
UK to allow driverless cars on public roads in January - bane
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28551069
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joncrocks
UK to allow _tests of_ driverless cars on public roads _to start_ in January.

In the same way that has already begun in the rest of the world. Same
legal/insurance issues stand (as elsewhere) and are likely the bigger barrier
to adoption.

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matthewmacleod
That's what it says, yes.

Have such tests already begun the "the rest of the world"?

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joncrocks
As tlrobinson says, I was trying to clarify the content of the article, as the
title could easily be mis-interpreted to mean that there were no restrictions.

In addition, I suspect that the cars will be 'self-driving' cars rather than
'driverless' (the distinction being that the former has a human behind the
wheel, which can take the wheel at a moments notice).

As for the rest of the world, from the article:

    
    
      The US States of California, Nevada and Florida have all approved tests of the vehicles. In California alone, Google's driverless car has done more than 300,000 miles on the open road.
    
      In 2013, Nissan carried out Japan's first public road   test of an autonomous vehicle on a highway.
    
      And in Europe, the Swedish city of Gothenburg has given Volvo permission to test 100 driverless cars - although that trial is not scheduled to occur until 2017.

~~~
Too
The case of 100 volvo cars on the streets 2017 is a bit different than just
allowing controlled tests on public roads, that is 100 cars given to customers
for every day use, not engineers.

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suprgeek
When ever I see a new place or country allowing a test of these cars this
wired article always comes to mind [1].

I think the two main questions will be liability & drivability -

1) when (not if) these cars get into a serious crash, who is to assume
liability? Is it Google who created the algorithm? Is it the Audi integrator
who fused Google technology into the Audi? Is it the fault of the mapping
software that did not update the fact that the signals had been moved to a
different position on that street?

2) More mundane - will a driverless car be able to drive every single place
that a drivered car would? When a flash flood closes down the freeway will
this autonomous beast be able to drive on the back road that is normally
closed to traffic?

Having said that I cannot wait for Cars-As-A-Service where the Cars park
themselves & disappear when I don't need them and magically reappear when I do
(without humans - Lyft, Uber et al. need not apply).

[1] [http://www.wired.com/2014/05/the-robot-car-of-tomorrow-
might...](http://www.wired.com/2014/05/the-robot-car-of-tomorrow-might-just-
be-programmed-to-hit-you/)

~~~
ignostic
You always voice the same concerns, I always hear the same concerns. It's
crazy to me that people get hung up on the liability issue.

1) Liability is assessed exactly as it is now. We use the same system to
determine which car was at fault. If it's your car, you are at fault. Someone
will insure a self-driving car, especially once the safety record is
established. Your current provider might not, but someone will. If you were
using the self-driving system improperly (e.g. in weather it can't handle well
in yet), you may also be subject to different rules or even criminal
prosecution.

Vendors may also be willing to pay for that insurance as part of a monthly fee
just to shut people up over this very easy-to-solve "concern."

If no one is willing to insure your self-driving car, I'll start that
business. I could charge a premium for a service that costs me less to
provide!

2) People seem to think self-driving cars should be perfect before they're
introduced. They won't be. Neither are we. It just has to be better (under
given weather/traffic conditions) than we are _to save lives_. We'll have
steering wheels in the cars for a long time which you'll have to use when the
car can't safely drive itself.

The Wired article is just clickbait using the fear angle. We face the same
decisions every day, and "unavoidable" accidents will be even more rare than
it is now as this technology evolves.

~~~
joncrocks
While I agree that liability will be assessed the same way it is now, the
answer isn't always:

    
    
      If it's your car, you are at fault.
    

There are examples of situations where a car producer/manufacturer was at
fault for accidents, caused by bad software. The question is where that line
will be in the myriad of situations that will be more complex due to the the
introduction of automation.

The control system itself is then a part of the car, which will dramatically
increase the likelihood that it is at-fault in the case of an accident. It
presumably would have to be audit-able in the case of an accident to identify
whether it made the 'correct' decisions or not, adding additional legal and
technical complexity.

If privately owned, would there be regular sensor cleaning/calibration tasks
that need to be met before the manufacturer is deemed liable? What about tire
pressure?

There will be a lot of factors that could go into deciding whether the user or
manufacturer was at fault in the case of an accident that simply wouldn't be a
problem now, because the user of the vehicle is also the one responsible for
maintenance.

