Robotaxis Malfunction in San Francisco - Would You Ride in a Driverless Car?

[ThistleMae]

 

[MillauFr]

A driverless car that doesn't crash into the side of a truck because it can't tell the difference between the side of a truck and open sky.

Which never happens with human drivers.....

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

So there was just a pretty bad accident in our metro today and this thread made me wonder if there was able to be safety components to driverless cars that might have helped.


A dump truck going northbound had a left front tire blow out, lost control of the dump truck crossed the median went through safety cables installed there (so now it's facing northbound in the southbound side)

Then it hit the driver's side of an F150 going south (and I believe it was the vehicle that caught fire but that hasn't been formally stated), also hit the front end of a 4Runner and the driver's side of a city work truck. Those impacts created debris. A Ford Transit Van attempted to miss the debris but was unable to and was damaged. That Ford Transit Van attempted to miss the other vehicles involved in the crash but was then rear-ended by a Toyota.

So to recap that's a total of 6 vehicles involved.

The driver of the F150 ultimately did not survive and their passenger has life-threatening injuries. The driver of the city work vehicle also has serious injuries. Three other drivers refused medical attention.

Now my pondering was if there were driverless vehicles around would their AI have aided in preventing such a huge chain reaction? A blown tire is hard to account for but I wonder if something outside of human reaction could have helped. I'm not sure but it did get me thinking.

 

[bcla]

So there was just a pretty bad accident in our metro today and this thread made me wonder if there was able to be safety components to driverless cars that might have helped.


A dump truck going northbound had a left front tire blow out, lost control of the dump truck crossed the median went through safety cables installed there (so now it's facing northbound in the southbound side)

Then it hit the driver's side of an F150 going south (and I believe it was the vehicle that caught fire but that hasn't been formally stated), also hit the front end of a 4Runner and the driver's side of a city work truck. Those impacts created debris. A Ford Transit Van attempted to miss the debris but was unable to and was damaged. That Ford Transit Van attempted to miss the other vehicles involved in the crash but was then rear-ended by a Toyota.

So to recap that's a total of 6 vehicles involved.

The driver of the F150 ultimately did not survive and their passenger has life-threatening injuries. The driver of the city work vehicle also has serious injuries. Three other drivers refused medical attention.

Now my pondering was if there were driverless vehicles around would their AI have aided in preventing such a huge chain reaction? A blown tire is hard to account for but I wonder if something outside of human reaction could have helped. I'm not sure but it did get me thinking.

All new passenger vehicles need tire pressure monitoring systems, although I'm not sure with commercial vehicles. It might be difficult with trailers, although a dump truck would deal with that. But certainly TPMS tied into a self-driving system might be able to react faster than a human who might not notice the TPMS warning and might not even notice the aberrant handling characteristics until it's too late.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

All new passenger vehicles need tire pressure monitoring systems,

Yeah..but like my husband has one on his 2010..he just ignores it when it goes off with a low tire pressure of course he fills it up eventually but it's not always the moment it goes off. If the low tire press

But certainly TPMS tied into a self-driving system might be able to react faster than a human who might not notice the TPMS warning and might not even notice the aberrant handling characteristics until it's too late.

That's what I was wondering. A blown tire isn't something you can always prevent or anticipate (the highways have tire remnants all the time), but could a driverless vehicle react better in some way that might have prevented or reduced the carnage from that wreck. I don't know truly or if that's something possible but is a long way off from realistic implementation but I def. did wonder given the chain reaction one blown tire caused.

 

[bcla]

Yeah..but like my husband has one on his 2010..he just ignores it when it goes off with a low tire pressure of course he fills it up eventually but it's not always the moment it goes off. If the low tire press

That's what I was wondering. A blown tire isn't something you can always prevent or anticipate (the highways have tire remnants all the time), but could a driverless vehicle react better in some way that might have prevented or reduced the carnage from that wreck. I don't know truly or if that's something possible but is a long way off from realistic implementation but I def. did wonder given the chain reaction one blown tire caused.

I've had a couple of blown tires at freeway speeds. Also one that seemed to puncture at 50 MPH on an expressway but that tire survived (didn't even seem to sag, like run-flats would stay up). But on the freeway they shredded within 10 seconds, but it likely took several seconds before it registered that the tire was gone. However, when I was cruising I didn't even notice until I heard a whump whump sound of the tire just wobbling around. At that point the handling was really bad. Of course worst case would have been like the Ford Explorer, where many flipped over.

The important thing to do with a blown tire is to not make any sudden steering movements or sudden braking that could result in loss of control. I remember when Shell used to have a series of safety handouts, and they example in a TV commercial showing a tire blowout was to slowly come to a stop without hitting the brakes hard, and steering it gently to the side of the road. Ideally one wouldn't use the brakes at all and then just get to a slow speed where the brakes and steering can be done on a blown tire. Most drivers wouldn't know what to do, but I'd think a driving algorithm could be programmed to do that.

