X-Post Bicycling "Bikes May Have To Talk To Self-Driving Cars For Safety's Sake"

[TexasProgresive]

This just came to my attention. As a cyclist I am leery of the whole concept of self-driving cars. Sounds like we will have to pay for additional electronics to keep from getting killed. I posted here in GD because the issue of self-driving cars is one that affects us all.

Proponents of self-driving cars say they'll make the world safer, but autonomous vehicles need to predict what bicyclists are going to do. Now researchers say part of the answer is to have bikes feed information to cars.

A few years ago on Google's campus, Nathaniel Fairfield arranged an unusual lunch break.

He asked a bunch of staff to hop on bikes and ride around and around a self-driving car to collect data. "It was kind of gorgeous," he says.

Fairfield is the principal software engineer for Waymo, the self-driving car company that began life in 2009 as a Google project. By tracking a flock of cyclists, Waymo's cars were learning how bikes move through the world. But that's not enough.
http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2017/07/24/537746346/bikes-may-have-to-talk-to-self-driving-cars-for-safetys-sake

[MineralMan]

1. Well, see, autonomous cars are way, way more

important than you on your bike. So, if you don't want to get killed, you'll have to buy this $257 module that communicates with our cars. And by the way, it's proprietary, so it only communicates with Google cars. We don't care about the other self-driving cars. You may need a different module talk to each brand.

[Adrahil]

2. There will have to be a standard adopted...

This one isn't rocket science.... aircraft have used transponders for years now, The trick will be the deconfliction software.

I think we're still 20 years away from self-driving vehicles being seen commonly anywhere except freeways.

[MineralMan]

3. So, who is going to be paying for all of those transponders?

The bicyclists? Why should they pay? If the cars are too stupid to avoid bicycles, maybe they need to wait until they can be used safely around bikes.

I'm not in any way convinced that driverless cars are worth a damn at all. What about pedestrians and children? Will they need transponders, too?

Screw those cars.

[Adrahil]

5. Yeah, probably the bicyclists.

"See and Avoid" capability is the longest pole in the tent, for sure. Humans generally want automated technologies to be at least 10 times better than human operators before they will trust them like human operators.

That's why I think we are a couple decades away from seeing them commonly.

We might never see them. After all, the metric system is OBVIOUSLY better than imperial system, but we still don't use it. Humans fear change.

[JoeStuckInOH]

10. There's two kinds of countries...

those that use the metric system, and those* that have put men on the moon.







(*excluding Liberia and Myanmar)

[Adrahil]

11. Even so....

There is no reason to stick with the archaic imperial system other than the fact that people hate change.

People CAN learn it. After all, everyone knows what 2 liters looks like. And anyone who's been in the Army knows what meters and kilometers are.

[snooper2]

15. yeah, but then all the numbers won't be even anymore

Like, 1 gallon is 3.78L

They need to fix it so 1 gallon is equal to 4L first


LOL

[Nevernose]

29. The U.K. & Republic of Ireland use both

I assume it's a transitional thing, but it's not uncommon to see both units of measurement on the same sign. I remember that milk was sold in half-gallons, weird metric decimal number beside the whole number imperial (it was also rectangular, do the jug fit in the refrigerator door. Brilliance!). Sometimes things were in yards, sometimes meters; people gave directions seemingly interchangeably ("Go ten miles down this road. When you see the guy with the weird sheep, turn right for another three kilometers.&quot .

Beer, of course, is sold in pints and ounces.

So it's entirely possible to have both systems at once. Hopefully one of our more progressive states will start with bi-numeral signage and speed limits, like was attempted for about three minutes in the 70s.

[TexasProgresive]

17. Just so you know NASA was using the metric system during

Mercury, Gemini, Apollo and the Space Shuttle. We lost at least on unmanned mission to Mars because of some idiot contractor calibrating in SAE. BTW- I did work for NASA back in the day and my Mom worked at NASA in Houston from the very beginning. We were suppose to come into the modern world by adapting the Metric System, but "saner" heads prevailed.

