Driverless Cars and The Law

[otolith]

I don't think they'll need infrastructure, but presumably the software will need to be configured for different regulatory regimes.

[98elise]

rewc said:

ging84 said:

so 2030 is when i think it will be considered a fully establish technology globally with more countries than not accepting them.

Is that 50% more of developed countries or all countries? How much will it cost to develop and install the infrastructure world wide?

The Google driverless car prototype doesn't need any additional infrastructure. Its done about 750,000 miles on public roads without incident.

[bennyboysvuk]

Jasandjules said:

So if it crashes who is responsible? What if it kills a small child crossing the road? Does the computer get jailed?

Will this be a "Computer car only" area requirement?

And not only that, but in a situation where an accident is unavoidable, who does the car choose to wipe out? e.g. The driverless car is rounding a tight corner on a mountain road and some fool travelling in the opposite direction decides to overtake an oncoming truck. Ok, it doesn't happen very often, but does the driverless car:

1. Drive off the edge of the mountain (killing only 1 person, you!)
2. Have a head on collision (killing 2 people, you and the oncoming driver)

Logic says it's better to only kill 1 person, but that doesn't seem terribly fair.

[otolith]

bennyboysvuk said:

And not only that, but in a situation where an accident is unavoidable, who does the car choose to wipe out? e.g. The driverless car is rounding a tight corner on a mountain road and some fool travelling in the opposite direction decides to overtake an oncoming truck. Ok, it doesn't happen very often, but does the driverless car:

1. Drive off the edge of the mountain (killing only 1 person, you!)
2. Have a head on collision (killing 2 people, you and the oncoming driver)

Logic says it's better to only kill 1 person, but that doesn't seem terribly fair.

It brakes. That's all it can justifiably do. You were both killed by the oncoming driver. I don't think they will be required to calculate the optimum outcome for Asimov's Laws of Robotics.

[Mr Taxpayer]

nipsips said:

I suppose its similar to the automated trains on the London Underground. Still have a driver on hand poised over the controller waiting for something to happen. End of the day its his train and he is responsible for it and its actions. I presume the car driving automation will be the same.

The 'driver' is there to open and close the doors; a bit like cabin crew on an aircraft. The driving of the train is totally autonomous. On many other undergound systems around the world, the trains are totally unstafed. It's only the late Bob Crow that has kept TfL's trains staffed. The 'driver' is there ostensibly on Safety grounds to deal with an in-tunnel incident. Though quite how one chippy communist is going to deal with 600 frightened travellers in the dark is a good guess.

[CrutyRammers]

otolith said:

bennyboysvuk said:

And not only that, but in a situation where an accident is unavoidable, who does the car choose to wipe out? e.g. The driverless car is rounding a tight corner on a mountain road and some fool travelling in the opposite direction decides to overtake an oncoming truck. Ok, it doesn't happen very often, but does the driverless car:

1. Drive off the edge of the mountain (killing only 1 person, you!)
2. Have a head on collision (killing 2 people, you and the oncoming driver)

Logic says it's better to only kill 1 person, but that doesn't seem terribly fair.

It brakes. That's all it can justifiably do. You were both killed by the oncoming driver. I don't think they will be required to calculate the optimum outcome for Asimov's Laws of Robotics.

It's funny how every time this comes up, someone has to invent some bizarre hypothetical situation to "prove" it won't work. What would a human driver do?

[herewego]

CrutyRammers said:

otolith said:

bennyboysvuk said:

And not only that, but in a situation where an accident is unavoidable, who does the car choose to wipe out? e.g. The driverless car is rounding a tight corner on a mountain road and some fool travelling in the opposite direction decides to overtake an oncoming truck. Ok, it doesn't happen very often, but does the driverless car:

1. Drive off the edge of the mountain (killing only 1 person, you!)
2. Have a head on collision (killing 2 people, you and the oncoming driver)

Logic says it's better to only kill 1 person, but that doesn't seem terribly fair.

It brakes. That's all it can justifiably do. You were both killed by the oncoming driver. I don't think they will be required to calculate the optimum outcome for Asimov's Laws of Robotics.