~~~
roc
> _" The question is where that line will be in the myriad of situations that
> will be more complex due to the the introduction of automation."_

It will be determined via litigation, as it is now. Technological complexity
of subject matter has yet to present any serious roadblock, or cause any
significant change, in the prosecution of the law.

Similarly, whether neglected maintenance (or third-party modifications/parts)
contributed to a collision will be determined in court, just as it is now.

As a side note: given the service opportunities afforded by self-driving
vehicles, I would be surprised if operators and insurers didn't subsidize or
operate "while you sleep" maintenance service plans. e.g. Once a month or so,
while you sleep, your car will drive itself to the shop to get checked out,
ensure updates are received, recall services performed, etc.

Manufacturers would add a revenue stream and lower their legal costs/exposure
and consumers would have yet-another-hassle of car ownership removed.

~~~
CamperBob2
_Technological complexity of subject matter has yet to present any serious
roadblock, or cause any significant change, in the prosecution of the law._

Ridiculous. To cite only one counterexample, self-driving cars will make the
controversy over the EU's "right to be forgotten" law look like a polite
discussion over a beer.

That said, the problems are solvable and we'll all ultimately be better off
for facing them.

~~~
TeMPOraL
>> _has yet to present any serious roadblock_

> _To cite only one counterexample, self-driving cars will make..._

Hey, something's not right... ;).

Please clarify your point with a non-circular example.

~~~
CamperBob2
I'm sorry, I don't understand what you're asking.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I read your comment as following:

> _... it has yet to happen ..._

Ridiculous. To cite only one counterexample, it will happen.

~~~
CamperBob2
Correct, that's what I said. The OP claimed that technical implementation
problems were not considered a stumbling block for legislation, and I
mentioned the "right to be forgotten" mess as a counterexample, where a
fundamentally unfair, unworkable law has created a new human right out of thin
air, one that's causing a lot of trouble for Google and other search engine
providers.

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ChuckMcM
A friend of mine noted that you could put self driving cars on the road in
Italy right now and nobody would notice :-) I agree with the consensus that
driverless cars are inevitable. And knowing that they are inevitable is kind
of like knowing a train is going to derail on a curve before it does. You get
some time to think about what is going to happen next.

In the train case you would do things like get movable property out of the
way, for the cars you can think about things like a defensible yard barrier.
Some people already do this for drunks, but putting a 12 - 14" 'step up' along
the edge of the property that borders the street will stop most out of control
passenger vehicles. Laws will get tested and litigated, new ways to analyze
risk will be developed, planners will want to think about how they design
roads/signage/maintenance around them.

I suspect this a 'moonshot' technology, which is one where you can demonstrate
it in 1969 but can't actually repeat it commercially until 50 years later in
2019.

~~~
srl
I'd say that the defining aspect of the original 'moonshot' technology was
there was (sadly) no opportunity for commercial gain. Contrast with here,
where, for a myriad of reasons, people could easily be convinced to pay
substantially more for a driverless car (once safety is well-established).

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notahacker
For the last decade or so, human learner drivers in the UK have had to pass a
video "hazard perception test" based on their ability to recognise potential
developing hazards (kids playing near the roads, a cyclist confronted by a
line of parked cars, a vehicle approaching a junction onto your lane) at a
very early point before their movements make their entry into the roadway
inevitable.

This strikes me as something which is particularly difficult for an algorithm
to process effectively (without generating lots of false positives, which also
fails that segment of the test) especially based on the fairly low resolution
video human users are presented with in normal test conditions.

Hope they're not going to waive that for the bots, even if they do have 360
degree vision and superior concentration and reaction times.