In the 1970's there was a major effort to increase the use of the metric system, and Congress passed the Metric Conversion Act of 1975 to speed this process along. However, American consumers generally rejected the use of metric units for highway distances, weather reports, and other common measurements, so little was accomplished except for the encouragement of faster metric conversion in various scientific and technical fields.

In 1988, Congress passed the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act, which designates "the metric system of measurement as the preferred system of weights and measures for United States trade and commerce." Among many other things, the act requires federal agencies to use metric measurements in nearly all of their activities, although there are still exceptions allowing traditional units to be used in documents intended for consumers. The real purpose of the act was to improve the competitiveness of American industry in international markets by encouraging industries to design, produce, and sell products in metric units.

The debate over metric conversion continues. Although metric units have become more familiar and more widely used, the United States remains a "soft metric" country. (The phrase "soft metric" refers to designations like "1 pint (473 mL)" in which metric equivalents are simply tagged onto traditional measurements.)

Proponents of the metric system in the U.S. often claim that "the United States, Liberia, and Burma (or Myanmar) are the only countries that have not adopted the metric system." This statement is not correct with respect to the U.S., and probably it isn't correct with respect to Liberia and Burma, either. The U.S. adopted the metric system in 1866. What the U.S. has failed to do is to restrict or prohibit the use of traditional units in areas touching the ordinary citizen: construction, real estate transactions, retail trade, and education. The U.S. has not made the crucial transition from "soft metric" to "hard metric", so that "1 pint (473 mL)" becomes "500 mL (1.057 pint)", with the traditional equivalent fading into smaller type sizes and finally disappearing.
https://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/usmetric.html

[JoeStuckInOH]

18. I know. I'm a mechanical engineer, myself.

most calculations we do are almost always metric. It was a joke.

[TexasProgresive]

20. Sorry, it didn't work for me.

Sometimes irony is just too understated for me.

[politicat]

12. If self-driving cars were possible 10 years ago, my grandmother could have stayed in her home.

She lived about two country miles from Middle of Nowhere, on her ancestral land. The first stroke took her attention, her executive function and reaction time. After that, she had no business behind the wheel or controlling 2000 pounds of metal. But she lived outside a tiny town with no services and no sidewalks on the farm roads. Her entire social world depended on all of these other farm dwellers in the same situation. She had no choice -- either become a shut-in with no access to health care, a social life or food (no delivery services to Middle of Nowhere) and hope we could find enough aides/companions willing to deal with her to cover 24/7/365, or move into an urban area and into assisted living. (We wouldn't ask anyone to live with her, though we did offer it, since the house had space for a full apartment upstairs. Nobody was willing to do more than 4 hours a day, three days a week with her. She could be brutal. She was a difficult person both before and after the stroke; no aide ever managed to last more than three weeks.) Even with therapy, she never really improved much, and rapidly worsened.

Frailty comes to all humans eventually. If we're not willing to pay for a social safety net that covers fully accessible public transit for the entire country, we have to consider that we need individual technological solutions. (And we can get into the impractical and evironmentally devastating and socially fragmenting land use of parking lots and the suburban Ponzi scheme later, but in short: a self-driving fleet that doesn't require massive parking infrastructure makes for a much safer and more efficient public sphere, meaning pedestrians and cyclists are safer overall.)

Why should bicyclists pay for transponders? Why should they obey traffic laws at all? Think how much they'd save if they didn't have to have lights because those stupid humans in their cars don't have infrared vision. That should be on the drivers, right? No, that's silly. We require headlights and reflectors for the cyclist's safety. And it's not perfect, but it's better than cyclist paté.

I say this as a former cyclist who reluctantly became a permanent pedestrian after one too many close calls, in a cyclist-friendly area. I trust computers much more than I trust humans who are prone to distraction, frustration, exhaustion and inattention. These are the Model T version. But development is moving much, much faster than the T.

