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Comment by nostromo | Hacker News Reader

Here in Seattle, we have single-lane roads that go both directions.

When two cars are facing each other, there is a lot of human interaction and understanding about who should go first, who should pull off into a parking spot, or perhaps who should reverse into the intersection to let the other pass.

This is one of thousands of edge-cases that are going to be extremely challenging to automate. I'm not sure it's even possible without some understanding of the counterparty, their intentions and body language.

One problem with developing these technologies in California is that California has very wide, very regular roads. High visibility and dry conditions are the norm. There are few uncontrolled intersections (in Seattle they are the rule, not an exception). I think California's history as a motorist culture has conversely made it one of the easiest places to automate.

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> Here in Seattle, we have single-lane roads that go both directions.

We have those in California, too.

> One problem with developing these technologies in California is that California has very wide, very regular roads.

Except where it doesn't.

> High visibility and dry conditions are the norm.

San Francisco, for instance, has fog about 1 in 3 days of the year.

>Except where it doesn't.

It has few enough that you can route around them and still get where you're going.

> It has few enough that you can route around them and still get where you're going.

I think this is a misconception. California has many residents who live in areas that don't have the super wide roads you're thinking it has. It has a wide gamut of roads and many residents (such as myself) are surrounded by more narrow roads. I'm not even in San Francisco. I'm in a suburb in the bay area. (San Carlos)

Exactly where in San Carlos do you think a self-driving / autonomous vehicle would not be able to traverse without affecting the safety or enjoyability of a pedestrian / bicyclist / another vehicle?

The following seems to show a road next to a playground in San Carlos.[1] You think thats too narrow a road for an autonomous vehicle to navigate without endangering kids? Have you familiarized yourself with the latest in autonomous / self-driving tech?[2]

I think your fears are overblown or purposely exaggerated.

[1] Laureola Park San Carlos, CA Playground

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3g3ITuPd7Gw

[2] The $800M Robo Taxi That Could Beat Uber

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjDLwnTyybo

2 blocks from that playground.

https://goo.gl/maps/vokEswX4S8z

I live on that street. The streets adjacent to it are also plagued by a plethora of cars on both sides. Much worse than what streetview is showing because streetview is done midday on weekdays when everyone is gone. (Notice how most of the driveways are empty and recycling cans are out - it's the middle of a Thursday that this was taken) It used to be that people would park with their cars on the curb to give more access but I don't see people doing that anymore.

Certain weekends and at night these streets are very full with cars. Much more than google street view shows. It's deceptively smaller than it appears. It looks as if two cars might be able to slip by but frequently not the case. I can't actually remember the last time I saw two cars go by each other side by side without one pulling over to wait for another to pass on my street in particular. The more main street to the south has the same problem but is even wider.

The streets in particular are pretty wide for this issue but because of street parking being available on both sides, it's an issue.

> San Francisco, for instance, has fog about 1 in 3 days of the year.

This is one of the things that self-driving cars WILL do better--and fairly quickly.

Having a sensor system that isn't blinded by aerosolized water will be a huge benefit to driving.

Many places in the world are like that, I 've travelled to most european countries by car, and I can't name a single city that doesn't have 2-way 1-lane roads.

Actually I am curious what europeans honestly think of the self driving car craze, since getting the bus, the metro, and.. ehrm walking and biking is much more common and pleasant there.

My home town is close to Rome. I would love a car that could drive there autonomously. But in the city? Cobblestones, broken pavement, pedestrians crossing randomly, motorbikes overtaking you everywhere, no formal lanes, narrow streets, restricted areas, broken buses, tramways, city police indications when semaphores are off, people trying to sell you stuff or washing your screen when you have a red light..

I think we'll need general artificial intelligence to handle that.

> think we'll need general artificial intelligence > to handle that.

There are roads near me that people struggle to drive down. The amount of negotiation with other drivers, the ability to bump up a hedge or pavement, or reverse hundreds of meters ... or sometimes the need to assertively barge through. But we have nice roads, so geo-fencing to AI certified roads sounds fine.

Yeah but that doesnt support the "autonomous taxi" use cases that have been pushed for revenue.

Perhaps you need a better government that takes care of all these things. Don't you think?

Isn't dealing with corruption and corrupt officials rife in the quotidian lives of Italians even in 2019? Don't you think its high time Italians figured this dysfunction out rather than expect the modern world to bend to the moribundity of your culture and ways of doing things? [1] [2]

[1] The Impossibility of Italian Politics

https://www.the-american-interest.com/2018/03/07/impossibili...

[2] Italian Elections: More of the Same Political Dysfunction

https://americas.nikkoam.com/articles/2018/02/italian-electi...

Easy: don't put that road in the map. The cars don't have to choose the same routes people do, and when you're not the one driving, you're often less sensitive to timing.

Lots of residential places have roads exactly like those. In Seattle in particular, it's not just suburbs, but roads filled with apartment buildings on either side (see the neighborhood capitol hill for example).

I like Musk's proposal for mostly autonomous tunnel driving because it actually seems much more feasible than handling every edge case known to man.

> I like Musk's proposal for mostly autonomous tunnel driving because it actually seems much more feasible than handling every edge case known to man.

