
Regulation, not technology is holding back driverless cars - ultrasaurus
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/29/business/economy/29view.html
======
jxcole
My dad works in the airplane industry and had an interesting story to tell me
that relates to this. (I'm not sure exactly how accurate it is or what the
source is, sorry). Apparently, it is illegal for pilots to read while flying.
Even if they are heading in a straight line with no one around for miles. This
is because one time an pilot wasn't paying attention and due to a series of
software failures, the plane turned into a mountain. Interestingly, the plane
was tuning at a very exact amount so that the number of Gs remained constant.

In any case, this single crash caused regulation to state that computers can
never fly planes by themselves. This strikes me as rather unfair. If a single
human crashed a plane, it does not make it illegal for humans to fly planes by
themselves.

Another example is that in London, subways must be driven by a human. Even
though driving a subway may be trivial (there is no way to steer), Londoners
apparently do not feel comfortable being driven by a non-living thing. They
want to be sure that if they die, the driver dies too, adding a level of
accountability.

It seems that this sort of wide-spread mistrust of machines is driven more by
socially normal paranoia than any kind of logic. I for one am rooting for
machines to take over all forms of driving. There may be a few mishaps, but it
will probably become hundreds of times safer eventually.

~~~
gst
"Londoners apparently do not feel comfortable being driven by a non-living
thing."

Does not surprise me. Most Europeans have not even adapted to automatic
transmission in cars, and still believe that a human can switch gears better
with manual transmission (which has not been true for decades now). Makes me
wonder if they ever adapt to fully automated driving.

(And yes, I'm saying this as a European).

~~~
weavejester
Clearly that's not universally true, otherwise racing drivers would use
automatic gearboxes. It may be true for everyday driving, but I'd need to see
some citations for this claim.

Frankly, I'm a little dubious of automatic transmission. Perhaps I've just
been driving the wrong cars, but I haven't found an automatic gearbox that can
match a human being. For instance, if I'm descending a steep hill, I'll stick
the car in a lower gear, but an automatic always chooses the higher gear.

~~~
ars
Automatic transmissions avoid engine braking. If you want it, you need to
choose it manually.

And personally I never do for the simple reason that brakes are a lot cheaper
than transmissions. And I rarely descend a hill long enough and steep enough
that brake heating is a serious problem. (And when I do I usually just slow
down, and stay slow.)

~~~
stretchwithme
I downshift on hills because that keeps more of my stopping power ready to
use. Brakes heat up when you use them continuously, reducing their
effectiveness.

------
cletus
No surprises there.

The transition to driverless cars is (IMHO inevitable. At some point it will
be cheap enough that the additional cost will pale in comparison to the lives
that will be saved as well as the simple convenience of being able to do
something else while commuting somewhere.

Likewise I see this kind of thing replacing many forms of public
transportation. There will simply be a fleet of cars. You'll say where you
want to go and some system will route people and cars to destinations.

But, the transition won't be quick or easy. You need look no further than the
aviation industry to see why.

Basically, automation in modern aircraft is a double-edged sword. It seems to
erode the ability of pilots to actually fly [1], software errors causing
deaths [2] and (I can't find the link to this) I also read a study that in
more automated planes, pilots are more likely to believe erroneous instruments
rather than their own senses and experience.

The issue won't be how the car normally behaves because as demonstrations have
shown, current systems require very little human intervention.

The issue will be extraordinary circumstances plus the huge liability problem
of any errors.

Example: if someone runs a red light and causes a crash, killing someone, that
person is responsible. If an automated car does the same thing, the
manufacturer will be responsible.

That alone will impede adoption.

Instead I think you'll have what we already have: slowly adding automation to
cars. Cars already have radars and can stop themselves from colliding, they
can park themselves and so on.

But at some point the driver will need to go away and that will be a
tremendously challenging leap forward for society.

[1]: [http://www.tourismandaviation.com/news-4530--
Pilot_Reliance_...](http://www.tourismandaviation.com/news-4530--
Pilot_Reliance_on_Automation_Erodes_Skills_)

[2]: <http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/8.77.html#subj6>

~~~
JoeCortopassi
I couldn't get past the (unclosed parenthese in the second sentence. It's like
my inner programmer went into OCD overload...

~~~
jacques_chester
I couldn't get past the use of "parenthese"[ _] as a singular noun in the
first sentence. It's like my inner pedant went into OCD overload.

