Despite High Hopes, Self-Driving Cars Are ‘Way in the Future’

Re:Despite High Hopes, Self-Driving Cars Are ‘Way in the Fut... by bryanlarsen on Wednesday July 17, 2019 @10:05AM (#20459601)

Accident rates in the US on the highway are on the order of one per million miles. And in a million miles of driving you will encounter quite a few stationary or otherwise unexpected objects in the middle of the travel lane.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Despite High Hopes, Self-Driving Cars Are ‘Way in the Fut... by Retric on Wednesday July 17, 2019 @10:30AM (#20459837)

Object sure, but generally it’s not really an issue. Simply avoiding or driving over broken tire bits etc is generally a non issue.

A object would need to be substantial enough to cause an accident and then roll into or fall onto a highway. That’s far from a 1 per million miles of driving situation. Remember, something falling off a truck would also take a while to slow down.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Despite High Hopes, Self-Driving Cars Are ‘Way in the Fut... by beat on Wednesday July 17, 2019 @12:28PM (#20461240)

Good example - deer.

But human drivers hit deer all the time, and it's often unavoidable. An autonomous driver is probably more likely to miss a deer than a human, due to substantially better reflex time.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Despite High Hopes, Self-Driving Cars Are ‘Way in the Fut... by smileysteve on Wednesday July 17, 2019 @04:47PM (#20463829)

And one would think infrared vision that could be useful (except possibly when it's a magic number between 98.6 amf 104 degrees somewhere)

To me, every brown mailbox with a white reflector could be a deer coming to the road, to infrared, with a larger lens, it should be able to tell a lot better.

[ Parent | on HN ]