
Self-Driving Cars Have a Bicycle Problem - type0
http://spectrum.ieee.org/transportation/self-driving/selfdriving-cars-have-a-bicycle-problem
======
ChuckMcM
"Now Johnny, when you ride your bike you must wear your I-am-a-bike vest and
follow these patterns or the cars are likely to kill you." :-)

Summary is that "people riding bikes" (PRB) is a much denser image set than
"people in cars" (PIC) and "people walking or jogging" (PWJ), and the PRB
objects have a much higher dynamic angular vector capability (they can change
direction extremely quickly) combined with a wider dynamic velocity vector to
PWJ they strain the ability of the predictive filters to reliably asses the
collision threat. As a result you need either faster/better hardware or better
algorithms to deal with that particular group.

I'm not particularly surprised by that, I expect the cars to also end up with
small animal issues, as they can appear suddenly and aggressive evasive
maneuvers to avoid hitting them may injure passengers at the cost of saving a
squirrel's life.

And all of that adds up to some of the many things that one has to think about
when claiming victory here. It is going to be a long hard engineering slog to
get to full autonomy. My question is you can build a computer that can drive a
car fully autonomously, what other missions could you create for it? Some of
those are kind of scary.

~~~
noobermin
This is when the humans strike back against the machines.

Every example of a NN I've seen is good at one thing, the thing it is trained
for. I haven't yet seen a NN that can beat people at chess, recognize faces,
drive, and make coffee, or more importantly, decide when to do one or the
other. The closest thing I can think of is Watson from IBM.

People can drive (poorly) but they also recognize the value of life in a biker
or a squirrel, and in some cases, override their usual learned behavior, for
example, instead of continuing to drive, swerving, basically improvising.

Computers and programs again are good for what they have been input and now,
what they already have learned. The synthesis part, I'm not quite sure even NN
have reached that part yet. I may be wrong, the answer is probably "learn
more" or "learn faster" (which is what you suggest), but it's easier to
synthesize like this when you have a mind with general knowledge, at which
point the mind is less like a NN and more and more like a person.

~~~
hahajk
There's a saying that neural networks are the second-best way to do
everything. Don't be disappointed when their trajectory flattens out.

And, as for their role in autonomous vehicles, I don't think they play a
primary role (although I don't design autonomous cars so I wouldn't know for
sure.) You can see in this Tesla video that a lot of the computer vision isn't
even reliant on neural networks:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLlwm5Dq7Is](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLlwm5Dq7Is)

~~~
Eridrus
Why do you think that video shows that Tesla isn't reliant on neural networks?
Neural nets outputting bounding boxes is pretty normal.

Despite NVIDIA's papers, end-to-end neural nets for self-driving cars are
dumb, but for the initial perception based on sensor data, neural nets are the
only game in town.

~~~
hahajk
I was looking at the optical flow indicators and the road-tracking. Afaik any
NN solution to those are immature if they work reliably at all. Your probably
right that that the bounding boxes are probably NNs.

------
jlgaddis
I was thinking about this a while back, wondering if these self-driving cars
were any better at "seeing" bicycles (and motorcycles and pedestrians) than
humans are.

I haven't rode a bicycle since I was a kid but I do put ~10k miles/year on my
Harley. In the last 10 years, I've been hit head-on twice, ran off the road
once, and had too-many-to-count "close calls" by drivers who weren't paying
attention (not to mention the friends that been killed) -- and that's on a
loud, relatively visible (compared to a bicycle), 900-pound piece of steel. I
can't imagine the average bicyclist is "seen" better than I am, especially in
busy traffic areas/large cities/etc.

I'm all for anything that can makes the roads safer for those of us on two
wheels!

~~~
mirimir
I suspect that motorcycles are the harder problem. They aren't _that_ much
larger than bicycles. They use the road like cars, which only pushy bicyclists
do. And they're _faster_ than cars, and almost as maneuverable as bicycles.

~~~
cpt1138
Pushy? Since bicycles are defined as motor vehicles they have just as much
right to the road as cars.

~~~
stouset
Ah yes, but you see I'm in a hurry home to catch Game of Thrones reruns and I
had to wait twelve entire seconds for oncoming traffic to pass so I could get
around some inconsiderate guy trying to stay fit and/or reducing the effects
of traffic.

</sarcasm>

The sad irony is it's those "pushy" cyclists who stay alive, by making
themselves more visible, being a part of typical traffic patterns, and
refusing to be pushed off to the side by cars trying to squeeze into the same
lane.

