Distracted Driving: Going to Increase, Big Time!

Thousands of Tesla S cars are soon going to hit the streets. But a Tesla S crashed and burned, killing the driver recently. And the ugly truth emerged, as Google had already discovered: Distracted Driving crashes happen much more frequently in autonomous self-driving cars, and endanger not only the car's occupants, but cyclists and everyone else on or near the roadway. From the NYTimes:

....Tesla’s electric cars are not self-driving, but when the Autopilot system is engaged it can keep the car in a lane, adjust its speed to keep up with traffic and brake to avoid collisions....[but] technology that helps drivers can lull them into thinking they need not pay attention at all. Google’s driverless car project...tested a driver assistance system [and] some drivers became so dangerously distracted that Google pulled back on that concept. It has decided to focus its efforts on fully self-driving cars instead....

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Permalink Reply by Yasmeen on July 13, 2016 at 11:10am

Cyclists face a variety of dangers sharing the road with cars, but Google wants to make sure its autonomous car is mindful of bikes on the road, unlike some human drivers.

In its monthly report, Google describes how it has been programming its self-driving system to recognize cyclists and be nice to them.

The autonomous car provides an ample amount of room and won’t overtake if cyclists take the center of the lane. It notices a variety of cyclist signals, such as an indication that the cyclist wants to move into another lane. Google has programmed its software to store the hand signals, which means if the cyclist moves to a new lane two minutes later the car will remember the signal.

Google gave two examples of the car being extra cautious around cyclists, the first is if it notices a parallel parked car with the door open, it will slow down to let the cyclist pass without fear of a collision. The second is a video (below), shown at SXSW Interactive 2016, where the Google can instantly recognizes an oncoming cyclist and immediately slaps on the brakes.

http://readwrite.com/2016/07/10/google-autononous-car-cyclists-tt4/