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Comment by patrick5415 | Hacker News Reader

>- lidar at night works just fine at night

Yes, let’s rely on a single sensor.

> - plenty of cities with no or very little snow

But plenty of city have plenty of snow. So perhaps not a deal breaker in a limited set of circumstances.

> - construction zones: blacklisting, remote monitoring & manual mapping, detection of cones, barriers, re-painted lanes

Why should we add to already high construction costs just because the self driving tech isn’t up to snuff?

>- self-driving cars with 360 degree view and plenty of patience and no distraction are safer for bicyclists than manually driven cars

Citation?

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Why shouldn't surrounding infrastructure adapt a bit for self-driving cars? Look at everything that had to change for railroads, cars, and airplanes.

If railroads were invented today they would never be allowed. They can't stop for miles? You have to teach everyone everywhere to stay off the tracks? How's that supposed to work?

It's good that our safety standards are a lot higher today for new tech, but perhaps there are a few common sense rules that could be taught, rather than requiring perfection?

Honestly? Because I see self driving cars as expensive toys for rich people[1], and I don’t feel like spending tax dollars or making other concessions to subsidize that.

I think the analogy to railroads is a bit tenuous. There are immediate benefits to connecting two sufficiently separated points with a rail line. A single stretch of properly marked and instrumented roadway is relatively worthless[1].

[1] Trucking being a potential exception.

You do realize horseless carriages were also expensive toys for rich people when they were first introduced?

Yes, and the infrastructure we ended up building for them has made horrible changes to most cities and had extreme negative effects on the environment

You also have night vision and radar to detect metal objects. Plus sound which is still barely utilized besides Doppler.

Ultimately humans cannot match the senses of an automated car, the problem is in processing and integrating. Which we are pretty far away from solving in a general case.

I'm not so sure about that. For one thing, unless they've changed a lot more than I think they have since the last time I got to fool with one myself, the sensors have very limited range. Take a look at the screens displaying "what the car sees" in this self-promotion video from Waymo:

https://youtu.be/B8R148hFxPw?t=148

What the car is in essence doing is driving by GPS and maps while staring at its feet. It is not as bad as driving with your eyes closed, but it's not that much better.

Further, some of the infrastructure it is relying on, like lane markings, are very poorly maintained.

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