[MineralMan]

13. I doubt it, and not for long.

I've watched my parents and my wife's parents as they have aged and some have died. At the point where they gave up driving, I think they would have refused to ride in a driverless car, frankly. Even if they had, it would have only delayed the inevitable move into assisted living.

It would cost much less to create an on-call transportation system for such people, frankly. We have such a system in the Twin Cities area, and it works very well, In rural areas, too, it is a feasible way to deal with such things.

I'm not a cyclist, but I'm always aware of them, just as I am children playing near the street, and pets who are off-leash for some reason. We cannot equip everyone with transponders, just in case. Until self-driving vehicles are capable of avoiding collisions with all of those on their own, they should not be allowed in areas where such living obstacles might be. Until then, they need to operate only on controlled roads which prevent such problems from occurring.

Personally, i think they aren't going to be given free access to our roads and streets until some time after I no longer live on this planet, so it's not a matter of a great deal of concern for me, but I can certainly see the problems that will arise, once they are turned loose on an unsuspecting public.

[USALiberal]

22. Unless you plan on dying in the next 5 years you will see self driving cars on the roads.....

and death rates drop immediately.

For being a former tech magazine writer you sure have a low opinion of technology advancement.

“Flight by machines heavier than air is unpractical (sic) and insignificant, if not utterly impossible.” – Simon Newcomb; The Wright Brothers flew at Kittyhawk 18 months later.

“A rocket will never be able to leave the Earth’s atmosphere.” — New York Times, 1936.

[brush]

31. Didn't they just pull the driverless cars off the streets in the Bay Area?

And the bad weather (snow, ice, fog, sleet, etc.) sensors still aren't perfected so five years is wildly optimistic.

[MineralMan]

41. I expect that I might, at least in some areas, but I don't

expect I'll see very many of them. I plan to give any I see a very wide berth, too, just as I do drivers who have a cell phone in their hand.

I'm not just a tech writer. I'm also a programmer. I owned my own software company back in the day. I don't believe I've ever seen any piece of software that didn't contain some bugs and that didn't miss anticipating some sort of dumbass user error and dealing with it in a proper way. None one.

Operating a vehicle on a public road is an analog thing, not a digital one. It's actually impossible to predict all of the possible conditions and behaviors of other vehicles. Alert human beings, driving, can often react properly to things they had never anticipated happening. That's because the computers in their heads are extremely adaptive analog devices.

AI has improved. However, when you mix autonomous vehicles with human activities, there are going to be conflicts that were never anticipated or have been programmed for. That's why this whole bicycle thing is so important. As a human driver, I've had to deal with all sorts of bicycle, pedestrian and animal behavior on the road. Often, my anticipation of unexpected actions is the thing that has kept be from accidents.

Access to roadways is uncontrolled, except on limited access freeways. At any time, an object, person or animal may emerge onto the road, often from behind some obstruction. Sometimes, drivers can anticipate this by observing off-road conditions and sometimes not.
For the self-driving community to suggest that all bicyclists must have some sort of transponder is an admission that they have no way to deal with that otherwise.

[crazycatlady]

34. I wonder if Uber, Lyft, etc will change that

I always thought they were missing a huge market segment-- instead of marketing towards partying millennials, companies like Uber should go for their grandparents.

[politicat]

38. Three years too late, for her.

There are three lyft drivers in her 400 person town now, but that hadn't been invented then. It's doing really good things for those willing to adapt to the technology (which is most; they took to FB and like their smartphones.) taskrabbit, too, for things like laundry and vacuuming. There aren't a lot of jobs, so these short gigs help fill the cracks.

Skilled Nursing facilities and assisted living is in their future, but technology delays it by months or years, and that's good. But lyft is a transitional service - crowd-sourced car service first, then auto-drive.