~~~
mirimir
Yes, I've been a pushy cyclist, for that very reason. Getting pushed off the
road, or broken on opened doors, is no fun.

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notatoad
I don't think bicycles are _that_ unique of a computer vision problem. If
self-driving cars have a bicycle problem, they probably also have a children
problem, a wildlife problem, and a road debris problem that's simply masked by
the relatively low frequency of those things compared to bicycles on the road.

Another comment mentions motorcycles, i'm very curious to see the detection
data for them: they should have roughly similar characteristics to a bicycle,
but at a similar or higher frequency.

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codemac
Human driven cars have a bicycle problem as well.

Humans aren't very good at predicting or seeing them either in dense urban
areas. Grade separation is the way to go!

~~~
Stratoscope
Human drivers don't even follow the most basic bicycle safety rules, such as
merging into the bike lane before making a right turn to prevent "right hook"
collisions. From my observations, probably no more than one out of ten drivers
does this.

I guess they think it's illegal to drive in the bike lane at all, even though
the opposite is true: at least in California you're legally _required_ to
merge into the bike lane in the last 200 feet before the intersection when
making a right turn.

[http://www.sfbike.org/news/bike-lanes-and-right-
turns/](http://www.sfbike.org/news/bike-lanes-and-right-turns/)

~~~
phil21
If you travel (and drive) regularly between 2 or 3 states, it will be almost
impossible to "intuitively" remember all these rules. What you describe is
outright illegal in my home state, but required in a large city I also split
my time in.

Road rules for bikes and bike lanes are wildly different depending on state,
and heck - even city. There are states where you have one set of rules within
city limits, and entirely different throughout the rest of the state.

It's a huge mess, and doing things like putting unprotected bike lanes to the
right of traffic lanes is almost criminally stupid and dangerous. You cannot
undo decades of muscle memory ("things don't pass me in the right lane
especially on dense city streets") and then point to "there is a rule that
says you have to!" when the expected tragedies start occurring.

I used to think drivers and bikers were just "assholes" to each other in the
US - then I spent time in the Netherlands and Belgium and realized these two
modes of transportation are purposefully being put at odds against each other
in the US for political reasons. It's quite possible to combine these modes of
transportation into a network that works for both types of users.

~~~
cardiffspaceman
By physically separating bicycles and automobiles?

A perspective from a writer who favors separating bikes and cars:

[http://www.copenhagenize.com/2010/07/vehicular-cyclists-
secr...](http://www.copenhagenize.com/2010/07/vehicular-cyclists-secret-
sect.html)

------
andy_ppp
Really interesting article... This is why I'm considered annoy by some drivers
- I take up too much space on the road for them. However, better to be seen
and be considered "annoying" than be killed.

The solution is likely a device that cyclists can wear that self driving cars
can detect - I'm going to bet the AI for bikes is intractable because they are
fast, virtually invisible at some angles and travel in between the traffic in
strange ways.

An alternative could be all self driving cars near by sending each other
information about cyclists via some means. Or self driving bikes ;-)

~~~
crooked-v
The idea of a "notice me" transponder is an interesting one, but runs into
problems with reconciling your own margin of error for location with the
receiver's margin of error for location.

~~~
stouset
Not to mention humans being assholes and using them to abuse autonomous
vehicles.

~~~
andy_ppp
You will be able to do that anyway by making yourself impossible to overtake,
or walking out into the street for example; by definition the car would know
where the transponder was as well.

This actually raises a good question that may be even more problematic for
autonomous cars; people deliberately fucking with them in a way you
wouldn't/couldn't before. Maybe this won't happen but who knows.

~~~
pvaldes
The question then is who to blame legally for the results of dangerous
driving, the human or the car?. Could the police draw a line between both?

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vosper
It seems like it would be useful if there was some standard for actively
notifying autonomous vehicles of something they need to be aware of. For
example, a bike light might also transmit a radio signal to the car, or
perhaps it includes lights operating with a specific color or pattern that
self-driving cars can look out for (maybe it doesn't even need to be in the
visible spectrum).

Obviously this needs some thought. For example, how would you prevent people
from messing with the cars - maybe it's very short range, or line-of-sight
only?

~~~
stormbrew
In the end, the "messing with cars" problem renders almost all explicit-
communication-between-vehicles moot, or at least not as useful as people first
imagine. The autonomous car will still, no matter what, have to trust its
'vision' over any informative messages.

