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Comment by badthingfactory | Hacker News Reader

I was driving to work one day and the light was broken at the busiest intersection in town. People were able to make it through the intersection using hand signals and flashing headlights. How does this work when half of the cars are fully autonomous? How are computers going to understand what those hand signals mean?

A bridge in my town is under construction and it is down to one lane. They put up full stop lights at both ends of the lane closure to manage traffic. Every two or three times I go over that bridge, someone coming from the other direction goes on red because they can see no traffic is coming. I have to sit and wait for that vehicle before going or no one will be able to move.

I love the idea of fully autonomous vehicles, but next time you drive somewhere count the number of ambiguous situations that occur and ask yourself if you think a computer could be programmed to handle all of it. I'm rather skeptical.

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A broken stoplight is considered a 4-way stop under the law here. There's no need for hand signals or flashing headlights. Though, Police may direct traffic if necessary.

In the case of alternating one-way streets, I've always seen construction workers directing traffic. People will obey a person, even when they won't obey a light. Alternatively, consider installing a red light camera.

> A broken stoplight is considered a 4-way stop under the law here. There's no need for hand signals or flashing headlights.

This intersection is 4 lanes plus a left turn lane in all directions with constant traffic. Hand signals were absolutely necessary because 12 people were all approaching the intersection simultaneously.

> In the case of alternating one-way streets, I've always seen construction workers directing traffic.

It's nice that you have always seen that. I'm not sure it would make sense for my town to have construction workers directing traffic 24/7 for the next 3 months while they repair the bridge, so they put in a temporary light. Regardless, I don't know what your point is.

>This intersection is 4 lanes plus a left turn lane in all directions with constant traffic. Hand signals were absolutely necessary because 12 people were all approaching the intersection simultaneously.

There is a set of rules that describes which cars go in what order.

The big problem I see is human drivers are going to start driving more aggressively because they know automated vehicles will always back off first.

There will be a rather long period where auto-cars still have steering wheels and can ask their occupants to take over.

That's almost certainly the case.

However, as soon as you've said that, you now have a requirement that:

- There be a sober, competent, licensed driver in the vehicle

- There needs to be a reliable non-instantaneous handoff from the vehicle to the snoozing driver

- The driver is probably still ultimately responsible for actions taken by the vehicle

Don't get me wrong. I'll take a reliable highway autopilot system. But this does largely rule out many of the use cases that people are thinking about when they say self-driving car.

Those use cases can come after the technology has proven itself reliable. You don't have to have the perfect solution with the first production car.

Kyle Vogt, YC alum and CEO of Cruise said on Monday "It's looking like months, not years, that we're going to have the first commercial production of driverless cars". They're pursuing robotaxis which won't have the option of allowing an occupant to take over.

The initial intent with Google's Koala cars in 2015 was to deploy them sans steering wheel, but they were thwarted by hamfisted regulation from California's DOT. That's expected to be revised before the end of this year.

I'm very skeptical about this kind of timeline, unless we're talking about very well known/controlled routes. Let's see.

Cruise is in San Fransisco and Phoenix right now, so as well known and controlled as driving pretty much anywhere in downtown SF is what we can expect, and that's not easy driving.

Another interesting thing Vogt said on Monday "Looking just at disengagements, if you extrapolate, based on past data, and using our internal metrics, we think we'll actually be in the number 1 spot in 3 to 6 months"

So at last report in December of last year, Waymo's test vehicles had 1 unplanned disengagement every 5000 miles on average, which is impressive, but Cruise thinks they'll be beating that benchmark in very short order.

I agree. That is why we shoukd target Freeway AVsfirst. It is the most controlled and homogeneous environment of driving, and driving it is tedious.

I've contemplated driving across country to visit family, echewing flting. It would be great if some of those miles happened while I slept.

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