_ 1:Parenthesis :: >1:Parentheses

~~~
jacques_chester
... hoist on my own petard.

------
______
Speed limits are another realm in which regulation can hold back the
development of driverless cars, besides merely allowing them on the streets in
the first place.

With computerized drivers, it will finally be possible to fully enforce speed
limits, by introducing some ceiling to the speed attainable by the car. I'm
sure some "well-meaning" legislator will make it his or her priority to ensure
that speed limits are never exceeded. However, at least in Massachusetts, if
you go on the highway, everyone (including police) drive at ~75 MPH even
though the posted speed limit is 55 or 65 MPH. Few will buy a car with this
kind of handicap, were it to exist -- and I worry that it will. Many speed
limits in the US were imposed decades ago, with less safe and responsive cars
-- it would be a pity if potentially revolutionary technology advances were
thwarted by this fact.

Legislation has already crippled or made useless many useful automotive
innovations. In the US, technologies that allow for adaptive cruise control
(maintaining a distance to the car in front of you) can only decelerate the
car, and not accelerate the car. This forces the driver to have to constantly
accelerate, greatly reducing the effectiveness of this feature. Many computer-
laden vehicles with navigation systems are similarly crippled -- they
automatically "lock" when the car is in motion, and some (like in Lexus
vehicles) cannot even be overridden by people sitting in the passenger seat...
often causing unintended risks like drivers pulling over on busy highways just
to readjust their GPS target.

~~~
adrianN
Or they introduce a robot-only lane where the cars can decide for themselves
what a safe speed it, making speed limits obsolete. When cars can communicate
with each other about dangers, much higher speeds are possible with less
distance between cars.

~~~
burgerbrain
An absolutely fantastic idea. It's a shame it will never happen.

------
Jd
The article doesn't make its case very well. The core problem people are
presumably worried about is safety, and saying it they have a "good safety
record" is hardly enough to reassure the senators, etc. who would presumably
be responsible for relaxing restrictions.

For example, what about edge cases? Suppose the Google car does just fine in
normal driving conditions, but in a blizzard w/ 26 mile per hour gusts of wind
(as I drove in recently), or when a tractor trailer flips over on the road in
front of you? Humans have a certain intuition that allows them to do bizarre
twitches in extreme situations (even including supernormal strength) that
presumably no machine intelligence will be able to approach for a long time
(if ever).

Or what about the possibility of someone hacking the car? Could a worm
engineered by some hostile government take millions of cars off the road --
or, worse, cause them all to steer into the median and cause mass damage and
thousands of instant casualties?

It is, frankly, irresponsible not to consider edge cases like these when
drafting legislation, and while I'm all for gradual introduction and more
testing, the author of this article has convinced me that senators sitting on
their hands not doing anything are probably acting on the interests of the
people much more so than those who wish to simply hand over driving and
navigation functions to machines as soon as possible.

------
erikpukinskis
I wonder if driverless cars could start out as a tool for people with
disabilities. If such use were challenged, I can imagine the supreme court
taking seriously a case by a person who is quadriplegic or blind demanding the
right to use a self-driving car. If they can prove them safer, it will be hard
to find a compelling government interest that could offset denying the use of
this assistive technology.

~~~
kwis
They appear to be starting as 'driver aids' on new cars. Today's higher-end
cars have adopted technology that alerts you when you drift out of your lane,
watches your blind spots, safely follows the car in front of you, performs
emergency stops, parallel parks itself, and adjusts vehicle dynamics in a
multitude of ways.

My assumption is that this is a first step towards driverless cars, as it
provides the manufacturers a way to test critical technologies in a safe
environment. If the dealerships aren't downloading data from these systems,
and sharing it back to the engineering groups, thats an enormous wasted
opportunity.

~~~
janesvilleseo
I believe your assumption is correct as well. All of these 'new high tech
safety toys' are the tip of the iceberg. With all of these components being
used and people becoming comfortable with them, we will soon see more adoption
towards driverless cars.

I think another major milestone towards this will be the next generation of
GPS, with the increased accuracy it will help guide the cars where they need
to go.

------
melling
One idea would be to make some long haul roads, or sections of them,
completely driverless. Maine to Miami along a section of I95, or NYC to LA. We
could start the test with tractor trailers. Let them drive for a few years and
tune the system. There would be a huge economic benefit to allowing trucks to
run 24x7 without drivers.

~~~
paganel
> There would be a huge economic benefit to allowing trucks to run 24x7
> without drivers.