It's funny how every time this comes up, someone has to invent some bizarre hypothetical situation to "prove" it won't work. What would a human driver do?

He'd hit the ejector seat button.

[otolith]

I suppose the other answer is that if the other car was autonomous it wouldn't be overtaking on a blind bend!

What will be interesting is when the cars start sharing data - your car might have already hit the brakes because the autonomous car behind the overtaking car has already shared the positions of the traffic round it.

[juggsy]

Jasandjules said:

So if it crashes who is responsible? What if it kills a small child crossing the road? Does the computer get jailed?

Will this be a "Computer car only" area requirement?

No doubt it will throw the insurance industry into chaos too. Car crashes when in 'full auto' mode, driver says it wasn't my fault as computer was driving, insurer says driver is responsible, driver sues car manufacturer for defect and resulting increased premium due to the accident.....curious what Loon's interpretation would be on this.

[otolith]

I think it will very quickly become the case that fully autonomous cars are *much* cheaper to insure than manual ones. Especially for high risk drivers.

[Mr Taxpayer]

otolith said:

I think it will very quickly become the case that fully autonomous cars are *much* cheaper to insure than manual ones. Especially for high risk drivers.

Very few people will actually 'own' autonomous cars. The most likely arrangement is that you'll part own one or buy time in one. Even if you do own, the drivers' experience will be irellevant since they aren't driving. Why do they even need a licence? Or be old enough to need a licence?

[otolith]

Mr Taxpayer said:

otolith said:

I think it will very quickly become the case that fully autonomous cars are *much* cheaper to insure than manual ones. Especially for high risk drivers.

Very few people will actually 'own' autonomous cars. The most likely arrangement is that you'll part own one or buy time in one. Even if you do own, the drivers' experience will be irellevant since they aren't driving. Why do they even need a licence? Or be old enough to need a licence?

I think people will still want personal transport, whether it drives itself or not. We already have self-driving cars we don't own, we call them "taxis"!

The driving experience will no longer matter, but arguably it doesn't now. Most mainstream cars are utterly turgid to drive. What will matter will be how flash it looks, how comfortable it is, how well equipped it is.

[Mr Taxpayer]

otolith said:

Mr Taxpayer said:

otolith said:

I think it will very quickly become the case that fully autonomous cars are *much* cheaper to insure than manual ones. Especially for high risk drivers.

Very few people will actually 'own' autonomous cars. The most likely arrangement is that you'll part own one or buy time in one. Even if you do own, the drivers' experience will be irellevant since they aren't driving. Why do they even need a licence? Or be old enough to need a licence?

I think people will still want personal transport, whether it drives itself or not. We already have self-driving cars we don't own, we call them "taxis"!

The driving experience will no longer matter, but arguably it doesn't now. Most mainstream cars are utterly turgid to drive. What will matter will be how flash it looks, how comfortable it is, how well equipped it is.

You're right in that people will want their own cars and everything else you said. But will you want the car for your personnal use only? Say like me you drive to work in Bigtown arriving at 8am. Do you want your car to sit in the corporate car park all day depreciating or do you want to use it to make money to offset the hideous depreciation? You can make it available via an Uber-like app to other people for local journeys. Your car can now go and do the school run or collect a colleague form the station. As long as it's at the office door at home-time will it matter. You can do the same at weekends and evenings. Very quickly you realise that the whole 'ownership' concept is not worth it. The only people that will own the cars will be those that want to use them as status symbols or penis supplements, i.e. Q? and X? drivers.

They will change commuting patterns too. With your car being autonoumous and connected, you'll be able to work just as you would on a train, maybe more so, coz you can spread out. So you'll be happier to live further away because commuting time won't be lost time. They'll have an effect on property prices because it will no longer be important to be near a vital commuter rail line, these property won't attract the premium they once did, because the trains' customers are now in 4G connected google-cars..

Autonomous cars are coming. They'll be mainstream sooner than you think and they'll change our world in a way not seen since the Internal Combustion engine largely replaced the horse in the 1920s. Come back in 5, yes five, years and tell me I was wrong.