This is not any different from cars driven by humans, btw. Someone can put up
a sign (say a merge left sign and some pylons) that can cause accidents pretty
easily, which is why drivers still have to _pay attention_.

The thing is that wide, let alone 360 degree, vision should provide the
computer with more and more useful 'messages' than humans are ever capable of
taking in. And probably more than any attack vulnerable information messages
could provide too.

~~~
vosper
Yes, though I can't recall any incidents where someone set up traffic signage
to intentionally cause an accident (I'm sure it's happened, but I bet it's
really uncommon).

Anyway, I'm not suggesting that the car take a remote signal on blind faith,
but I still think it might be useful to have some kind of indicator. It can be
factored into the other sensor data - "this signaling object does appear to be
in close proximity and moving like a cyclist". Just as people don't tend to
mess with signage and cause crashes now, I think they're unlikely (on the
whole) to do it with these kind of signals. Especially since you'd be in
serious trouble if you caused a wreck.

~~~
stormbrew
Well, keep in mind how much harder might be to catch someone messing with
traffic with radio signals of some sort than by physically being present and
visible and putting nonsensical signs in the road. I do think it would be more
common.

------
sandworm101
I say to robots: welcome to the club. A bike on a roadway is a tricky problem
for the best of us. They can move quickly, at or above traffic speeds in many
circumstances. They dont follow the same rules (stop signs) and at any moment
can transform autobot-style into a pedestrian. It's an issue. And when it goes
wrong it is the biker who suffers. That is life driving a car. If you cannot
get it right 99.9999% of the time, you aren't good enough to drive.

I have yet to see a car capable of reading the body language of a bicyclist or
motorcyclist. As one of those, i still want to look a driver in the eye before
i trust him not to squish me. Robots arent anywhere near there yet.

~~~
trmsw
And when robots get there I wonder if they will resent cyclists for the
computational cost they impose - and if they will find endless ways to
rationalise that resentment (cyclists break the rules, cyclists don't pay road
tax etc). I cycle and drive and when I drive I hate cyclists and find it very
hard not to blame them for it, but it's just because they make driving harder

~~~
brokenmachine
Really? You hate cyclists when you drive? That seems pretty selfish really.

If I drive a ferrari, should I hate all those non-turbo car peasants for
making me have to drive slower? Of course not, I'm using shared infrastructure
that everyone has paid for, even those pesky cyclists and slower vehicles.

I'm a cyclist 80% of the time, a driver the other 20%. I pay my taxes and rego
on my car and follow the rules, even while cycling, and you still hate me.

I hate our lack of suitable infrastucture with properly separated cycle paths,
not the riders.

When you're driving on a shared road you need to deal with slower vehicles and
drive safely. If that's too hard for you to deal with, maybe you shouldn't be
on the road.

------
JustSomeNobody
I think self driving cars is a 95% problem. It'll be relatively "easy" to get
95% of the way there. The last 5% will be almost impossible to get right.

~~~
sooheon
Car driving humans is also a 95% problem. It's almost impossible to get people
to follow (or set) good laws, pay attention, not be under the influence, etc.
I'm betting that cars will improve at a faster rate than human capability.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
Yes. But what I said was not a comment on how well (or not) humans can drive
now or in the future.

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zkms
This is a good reason for self-driving vehicles to use high-performance (read
as "subject to ITAR", alas) IR imaging sensors alongside LIDAR.
Detecting/identifying humans on bicycles (or, more generally, humans/wildlife
in/near roadways) can be done a lot more reliably with IR imagery than with
just visual imagery.

------
jessriedel
Are self-driving cars really worse at noticing bicyclists than pedestrians?
The first paragraph makes it sound this way, but there's no way it's harder to
track them than birds, and it's hard to tell whether the quote from Steven
Shladover is making a comparison to pedestrians.

~~~
mirimir
Well, pedestrians don't move as fast or maneuver as well as bicycles. And
birds? I've had many close calls with birds. But I've never hit one. And more
to the point, there's nothing that I could have done to change the outcome.
Except maybe to roll the car, or whatever.

------
hprotagonist
Considering the limitations of computer vision, this should really come as no
surprise.

~~~
agildehaus
Which is why LIDAR seems so essential. Computer vision has made some amazing
steps forward but it's still not perfect.

~~~
hprotagonist
lidar solves some of your depth of field issues, but there's still a challenge
in seeing a bike at a relative velocity of 50mph and reacting appropriately.

