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from the do-you-remember-your-stopping-distances? dept.
Einstein once said, "Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour and it seems like a minute. THAT'S relativity."
So 5-8 seconds seems like a (relatively) short amount of time. But, is it enough to safely take back control of a self-driving car and negotiate a road hazard? And if the driver is given less time, is it better or worse? Researchers at Stanford attempted to find out:
In this study, we observed how participants (N=27) in a driving simulator performed after they were subjected to an emergency loss of automation. We tested three transition time conditions, with an unstructured transition of vehicle control occurring 2 seconds, 5 seconds, or 8 seconds before the participants encountered a road hazard that required the drivers' intervention.
Few drivers in the 2 second condition were able to safely negotiate the road hazard situation, while the majority of drivers in 5 or 8 second conditions were able to navigate the hazard safely.
Although the participants in the current study were not performing secondary tasks while the car was driving, the 2 second condition appeared to be insufficient. The participants did not perform well and liked the car less. Additionally, participants' comfort in the car was also lower in the 2 second condition. Hence, it is recommended to give warnings or relinquish control more than 2 seconds in advance. While not necessarily the minimum required time, 5 second condition from a critical event appeared to be sufficient for drivers to perform the take over successfully and negotiate the problem. While the results of this study indicated that there was a minimum amount of time needed for transition of control, this was true when the drivers only monitored the car's activity and did not perform secondary tasks. It is possible that these results can change if the drivers are occupied with other activities.
Full research paper available here.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by gman003 on Monday August 10 2015, @05:39AM
IMO, if an autonomous car needs to hand over control, it should engage the following procedures:
1. Sound an audible alarm in the cabin, lock seat belts, and engage emergency signals. If able, signal other autonomous cars that you are in panic mode and should be treated as an obstacle, not a fellow autonomous vehicle.
2. Engage brakes as fully as possible without losing traction. This is based on the principle that lower-energy crashes are universally preferable to high-energy crashes.
3. Fall back to collision-avoidance mode - don't try to follow traffic rules, just do everything possible to not hit anything while stopping.
4. Remain stationary until a human switches the vehicle to manual operation. Inputs should not be blindly accepted before the mode switch, because humans have an unfortunate tendency to panic, which would likely cause more problems than it could solve.
Autonomous vehicles, at least the early-generation ones, will have to be able to deal with "not being able to deal with the current conditions". Unmarked pavement or dirt roads or whatever can be expected to break autonomy - I've seen human drivers who can't handle some conditions I've driven in, and I've had to stop driving because conditions became too bad for *me* to safely continue.. Coming to a safe stop and letting the human take over until conditions return to normal is the best course of action. And it is also the same course of action that should be taken for a more sudden emergency - anything from "tree falling into roadway" to "truck full of acetylene cylinders flips and catches fire" to "the oil pan literally dropped off the car, we're stopping no matter what eventually" (I've had two of those happen to me and have seen Russian dashcam footage of the other). What do you do? Stop, ASAP, and try not to hit anything while doing so. We can't predict every emergency, but any emergency where stopping is *not* part of the solution is a pretty contrived emergency.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Monday August 10 2015, @09:42AM
"We can't predict every emergency, but any emergency where stopping is *not* part of the solution is a pretty contrived emergency."
As a professional driving instructor, this is the bottom line. And believe me, I have heard every bizarre attempt to justify not stopping in an emergency. "If that guy there came flying out of the parking lot I could speed up, change lanes...." (interrupted by me) "Hit a minimum of two cars possibly killing someone, why not just FUCKING STOP?!" I actually had this conversation once.....still, a hypothetical is better than me yelling "STOP!" at the top of my lungs to get the reply..."Why?" Crunch. forty thousand dollar traffic signal crashes into intersection. "That's why." Some people should not drive ever.....
(sorry, got a bit off-topic)
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 10 2015, @10:31AM
You forgot: Also warn the drivers of non-automated cars. That is, activate the warning lights.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2015, @02:39AM
You edited out "...and engage emergency signals." at the end of the previous sentence.