Apple's first self driving car accident: human error

[mongeese]

Why it matters: Self-driving cars are slowly gaining traction but they’re coming under fire over safety concerns. Apple’s first self-driving car crash isn’t their fault, but it does follow a trend of self-driving cars being rear-ended. Experts hypothesize this is because the cars' AI is more cautious than humans, so they behave slightly differently.

The car in question was a Lexus RX450h SUV equipped with Apple’s sensors and hardware, and it was traveling at less than 1mph when it was rear-ended by a human-driven Nissan Leaf traveling at 15mph. No one was hurt, though both cars sustained minor damages. The accident occurred at 3pm last Monday in Sunnyvale California, as Apple’s vehicle was attempting to merge onto the notoriously congested Lawrence Expressway South from Kifer Road. The conditions at the time were sunny and generally ideal for a drive.

The accident, while attributed to human error, is only the latest in a string of self-driving cars being rear-ended (all of which weren’t the software’s fault). Google’s offshoot Waymo seems particularly prone to this problem and being rear-ended while merging has almost become a regular problem for them.

Experts have hypothesized this is because self-driving cars are programmed to be more cautious than human-driven ones, so they behave slightly differently. Distracted human drivers think that they’ll be more aggressive and travel faster than they do. In the future, perhaps self-driving cars will be programmed to act more human-like to circumvent this problem.

Apple's Lexus is one of their 66 self-driving vehicles on the road, and it forms part of their long rumored "Project Titan." While very secretive, it is suspected Project Titan is aimed to either have Apple manufacturing a self-driving car, or to develop an add-on pack that standard car manufacturers can add on to their lineup.

How successful they've been so far is unknown, but it's confirmed that Apple has partnered with Volkswagen to transform the Volkswagen's T6 vans into self-driving shuttles for Apple employees at their Cupertino campus. That project is meant to be complete by the end of this year, but rumors are it will extend into 2019 and will require a backup driver in the front seat.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/76246-apple-first-self-driving-car-accident-human-error.html

 

[Cycloid Torus]

Missing the boat: simply this - autonomous cars need to monitor cars approaching from the rear and flash the brake lights if a collision might occur. Human drivers (being on cellphone, looking in the mirror at their hair, thinking about next Saturday's game, or just plain oblivious) need the extra help.

I should patent this.

 

[MasterMace]

Merging when it's not safe to do so is the merger's fault.

 

[cliffordcooley]

So in the attempt to change lanes and merge into traffic, Apple's autonomous features had the car stop in the middle of the highway. Sounds more like obstruction of traffic flow, and Apple's autonomous features are not ready to be on the highway.

 

[regiq]

While driving I'm constantly predicting what other drivers are up to. I wonder how will that work when I meet an AI driver on the road...
BTW as cliffordcooley noticed, merging with 1mph speed doesn't look like good driving.

 

[toooooot]

So in the attempt to change lanes and merge into traffic, Apple's autonomous features had the car stop in the middle of the highway. Sounds more like obstruction of traffic flow, and Apple's autonomous features are not ready to be on the highway.

Totally agree. Make your AI to be able to track passing cars speed and accelerate to it or go away from our roads.

 

[Gajewm]

So in the attempt to change lanes and merge into traffic, Apple's autonomous features had the car stop in the middle of the highway. Sounds more like obstruction of traffic flow, and Apple's autonomous features are not ready to be on the highway.

Sounds more like you didn’t read the article. It didn’t stop in the middle of a highway. It was creeping on a ramp looking for an entrance into a road that typically has a heavy traffic flow.

 

[cliffordcooley]

https://www.reference.com/health/average-human-walking-speed-8df1ec5d0858683e
"While there are many variables involved, the average human walking speed is about 3.1 mph. Some people are capable of exceeding 5 mph while still maintaining a walking gait, but the natural tendency is to begin running at much beyond 4 mph."

Sounds more like you didn’t read the article. It didn’t stop in the middle of a highway. It was creeping on a ramp looking for an entrance into a road that typically has a heavy traffic flow.