------
chrismorgan
I wonder what they do about more exotic vehicles like my recumbent tricycle.
They’ll see it alright, but I wonder what they classify it as and thus what
evasion model they employ.

~~~
brokenmachine
It'll just be the standard bicycle "kill all humans" program. :)

But seriously, you bring up a good point. Maybe both cyclists and yourself
will come up with ways of gaming the system in their favor.

I can't find a link now, but I'm reminded of an experiment where baby chickens
would prefer a ruler with three lines painted on it to their real parents.

Perhaps you could have a design on the back of your seat that tricks the self-
driving cars into thinking you were a gas tanker truck or similar large,
dangerous vehicle, and get yourself a wide berth.

------
tbrowbdidnso
Automatic driving is totally possible, but self driving cars have a huge
problem that automated planes and trains don't. They share the road in close
proximity to human controlled vehicles and humans.

The huge, insurmountable problem is that people will NEVER accept autonomous
transport that regularly kills people and causes accidents, even if the
computer driver is better than an average human.

As long as self driving cars share roads with humans they will never stop
killing people. Humans are unpredictable by nature, and there will regularly
be situations a self driving car encounters where death is just unavoidable.

When self driving cars start killing people what is going to happen? You can't
sue a machine. What if the machine has to decide who dies? This is an
insurmountable problem. Cars may drive automatically but there will always be
a qualified human sitting behind the wheel.

Look at planes, it's a lot easier than driving since there's nothing to run
into up there. We've had fully automated flying systems of various kinds for
decades. Hell, even the space shuttle could land itself... from space. To this
day every commerical flight with humans on it has not just one, but two human
pilots.

The other big problem with self driving cars is that hardly anyone needs them.
Cars are built to transport people, and it turns out people are pretty good at
driving. So the vast majority of the time there is zero need for the car to
drive itself. In cases where it would be convenient we already have cruise
control type inventions and automated lane following.

So what about trucks? For one, if people won't tolerate a 3000 lb piece of
automated steel killing people occasionally they sure as hell aren't going to
tolerate a 80,000 pound piece of steel doing the same.

So why don't we make special roads for the automated cars and trucks and hitch
them together so they can't hit each other? We've had this for over 100 years
and it's called a train.

Basically, automated cars with no humans behind the wheel will never happen.
This gets rid of most of the advantage of a car driving itself in the first
place. Also, if humans need to be able to take back control there goes all the
advantages of packing cars close together on highways and stuff too.

------
temp-ora
i really want to make a self driving bike. a car is so big and serious and
expensive but a bike is so cheap and comparatively harmless. adding
retractable training wheels would make self driving considerably easier too.
once full autonomy is achieved, it can be sent out to collect food orders and
bring them back to your house.

~~~
noobermin
Half of the joy of biking is the riding aspect. For example, I get my exercise
for free.

~~~
Ace17
Who said you wouldn't still need to pedal?

~~~
noobermin
Okay, consider this, why would you want to ride a horse if you just press a
button and you get to point B from point A?

For frequent commutes where I don't feel like it, I just take public
transport. A lot of time, I bike for the fun of biking, although many times it
is also for the sake of transit.

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tetetttte
ok i don't get it. Why not develop a general obstacle-avoidance system ?
simply make the car be repelled by any objects, whatever shape or speed, and
make it give more margin for obstacles that have a higher entropy of motion.

~~~
brokenmachine
Yes, people love to have these endless discussions about how the cars will
decide about who gets to live and who dies, and about how people won't want to
buy a car that has a chance of making the moral decision to save someone other
than them.

Literally the only thing the self-driving car needs to do is be able to stay
on the road, and if the road is blocked, use the brakes. There's no moral
dilemmas and no grey areas.

if {obstacle} then {brakes = 1}

Detecting what's an obstacle and what isn't is of course a difficult problem,
but I'd think it'll be the legal issues that will actually be the largest
barrier to self-driving cars. Someone has to be responsible when it fails. If
the human isn't driving, then the car maker has to be responsible. This
liability will have to be added to the cost of the vehicle.

------
Neliquat
How about motorcycles?

------
a2tech
No they have a problem with people on bicycles not following the rules. A
problem human drivers encounter on a daily basis.

~~~
steve_b
It seems you might be wrong.

[https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2009/dec/15/cycling...](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2009/dec/15/cycling-
bike-accidents-study)

