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The USA state of Florida has just opened up their highways to autonomous vehicle testing, https://www.autonomousvehicleinternational.com/news/testing/unmanned-autonomous-vehicles-cleared-to-operate-in-florida.html
Florida governor Ron DeSantis has signed a new item of legislation in a bid to make Florida “the most autonomous vehicle-friendly state in the country”.
‘CS/HB 311: Autonomous Vehicles’ looks to remove some of the biggest barriers facing the advancement of autonomous vehicles, including allowing autonomous vehicles to operate without a human presence on board, providing all insurance parameters have been met.
“Signing this legislation paves the way for Florida to continue as a national leader in transportation innovation and technological advancement,” said DeSantis. “I would like to thank the bill sponsors, Senator Jeff Brandes and Representative Jason Fischer, for their work in making Florida the most autonomous vehicle-friendly state in the country.”
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AC (sarc) comment -- I guess Florida is the next state to be bought by the big AV companies. My prediction for the next fatality is an elderly person in a wheelchair. If the victim's family has some money, a big settlement will be made (unlike the homeless person pushing their bicycle in Arizona).
As someone noted here earlier, how many fatalities are acceptable before the technology is developed?
[How many fatalities and injuries are acceptable for non-autonomous vehicles? -Ed.]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday June 21 2019, @11:46PM (10 children)
We all know the answer to that. You take the number of deaths per x miles for human drivers, and subtract 1. When AI can equal that, then autonomous cars will become mandatory in the most forward looking states. There is no doubt that humans will be removed from the decision making process, the only question is when. From regulator's, governmental, and insurance points of view, AI are easily managed. They won't question directions to obey the speed limit, they won't fail to pull over when a cop signals them to do so, they'll never try to outrun a cop.
There will come a time when owning a vehicle that the driver controls is going to cost you astronomically, for insurance. Just as insurance companies have driven so many other things (drug testing at work), the insurance companies will drive the conversion to AI, just as soon as it becomes feasible.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by RandomFactor on Friday June 21 2019, @11:54PM
-1 won't be nearly enough.
The 30% overhead incurred by doing the human speed limit everywhere will cost far more human life in aggregate than the remaining lifetime of someone too decrepit to get out of the way of a slow moving AV.
Myself, I just need these things to be live by the time I can't drive anymore so that, unlike previous generations, I won't be beholden to my ungrateful spawn to take me places.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Friday June 21 2019, @11:56PM (1 child)
Parent has it right. Humans set a shockingly low bar for driver safety. Google/Waymo passed this bar in (no shit) 2012.
(Score: 3, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Saturday June 22 2019, @04:48AM
[Citation needed]
And no, Google's BS press releases don't count. I've been reading the actual detailed reports Google puts out for years, and these supposed AI vehicles are always driven many miles by human drivers (with AI off). There is often precious little documentation about why a human driver chooses to drive themselves on a particular trip or a particular day, and even the stats on when human drivers have been forced to take over aren't usually documented in detail about why.
The last time I looked into this in detail was reports about 18 months ago (long after 2012), and no way would I trust their cars for safety without more documentation about whether the cars were only in AI mode for "easy" trips where weather was nice, no weird unusual construction on route, etc., etc. Even forgetting all.that, last year, Google had less than 10 million miles; I don't know what the current count is. Human traffic fatalities occur roughly 1 per every 100 million miles driven.
So how could one possibly determine that Google's cars are statistically safer yet, let alone 7 years ago?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Booga1 on Saturday June 22 2019, @01:23AM (2 children)
If I'm not in control, then I am not responsible. If I am not responsible, I'm not the one that needs to carry insurance.
If I'm injured by the car, or the car injures someone, those responsible for making the car or designing the controls will be the ones on the hook.
If they're not, I want no part of this autonomous vehicle ride we're going to be taken on.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 22 2019, @01:38AM (1 child)
> ... If I am not responsible, I'm not the one that needs to carry insurance. ...
Looks like you (personally) aren't going to be buying any of these AI vehicles and signing the included EULA. Instead, you and many others will pay a premium price to the entity that owns the vehicle that you rent/lease/"ride-share" from and they will carry the insurance. Or at least you hope they are legit and carry insurance...
I expect to be driving for another 30 years or so, and plan to own my own cars. Not at all concerned about a "big brother" government forcing me to stop driving out here in the far 'burbs, in favor of some "AI". The ~16 million internal combustion cars sold in the USA this year will mostly still be on the road for the next 15-20 years and there will be plenty of older cars that are being maintained still running as well.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Saturday June 22 2019, @11:18PM
My 2005 Camry is still running just fine. I wouldn't be surprised if it lasts another 13 years.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday June 22 2019, @03:21AM
By whose metrics? All of them are going to be skewed one way or the other. There's going to have to be better than a +1 improvement to get people to sign off on change.
Remember: most of your legislators are lawyers, and when autonomous vehicles get popular a lot of lawyers are going to lose a major source of income: suing insurance companies for accident victims.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Saturday June 22 2019, @03:24AM
There, fixed that for you.
(Score: 2) by Spamalope on Saturday June 22 2019, @03:39AM (1 child)
And yet you can expect them to protect traffic citation revenue.
Dash cams have been an annoyance, providing pesky evidence of citations being issued for 10+ mph over the clocked speed. They can just order that inadmissible.
What happens when it's either the 'owner', Waymo or the municipality has to lose? You know who it'll be, the only question is what the excuse will be/what the new scam will be. (Here in town, they alter signage to be contradictory; issue citations for a week; restore the signage and move to another area. I saw them repeating the same areas every year or so)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 22 2019, @03:56AM
> ... they alter signage to be contradictory
Wow, where do you live? I'd like to know in advance to watch for inappropriate low speed limits, randomly around town.
I'm outside Buffalo, NY and as far as I know that kind of crap doesn't happen here. With that said the cops in one town (Kenmore), are known for very strict interpretation of the existing traffic laws.