Anytime you can walk faster than the car, the car is all but stopped. Thanks for taking me so literal!

 

[Puiu]

"less than 1mph" is a bit too cautious. if that's what is needed for the AI to drive properly then we are still far away from a proper self-driving car.

 

[MacSo]

Love all the people criticizing the Apple car who are utterly and completely speculating on what happened. If you rear end someone else, at 1mph or 60mph, it's generally your fault, not the fault of the car in front of you. Ask a cop LOL

 

[Uncle Al]

Let's see those stat's one more time ....... human operated accidents vs. autonomous operated vehicle accidents ..... or human operated vehicle fatalities vs autonomous operated vehicle fatalities ......

Uh huh .... let's face it folks, there are going to continue to be a LOT of people that simply are not going to be willing to give up that perceived freedom of operating their cars, especially the younger crowd, but us older, half deaf, half blind, barely able to walk folks are hoping it will show up sooner rather than later so we can remain in our homes and hang on to that little bit of freedom we still have .....

 

[Capaill]

From reading another article, the Google Waymo vans have been rear ended so many times that they have discovered it's because drivers assume the vehicle in front is taking a gap but instead the AI controlled vehicle does a hard brake. I presume the human driver saw the gap, figured that both vehicles would fit through, saw the car in front go for it so he accelerated too and ploughed into the car which had suddenly stopped.

Part of driving is getting a feel for how other drivers are going to behave - it's not perfect but it tends to be based on lots of experience of the different types of drivers on the road and the signs of what they will do. AI decisions are not part of that experience. If the AI is going to be making instant decisions that humans cannot expect or react to, then maybe the AI driven cars need a new system of warning or indicator lights, at the very least to warn us that there is a completely insane and erratic driver on board.

 

[MacSo]

Thanks for finding some info that could possibly supply explanations. Agreed so far as, lets keep improving AI to better match our expectations if they can do that safely. The bigger problem which I see every day on the highway is people following too closely. It's not the AI's fault that humans expect other cars to drive unsafely, and consequently the humans fall into risky habit patterns. It's the human's fault for not being safer. Ever feel like, a bunch of bad drivers on the road together won't have problems, but throw one cautious driver in the lane and everything goes to chaos? The fastest and best solution to this "epidemic of rear-ending" is that human drivers should do what they are supposed to do in the first place, which is to leave sufficient space in front of their vehicle to stop unexpectedly. And then put down the cell phone and actually pay attention. Many thanks to our future machine overlords for demonstrating how we can be safer drivers ourselves. Bottom line is, I have zero sympathy for someone who rear-ends someone else because they were following too closely or going too fast for traffic conditions.

 

[wiyosaya]

Part of driving is always watching out for the other guy. My first rule - assume the other guy does not know how to drive or will do something stupid.

 

[captaincranky]

Well, all the millennials here seem to think this is a great thing, being able to play, "Candy Crush Saga", or some other time and money burning nonsense, while your self driven, (not that anybody will be able to afford them), car,drives you around.

Next we have to get Siri, Alexa, and whatever Google calls their personal assistant invasive piece of crap on board.

This way, by the time you get home with that quarter pound of pepperoni from the corner store, you will have an inbox full of crap, "targeted ads", for whichever food store one of these corporate giants has merged with or purchased. Don't worry all you hipsters out there, because lunch meat you buy from them, will undoubtedly be better quality, better ingredients, and have a much higher status among the junk food eating elite.

But I digress. Let's get back to the merge accident. Here again, the younger members of our membership have predicted that self driving vehicles will be able to communicate with one another. Well, maybe they will, and maybe won't. But, in this context, it seems like the cars are programmed with enough caution to avoid any corporate liability. Hence we have what I"m going to call, "program the turd to drive like a ninety year old woman algorithm", when confronted with a situation where the car would actually have to make a bold human like decision.

