Ford disguised a man as a car seat to research self-driving
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
There is a fair amount of waving for someone else to go first at a turn, seeing if a driver is distracted (on their phone) at a stop, making eye contact while using a cross walk etc that gets lost with SDVs.
Also, I really feel like they stole this idea from Raid 2 https://youtu.be/ErrRhXItBWc?t=118
I'm sure it had probably been done before that too. :)
Even better when you "put a robot in the driver's seat":
That's how they made Knight Rider "driverless" scenes (http://www.knightriderarchives.com/knight_rider/season_one/g... <= can't find a clear shot, but if you find episodes online, it's pretty easy to see the double depth seat and raised up armrests)
The guy who was hidden in the seat https://youtu.be/nfd3vWrQhS8?t=166
Here you can see the hands moving down https://youtu.be/nfd3vWrQhS8?t=183
Didn't the Top Gear / Grand Tour guys jokingly propose to do this?
And Sherlock.
There are also pedestrians who can take into account if the car is turning (obviously by watching the turning lights).
A self-driving car should have some reactions to people around it, so people could also respond properly to its actions, or know its intentions. There was a comment about an empty electric car near the intersection, staying still, and people around it can't tell if the car is parked, waiting, etc.
People understand what brake lights are and it's relatively simple to see the car slowing down that corresponds with the lights. Then assuming the driver doesn't use the hand brake then it should be obvious that the car is starting again when the brake lights go out.
All this flickering of lights seems way too complex
In EU you have strictly defined priority at stop signs - put simply, if you are going straight you have priority over someone turning, if you are turning, then the person turning right has priority over someone turning left. Simple as that.
I'm just thinking in context of automatic vehicles a strictly defined priority rules are easier to follow, no?
Have you ever seen a 4-way stop in Europe?
I think what you try to explain is the rule for unmarked intersections.
> put simply, if you are going straight you have priority over someone turning, if you are turning, then the person turning right has priority over someone turning left. Simple as that.
That wouldn't work very well when people go straight in different directions...
I have actually.
>>That wouldn't work very well when people go straight in different directions...
Yes, I forgot to mention the "right hand principle" - in this case, whoever is on your right has priority over you. So if you are going straight, and the guy to your right is going straight, he has priority. The only situation where it doesn't work and leads to a deadlock is if you have a 4-way(or 3 way) intersection with equal-priority roads and everyone wants to go straight. Then it sort of reverts to this "whoever goes first wins" strategy - but that's incredibly rare and seeing roads with equal priority meet in this fashion is unusual.
That was actually used in my parallel-programming course as the example of a deadlock caused by priority inversion. Of course it almost never happens that there are cars in all four directions at an intersection without traffic lights, so it isn't much of a problem in practice.
The fallback rule for all situations is "yield to the right". If you're at an intersection with no signs or markings, you get to drive if there's no-one to the right of you.
This creates a deadlock when all roads are unmarked and there's a car on each of them at the exact same time but that almost never happens and can be resolved by slowly inching forward if the person to the right of you doesn't move and then exiting the crossing.
When entering from a road that has a solid line or a yield sign, you always have to yield to the traffic on the road you're merging into. A stop sign means you have to come to a full stop even if the road is empty and slowly approach until you can clearly see there's no traffic and only then merge (after yielding).
Most other rules follow from that.
I'm not sure what you mean by "4-way stop" but if there were a 4-way crossing with stop signs on all sides it would result in a deadlock and be resolved the same way. Except with the explicit restriction that everyone first has to come to a full stop and slowly move forward to determine the traffic situation.
Reading this immediately makes me read the rest of your comment as much more negative and critical than I would otherwise. That's not necessary. If you want to ask a question about stop signs in the U.S., just ask it. (On the other hand, this is something you could google in about 5 seconds, so maybe your point really is just to criticize? Again, your opening line has thrown me off.)
Ever since I heard of people getting blame for accidents, since they were effectively directing traffic (which only the police are allowed to do here), I've stopped waving people to go ahead and similar gestures, instead I'll give them space and wait for them to act of their own accord.
I've also stopped acting on other people's waves and gestures, I check for myself that everything is clear before I proceed.
Luckily I haven't witnessed an accident like this myself, but I know of people who've been T-boned on multi-lane streets because they were waved ahead by a guy in one lane, but someone came in another lane and couldn't see the turning car.
As such, a driver that waves you on can only be trusted as saying "I will wait" but not "you are clear to go", you have to always verify this for yourself.
[1] http://wendyju.com/publications/RO-MAN2016-Rothenbucher.pdf
[2] http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/science/sd-me-ghost...
[3] https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2017/08/heres-the-rea...
Well of course, anything else would have been a car seat cosplay fail!
Don't they mean "seeing one" instead of "using one"? Or am I missing something?
"fill in gaps where we currently communicate via subtle gestures, eye contact and other less obvious mechanisms."
This also struck me as odd - do pedestrians and other drivers really make "eye contact" with drivers to gauge their intention? I guess it's possible, but in many cases you can't see the driver's head, let alone eyes.
https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/7/16109378/driverless-van-ar...
A much better idea seems the front brake lights mentioned by a couple of other commenters, plus a requirement for headlights if the car is on.
Yes. Consciously, at every vehicle at an intersection, to make sure they aren't going to run me over. Same on a bike.
