Auto pilots
Self-driving cars have been all the rage for over a decade now, at least theoretically. One celebrity tech mogul continues to ride the enthusiasm behind the idea, unfazed by their real-world limitations, much less his own company’s mixed track record.
The promise of self-driving cars is that computers, using advanced cameras and object-sensing electronics all around, will easily outperform humans at the boring task of operating a motor vehicle on the road. If any activity seems humdrum enough for computer automation, it has to be driving, many have reckoned. But it turns out to be a much more complicated task than even most drivers are willing to admit.
In my view, humans are relatively good at driving because once they have mastered the techniques for operating a motor vehicle, they treat the task as analogous to walking in crowds among others. People manage to coordinate their movements among groups of strangers with minimal outward communication. People do so effortlessly because of how they are wired, but it is probably a unique human ability. They are reasonably good at estimating each other’s likely moves, even when occasionally erratic.
Ulysses S. Grant vividly described the early fears of high-speed travel in his autobiography: He took his first train ride on the new railroad technology as a young man, traveling to West Point from Ohio. People commonly worried about what terrible things might happen to them when they moved at the unimaginable speed of 25 miles an hour!
That was over a century and a half ago, and now we routinely travel in two-ton wheeled vehicles, operating them easily with our own hands and feet, at cruising speeds over 70 mph on crowded highways for long distances without incident. It may be a monotonous and boring task to operate the vehicle, but we’re fairly good at it—especially considering our forebears’ fear of moving at a third of that speed in the 1850s.
Modern vehicles have a suite of safety electronics designed to help avoid accidents, known as ADAS, Advanced Driver Assistance System(s). Assistance from technology in operating road vehicles has been around for quite a while, first in the form of simple cruise control. In the car industry, this assistance is considered a form of automation, since it takes over some of the actions required of the driver. The industry ranks ADAS in levels, very comprehensively laid out in the diagram presented here by SAE International, the automotive engineering society.
As the chart shows, the automation features are broken down from levels 0 (zero) through 5, with increasing autonomous abilities at every stage. The most advanced current automotive technology found in production cars is at Level 2, still requiring a driver in the driver’s seat to monitor the road, fully ready to take over operation of the vehicle within fractions of a second when the ADAS asks for it.
That latter part is the biggest problem. The human ability to pay attention to things is incomplete and imperfect. Not only do we become distracted, but if we are meant to monitor ADAS to make sure it is driving correctly without ourselves operating the controls, our attention does not stay focused on that task for very long. This is a well-established fact in industry. If we have the job of monitoring another person or a machine doing the driving autonomously, our focus quickly goes elsewhere. When a self-driving system fails, it requires human intervention in a fraction of a second, while the nearest human will be multiples of that away from being able to intervene, under most circumstances.
Writing for Bicycling ezine, Joe Lindsey reports on how the actual capabilities of available ADAS technology affect cyclists on public roads. The story goes into some detail about the technological limits when it comes to spotting smaller participants in traffic, like cyclists and children. It is a more nuanced view of present-day tech abilities and limits, rather than the projected hopes of an impatient self-driving enthusiast.
While the tech fans insist driverless technology is right ahead—if not here already—there are still more than a few details and flaws to be worked out, not to mention figuring out the rules and regulations. Drivers should be prepared to keep their hands on the wheel for the foreseeable future.
I’m a cyclist in a big city. Being defenseless while riding, it’s pretty scary realizing how many people drive past without even noticing me, since so many are looking at their phones or just doing something else except paying attention. I do most of my riding on trails for self-preservation. Despite seeing this behavior from humans, I still have a hard time envisioning driverless cars ever reaching the accuracy and safety levels we need.
Happy Women's Day! ( Yea for us)
I may have control issues when it comes to things that could harm me...lol...I have those indicators on my car that light up and beep when my blind spot has a car in it...I do not trust it not to malfunction, so I always turn around and look anyway...lol...I would not like a self driving car unless it was on a monorail or track or something less "free" to move about how ever it wants....I do not trust technology to be as good as I am in danger zones etc...especially as I am a pretty defensive driver and always aware of my surroundings...plus, I know things the car doesn't...lol
Also, Happy Hump Day too!