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How did you know that was there intention? They could have been on their Apple phones and just distracted.

True. As they passed me the human driver behind the Apple car was, from my perspective, doing all it could to be as close to the back bumper as possible. Hitting brakes and then gassing it. But yeah could have just been on phones. I can’t believe the amount of people who drive while using their phones.
 
Agreed teen driving is a considerable concern. That being said there is also a disturbing percentage of irresponsible Adults that drive under the influence of alcohol or drugs. It is unfortunate no matter how much the law is enforced against such individuals that will continue to offend
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...casualties-in-uk-four-year-high-alcohol-limit

Sorry we are going a little off topic. Back to the autonomous vehicle although the human factor does play a part the concern is to what degree the human is in control and how straightforward it would be with to manual. This is essential. The fact is no matter who is developing the technology the autonomous car is years away from being available to the consumer to purchase perhaps not even in our lifetime.
Absolutely no point in furthering this. You’re clearly out of touch with the technology. Self driving cars are already on our roads. The technology isn’t available tomorrow, it’s being used today by Waymo....soon on a large scale. They will spread like Uber did. 10 years max before you can purchase one.

Come back here in 2028.
 
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Humans are dangerous. We need to get them away from behind the wheel as fast as we can.

That will never happen in the U.S. thankfully, I love driving as a hobby. Maybe I'll head the National Driver's Association and start lobbying
 
Whoa, what am I missing in the article. Where does it say the Leaf was following too closely? Apparently things have changed since I went to driving school but you never stop when merging onto a highway (unless there’s a STOP sign) <1 mph would be considered a stop.

Thank god I live in MA where people know how to drive. Like they say on Big Brother, "Expect the unexpected". No problems.

That's hilarious, drivers in MA are called Massholes for good reason. The first time I saw people trying to play chicken when merging was after moving to MA.
 
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I'm just appalled that so-called autonomous vehicles are allowed on ANY public roads ANYWHERE. They belong in factories, not on public streets. We are trying to act like we are already living in the Jetsons century (centuries into our future) but technologically we are much closer to the Flintstones century. We want to pretend our technology is a century or more advanced farther than it really is. It isn't. Our so-called AI technology is still at the moron level. Even a teenager who just got his beginners driving permit yesterday is a safer driver than these autonomous moron AI drivers.
 
The software in the vehicles will be held to a higher standard than Siri or Notes.

I was being a bit sarcastic with my comment about Siri, but higher standard or not, how can the software anticipate every possible scenario (weather, lighting, precipitation, object in road, warning sign about hazard ahead, condition of road, etc. and combinations thereof) and in thousands of lines of code or more there will be bugs. I guess the ultimate test is not how well the autonomous vehicles drive but how well they do compared to humans on a statistical basis i.e. number of accidents. At least they won't drink and drive. I just think this is something that will take years to develop.
 
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big non-news about test car accident,

meanwhile human drivers create fatal accidents that average 100 deaths per day in the United States. An additional 2.35 million suffer injuries or disabilities annually – about 6,400 per day.
 
And all it was doing was making a legal merge. And some brainiac, probably on their phone, just smacks into it...
That, a combination of human and machine, is the problem with these tests. Even if the autonomous vehicle performs perfectly, obeying every traffic rule, law, etc, people rarely do. Could a computer compensate for someone going through a red traffic light or slow down when someone doesn't look when merging lanes? Probably. However, when it's all automated vehicles, they really wouldn't need to.

So, until we remove the human driver component, accidents (er, collisions) will still be commonplace, whether that's involving a Telsa, Apple OS-controlled vehicle, or other.
 
meanwhile human drivers create fatal accidents that average 100 deaths per day in the United States. An additional 2.35 million suffer injuries or disabilities annually – about 6,400 per day.

No question that our roads are dangerous. And no question that human error is often responsible for accidents so autonomous vehicles have potential to reduce the accident rate, although I think they're a long way off.

The numbers you cite are based on about 250 million cars in the U.S. that are driven by humans. We would need to have an equal number of autonomous vehicles on the road to make a fair comparison.
 
How many thousand kilometers did they do before having this first accident?
They're in alpha and they're already on the way to be better than us humans...

By that logic then Tesla are far superior to Apple then regarding cars.
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Saw one of these self driving cars on the freeway (Apple I believe?) yesterday was shocked to see people driving in such a way to antagonize the vehicle intentionally. The person behind was inches off their bumper. I guess some people like to see the world burn.

probably why so many people hate Tesla, guess they all want to breath in noxious fumes and develop brain tumours.
 
With all the sensors merging should be a piece of cake vs stopping on the expressway like what a bad or inexperienced driver would do. Also, doesn't it have collision avoidance like Tesla to avoid those situations?

Dont you know what alpha testing means? Tesla is already selling cars.
 
