Reading it does sound like the motorcycle was at fault.
That being said there are a lot of signs a driver can pick up on that no sensor can.
Did the bike start looking over his shoulder, was the vehicles far in front starting to brake etc. .
if a vehicle signals and starts to change lane but then aborts the maneuver and swerves back in causing a crash is that not just as dangerous?
I’m not trying to belittle autonomous cars it just seems that the way its going the law will be very black and white regarding liability in the event of a crash because the vehicles was following the highway code even though a human driver may of been able to easily prevent it.
I just can’t see human driven vehicles and fully autonomous vehicles working well together.
There seems to be a determined effort to not blame autonomous vehicles for any collision. Seems like the bike was filtering through slow moving traffic and as the auto moved from lane 2 to lane 1, took it’s space. The auto then decided that conditions had changed and moved back into lane 2, colliding with the bike who was now there. Any of us have a collision in those circumstances would get the blame, why not the auto vehicle?
Captain Caveman 76:
Any of us have a collision in those circumstances would get the blame, why not the auto vehicle?
Politics, big money in this and you can bet politicians world-wide will have vested interests in the companies involved, or at least those bank-rolling the politicians will have.
That the motorcyclist was declared “at fault” is a massive swerve from the kernel of this.
The massive fat elephant in the tiny room is staring everyone in the face. There shouldn’t have been an accident in the first place. Isnt this exactly the kind of example autonomous cars are trumpeted as being able to avoid? Superior ability to react and drive a car defensively. In other words, there shouldn’t have been an accident at all. It was hardly an unusual circumstance either. Very Indecisive computer tries to regain previous position without checking if a motorist has moved in. Forward thinking test failed.
I mean, why exactly are we automating cars if we’re already making excuses for their ■■■■ ups?
Freight Dog:
That the motorcyclist was declared “at fault” is a massive swerve from the kernel of this.
The massive fat elephant in the tiny room is staring everyone in the face. There shouldn’t have been an accident in the first place. Isnt this exactly the kind of example autonomous cars are trumpeted as being able to avoid? Superior ability to react and drive a car defensively. In other words, there shouldn’t have been an accident at all. It was hardly an unusual circumstance either. Very Indecisive computer tries to regain previous position without checking if a motorist has moved in. Forward thinking test failed.
I mean, why exactly are we automating cars if we’re already making excuses for their ■■■■ ups?
It’s obvious that blaming the autonomous vehicle not the biker was never going to be allowed to happen.Because there is too much big money and political face saving at stake.
So let’s get this right the things aren’t ( can’t be ) programmed with the anticipation abilities,to forward plan the decision to make a lane change,on the basis of the question is there a sufficient gap to merge assuming the vehicle ahead in the target lane slows down for whatever reason.Let alone the situation of making a lane change from lane 1 to lane 2 or 3 to 2 when there is traffic in lane 3 or lane 1 which could also decide to make a lane change from lane 3 to 2 or 1 to 2 at the same time.Or aborting and reversing a lane change having supposedly signalled the intention and moved out of the lane,leaving other traffic to justifiably then act on that by going through in the now obviously empty lane ahead.This example was 100 % the fault of the autonomous vehicle.Which can only get worse assuming it’s loads of the stupid things sharing the same road space and all driving with far less anticipation and forward planning skills than even the worst human driver.
Had a competent human been driving that car, he/she could have seen that the traffic in lane 3 was slowing and made the decision not to change lanes. The motor cyclist seems to have been partly at fault for changing lanes before lane 2 was clear, ie, the car hadn’t cleared the lane. That’s my take on it anyway, but I’ll leave the rest to the TNUK far removed accident investigation team.
Reading it does sound like the motorcycle was at fault.
The motorcyclist is being determined to be at fault because they were overtaking on the right, but the very act of filtering will mean you are often overtaking some vehicles on the right (or left in the UK)
However Filtering is legal in California, the law was passed at the end of 2016, although its controversial and open to interpretation, but if the rider was performing a legal manoeuvre should they have got a ticket for overtaking on the right?
adam277:
That being said there are a lot of signs a driver can pick up on that no sensor can.
Did the bike start looking over his shoulder, was the vehicles far in front starting to brake etc.
if a vehicle signals and starts to change lane but then aborts the maneuver and swerves back in causing a crash is that not just as dangerous?
It might have been a situation where a driver might have either not started to change lanes in the first place, but it’s not unusual for drivers to go for gaps without knowing what’s going on ahead.
I also doubt a driver would have seen or even looked for the bike when they moved back, so I doubt that this wouldn’t of happened if the car had a driver in control.
Be interesting to see how they would fair in London. When the commute starts on the north circular I’m often overtaken by bikes filtering on both sides at the same time.
I think a good driver will be safer than an autonomous vehicle, but the thing is good drivers are becoming a bit thin on the ground. I suspect autonomy will greatly reduce the carnage but there will sill be accidents and people will still die. We’re strangely acceptant of being killed by other idiot drivers (6 every day + 70 seriously injured and it seldom makes the news) It will be interesting to see how society reacts when ‘Artificial Intelligence’ takes some ones life!
peterm:
Had a competent human been driving that car, he/she could have seen that the traffic in lane 3 was slowing and made the decision not to change lanes. The motor cyclist seems to have been partly at fault for changing lanes before lane 2 was clear, ie, the car hadn’t cleared the lane. That’s my take on it anyway, but I’ll leave the rest to the TNUK far removed accident investigation team.