[populistdriven]

4. Bike helmets composed of aluminum foil are highly visible to the AI killbot's sensors (photo)

[Spider Jerusalem]

6. Autonomous cars are a stupid fucking idea

and the USA has a third world transit infrastructure anyway. Spending money on cycling infrastructure in urban areas would probably be a much better thing to do, honestly. I've cycled in the Netherlands; dedicated cycle paths separate from traffic that actually go places and aren't just for sport and leisure riding are a brilliant thing. Largely autonomous freight vehicles on Interstate highways? Sure, maybe, but self-driving passenger vehicles seem like a generally bad idea.

[Shandris]

7. And once the cyclists have one, pedestrians will need one. Then strollers, then wagons, then...

...Big Wheels, until finally everything is connected to the IoT and full, permanent panopticon is achieved.

I mean, uhh, oh no, I'm SURE it will only be a voluntary choice, consumer! Just like it's a voluntary choice whether or not you take a horse on the Interstate!

[JoeStuckInOH]

9. Another reason not to ride in the road. I stay on sidewalks with my bike.

Last edited Wed Jul 26, 2017, 02:59 PM - Edit history (1)

I already avoid roads if at all possible like the plague.

My bicycle does perfectly fine on sidewalks and I don't have to worry about some dumbass texting and driving. Usually less debris on a sidewalk versus the edge of the road (to cause flats), too. I stick to sidewalks and bike paths. If I'm going somewhere unknown, I'll even choose a route with sidewalks (easy to review the route ahead of time with google maps satellite view).

I love going to the grocery store, local parks, softball games, bike trails and/or bar hopping on bikes.

[scarytomcat]

14. No they need to not run us down

Program the software.
Will pedestrians have to talk these cars too?
Will they put chips in our arms to keep track of us?

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

16. Don't play in traffic

I am remarkably untroubled by this.

I have to drive down a steep hill with a blind curve through a hipster neighborhood to get to my office, trying to predict what the local cyclists are going to do is impossible. I just assume every cyclist I see is suicidal and intending to kill themselves that morning but even then I have still had close calls when I couldn't actually see the suicidal cyclists until they had cut right in front of me.

[Blue_Tires]

19. We're SOL

they're years away from trying to unravel the potential liability issues, anyway.

[USALiberal]

23. Yes, about 5-10 years. n/t

[Lee-Lee]

21. There are some serious privacy issues that are going to be in play

Every car and every bike will need this computer and transponder.

The protocol will have to be standard and every vehicle will need a unique ID for it to work.

That means it will be simple for anyone to intercept the data with a small receiver by the road.

Wait until corporations put receivers along every road and have a complete data set on who drives every road every day. Or where you were on any specific day. All for sale...

[USALiberal]

24. All of this will be worked out. You cannot stop progress. Ask the horse and buggy people. n/t

[CK_John]

25. At least the driver will not be on tweeter or shaving.

[Noodleboy13]

26. Cyclists have no rights.

I've learned this personally after 13 years of year-round commuting by bike in Mpls. And we have an awesome cycling infrastructure here. Things were pretty scary back in the day. We were actively hassled, run off the roads purposefully, had bottles thrown at us etc. Things got a lot better as the infrastructure was built and ridership increased. Things have become dangerous again due to the omnipresent smartphone distraction. (Riding a bike puts you in a perfect position to look into the cockpit of a car. From my admittedly unscientific observations, I would guess that roughly 70% of the drivers on the road are using their phones while driving.)
Pro tip to drivers. If you do hit a cyclist, simply claim you didn't see them. Even if you hit Darth Vader wearing a kilt whilst playing a flaming bagpipe on a unicycle, those 3 words are a get out of jail free card.
The transponder idea would basically be DOA for the majority of riders. Especially for lower income folks who are riding $100 Kmart bikes to work and back.
I'm on life #6 out of 9 because of cars WITH drivers. Can't imagine what would happen with self driving cars.

peace,
Noodelboy

[Oubaas]

27. Bah!

Ban cars, tear up the roads and lay sod, and give everyone a free bicycle.

That would solve a lot of issues.

