It seems to me the kids who program these toys have never driven anything other than the RC model they built to get this job. And, of course, it drives fine on the toy "roads" they set up on the carpet in the living room. Real world, not so much.
> When a car is moving at low speeds, slamming on the brakes isn't a big risk. A car traveling at 20mph can afford to wait until an object is quite close before slamming on the brakes, making unnecessary stops unlikely. Short stopping distances also mean that a car slamming on the brakes at 20mph is unlikely to get rear-ended.
But the calculation changes for a car traveling at 70mph. In this case, preventing a crash requires slamming on the brakes while the car is still far away from a potential obstacle. That makes it more likely that the car will misunderstand the situation—for example, wrongly interpreting an object that's merely near the road as being in the road. Sudden braking at high speed can startle the driver, leading to erratic driving behavior. And it also creates a danger that the car behind won't stop in time, leading to a rear-end collision.
In the Thatcham Research video, however, swerving would have been far more workable than braking. But then, we don't want too much autonomous lane hopping, either.
I suspect _that_ might _also_ "startle the driver"...
So of course the only sensible thing to do is release a product that happily accelerates into the back of a bright red emergency vehicle with flashing lights. Or into a stationary concrete barrier. Or into the side of a massive tractor-trailer.
I mean, who wants to bother with false positives?
"You deliver a project 85% correct at university, you get a high distinction. You deliver a project 15% wrong at work, you get fired."
Who are these people?