 

[mrodgers]

All new passenger vehicles need tire pressure monitoring systems, although I'm not sure with commercial vehicles. It might be difficult with trailers, although a dump truck would deal with that. But certainly TPMS tied into a self-driving system might be able to react faster than a human who might not notice the TPMS warning and might not even notice the aberrant handling characteristics until it's too late.

A blown tire, not a tire that is low on pressure. A tire that goes from whatever a large commercial truck would run, 75 psi? To 0 PSI in an instant. You're pretty dang good if you can recognize that with a TPMS sensor lighting up on your dashboard and do something different. It's blowing in the same instant a computer could recognize it, a fraction of a second, so self-driving doesn't help with the blown tire either.


This is a great real world scenario to discuss. At what point if it happens can the AI recognize the event from the perspective of the other traffic? A human if they are paying attention, has the opportunity to see it the instant it happens, we just don't. We're more concerned over our phones than what is happening as we continue status quo down the road.

At the point the truck is busting through the guard rail, surely people notice that. I would think most people except for the utmost top phone dedicated would react to it at that point. It just so happens that it's too late at that point for someone.

Some events are just inevitable. Doesn't matter if it's human or a computer, when it happens so quickly, you still have the limitations of the mechanics and physics of the car. The car can only brake so much whether it's a human or computer reacting.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

A blown tire, not a tire that is low on pressure. A tire that goes from whatever a large commercial truck would run, 75 psi? To 0 PSI in an instant. You're pretty dang good if you can recognize that with a TPMS sensor lighting up on your dashboard and do something different. It's blowing in the same instant a computer could recognize it, a fraction of a second, so self-driving doesn't help with the blown tire either.


This is a great real world scenario to discuss. At what point if it happens can the AI recognize the event from the perspective of the other traffic? A human if they are paying attention, has the opportunity to see it the instant it happens, we just don't. We're more concerned over our phones than what is happening as we continue status quo down the road.

At the point the truck is busting through the guard rail, surely people notice that. I would think most people except for the utmost top phone dedicated would react to it at that point. It just so happens that it's too late at that point for someone.

Some events are just inevitable. Doesn't matter if it's human or a computer, when it happens so quickly, you still have the limitations of the mechanics and physics of the car. The car can only brake so much whether it's a human or computer reacting.

I'm not sure if you're missing the point or not but at no point did any news story point to distraction for any of the drivers involved and they do say that when that is the case, that would be unlikely for all 6 not to mention being hit by a vehicle coming from the side. They are going highway speeds with reaction time next to nil (back to 101 on reaction time).

And shame on you for your words. I didn't share the story for you to be callous about the loss of life and grave injury. Maybe you would have been different but I hope you never have to deal with this exact situation to find out how good you hope you are.

From my thoughts I was wondering if the AI could have slowed the truck down steadily and steared it with what tires it had left off to the side instead of it veering (as the story put it). I'm not sure how fast the dump truck was going but for it to break through those cables and hit 2 cars on their front driver sides it was at least a decent speed. Maybe AI would have depressed the break. Like I said my point was a blown tire isn't something you can prevent or anticipate.

 

[KayMichigan]

Which never happens with human drivers.....

While drivers hit trucks all the time, I don't remember ever hearing of an accident where it happened because they thought the truck wasn't there at all, the way the driverless car did.

 

[bcla]

A blown tire, not a tire that is low on pressure. A tire that goes from whatever a large commercial truck would run, 75 psi? To 0 PSI in an instant. You're pretty dang good if you can recognize that with a TPMS sensor lighting up on your dashboard and do something different. It's blowing in the same instant a computer could recognize it, a fraction of a second, so self-driving doesn't help with the blown tire either.


This is a great real world scenario to discuss. At what point if it happens can the AI recognize the event from the perspective of the other traffic? A human if they are paying attention, has the opportunity to see it the instant it happens, we just don't. We're more concerned over our phones than what is happening as we continue status quo down the road.

At the point the truck is busting through the guard rail, surely people notice that. I would think most people except for the utmost top phone dedicated would react to it at that point. It just so happens that it's too late at that point for someone.

Some events are just inevitable. Doesn't matter if it's human or a computer, when it happens so quickly, you still have the limitations of the mechanics and physics of the car. The car can only brake so much whether it's a human or computer reacting.

We already have systems that automatically brake for us. But in the case of a blown tire the best thing is to not suddenly brake because it will tend to pull hard to one side since there’s control on one side but not the other. That’s the thing that most people would instinctively to even if a bad choice to do. It’s why commercial aircraft have emergency checklists. At least autonomous vehicles can go over the equivalent of a checklist quickly.

 

[MillauFr]

While drivers hit trucks all the time, I don't remember ever hearing of an accident where it happened because they thought the truck wasn't there at all, the way the driverless car did.

And you won't hear about it either. You will only read about it if an autonomous car crashes.