[GPSHead]

I'm very concerned that people may have too much freedom with driverless cars if we're not careful. I suggest that spurious "safety" concerns need to be whipped up about them now, before they're in common use and it's too late. We need to convince the public of the need for all of the following:

• An absolute maximum speed of 10mph at all times. However "intelligent" driverless cars become, they can't ever overcome the possiblity that a child (as in "think of the children") may dive, goalkeeper-style, out in front of them at any time. And yes, it may happen on motorways as well. Can you prove it won't?

• A zero limit on breath alcohol. This needs to be stricter than manual driving because of the aforementioned delay in responding to anything that requires intervention.

• Two qualified drivers required in the front at all times. After all, if you pass out when driving manually, the car eventually stops, but if you do so with a driverless car then it doesn't know. You can't use a dead man's switch instead of having two drivers because, er, it might put too much strain on people's limbs.

• Both "drivers" must pay attention to the road in front at all times in case they're needed. Absolutely no reading, phones, iPads, etc. An automatic ban from non-driving for anyone who doesn't comply.

• A 10-second gap or more must be maintained to the car in front, because...er...because otherwise the driverless car may become malevolently sentient and deliberately slam into the car in front to kill the occupants of both cars.

There, I think that just about eliminates all the advantages that a driverless car would have over what there currently is. But do let me know about any I've missed. Hopefully we can hone the excuses for these restrictions to be watertight as we get closer to the time. We must, after all, defend against freedom at all costs, to honour our parents and grandparents who fought so bravely for it.

(I wish this kind of thing was as unlikely as some would claim. I really, really do.)

[ging84]

The issue about what automated cars would do during an unavoidable accident is a real issue, but it's not one that affects individually self driven cars, it only comes into play when you have an interconnected control network for cars, where a system is controlling the movements of multiple cars, this is something the future of driver-less cars can lead to, but does not start with it, right now it would still every man woman and robot for themselves.

[Mr Taxpayer]

ging84 said:

The issue about what automated cars would do during an unavoidable accident is a real issue, but it's not one that affects individually self driven cars, it only comes into play when you have an interconnected control network for cars, where a system is controlling the movements of multiple cars, this is something the future of driver-less cars can lead to, but does not start with it, right now it would still every man woman and robot for themselves.

By 'unavoidable accident' I presume you mean 'accident not the fault/liability of the autonomous car'. E.g. being rear-end shunted, head-on with a vehicle on the wrong side of the road, or being t-boned by a vehicle emerging for a side road. Autonomous cars will deal withthese accidents the same way as other i.e. by passive safety devices such as airbags and safety cages.

The increase in numbers of autonomous cars will see accidents like this reduce, because autonomous won't be the cause of them. They won't rear end other cars or drive on the wrong side of the road or pull out without looking.

[speedking31]

GPSHead said:

There, I think that just about eliminates all the advantages that a driverless car would have over what there currently is. But do let me know about any I've missed.

You'll be able to put tints on the front windows

[Mr Taxpayer]

speedking31 said:

GPSHead said:

There, I think that just about eliminates all the advantages that a driverless car would have over what there currently is. But do let me know about any I've missed.

You'll be able to put tints on the front windows

Who says you're getting windows? Why not have a large HD TV screen and a HD camera outside? You can play GTA/Call of Duty on your way to work or the shops and just select the outside feed if you want to spot totty on the pavement.

[Einion Yrth]

Mr Taxpayer said:

Who says you're getting windows? Why not have a large HD TV screen and a HD camera outside? You can play GTA/Call of Duty on your way to work or the shops and just select the outside feed if you want to spot totty on the pavement.

I suspect that that would result in appalling motion sickness.

[Mr Taxpayer]

Einion Yrth said:

Mr Taxpayer said:

Who says you're getting windows? Why not have a large HD TV screen and a HD camera outside? You can play GTA/Call of Duty on your way to work or the shops and just select the outside feed if you want to spot totty on the pavement.

I suspect that that would result in appalling motion sickness.

No more than having your eyes shut.