What would happen to the current drivers? Which new jobs should they pick?

~~~
eru
Who cares?

There was a time when 80% of the population used to work on farms. Now much
less than 10% work on farms in the western world. Do we have 70% unemployment?

------
chrismealy
We don't need driveless cars, we need carless people:

<http://www.carfree.com/>

~~~
alnayyir
This would make riding my motorcycle much safer, I like it.

~~~
seanx
If driverless cars start reducing the car road toll then motorbikes will start
to look really dangerous:(.

I suppose we could get self driving motorbikes but that would be missing the
point of riding.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
given that a huge proportion, maybe even the majority, are caused by people in
cars turning in front of or merging into motorcyclists I doubt it.

------
joel_ms
>But it’s clear that in the early part of the 20th century, the original
advent of the motor car was not impeded by anything like the current mélange
of regulations, laws and lawsuits.

They did try in the 19th century though, at least in the UK, with the
Locomotive Acts[1]. The way those laws went out of their way to protect the
status quo (i.e. horse-powered transport) is an interesting parallell to
today's possible transition from human-controlled to computer-controlled
transport.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locomotive_Acts>

~~~
meric
"The Locomotive Act 1865 (Red Flag Act):[5] Set speed limits of 4 mph (6 km/h)
in the country and 2 mph (3 km/h) in towns. Stipulated that self-propelled
vehicles should be accompanied by a crew of three: the driver, a stoker and a
man with a red flag walking 60 yards (55 m) ahead of each vehicle. The man
with a red flag or lantern enforced a walking pace, and warned horse riders
and horse drawn traffic of the approach of a self propelled machine."

------
pnathan
Some things aren't brought into focus here.

(1) Off-highway driving happens. That means that the algorithms have to manage
an uncontrolled environment where 'anything' can happen.

(2) It is very expensive to create bug-free software.

(3) You can't iterate by failing fast on life-critical systems after it is
released. Failure means killing someone.

(4) Legal liabilities. It's not going to work to say something like, "This
car's driver software is not warranted free from defects".

(5) Humans can manage situations utterly outside the norm; algorithms can not
see beyond the vision of the designer.

I work in an industry which operates _below_ the levels of software assurance
that the medical/flight industries work at, and it is incredibly painstaking
as it is. A fully automated car will be very expensive to build.

I am not a paranoiac regarding software. I am a paranoiac regarding software
bugs and the limits of the software designers.

------
blue1
I suspect that this kind of "risky" technology will be deployed first in more
adventurous countries, like China.

------
uuilly
Regulation and fear are to be expected. The question is, what to do about
them? I predict the largest PR campaign in the history of technology. Public
opinion generally drives regulation. So less public fear will lead to less
regulation.

While I have no way to prove it, I'd bet my right hand that Google's PR people
made this story happen. I'd bet they also made the first NYT piece blowing up
the Chauffeur project happen and they made it look serendipitous for
authenticity. I think "The Suit is Back," and I think it's going to come back
again and again.

Prediction: Driverless cars will be portrayed in a very positive way in a
major motion picture within the next year.

------
RyanMcGreal
This is the crux of the matter:

> imagine that the cars would save many lives over all, but lead to some bad
> accidents when a car malfunctions. The evening news might show a
> “Terminator” car spinning out of control and killing a child. There could be
> demands to shut down the cars until just about every problem is solved. The
> lives saved by the cars would not be as visible as the lives lost, and
> therefore the law might thwart or delay what could be a very beneficial
> innovation.

It's otiose to point out that the premise of personal motor vehicles is _not_
called into question every time a human driver spins out of control and kills
someone.

~~~
cyrus_
Human psychology operates in a realm only dimly linked to logic, my friend.
Consider the response in the US to the "risk" of terrorism, which in
quantitative terms is tiny.

------
wallflower
I'm not sure I trust the underlying architectures that are being developed
with my life...

DDOS and MITM attacks take a whole-new meaning if the networked entities are
3-ton objects moving at 65 mph.

------
stretchwithme
Its possible to prove that driverless cars can be safe. And that's by keeping
cars from having accidents. If safety systems can keep human drivers from
having accidents by stopping vehicles before they can have an accident, they
can do the same for robotic vehicles.

Such systems would place limits on how fast you could accelerate, turn the
wheel or apply the brakes. And they would also brake for you when other
vehicles, pedestrians and animals appear to be on a collision course.

Such systems will have to be proven in the real world. And we are starting to
see them. The newest Mercedes have such features. I predict that full blown
systems will dramatically lower accidents for older people, teenagers and
those who drive under the influence. Eventually all new cars will have these
systems.

And by then it will be a lot easier to trust the machines.

------
ultrasaurus
So much of technical progress happens through delivering most of the value of
the previous solution at a fraction of the cost (email vs postal mail).
Society seems to rule this kind of progress out for a few industries like
health care, I assume something similar is happening here.