With that in mind, (and assuming they haven;t outlawed human driven vehicles), just don't get stuck behind one of these junkers, if you have to be somewhere. And BTW, I'm also pretty sure, blowing your horn at the self driving car won't do a bit of good. And why should it? You've already acquiesced to the fact they're going to be more skillful than any human behind the wheel.

So kidz, the moral of the story is, take your hand away from the horn button, take your Xanax, then sit there quietly and wait your turn, like the good little zombies you will have become.

 

[Squid Surprise]

As has already been posted here, when you get rear-ended, it’s pretty much ALWAYS the car who’s behind that is at fault.

This is actually the main reason we should want ALL cars to be self-driving - they’ll be FAR smarter than the average m0r0n driver, and we will see far fewer accidents.

 

[ShagnWagn]

"Apple’s vehicle was attempting to merge"
"1mph"

So, please explain how you are "attempting" at only 1mph?? Is this how they are trying to absolve liability? There should be a fine - it's called obstruction of traffic. Ramps are to SPEED UP not slow down. Any human knows you have to be going more than 1mph to merge.

I've been in one at-fault accident in my 25 years of driving (my car hit an oil slick when it started sprinkling in a turn). The closest time I've ever been in an accident is because someone was going down a ramp to merge. As I looked over to spot my merge spot and adjust speed, the car in front of me slams the brakes instead of speed up themselves. There was plenty of room for them, so it would technically have been THEIR fault for brake-checking me. There was no shoulder on the ramp I could have turned on to.

Video needs to be shared, but I would say this was most likely the same situation - the self-wrecking car brake-checked the human as they were looking over their shoulder.

Siding on "caution" is not always the safest action. In my experience, you are putting others at risk.

This is actually the main reason we should want ALL cars to be human-driving - they'll be FAR smarter than the average m0r0n programmer, and we will see far fewer percentage of senseless wrecks.

You just simply cannot program for the trillions of daily variables that most drivers don't even need to think about to avoid.

 

[Squid Surprise]

"Apple’s vehicle was attempting to merge"
"1mph"

So, please explain how you are "attempting" at only 1mph?? Is this how they are trying to absolve liability? There should be a fine - it's called obstruction of traffic. Ramps are to SPEED UP not slow down. Any human knows you have to be going more than 1mph to merge.

I've been in one at-fault accident in my 25 years of driving (my car hit an oil slick when it started sprinkling in a turn). The closest time I've ever been in an accident is because someone was going down a ramp to merge. As I looked over to spot my merge spot and adjust speed, the car in front of me slams the brakes instead of speed up themselves. There was plenty of room for them, so it would technically have been THEIR fault for brake-checking me. There was no shoulder on the ramp I could have turned on to.

Video needs to be shared, but I would say this was most likely the same situation - the self-wrecking car brake-checked the human as they were looking over their shoulder.

Siding on "caution" is not always the safest action. In my experience, you are putting others at risk.

This is actually the main reason we should want ALL cars to be human-driving - they'll be FAR smarter than the average m0r0n programmer, and we will see far fewer percentage of senseless wrecks.

You just simply cannot program for the trillions of daily variables that most drivers don't even need to think about to avoid.

I agree with one thing - those who merge at 1MPH are annoying drivers and put others at risk.... BUT.... when you are driving, you need to be aware of your surroundings and maintain a safe stopping distance between you and the car in front of you.

If the car in front of you slams their brakes - for ANY reason - YOU are responsible for stopping as well! Let's say a kid jumped in front of the car - you need to be the person NOT rear-ending the car that stops.

This is why pretty much any rear-ending accident is blamed on the car trailing behind.

 

[ShagnWagn]

I agree with one thing - those who merge at 1MPH are annoying drivers and put others at risk.... BUT.... when you are driving, you need to be aware of your surroundings and maintain a safe stopping distance between you and the car in front of you.

If the car in front of you slams their brakes - for ANY reason - YOU are responsible for stopping as well! Let's say a kid jumped in front of the car - you need to be the person NOT rear-ending the car that stops.