Other drivers? IDK, its harder through 2 windshields.
It's actually quite stressful before the driver (hopefully) stops at a zebra crossing after you accidentally caught eye contact with a waiting pedestrian staring at you.
The best strategy is to just look down, but that feels a bit stupid too when the pedestrians are clearly looking at you.
edit: also, I feel like if we add new light signals for acceleration, for example, it would be nice to add that to all cars.
An always lit in vehicle display and DRLs that are just always on headlights makes people forget to turn their lights on when it's dark. This isn't a problem for them since they have their headlights on but drivers behind them don't see them from a distance at night because their tail lights are not lit up. This is particularly dangerous in traffic where everyone else has their lights on.
Making DRLs mandatory is tripping over a quarter to pick up a penny because it enables this behavior.
If everyone's car just did this automatically, the world would be a safer place. Why would you ever want the lights off?
Once LED lights are more standard and there's less issue of replacing bulbs or wasting electricity it seems a no brainer.
And finally, I think there was a Polish study that said that yeah, while with the lights on you are more likely to notice a car, you are less likely to notice a cyclist - and hitting the latter has much worse consequences than hitting the former. So it might have made things worse.
Most OEMs just make the headlights (and the headlights only, not the tail lights) always on in markets where DRLs are mandatory. The latter is what you get when you do what Canada did and require DRLs and don't require them to also be poor at being headlights.
Pretty much any time when you want to signal the intention of not going anywhere is a darn good time to have your headlights off. Cars actually have parking lights for exactly this reason. They also work great for creeping around your own driveway without throwing too much light on the windows of houses in the very early AM.
My last car rental, some moron previous renter turned the switch to DRL only instead of Auto. I did exactly as you described and drove with no tail lights and headlights that seemed dim but it wasn't my my car so it must just be that way. Eventually another driver flashed his brights from behind and I realized my mistake.
Also, it looks like there are multiple (??) patents on that idea: https://www.google.com/search?tbm=pts&hl=en&q=vehicle+front+...
Brakes are a great way to turn momentum into heat. Then you have to spend fuel to regain momentum.
But, far less safe to move slowly when everyone else expected you were at a standstill.
You're supposed to creep forward a little, but some people might be overdoing it.
The good ones do
I certainly do - most commonly when merging into a congested lane from a side street, stopping and making eye contact helps understand if everybody is paying attention (the merger can move forward and the merged is leaving a space open for them).
Motorcyclists also have a pretty large vocabulary (I'm not sure how many of these are actually used in practice): http://www.abate-il.org/Backroads/signals.html
Ford was using the car. The people were seeing it. The second "they" in that sentence is referring to Ford, not the people.
They do, and it's even advised by some. But I'm here to tell you that the eyes lie. I've had people look me directly in the eye and still pull out in front of me.
Look at the wheels. The wheels will always tell you what the vehicle is going to do.
I'm sort of intentionally being abrasive there though, as I think people drive too aggressively given the surroundings.
This kind of passive aggressive behavior creates more problems than it solves.
It'll probably happen eventually.
Looking like an oblivious idiot (which is indistinguishable from actually being one as far as other people care) who may dart out into the road at any second isn't going to make the world a better place. It will just increase the net frustration. Same goes for going the speed limit in the left lane. Roads are safer when people aren't angry.
You are imagining much more aggressive behavior than I am actually engaging in. If it isn't clear that they have stopped, no way am I stepping in front of them.
This is exactly what I do, it's really obvious when the rim are rotating, even at very low speeds.
Can't say I look people in the eyes much while driving.
'they' is referring to Ford. Rephrased, "Ford just needed people to believe wholeheartedly [that] Ford [was] using one"
>Don't they mean "seeing one" instead of "using one"? Or am I missing something?
the "they"s in the quote refers to the researchers, not "people"
This statement both terrifies and piques my interest simultaneously ...
The border patrol agent became suspicious when the driver opened the glove box to retrieve his registration and a hand reached out from within the box to give it to him.
I've seen some Youtubers pranking drive-through windows in the same way and they're pretty funny at the very least.
I had a 50/50 choice. Keep going or run back. In the 3 or so seconds I had we made eye contact and I saw him return his eyes to my front (i.e. he was trying to get back on to his side of the road) so I moved backwards.
Not sure what I would have done if it were a self-driving car and unable to do the visual communication (Although the entire point might be moot since a self-driver wouldn't be in that situation)
Is the driver in the car in front of you a human driver or a computer.
As for devising new signals which other drivers are supposed to watch to understand what the car plans to do, I'd say we need a lot more research to understand if this actually helps or just distracts.
I like the idea of an indicator showing what the car is 'doing'.
Thank Zod QWERTY was invented so long ago.
/cynicism
Sure, play it once, maybe even twice. But an endless loop? That's just unnecessary.
Some of you older folk may remember an 80s sitcom called Small Wonder, which was a typical American suburbia family sitcom, except the youngest daughter, Vicki, was a robot. What I found unusual about the show was its copyright message: "©1987 The Small Wonder Joint Venture". In later years I found out that the show was produced in part for market research purposes, to solicit feedback about how Americans might feel about robots in the home -- especially robots that look and behave like humans. It was the 80s and we all thought that was coming Real Soon Now.