
Two self-driving cars involved in 'near miss' in California - edward
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jun/26/google-delphi-two-self-driving-cars-near-miss
======
sangnoir
Click-bait headline by Reuters (and Guardian). The Delphi spokesperson
repudiated[1] the "near-miss" description.

 _" I was there for the discussion with Reuters about automated vehicles," she
told Ars by e-mail. "The story was taken completely out of context when
describing a type of complex driving scenario that can occur in the real
world. Our expert provided an example of a lane change scenario that our car
recently experienced which, coincidentally, was with one of the Google cars
also on the road at that time. It wasn’t a 'near miss' as described in the
Reuters story."_

1\. [http://arstechnica.com/cars/2015/06/no-2-self-driving-
cars-d...](http://arstechnica.com/cars/2015/06/no-2-self-driving-cars-didnt-
have-a-close-call-on-silicon-valley-streets/)

~~~
jnevill
Further, form that article:

 _" Our car did exactly what it was supposed to," she wrote. "Our car saw the
Google car move into the same lane as our car was planning to move into, but
upon detecting that the lane was no longer open it decided to terminate the
move and wait until it was clear again."_

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noonespecial
"Near" for the robot cars... or their human observers?

 _Zero-point-six-eight seconds, sir. For an android, that is nearly an
eternity._ \--Data

~~~
nthState
I was thinking the same thing

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codeshaman
I wouldn't mind living in a world were all news stories are like this -
"Something bad almost happened, but it didn't, because the algorithms took
care of it".

Back to the story, the article doesn't mention if the human drivers had to
interfere to avoid collision. It would be quite pointless to have a self-
driving car which you cannot trust and be always on the lookout to take over
if it does something stupid.

~~~
viraptor
Algorithms preventing bad things? That was the whole premise of Minority
Report, wasn't it?

~~~
maxerickson
No, Minority Report had psychics (the title comes from having 3 of them, so
when one of them sees something different than the other 2, there is a
"Minority Report").

~~~
viraptor
Is 3 psychics really different than 3 algorithms? Safety critical software
does get implemented sometimes in 2 different ways to cross-check sanity at
runtime. Which does of course come up with issues like which side to trust and
what to do if they disagree.

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connor4312
Not to be cynical, but this is perfect publicity for Delphi Automotive. There
appears to be no third-party confirmation of the incident, solely the say-so
of the Delphi executive.

It would seem to me (given the low density of self-driving cars and their
excellent track record) that the odds of Delphi wanting get in the news and
bash a competitor at the same time is greater than the odds of two self-
driving cars happening to cross paths and causing a "near-miss".

~~~
thescrewdriver
Both vehicles would be doing a ton of data collection, so it's hard to imagine
a situation where false claims wouldn't easily be debunked with data/footage
from the vehicles themselves.

~~~
connor4312
It isn't possible for Google to provide footage showing it _not_ happening,
and the release of footage from Delphi would be entirely on their own
prerogative.

------
venomsnake
So the safety tech worked as expected. That is a great news. There are way
more "near misses" everyday from human drivers.

Also seeing the "near miss" in the editorialized title - this Carlin quote is
mandatory

 __“Here 's a phrase that apparently the airlines simply made up: near miss.
They say that if 2 planes almost collide, it's a near miss. Bullshit, my
friend. It's a near hit! A collision is a near miss. [WHAM! CRUNCH!] "Look,
they nearly missed!" "Yes, but not quite.” __

~~~
johnbaptiste
Carlin is ignorant. The OED lists usage of 'near miss' going back to 1940 in a
maritime context. It was not made up by the airlines. Even if it was, the
phrase still makes sense. It's not 'nearly missed', it's 'a miss where the
objects were near'.

Have you ever heard the phrase 'it's funny because it's true'? Well this isn't
true, so I don't see Carlin as funny. He's just ignorant and angry.

~~~
venomsnake
The definition of miss implies that is was near. So to a point Carlin is
right.

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TickleSteve
So I'm taking it that both cars behaved perfectly?

They realised a collision was imminent and took evasive action? Sounds like
they got it right to me.

~~~
nothrabannosir
_A self-driving Lexus operated by Google apparently cut off a self-driving
Audi run by Delphi Automotive as it was trying to change lanes, causing it to
take “appropriate action” to avoid a collision, said a Delphi executive._

 _John Absmeier, who was travelling in his company’s car at the time, said the
Audi was forced to abort its lane change in the incident, which happened
earlier this week._

I'm glad it was a robot, and not me driving that car. Not sure if I would have
been able to change lanes that fast without causing an accident.

