you might have noticed.
*Add to that, of course, that the humans might not be paying attention - indeed, it might become the norm to travel facing backward, as it's safer that way. People that get car sick might not be too happy about that, though.
I agree they should be better in most scenarios and but there are some, such as the example I gave where you might see a situation emerging which the computer simply could never predict. Given what the cars can see with their laser scanners and whatnot they have more accurate information about some things but almost none about things an alert driver should notice. They probably might not spot that a child has seen something across the road and is going to continue running across the pavement and right into the road. The car would just see a cluster of pedestrians on the pavement and have no cause to slow down or begin swerving even before there is an obstruction. In time they might but right now as I understand it they don't have this level of intuition.
Of course how you could ever maintain any level of alertness if you aren't actually driving is another question. I guess we would have to accept that the odd crash which a human might not have had is a price worth paying for all the ones that have been avoided. Best of luck getting the rest of the population to take that view when the first child gets splattered by a robot car, though.
I think it's more likely that a human will press the red button when it isn't necessary, and cause an accident, rather than prevent one.
markg wrote:
I agree they should be better in most scenarios and but there are some, such as the example I gave where you might see a situation emerging which the computer simply could never predict. Given what the cars can see with their laser scanners and whatnot they have more accurate information about some things but almost none about things an alert driver should notice. They probably might not spot that a child has seen something across the road and is going to continue running across the pavement and right into the road. The car would just see a cluster of pedestrians on the pavement and have no cause to slow down or begin swerving even before there is an obstruction. In time they might but right now as I understand it they don't have this level of intuition.
Collision avoidance is quite simple actually. Do a worst case scenario analysis -- there's a car out of sight, a cyclist on the other side of that truck, one of that group of pedestrians may run across the road immediately, a door may open on that parked car -- and never do anything that means you can't react to that in time. Which is what the Highway Code teaches as defensive driving, of course, but few humans drive as conservatively as it really requires because it's mentally exhausting. You don't need to read the child's face; the model only has to see a group of X pedestrians and assume they may run at any second. That's not that difficult a problem.
Note that the sensors are accurate enough to read a cyclists hand signals, so there's plenty of fidelity to do things like disambiguate a group into individuals.
Then they'll be going very slowly everywhere. And the price of the robot cars never having an accident will be 10mph traffic.
markg wrote:
Then they'll be going very slowly everywhere. And the price of the robot cars never having an accident will be 10mph traffic.
This video shows some good behind the scenes stuff of a couple of complex scenarios and how the Google car manages them:
Yeah I've seen all the Google advertainment pieces. I'm not saying that they won't work, I'm saying that they will have different types of accidents but much fewer of them and be safer overall. They'll probably end up with kill switches on the outside too, like buses.
markg wrote:
Then they'll be going very slowly everywhere. And the price of the robot cars never having an accident will be 10mph traffic.
I doubt that will be a problem. A modern car can pull up from thirty mph in less than 9m (with an effective thinking time of zero meters, of course) and having to stop might not be the only option - it might be able to swerve to avoid a problem.
The adaptive cruise control on my car. Does this to a point.
I will just see this as an extension to this.
I will just see this as an extension to this.
My company doesn't do car insurance, but it does do a fucking lot of liability insurance. So please continue to post any interesting links about these cars, as I'm going to have to do a paper to the board about it at some point.
Other is tugging, right?
Sleep is a bit extreme isn't it? I don't think I'd be able to nod off leaving my driving in the hands of my car. Not until the cars are well established anyway.
TheVision wrote:
Sleep is a bit extreme isn't it? I don't think I'd be able to nod off leaving my driving in the hands of my car. Not until the cars are well established anyway.
I do in aeroplance, trains, taxis and other cars.
But, yeah, it will be a bit weird to begin with. And which fucknuts wrote "work" down, eh? Same fucknuts that write "I think this product is correctly priced" on surveys, rather than "make it a fiver, love".
MaliA wrote:
TheVision wrote:
Sleep is a bit extreme isn't it? I don't think I'd be able to nod off leaving my driving in the hands of my car. Not until the cars are well established anyway.
I do in aeroplance, trains, taxis and other cars.
Yes but someone else is in control.
KovacsC wrote:
Yes but someone else is in control.
Someone else who might lose concentration, fall asleep, glance at their cell phone, not notice a traffic light change to red, ...
Doctor Glyndwr wrote:
KovacsC wrote:
Yes but someone else is in control.
Someone else who might lose concentration, fall asleep, glance at their cell phone, not notice a traffic light change to red, ...
True, but until every car is automatic, we will still have those issues.
KovacsC wrote:
Doctor Glyndwr wrote:
KovacsC wrote:
Yes but someone else is in control.
Someone else who might lose concentration, fall asleep, glance at their cell phone, not notice a traffic light change to red, ...
True, but until every car is automatic, we will still have those issues.
Even when automatic cars are already demonstrably better at handling the variables of other human drivers on the road, than human drivers are?
Trooper wrote:
KovacsC wrote:
Doctor Glyndwr wrote:
KovacsC wrote:
Yes but someone else is in control.
Someone else who might lose concentration, fall asleep, glance at their cell phone, not notice a traffic light change to red, ...
True, but until every car is automatic, we will still have those issues.
Even when automatic cars are already demonstrably better at handling the variables of other human drivers on the road, than human drivers are?
I would get one, as I do a lot of miles.
Lonewolves wrote:
I wonder if it'd programmed to avoid white privilege pedestrians, but not those of colour?
