
Cars are killing more people – and driverless cars won't solve the problem - tim333
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/oct/03/collision-course-pedestrian-deaths-rising-driverless-cars
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foxyv
I was walking around Southern California on a business trip and had to cross a
freeway offramp without a signal. Standing at the crosswalk I watched cars
blowing by at about 50 mph not giving a feather or a fig that I was on the
edge of the crosswalk. Then I saw a Tesla. Oh boy!

I swung a foot out and the thing just slammed on the brakes like a champ. Must
have been on autopilot. Man the driver was pissed though. Never seen someone
so angry with their car when it was running properly.

~~~
brudgers
To me, that demonstrates the problem with Tesla's autopilot. Maybe it
recognized you as a pedestrian from five hundred meters away but didn't slow
down and proceed with the extra caution warranted by your exposure and
vulnerability. Instead it proceeded based on minimizing the applied safety
factor and maximizing the passenger's convenience.

It had to slam on the brakes. That's not safe driving. Tesla's are programmed
to play chicken with pedestrians. Their behaviors correspond to those of
aggressive drivers.

~~~
foxyv
Yeah, it takes a lot of thinking power to determine the difference between a
pedestrian about to cross a street, one just walking alongside it, and one
waiting for an Uber. Then again it was doing better than the other psychos who
couldn't be bothered to slow down in case I walked in front of them.

It was cool that it recognized my foot swinging out and did something instead
of letting the driver potentially run me down. I think that's the real
potential of automated systems. Pedestrian and cyclist safety features flying
under the radar as "Convenience" features.

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Elizabethrud
The main thing is for drivers to have enough experience and don’t use mobile
telephones and other gadgets while driving