~~~
william42
The problem with healthcare is not that progress is being ruled out but that
healthcare is highly labor-driven. So far there's no machinery that can
replace a doctor.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect>

~~~
pash
> The problem with healthcare is not that progress is being ruled out but that
> healthcare is highly labor-driven. So far there's no machinery that can
> replace a doctor.

As a matter of policy, the FDA will not approve any device that makes a
medical diagnosis without human intervention. [1]

Recently there have been numerous studies and much punditry accusing the
American medical regulatory environment of stifling innovation and driving up
costs. [2][3][4] The arguments are strikingly similar to Cowen's argument re
autonomous cars.

[1]: <http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/37596/> [2]: For a quick
summary, see [http://reason.com/blog/2011/05/25/will-fda-regulation-
kill-t...](http://reason.com/blog/2011/05/25/will-fda-regulation-kill-the-m)
[3]: A much discussed recent report [PDF] is at
[http://www.nvca.org/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc...](http://www.nvca.org/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_download&gid=668&Itemid=93)
[4]: An article in JAMA opined similarly [PAYWALL], <http://jama.ama-
assn.org/content/305/15/1523.extract>

------
jomohke
Ars Technica did a great series on the technology and economics of self
driving cars a few years ago:

[http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2008/09/future-of-
driving...](http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2008/09/future-of-driving-
part-1.ars)

------
zandor
A somewhat similar note put very nicely by James May from Top Gear;

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iS0IxnxwJSU>

------
toddh
Perhaps it's because software has an obvious history of being buggy. A web
service won't be down for a while if this fails, hundreds of lives being at
risk on a 24 hour a day basis. Maybe a little wait-and-see is a reasoned
approach for a complex interactive dynamical system like this?

~~~
burgerbrain
I don't think there is a computer in the world that has a worse uptime than
myself. Even old cheap Windows ME boxes did a fair enough job of being able to
run without impairment for more than 20 hours or so.

~~~
toddh
The complexity of the applications will be far greater than Windows ME. Good
article on The Long, Dismal History of Software Project Failure -
[http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2006/05/the-long-dismal-
his...](http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2006/05/the-long-dismal-history-of-
software-project-failure.html). Before we let everyone's self-driving mashup
on the road it might be good to figure out if they work first.

------
schwit
"There were nearly 6,420,000 auto accidents in the United States in 2005."

Can we stop calling all motor vehicle crashes accidents. If the driver was
drunk or purposely distracted it is NO more an accident than if I was randomly
firing a gun hoping no one got hit.

------
kmfrk
Maybe we just need to emphasize the negative impact of long commutes. Suddenly
you have that commute time to do something else. :)

------
georgieporgie
_No state has anything close to a functioning system to inspect whether the
computers in driverless cars are in good working order, much as we routinely
test emissions and brake lights._

Having lived in Oregon, Arizona, and California, I have never had anything
other than emissions routinely inspected. Demonstrate a car smart enough to
monitor its own brake pad wear, alert on burnt out bulbs, and provide a clear
readout of all detected issues (i.e. not a coded blinking service light, or
plug interface) before you start trying to make it drive itself.

(I do love the idea of an automated train of cars, and driving my drunk self
home, though)

~~~
true_religion
> Demonstrate a car smart enough to monitor its own brake pad wear, alert on
> burnt out bulbs, and provide a clear readout of all detected issues (i.e.
> not a coded blinking service light, or plug interface) before you start
> trying to make it drive itself.

I don't know about other cars, but all model Porsche's will do exactly this.
Granted, it doesn't have as many sensors as I would like--leading to it only
giving an 'engine warning' light for innumerable problems, but when it comes
to breaks, oils, lights, etc. it has a pretty fine grained detection pattern.

~~~
spitfire
Same with the jaguar XJ since 1988. brake pads low is neat to see show up in
the display. The XJ has more sensors so it gives more than just check engine.