I agree with this. The publicly applauded, yet infantile by comparison, examples of automation show quite how elegantly a brain can evaluate risk and external factors to create a forward thinking model using prior learned knowledge. There’s always cabbages on the road doing their best to test this citation of human ability!
An autonomous road environment would have to be all automated and protected such that the entire system runs with external factors and variables closed off for automated cars to appear “safer” overall. Similar to the docklands light railway. A system with very few external factors or variables allowed into the operating world of the vehicle. In other words. You’re creating an artificial world that doesn’t show up the computers complete inability to carry out complex assessment of wildcard events.
Freight Dog:
An autonomous road environment would have to be all automated and protected A system with very few external factors or variables allowed into the operating world of the vehicle. In other words. You’re creating an artificial world that doesn’t show up the computers complete inability to carry out complex assessment of wildcard events.
^ This.
Ironically anticipating a gap in a target lane closing down for numerous different reasons ‘before’ making the move probably isn’t actually even complex at all for a human brain but it’s obviously in the realms of science fiction for a computer to figure it out.In this case the stupid piece of junk managed to get it wrong twice in that regard not even settling for just getting it wrong once.Probably thinking along the lines I am allowed to change lanes,oh wait I must not tailgate,I must not hit the vehicle ahead,but I am still allowed to change lanes,biker,what biker,what’s a biker … crash,followed by it’s impossible it does not compute.Don’t even ask it how it deals with the complications of stopping at the scene of the resulting carnage and providing its name and address.
Bluey Circles:
I think a good driver will be safer than an autonomous vehicle, but the thing is good drivers are becoming a bit thin on the ground. I suspect autonomy will greatly reduce the carnage but there will sill be accidents and people will still die. We’re strangely acceptant of being killed by other idiot drivers (6 every day + 70 seriously injured and it seldom makes the news) It will be interesting to see how society reacts when ‘Artificial Intelligence’ takes some ones life!
I cant help but wonder how far these computers can “see” in comparison to a more aware driver. Any decent driver will know what is going on around them and is quite possibly reacting to a development before the driver in front does. I know I tend to look through or past the vehicle in front of me (where possible) instead of waiting for brake lights to prompt my own reaction. Can a computer do that or are they relying on radar type sensors that bounce a beam back from the nearest obstruction? Can they anticipate something before it happens? A computer cant replicate a mind so how can it replicate driver instincts? I remain unconvinced that these are a positive step although I do concede that the majority of road users lack in driver instinct which is largely due to the lack of skills to develop them from
Bluey Circles:
I think a good driver will be safer than an autonomous vehicle, but the thing is good drivers are becoming a bit thin on the ground. I suspect autonomy will greatly reduce the carnage but there will sill be accidents and people will still die. We’re strangely acceptant of being killed by other idiot drivers (6 every day + 70 seriously injured and it seldom makes the news) It will be interesting to see how society reacts when ‘Artificial Intelligence’ takes some ones life!
I cant help but wonder how far these computers can “see” in comparison to a more aware driver. Any decent driver will know what is going on around them and is quite possibly reacting to a development before the driver in front does. I know I tend to look through or past the vehicle in front of me (where possible) instead of waiting for brake lights to prompt my own reaction. Can a computer do that or are they relying on radar type sensors that bounce a beam back from the nearest obstruction? Can they anticipate something before it happens? A computer cant replicate a mind so how can it replicate driver instincts? I remain unconvinced that these are a positive step although I do concede that the majority of road users lack in driver instinct which is largely due to the lack of skills to develop them from
Guy Martin had a go in a robot racing car. It lost a tiny bit of traction on the 1st bend. It didn’t learn from this and didn’t approach the second bend with more caution. It skidded off. Even if they programmed a pathway that said “lost traction. Slow down for next bend” . Well, how slow? Sure it can club footidly just slow down to X speed. But think about it. Consider this, it leaves out thousands of little computations humans take for granted. Take the way a human mind would deal with that initial loss of traction…
Lost traction
Why?
What speed was I doing?
Do I know of anything wrong with the car?
Has anything happened further back to prompt suspicion?
What factors can I draw upon on this drive to build a picture of what might be happening?
Did I turn in too harshly?
What’s the weather like?
Is the road surface shiny?
Can I see I’ve just driven over the trails of an oil slick?
I can see the bigger bit of an oil slick ahead, better really slow down!
Maybe my tyres are still cold?
Based on this how shall I approach the next bend?
Is 50 too fast?
Is 40 too slow?
What feels right based on my experience?
What is my experience? I’ve been alive for 38 years, what has all my knowledge taught me that has shaped my judgement of this? All those inputs from tv programs, lessons at school, books I’ve read, things that have happened in my life however removed? Things people have told me?