~~~
Buttons840
That's true. I think of turning right at a crosswalk where some pedestrian is
really anxious for their turn to walk, so they're standing right on the edge
of the curb. I always pay careful attention to them and rely on my human
intuition of body language, eye contact, etc, until I feel comfortable that
they're going to remain on the edge of the curb instead of steeping out in
front of me during my turn. A robot can't do this.

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georgemcbay
A robot should always assume the person might suddenly enter the street
regardless of body language or other clues and drive at speeds that allow safe
stopping if that occurs.

A person driving should do the same.

I don't see the discrepancy.

~~~
krapp
The discrepancy is there are ~millions of years of evolution to account for
our ability to immediately process and react to unexpected actions around us -
whereas self driving cars, doubtlessly, will not be debuted to the public with
nearly as much complexity - humans are not designed with affordability and
profit in mind. Theoretically, what you're saying is correct, but the
practical reality is likely to be a lot different. The best possible
implementation isn't likely to be the one which hits the mass market.

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smikhanov
Who will be a vendor of those cars?

It seems to me that it's clear that driverless cars are the future, which is
going to become real very soon. Any progressive government would (and should)
allow such testing, even given the inflexibility of the state's bureaucratic
machine. Allowing is an easy part. The hard part is actually _building_ those
cars and to my knowledge no UK firm does this at the moment.

~~~
timthorn
Lots of the fundamental research is being done in the UK. Both academic (eg at
Oxford) and also industry led.

The fact that no major consumer automotive marques are British doesn't mean
there isn't a very strong auto industry in the country.

~~~
smikhanov
I mean more of a "who will build the technology to allow those cars be
driverless", not who will build the car bodies themselves.

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gaius
An autopilot, great. But _driverless_ , as in, no way for anyone to take
control? No thanks. There are plenty of places your GPS can't take you the
last few hundred metres, nor would you want it to, you want to decide where to
park based on a variety of factors.

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cordite
How will the taxi unions feel when someone combines uber/lyft with self
driving cars?

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purringmeow
That occupation will disappear, save for a few high-end human driver services,
IMO.

After the taxis come the trucks. I am quite certain shipping companies will be
the quick ditch humans. After all, this means no more travel expenses &
salaries, no more breaks, probably automatic unloading too! Goods will get
cheaper, although hundreds of thousands of people will be out of work.

I am scared.

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bdamm
I seriously doubt that truck drivers are going out of business any time soon.
First of all, there's a massive fleet of trucks requiring drivers, and
replacement trucks are expensive. Second of all, truck drivers also serve as a
security guard. Even if we have self-driving trucks, I imagine they'll have a
chaperone for a long time yet.

I expect that trucks driven by a human-computer team will be safer than trucks
driven by either one alone.

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newaccountfool
The theft part is massive, if you had a truckload full of computer parts
travelling down the motorway at 3am when it's dead. What's to stop some gang
with tire traps. Bam! vehicle is over and they have 30 mins to loot before an
error is realised.

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avz
This is possible in the current configuration, too. In fact, it may be easier
to compel a human driver to keep quiet than a networked onboard computer
relentlessly feeding speed, position, tire pressure and other telemetry to
some sort of remote monitoring facility.

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jeffjia
Self-driving cars need to be trained to run on left side now.

~~~
avz

      return -EWRONGSIDE;

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rmason
Did anyone else notice in the video that neither one of them were using seat
belts? I love this tech. but I am not sure I have this blind a faith in it.

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kstop
But that's the worst month they could have chosen! June would make a lot more
sense.

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jaakl
When I will see "UK to ban manual driving on public roads"?

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yxhuvud
January? Wouldn't it be smarter to start in the summer when the road
conditions are optimal?

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Aardwolf
I think all weather conditions should be tested?

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1587
good!

