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A comment on Spain train crash: What we know after two trains crashed with dozens feared dead. Parent comment

Re:Spain train crash: What we know after two trains crashed ... by 1718627440 on Thursday October 29, 2026 @07:14AM (#50287246)
We do not have self-driving cars in all environments that clear the necessary security regulation! Also the socially accepted number of deaths due to trains is way below that for cars. The current accident is just a Tuesday for car traffic. (Spain recorded 1785 road deaths in 2024[1], that's 4.9 per day) Detecting objects (and future objects!) on a train track is still a hard problem.

The current system is basically that the train is driven both automatically and by a professional attentive driver at the same time. Changing it to just the automatic system is going to reduce safety. Also the real world is way to messy to reach acceptable availability rates with only automatic systems.

[1] https://www.itf-oecd.org/sites/default/files/spain-road-safe...

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Spain train crash: What we know after two trains crashed ... by fn-mote on Thursday October 29, 2026 @07:40AM (#50287442)
> Detecting objects (and future objects!) on a train track is still a hard problem.

In this case the “object” was another train. That’s not the “hard” part of the problem. This sounds like an apologist comment.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Spain train crash: What we know after two trains crashed ... by dns_snek on Thursday October 29, 2026 @08:17AM (#50287760)
What difference does that make, genuinely?

Are there systems that can warn drivers and prevent collisions without external signaling, like ACAS?

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Spain train crash: What we know after two trains crashed ... by 1718627440 on Thursday October 29, 2026 @08:30AM (#50287892)
Yeah, that's a solved problem. Did you even read my whole comment? I answered why "just use the system from self-driving cars" wouldn't work and in fact would be less safe than the current system.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Spain train crash: What we know after two trains crashed ... by AnimalMuppet on Thursday October 29, 2026 @01:38PM (#50292959)
What's the stopping distance of a high-speed train at full speed? I don't know, but I bet it's kilometers, not meters.

Detecting an object on the tracks 2 km away (say), as opposed to beside the track at the same distance, is in fact a hard problem. The tech used in self-driving cars is not going to solve it.

[ Parent | on HN ]