
Put Driverless Cars Back in the Slow Lane - robertgk
https://www.realclearpolicy.com/articles/2018/02/15/put_driverless_cars_back_in_the_slow_lane_110511.html
======
drewg123
The article was written by Ross Marchand who is "the director of policy for
the Taxpayers Protection Alliance."

I was curious about who TPA was. According to
[http://www.energyandpolicy.org/renewable-energy-state-
policy...](http://www.energyandpolicy.org/renewable-energy-state-policy-
attacks-report-2015/taxpayer-protection-alliance/), "The Taxpayers Protection
Alliance (TPA) is an advocacy front group that is part of the Koch political
network, and is largely funded by money funneled through the Koch-connected
Americans for Job Security, Center to Protect Patient Rights (now called
American Encore), and Freedom Partners."

So take that into account when reading the article.

~~~
crdoconnor
I might be missing something but I'm not sure I see a direct financial
interest between Koch's holdings and driverless cars.

If this were a piece about global warming - yeah, 100% lies, guaranteed.

This group is clearly no friend of Silicon Valley or Google (for reasons
likely unrelated to driverless cars - net neutrality, global warming, etc.)
but to me all that says is that this may just be an attempt to show that the
emperor (Waymo) has no clothes - which to me implies that this might be an
attempt at inconveniently telling the _truth_ about driverless cars - and
pricking a hype bubble Google is deeply invested in out of spite.

That said, maybe driverless cars do stand to take a chunk out of Koch profits
somehow. Not sure how though.

Either way I'm happy people are picking up on think tank pieces more often and
analysing the potential conflicts of interest behind them.

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ericskiff
This is not journalism or an opinion from an expert. It's a policy piece
written by a Koch funded front group. See Media Matters here:
[https://www.mediamatters.org/research/2015/07/31/media-
discl...](https://www.mediamatters.org/research/2015/07/31/media-disclosure-
guide-here-are-the-industry-fu/204708#tpa)

Please read this piece critically and consider that there may be considerable
astroturfing and or FUD in the comments on that site, here, and around this
issue in general.

Driverless cars are apparently on someone's radar (or should that be lidar)
who has cash to try and discredit them.

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zellyn
This was a strange article. These days, it's hard to tell what is (a) genuine
journalism from a concerned source (b) some kind of intentional negative press
funded by an adversary, and (c) clickbaity journalism that tries to collect
enough smoke to convince you there's a fire so you'll click and share.

In particular, the part about disengagements due to reckless driving on the
part of other vehicles was strange: the author assumes that this was due to
there being less reckless driving by other vehicles, rather than an
improvement in the ability of Waymo's vehicles to deal with it. (I have no
idea either, but it seems like an important question.)

This part near the end was funny:

“Buying large tracts of land in hilly areas, building test roads, and hiring
“extras” to serve as pedestrians would go a long way toward transparently
proving efficacy.”

It's almost like the author of this article read The Atlantic article on
Waymo's test village.
[https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/08/insid...](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/08/inside-
waymos-secret-testing-and-simulation-facilities/537648/)

------
mavhc
The 2 sets of numbers to decide if the article is accurate are:

The rate of technology failures has fallen by more than 90 percent (from .64
to .06), unsafe driving rates decreased by 25 percent (from .16 to .12). The
ability of cars to analyze situations on the road and respond has barely shown
improvement since the beginning of 2016. In key categories, like “incorrect
behavior prediction” and “unwanted maneuver of the vehicle,” Waymo vehicles
actually did worse in 2017 than in 2016.

Waymo estimated “simulated contacts,” or the number of disengagements that
would have likely led to crashes. Based on these data, last reported in 2015,
Google/Waymo vehicles would’ve crashed .02 times per 1,000 miles driven
without testers.

Department of Transportation data show that Americans get into around 6
million crashes a year and drive around 3 trillion miles each year, implying
that Waymo vehicles are 4–5 times more dangerous than human drivers.

