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A comment on When’s a pedestrian not a pedestrian? When it’s a decal. Parent comment

Re:When’s a pedestrian not a pedestrian? When it’s a decal by jacquesm on Monday July 24, 2017 @09:54AM (#14838466)
Some of the things I have come across in the last 30 years:

- flying wheelbarrow

- unaccompanied wheel

- numerous deer

- toddler on a tricycle from in between two cars

- tourist stepping backwards of a curb

- oncoming traffic on a one way highway (Romania, fairly normal apparently)

- people driving backwards on a highway

- pedestrians in a vehicle tunnel

- tourbus wheel exploding

- truck wheel delaminating

- all manner of debris, from boards to clothing and large chunks of metal

I will take your floating plastic bag over any of those. And yes, I drive too much.

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Re:When’s a pedestrian not a pedestrian? When it’s a decal by Pulcinella on Monday July 24, 2017 @10:19AM (#14838664)
I agree with you. The one silver lining is that the autonomous car will (hopefully) have super human reflexes and will be able to brake in time for some of those...hopefully...
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Re:When’s a pedestrian not a pedestrian? When it’s a decal by jacquesm on Monday July 24, 2017 @10:25AM (#14838696)
One of the deer encounters led to an accident (worse for the deer), another one not listed also led to an accident (Volvo skidding down a slope hit traffic divider which got launched through the top of my car, instant convertible).

Human reflexes are actually quite good when you are in your twenties or so. The good news about self driving cars is that there will be less variance in reaction speed, as well as communications capabilities warning cars behind of obstacles and danger. Right now all we have to go on in this respect is brakelights but I think it is very well possible that at some point cars will purposefully communicate in some open format (broadcast) with other vehicles on the road.

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Re:When’s a pedestrian not a pedestrian? When it’s a decal by pbhjpbhj on Monday July 24, 2017 @12:07PM (#14839638)
Humans all having similar reflexes can be advantageous in a line of braking cars. Following a vehicle that can stop much faster than you requires a larger following distance.
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Re:When’s a pedestrian not a pedestrian? When it’s a decal by tyingq on Monday July 24, 2017 @10:09AM (#14838585)
I wasn't trying to make a positional statement. Just noting that vehicle wraps are just one of many corner cases where multiple sensor types might be useful.
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