Shabby U.S. roadways you say...? Blame it on Dung Heap and his "Not so shovel ready jobs" promise.
Posted on 03/31/2016 7:00:43 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
Volvo's North American CEO, Lex Kerssemakers, lost his cool as the automaker's semi-autonomous prototype sporadically refused to drive itself during a press event at the Los Angeles Auto Show.
"It can't find the lane markings!" Kerssemakers griped to Mayor Eric Garcetti, who was at the wheel. "You need to paint the bloody roads here!"
Shoddy infrastructure has become a roadblock to the development of self-driving cars, vexing engineers and adding time and cost. Poor markings and uneven signage on the 3 million miles of paved roads in the United States are forcing automakers to develop more sophisticated sensors and maps to compensate, industry executives say.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Not to mention passing/no-passing/no-lane-changing zones. Some people would swim well too if it weren’t for water.
Shabby U.S. roadways you say...? Blame it on Dung Heap and his "Not so shovel ready jobs" promise.
I would agree if I had a choice. But I don’t. They are cramming all of this junk down our throats. The average person is priced out now.
I’m sure that as technology improves, the ability to suss out lanes will also improve. There will be ambiguous situations like old markings showing through worn paint-overs, but the actual behavior of traffic will reveal what the valid markings actually are. (Some areas of I80 in Omaha are like this, especially when the sun angle is low and aligned with the highway.)
So there’s another reason to buy used and keep up. See, there’s more ways to be smarter-than-thou.
I’m convinced that the traffic engineering programs use an entrance exam that tests common sense. If you have any, they won’t let you into the program.
I’m not convinced there is a decent program anywhere in the US; I know there isn’t one in Texas.
Vexed Lex
You are right. There is no way that one of these cars can handle construction zones and other unexpected conditions.
People can’t afford the maintenance on a car designed like a fighter aircraft.
Oh my! What a curmudgeonly thing to say.
Complain about that when nobody is permitted to drive anything else.
For a US city to require this would mean being very visitor unfriendly. Its chamber of commerce would rightly object.
This is ridiculous. Where are the lane markings when it snows?
The liability for any company producing a self driving car will be astronomical. I don’t see it happening. Too many fault paths.
I wish Texas spent more money on marking our roads properly. Might save a few lives during the gully washers we get from time to time.
I needs better AI even when i cannot find the lane markers I use other Cues to find my way and I get a headache after a while....
exists ONLY in the brains of people against the technology.
It’ll never get drunk or sick or have a bad day, though. I could see UL certifications on robo-chauffeurs.
“Nobody developing them is doing ANY form of central control, that whole idea exists ONLY in the brains of people against the technology.”
Those aren’t the droids you are looking for.
What about snow? Rain? Mud? Gee, every road I’ve ever driven on was pristine and never covered by anything other than pure, clean air or crystal clear spring water.
Uh,huh. Nothing to worry about the people at Google will take care of everything and won’t ever collaborate with the DNC or any government agency. They won’t conspire to do humanity’s bidding for reducing globull warming, or restrict access of certain undesirables like the IRS did, right?
Just hop in your self-driving car with elaborate software and sensors all along traveled routes. As long as you have nothing to hide you have no reason not to hand over all your movement and control to aggregating software, the developers, and their government benefactors, right.
Good luck with that.
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