I’m looking forward to the house cleaning robots and Moon based space cities I was promised in the Sixties! All the leisure time that was promised. Lovely. Now. Self driving cars. Whatever next. I saw one once. A taxi. And I’ll tell you, they work really well. Where was it again? Oh yeah it was er... Total Recall. Oh no. That was a science fiction film wasn’t it? Forget that then. Sorry. Otherwise it should be a great success. Oh no. What am I saying?. It’s dead in the water. Nice idea in theory. But theory doesn’t take into account human error or compensation claims. Oh. And the real world. Please disregard all of the above. I couldn’t find the delete button, readers ..
 
When I first read the title, I was thinking the worst. I thought someone had been killed or injured. I also started to think that it was the "robot" car's fault. It would be nice if the headline in this case read something along the lines of "Apple Autonomous Car was Rear-Ended." Take my thought for what it's worth.

- Jay
 
I do live in a huge metropolitan but don't make the remedial driver mistake of not giving myself sufficient space in front of me to escape. Now you know the purpose of shoulder lane and managing space to escape that responsible drivers have known for decades.
I know the purpose of a shoulder lane. My whole point was that human drivers are going to nudge their way into traffic rather than sitting there in the merge lane. Real human drivers aren’t going to wait for a “safe gap” to merge in those kinds of conditions because it won’t come. You just slowly budge your nose in and wait for someone to slow enough for you to get in. It requires constant monitoring not only of the traffic ahead and behind you (something AI can do I guess) but also a willingness to be a bit aggressive and to acknowledge the visual cues of other drivers (little waves, nods, eye contact, etc) something afaik is currently beyond the reach of AI. So, you get situations like this, with a self driving car following the rules by “waiting for a safe gap to merge” and thereby creating unexpected, unsafe situations.
 
So, traffic lights go wrong and are stuck on red during rush hour. The driverless car sits there for the next 3 hours whilst 10 miles of traffic back up behind it, as it cant break the lawand go thru a red light.
Wheras Humans would understand it's broken after they see it's stuck and using careful judgement waiting for gaps actualy drive thru red as that is what needs to be done given such a fault
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Would you put your life in the hands of a computer chip?
many people already to every single day in modern transport.
The phsical metal linkage between the drivers controls and the engine, brakes and now steering is being removed and replaced by wires and compuetr chips.
You press you foot down and that just sends a signal to the engine management, to increase the air\fuel to the engine to make it go faster. what it if goes wrong and send you fulll speed into something?

Now even steering is going and steer by wire is on the streets.
 
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Apple is testing its self-driving vehicles in a number of Lexus SUVs out on the roads of Cupertino, and on August 24, one of those vehicles was involved in an accident.

Apple is required to disclose autonomous vehicle collisions to the California DMV, and the information on the accident was published on the DMV's website.

lexussuvselfdriving2.jpg

According to the accident details, the vehicle in question was in autonomous mode at the time, and sustained moderate damage in the crash, but it does not appear that Apple was at fault for the collision. From the accident report:Apple has been testing its self-driving software in Lexus RX450h SUVs in Cupertino, California and surrounding areas since early 2017, but this is the first time an Apple vehicle has been involved in a crash.

Apple's test vehicles are outfitted with a host of sensors and cameras, and while they are autonomous, each one has a pair of drivers inside. At the current time, Apple is testing its software in more than 60 vehicles.

It's not yet clear what Apple plans to do with its self-driving software, but it could be added to existing cars and there are still rumors suggesting Apple is working on its own Apple-branded vehicle that could come out by 2025.

Apple is also working on a self-driving shuttle service called "PAIL," an acronym for "Palo Alto to Infinite Loop." The shuttle program will transport employees between Apple's offices in Silicon Valley.

Article Link: Apple Autonomous Test Vehicle Involved in Accident on August 24
Kifer onto Lawrence? 2:58 PM? Speed limit on Lawrence is 50 MPH. NO ONE goes the speed limit unless it's bumper to bumper after 4 PM. Kifer is a 4 lane street with a stop light at Lawrence, right turn. There IS no merge lane. You almost always have to stop. I call texting.
 
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I have a Level 2 Driving Assistance on my 2018 Audi S5 and it works pretty well but I wouldn't trust it 100%. It saves you a lot of strain, specially in stop and go traffic but the world is not ready for Self Driving cars yet.
In my opinion, the only way for this to work is for ALL cars to be autonomous and to communicate with each other.
There are too many bad drivers out there and the systems are not quick enough to avoid crashes, I know, I use the system every day and u need to stay alert ALL the time.

Fellow 2018 S5 owner here, and you’re absolutely right. I don’t take my eyes off the cars around me when traffic jam assist is on, because even at the shorted follow distance, the car leaves a large gap that people are constantly moving into, requiring a lot of human intervention.
 
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