Maybe I'm just not familiar with the specifics of that proposal, but I don't think tunnels solve the problem you presented either. If I need to go down a one lane street to get to my house, I'll still need to do that whether we have tunnels or not, unless for some reason the tunnel exit is right in front of my house.

Personally, I think the solution is to make only make certain large, predictable roads self driving and force a user to take over on smaller more complicated roads. As technology advances, you can slowly add more and more of the smaller roads to the self driving map.

The idea, as far as I understand, is that the tunnels present new underground routes that can use central control of vehicles to manage congestion.

According to Elon, his investment in cheaper drilling tech will mean we will have many tunnels with relatively cheap to build entrance and exit points that are significantly smaller than subway stations.

These entry points will allow you to drive to and from your house, enter the tunnel system where some sort of conveyor belt/computer controls your car. You exit the tunnel and drive normal.

So the idea is that the tunnel exits will be _very_ near to your home. Otherwise it's dumb. I think what you are saying about large predictable roads is basically what Elon Musk is proposing but underground.

https://www.boringcompany.com/faq

Okay, that is the proposal I've seen, and IMO it has a huge number of flaws.

- There are going to be certain places where you can't dig a tunnel for geological reasons. For example, half the population of Florida lives less than 4 feet above sea level.

- Even if you increase the speed you can dig a tunnel and lower the cost, it's still cheaper to pave a road above ground.

- There are plenty of places where NIMBY folks just wont let you dig a tunnel (looking at you LA purple line extension).

Ignoring all that though, even if you can build an entry point every half mile, you still run into the issue of needing to drive the car that last stretch, which means you need to either solve the problem of self-driving on complicated roads, or force the driver to take over. The tunnel system shortens the amount of time you would spend on small roads, but it doesn't eliminate it.

The first quarter is easy, the 2nd more difficult. I don't think we'll ever get to the third.

> Easy: don't put that road in the map.

Not reasonable. You'd be parking the car at least half a mile from where I live because it's full of these streets. Usually they're one car at a time because cars are parked on both sides of the street causing the streets to become just big enough for one car to get through.

For reference, I live in San Carlos (Bay Area). I've encountered this same issue in many other parts of the USA too. It's not uncommon at all.

> Not reasonable

If your car could get to your location without needing to use those streets, it could park itself anywhere, half a mile or further. There is also the very reasonable possibility of banning parking conditions that lead to that kind of issue, made more palatable by my earlier point.

I've learned to always think in "options", not "absolutes".

Good luck getting that passed. The reason there are so many cars parked on the street where I live is because many of the homes were made in a time when people didn't even own a car. You'd essentially be banning ownership of more than one car.

> One problem with developing these technologies in California is that California has very wide, very regular roads. High visibility and dry conditions are the norm. There are few uncontrolled intersections (in Seattle they are the rule, not an exception). I think California's history as a motorist culture has conversely made it one of the easiest places to automate.

You're doing well until you say this. The state of California is just as diverse as Seattle when it comes to roads. I lived in both quite a bit...

California has some bad roads with poor visibility. Recently, we've had a lot of forest fires. Guess what - visibility gets pretty bad. It's like driving in fog (and we have that too). We also have snow! (The bay area got snow this winter - skyline did its thing and fell off the face of the earth again from it too) We had so much snow that most of Tahoe was closed for winter. The roads aren't super well maintained and if you go do some trips to Tahoe (good luck getting there or back!), you'd find out that the markings for lanes just disappear altogether. (Snow or not) We have single lane with 2 way traffic either intentionally or because there are so many cars parked on the road that only one car can fit through. There are insane hills with no nearly no visibility unless you creep forward into the intersection past the stop sign when at the top. Same with going down them - no god damn idea what's below until you just jump that cliff. You have some of those in Seattle but they're really steep in SF. Incredibly twisty and poorly paved roads with no road markings that suddenly change from having lines to not having lines randomly or permanently (e.g. Alpine, Old La Honda Rd, Kings Mountain) and here's the kicker - they're pretty popular roads with lots of people using them all the time with a wide variety of people on them. It's common to see a cyclist on the road or a damn horse and having to overtake them when there isn't a ton of room (and there's a very real risk of oncoming traffic) unless you want to be stuck behind them for 30 minutes during their little workout or trot up the hill.

So... don't write off the whole state. There's a lot of varied conditions.

I think everyone is underestimating how many people live in these conditions. The Los Angeles economy alone is bigger than almost every other country in the world. Add in the rest of Southern California & The Bay, Phoenix, New Mexico, and the majority of Texas's population -- and that's probably a bigger economy than any other beside China.

Will self-driving cars be applicable EVERYWHERE in EVERY condition shortly? No. But even if they're only available in ideal conditions in some places -- that can still be almost unfathomably huge.

> This is one of thousands of edge-cases that are going to be extremely challenging to automate.

On the contrary, this is very easy to automate, it's a simple shared route planning communication between the cars.

The challenge remains interpretation and reaction to irregular environmental objects and structures.

Step 1: no human drivers.

Ah yes, so simple.

I appreciate you're trying to be glib. However, up to level 4 autonomy I'm not sure I understand your point? Even the most optimistic people agree level 5 vehicles are multiple 10s of years away.

Is Elon Musk included in your "the most optimistic people"?

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