Now, you can see a human brain doesn’t go up to a corner consciously asking itself all these questions. But it does have shortcuts in its decision making process using stored knowledge based on an inbuilt ability to judge immediacy. In the aviation world the psychology of it is taught in depth on annual groundschool. There is not a computer in existence that can hold a torch to the stunningly elegant and complex methods the mind employs.
Freight Dog:
Guy Martin had a go in a robot racing car. It lost a tiny bit of traction on the 1st bend. It didn’t learn from this and didn’t approach the second bend with more caution. It skidded off. Even if they programmed a pathway that said “lost traction. Slow down for next bend” . Well, how slow? Sure it can club footidly just slow down to X speed. But think about it. Consider this, it leaves out thousands of little computations humans take for granted. Take the way a human mind would deal with that initial loss of traction.
Guy Martin also spun the car a couple of times on practice laps and he’s an experienced racer and the team were pushing the car further than normal to try and get near Guy’s time and it spun, the car did try and correct and then lost it the other way. If I had a £1 for every racing driver I’ve seen spin in similar circumstances over the years I wouldn’t need to work.
The car would have been pulling far more G in the corner than your average road car driver will ever get near and I’d bet the average road car driver would have spun many times in those situations if they even got near the same speeds.
However it’s obvious that truly autonomous vehicles still need a great deal of development, but the robocar project has only been going for about 2 years, in that time they’ve got a car that could match many average weekend club racers who’ve been doing it for years and the car is operating in a relatively controlled environment where it going beyond its limits is unlikely to have major consequences compared to it happening on the public roads.
Freight Dog:
There is not a computer in existence that can hold a torch to the stunningly elegant and complex methods the mind employs.
The problem is the human mind is great at many things, but it’s really easy to distract, especially when the task it’s supposed to be dealing with is repetitive or dull. It has evolved to respond to quick changes in its environment, either to spot a threat or food.
Then you have all the other physiological factors in play when we drive, sensation seeking, guarding territory, competing for social status and dehumanising other road users because we’re separated from them.
The problem with fully autonomous vehicles once they get over some of the technical aspects that still exist, such as operating in bad weather, will be getting them to interact with people, not just drivers but pedestrians and cyclists and even animals.
Bluey Circles:
I think a good driver will be safer than an autonomous vehicle, but the thing is good drivers are becoming a bit thin on the ground. I suspect autonomy will greatly reduce the carnage but there will sill be accidents and people will still die. We’re strangely acceptant of being killed by other idiot drivers (6 every day + 70 seriously injured and it seldom makes the news) It will be interesting to see how society reacts when ‘Artificial Intelligence’ takes some ones life!
I cant help but wonder how far these computers can “see” in comparison to a more aware driver. Any decent driver will know what is going on around them and is quite possibly reacting to a development before the driver in front does. I know I tend to look through or past the vehicle in front of me (where possible) instead of waiting for brake lights to prompt my own reaction. Can a computer do that or are they relying on radar type sensors that bounce a beam back from the nearest obstruction? Can they anticipate something before it happens? A computer cant replicate a mind so how can it replicate driver instincts? I remain unconvinced that these are a positive step although I do concede that the majority of road users lack in driver instinct which is largely due to the lack of skills to develop them from
Guy Martin had a go in a robot racing car. It lost a tiny bit of traction on the 1st bend. It didn’t learn from this and didn’t approach the second bend with more caution. It skidded off. Even if they programmed a pathway that said “lost traction. Slow down for next bend” . Well, how slow? Sure it can club footidly just slow down to X speed. But think about it. Consider this, it leaves out thousands of little computations humans take for granted. Take the way a human mind would deal with that initial loss of traction…
Lost traction
Why?
What speed was I doing?
Do I know of anything wrong with the car?
Has anything happened further back to prompt suspicion?
What factors can I draw upon on this drive to build a picture of what might be happening?
Did I turn in too harshly?
What’s the weather like?
Is the road surface shiny?
Can I see I’ve just driven over the trails of an oil slick?
I can see the bigger bit of an oil slick ahead, better really slow down!
Maybe my tyres are still cold?
Based on this how shall I approach the next bend?
Is 50 too fast?
Is 40 too slow?
What feels right based on my experience?
What is my experience? I’ve been alive for 38 years, what has all my knowledge taught me that has shaped my judgement of this? All those inputs from tv programs, lessons at school, books I’ve read, things that have happened in my life however removed? Things people have told me?
Now, you can see a human brain doesn’t go up to a corner consciously asking itself all these questions. But it does have shortcuts in its decision making process using stored knowledge based on an inbuilt ability to judge immediacy. In the aviation world the psychology of it is taught in depth on annual groundschool. There is not a computer in existence that can hold a torch to the stunningly elegant and complex methods the mind employs.
Its interesting that you mentioned psychology. That is my degree subject although I am studying sociology and philosophy as electives
if the powers that be have decided that the driverless car will always be in the right ,therefore the two wheeled brigade will always be in the wrong when passing on whichever side they see fit perhaps the lycra louts will learn to follow the highway code …or perhaps not