And maybe I would finally have a reasonable excuse to get my Schwinn Black Phantom. And maybe a 1938 Elgin Robin with the zeppelin tank, and, and...

[NCjack]

28. Looks like the real fun of driving is being removed. I would rather have a car that

cleaned itself, changed its oil, greased itself, etc.

[Binkie The Clown]

30. And pedestrians will need to have chips implanted so cars don't run them down. No thanks. n/t

[Oubaas]

32. What About Wildlife?

If you're sleeping off a big trough of dough and fried offal from your favorite fast food dispensary in the vibrating recliner built into your self-driving lazy-mobile and a non-chipped moose walks out in front of it while it's doing 75 miles per hour down the highway, you're likely to find the experience quite unpleasant. It would be like hitting a large plow horse with antlers.

So the wildlife is probably going to have to go.

We could create new jobs by hiring people to pursue and chip all the grizzly bears, moose, deer, and anything else large enough to endanger passengers in self-driving cars in the event of a collision. But that would be cost prohibitive, and most likely very difficult, as well as unpleasant for those assigned to chip the grizzly bears.

In these times of dire budgetary distress, it would be more feasible to have the Bureau of Land Management seize all non-agricultural or undeveloped land, then set the state National Guards loose to machine gun all wildlife from helicopters.

After that, BLM could lease all those new federal lands to energy companies for fracking, creating jobs, and providing new sources of energy for our nation.

One note, though. Amorous hikers will want to use caution during the wildlife extermination operations. Presenting the wrong heat profile to the FLIR operator on a helicopter could be hazardous. You might want to stay home for that sort of thing until all the wildlife has been killed.

Yes, driverless cars! This is an idea whose time has come. Why should you be inconvenienced by having to actually drive the car when we could solve it and reap all these benefits by simply exterminating wildlife?

[TexasProgresive]

33. You're BAD! but make great points. n/t

[csziggy]

35. They tried putting warning whistles on vehicles to scare the deer out of the way

They do NOT work:

[Oubaas]

36. Yeah, They Don't...

My late father bought a pair of those and mounted them on the front of his car. He was paranoid about deer because he'd hit quite a few of them over the course of his life.

Those deer whistles lasted quite a while, right up until he hit the next deer. That knocked them off.

[csziggy]

37. I read stories about people on horseback getting injured

Because the whistles spooked their horses and the horses ran out into the road and were hit by cars.

I liked the comment in the video I posted that drivers are better off sticking their heads out the window and yelling at the deer!

[ProudLib72]

39. Self driving cars are the republican ideal

All of the luxury, none of the responsibility. If you can afford it, great! Let the other losers pay for you to have your fun.

If it comes down to it, I'm driving a tank.

[kcr]

40. It's bad enough for cyclists as it is with the distracted driving.

I stopped years ago after I had a bad wreck and then shortly after that a friend ended up in a coma when they were hit by a car. I have too much anxiety on the road now and stick to trails. With cell phones and all the onboard technology taking attention away from drivers, it seems we've already hit a point of no return. I wish there were a way they could make self-driving tech work without having cyclists have to modify their bikes.

[TexasProgresive]

42. I had a scare 10 years ago that got me off my bikes.

Two good ole boys thought they would have some fun. I was riding down hill to a creek crossing on a rural highway. There was very little traffic and the road was straight in this section. I heard and saw and elderly black pickup approaching from the rear. As they were passing I veered as far to the right as possible. That may've saved my life. The passenger had opened the door of the truck with, I guess, the intention of striking me. He nearly fell out of the truck. If he had been successful my bike and me would've careened down into the creek, broken bones at a minimum, death at the max.

I lost the will to ride. 2 years ago I retired and needed something to do. I've been back on the bike. I don't ride that road any longer. I've clocked around 9,000 miles in 28 months. I am a type 2 diabetic and since retiring and riding my health has really improved. I would hate to give it up because of self-driving cars, texting drivers and whatever distracts these people. Dogs are bad enough.