The View from the Front Seat of the Google Self-Driving Car

Re:The View from the Front Seat of the Google Self-Driving Car by jccooper on Monday May 11, 2015 @05:46PM (#9528059)

Those jam an aluminum block into the blade. I'm not sure what the equivalent would be for a car. Perhaps you could line the bottom of the car with rubber and then blow the wheels off. But there's plenty of problems with varying road surface and conditions and having a system that's never used.

But a decent brake system and tires can do 1G, which is pretty good. I suppose you could go to maybe 5G for a true emergency brake system (which would be pretty rough on the occupants, eyeballs-out), but it hardly seems worth the cost (in money, weight, maintenance, accidental triggering, etc.) compared to good sensors and the existing braking systems.

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Re:The View from the Front Seat of the Google Self-Driving Car by joncrocks on Tuesday May 12, 2015 @04:12AM (#9530180)

Yeah, and don't forget that the car has people in it too :-)

While you can instantaneously stop a saw blade to save a finger, stopping a car 'quickly' will likely move the potential problem to one of ensuring the safety of the passengers...

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Re:The View from the Front Seat of the Google Self-Driving Car by pluma on Monday May 11, 2015 @08:16PM (#9528728)

I think the equivalent of jamming a block of solid aluminium into a spinning blade would involve some kind of anchoring.

It would ruin the car and likely damage the road but as long as the passengers can be protected from the rapid deceleration, it just might save a life.

OTOH you could just wrap the entire car in airbags and protect pedestrians the same way you protect the passengers. Not sure how practical or useful that would be, though.

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