~~~
felippee
An alternative view on the presented data can be found here:

[https://blog.piekniewski.info/2018/02/09/a-v-
safety-2018-upd...](https://blog.piekniewski.info/2018/02/09/a-v-
safety-2018-update/)

Including telling plots comparing various safety numbers, along with all the
data sources.

------
tomohawk
There's nothing wrong with pumping the brakes on this a little and letting the
hype bubble dissipate.

As the article states, driverless cars are involved in 4-5 times more
accidents. The companies promoting these cars say that it's ok, since the
driverless cars were in most cases not legally responsible for the accidents,
but that misses the point that driverless cars perform unorthodox manuevers in
certain situations, at least by current driving conventions, and that more
people are getting hurt.

If we could identify a human behavior that was causing some people to be
involved in 4-5 times more accidents, there would likely be interest in doing
something about that.

It's more a case that the laws are currently designed to counter inappropriate
human drivers, not inappropriate machine drivers. We don't even know what
inappropriate activity by machine drivers is at this point.

~~~
maxerickson
Just to clarify, the article says that the self driving systems would be
involved in 4-5 times more accidents without the safety driver intervening.
The testing isn't actually resulting in high rates of accidents.

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dustinmoorenet
This seems like a straight up hit piece that is twisting facts for their
benefit. I couldn't find much information on the 'Taxpayers Protection
Alliance' but they are listed as a beneficiary of the Koch brothers.
[https://projects.propublica.org/graphics/koch](https://projects.propublica.org/graphics/koch)

~~~
Zigurd
The name was also chosen to resemble an established political blog. It had the
desired effect on me in the form of making me think this was legit journalism,
until I realized it wasn't the site I'm familiar with.

~~~
maxerickson
It's apparently legitimately affiliated with RealClearPolitics.

~~~
Zigurd
I stand corrected

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Zak
What does it mean to "put driverless cars back in the slow lane"?

If it means to slow down investment, research and development, that strikes me
as foolishly shortsighted. I don't think I've talked to anyone with even a
modest understanding of the relevant technologies who doesn't think most
driving will eventually be done by robots. Having a financial stake in those
robots is reasonably likely to pay off.

If it means that robots should have to pass a driving test before being
allowed on the road without adult supervision, I don't think many people would
argue against that.

~~~
newman8r
The concept of a driving test for self-driving cars is pretty interesting - is
there anything like this currently in the works?

~~~
Zak
There appear to be numerous competing standards for evaluating self-driving
cars in the works.

~~~
newman8r
Sounds lucrative but also a hard industry to break into. I have some
interesting ideas related to self-driving cars but I have no clue where I'd
even take those.

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mattmanser
Written by the director of policy for the Taxpayers Protection Alliance.

They have a "reverse" doomsday clock on their homepage celebrating the repeal
of title 2 by the FCC.

Kinda tells you everything you need to know about them.

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crdoconnor
>But the ability of cars to analyze situations on the road and respond has
barely shown improvement since the beginning of 2016. In key categories, like
“incorrect behavior prediction” and “unwanted maneuver of the vehicle,” Waymo
vehicles actually did worse in 2017 than in 2016.

Ouch. That doesn't bode well at all for the future of driverless cars.

Edit : -1 points: don't question the silicon valley hive mind, people ;)

~~~
maxerickson
It's hard to say. They may be testing in more difficult traffic than they were
previously.

~~~
zip1234
Entirely this. It may be that the data that is collected is not quite as
useful as the government thought at the time the bill was written.

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KKKKkkkk1
Why are people here doing ad hominems when the core of the article is a
discussion of new and interesting data as reported by GM and Waymo? If you
don't like the data, attack GM and Waymo.

~~~
maxerickson
Because policy institutes really are that bad.

Contrast it with this take on the same data, which at least bothers to mention
that Waymo is moving their activity elsewhere:

[https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/31/16956902/california-
dmv-s...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/31/16956902/california-dmv-self-
driving-car-disengagement-2017)