That's the issue: one of the robots forced another car to react quickly to
avoid an accident. Had this been a human, it could have ended very
differently.

~~~
kuschku
So that’s why Google’s cars get rear-ended so often

~~~
arpa
my thoughts exactly: AI drives like an asshole with inhuman reflexes :)

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easytiger
> although the Delphi car was not actually in self-driving mode at the time,
> it was still required to report the accident under Californian law.

Err..

~~~
eterm
That's a different incident to the one in the headline isn't it?

~~~
masklinn
Yes, the one in the headline didn't result in an accident.

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flashfabrixx
”No collision took place.” ”In all cases, the self-driving prototype was not
at fault, according to the California Department of Motor Vehicles and the
companies.”

Source Article: [http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/26/us-autos-
selfdrivi...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/26/us-autos-selfdriving-
nearmiss-idUSKBN0P601T20150626)

~~~
thescrewdriver
You're piecing together two unrelated sentences from the article to tell a
different story...

"No collision took place" \- refers to the two cars in this case.

"In all cases, the self-driving prototype was not at fault, according to the
California Department of Motor Vehicles and the companies." \- refers to
previous crashes excluding the one being discussed in the article.

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jackgavigan
The road this happened on frequently has three lanes on a carriageway. I can
easily imagine a situation where the cars in question are in the left-most and
right-most lanes, and both want to move into the middle lane. Both "see" that
the lane is empty and both make their move at the same time. I wonder if these
self-driving cars can "see" a turn signal two lanes away.

Of course, we don't know if the Google car was in self-driving mode or was
being operated by a person. The article only tells one side of the story.

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Shivetya
So I guess the real issue is, we need a Federal standard with regards to self
driving cars that they must talk to similar cars within a set radius.

Should be far easier that just driving down a crowded road. Effectively each
car has the equivalent of a mac address and simply broadcasts its actions and
any car listening within range responds appropriately.

~~~
cfallin
An Ethernet segment per road, interesting -- gives a whole new meaning to the
phrase "collision domain"!

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bartbes
Should probably resync the title to the article, I'm guessing the guardian
realised a "near miss" is a hit.

~~~
eterm
near miss

noun

noun: near miss; plural noun: near misses

    
    
        1. a narrowly avoided collision or other accident.
        "she had a near miss when her horse was nearly sucked into a dyke"
    
        2.   a bomb or shot that just misses its target.
        "he had escaped more than twenty near misses"
    
    

In no definition is "near miss" a hit, even taking it "literally" near is
adjective for the noun miss, so it is a miss that is near. i.e, a miss where
two bodies are close but don't hit.

~~~
emilssolmanis
In any definition, a near miss is a hit. A "near hit" would be what you're
looking for...

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDKdvTecYAM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDKdvTecYAM)

~~~
danparsonson
"Near miss" isn't "nearly a miss" \- it's a _miss_ where both parties were
_near_ each other. "Near hit" may actually make more logical sense though.

------
glaberficken
What if one of the automated cars has to pick between swerving into another
obstacle or keeping the collision course? (not even considering the moral
implications of what that second obstacle might be...)

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Tepix
This brings up an interesting topic - who is liable when two self driving cars
crash (without outside influence)? The car owners? The car manufacturer?

~~~
lucb1e
Yeah, that's the question everyone has been debating for years now.

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anticon
It's going to be great when these cars are around a bit more. You could have
some pretty good fun trying to get one of the self driving cars to crash into
you. Won't be that hard to do I'm sure.

~~~
calciphus
Except that it'll have a mountain of sensors on it and will be able to show
you were at fault.

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robogimp
Ugh, this article sounds like the Lexus brand trying to latch on to the google
self-driving hype train. Hey guys we are making a cool car too!

On a more important note: do we really want all the different tech companies
and car manufacturers competing to build separate driverless software and
standards? Looking at how well that worked out for online maps, doesn't make
me feel safer.

~~~
Crito
Is it really reasonable to expect any automotive manufacturer who wants to
remain relevant to _not_ start working on self-driving cars?

You can't seriously expect this to be "just a google thing".

~~~
unfamiliar
I think they were more implying that the software that makes the decisions
should be common to all of them. That way we don't allow individual car
manufacturers to make potentially fatal mistakes when cutting corners with
their software development. I think at the very least there should be a
standardisation, so that there can be some communication between cars to aid
in resolving traffic jams and other uses.

~~~
coldtea
> _That way we don 't allow individual car manufacturers to make potentially
> fatal mistakes when cutting corners with their software development._

Wouldn't all the cars by any manufacturer have to pass the same very rigorous
driving tests in the first place, to be able to be sold in the market?

~~~
unfamiliar
Then you will have people writing software with the aim of pass the tests, not
real world safety. I don't think auto testing can catch the type of bugs that
can arise sporadically, which could be fatal in the case of self driving cars.

