Hacker News Reader

Comment by speleding | Hacker News Reader

We don't need to jump to completely driverless right away, there is a convenient intermediate step: The passenger can be the passive driver, and the car would drive to the pickup location empty. As soon as regulation allows, that step already gets you the major benefit of not having to "pay for the other dude in the car".

View on HN

> the car would drive to the pickup location empty.

It would seem full driverless with nobody in the car is the big deal here. It doesn't really matter is someone will be behind the wheel later, you already had the thing driving around with no human to intervene in case it does something crazy. Don't see how that's an intermediary step.

A car driving around with no human inside poses less risk to human life than a car driving around with a human inside who is unable to control the car.

That's a carefully parsed statement -- less risk. True.

But I don't think that we're cool with the idea that because the number of humans threatened by an accident is reduced by somewhere between 50 and 20%, it's okay for flagrantly unsafe cars to be on the road.

You are clearly not a pedestrian or cyclist in a major city.

I wouldn't be surprised if driverless cars were way more secure for pedestrians and cyclists.

It's really difficult to keep track of pedestrians and cyclists when driving, whereas a driverless car has 360° nightvision.

Eventually, it might be. However just because the car has better sensors doesn't mean it will react better than a human would with less information.

> a human would with less information.

I'm arguing for the case where the human as NO information.

Let's say, there's a bicycle/motorbike somewhat behind your cars.

For a human driver, it can be seen in only one of the 3 rear mirrors at any point in time. Unless it's slightly behind-left or behind-right (e.g. to take over) in which case it's in the dead angle and can't be seen at all.

By turning his head and using the mirrors, a human cannot see most of the 360° around a car. There are obstructed angles, not to mention that the human can only look toward one direction at once.

The self driving cars with 360° vision can see things that a human couldn't. It has a chance to react where the human didn't.

No, but it also doesn't mean it won't react better. Are you presenting an argument here?

Sensor quality shouldn't be used to justify driverless cars being safer than a regular person driving a car. It's useless unless the car can actually use it to make a better decision than a human.

But...the other drivers on the road?

I once proposed that for airport rental cars - you'd call for a rental car, and it would self-drive, slowly, from the rental yard to the terminal. Then the renter takes over driving. At return, the driver gets out at the terminal, pushes the "done with rental" button, and the car drives itself, slowly, back to the rental yard.

Major destinations with big parking lots could be on the system. Convention centers, sports stadiums, major hotels. Again, the driver gets out at a convenient unloading point and the car drives and parks itself.

All autonomous driving would be around 15-20mph. At that speed, slamming on the brakes is an adequate solution to almost all problems.

But airport security was too touchy an issue a decade ago. What if one of the self-driving cars had a bomb in it? Might be worth another look now.

Put some sensors inside the car, like in the backseat and the trunk. If they sense something is in the car when you press the "Done with rental" button, it will signal you and will not move. Solved.

As a frequent travel I will say that this is brilliant!

"We don't need to jump to completely driverless right away" ... "the car would drive to the pickup location empty"

You don't consider a car that can drive itself to the pickup location empty to be "completely driverless"?

Driving without anyone in the car is still completely driverless. That human-free car will still need to navigate through the environment with hitting anyone or anything with zero possibility of intervention.

You'd need to verify that users have a valid driver's license. The problem is, how do you verify that the rider's identity is the same as the user who ordered the ride? Facial recognition?

No you wouldn't. Car sharing clubs like Zipcar deal with the same issue - they hire out cars on a completely unattended basis. If a customer chooses to pick up one of their cars and drive drunk or lend it to their cousin with a suspended license, the customer is liable.

Good point, don't know why I didn't think of Zipcar when I used a similar service last year.

Looks like the bigger problem might be people suing over accidents where they were distracted and forced to make a split second decision, when they 'reasonably' expected the car to be able to handle the conditions. (Not trying to shift the goal posts, just sharing a separate concern).

How do you do this verification when someone rents a car?

I've rented a car before where the only thing they verified is that I presented a credit card with the same name as the one on my driver's license, which they never asked to see because I had already put in the number online. I guess it's possible they were able to look up my photo from DMV records and were matching my face to it, but I'm guessing not.

Also, more importantly, you have to verify that the user is not at the moment incapable of operating a vehicle, i.e drunk.

I'm not a lawyer but I assume any funny business there would be charged to the person using another person's account, and the person who owns the account. That's how it works with regular cars if you use someone else's ID.

You could use an RFID chip, with an understanding that sharing it bad. Not perfect, but not unlike how drivers pick up a ZipCar now.

If you have full autonomy to get to the passenger, then you don't need them once you've picked them up.

Never mind the fact that now you have to worry about drunks, making sure insurance is cleared and people have perfect records (and know how to drive), want to drive at all (I don't -- isn't that what I'm paying for?), etc.

Besides the car driving around without a passenger on its way to pick them up, what if the passenger does not wish to pay attention? Part of what I enjoy when I take an Uber is the ability to make comments like this on HN.

If I am engaged with my phone, I am not supervising/shadowing the car.

This would require passengers to be licensed drivers

Reply on news.ycombinator.com