This is why pretty much any rear-ending accident is blamed on the car trailing behind.

I agree - the following distance is two seconds. I was far enough behind, which I why I barely avoided the accident. I'm not sure why, but it is especially bad this year. People following each other in packs with a car length between them at 70+mph...

If I get hit behind and thus hit the person in front of me because of that, then it should wholly be the person at the back's total fault. Unfortunately that is not the case that I have heard. Let's just say I stop in time not to hit a kid, then the person behind me pushes me over the kid. So, it's my fault??

 

[Squid Surprise]

I agree - the following distance is two seconds. I was far enough behind, which I why I barely avoided the accident. I'm not sure why, but it is especially bad this year. People following each other in packs with a car length between them at 70+mph...

If I get hit behind and thus hit the person in front of me because of that, then it should wholly be the person at the back's total fault. Unfortunately that is not the case that I have heard. Let's just say I stop in time not to hit a kid, then the person behind me pushes me over the kid. So, it's my fault??

You’re exactly right.... it’s always the person at the back’s fault.

The only scenario I can think of where it might be shared blame is if a driver on an open road accelerates into a curve and then slams immediately on the brakes when the trailing driver might not see them.... but even that would probably judged to be the trailing driver’s fault in a legal dispute.

 

[captaincranky]

FWIW, "The Two Second Rule", is superseded by the "three to five second rule", in some jurisdictions. Two seconds is at best, a bare minimum. Once upon a time, following distance was estimated in "car lengths", allowing one car length for every 10 miles per hour. Assuming about 18' as one "car length", while traveling @60 MPH, under the old rules, you would be about 106' behind the car in front of you.

"60 MPH" is a "mile a minute", and using the "two second rule", the resultant following distance would be 176' !

OK, if you read braking distances in automotive reviews, you'll see that most autos will stop in about 160' from 60 MPH.

Ostensibly, that makes the two second rule the better solution, but keep in mind, those distances are obtained using trained professional drivers under ideal conditions. Thus @60 MPH, 2 seconds has to be considered the bare minimum.
um.

While I agree the automobile turns many normally civilized people into raging, bellicose, imbeciles It still has to be said that people who believe that computer controlled vehicles would be able to eliminate dangers while shrinking following distances, are naive of, and oblivious to, the dangers that mechanical failure and rapidly changing road conditions can introduce into the potential for disaster.

Then too, to eliminate some liabilities, manufacturers would have to program all prevailing speed laws and traffic regulations into the vehicles. And that means, boyz and gurls of all ages, that your f***ing precious self driving car, WILL, come to a dead stop at every corner with a stop sign, it WON'T make a turn on red, after 6:00 AM or before 6:00 PM, and it absolutely won't exceed the prevailing speed limit, ever.

So, your long ride home will almost certainly take you longer than it does now

 

[Abraka]

Human drivers don't follow the static distances between the cars. Although that would be the safest solution, it wouldn't be the most economical. Just like having parachutes for all the airplane passengers would be a safer solution, but totally impractical and expensive. Instead, human drivers drive much closer to the car in front, which increases the traffic flow and saves time, but increases risk.

AI obviously still didn't master this dynamic behavior and their mistakes cause all of those accidents. Theoretically it's the fault of the driver behind, but in practice it's the fault of the erratic driver in front.

A lot of women drive like that. They will hit the brakes even when it's clear the situation in front of them can clear up in time. This will cause them to be rear-ended, and the police will say "it wasn't their fault". So it appears that women don't do a lot of accidents, but in practice, it was their fault. They cause accidents, and then get away with it because our law is not in sync with the reality.

Nobody drives exactly by the law, because driving has evolved to become more economical in the terms of wasted time and gasoline. So if you have an AI driver which drives too cautiously, constantly breaking the norms, it will constantly cause accidents. Even if it seems it wasn't their fault. But when you let them in the traffic, they cause accidents. That means IT IS their fault.

 

[Squid Surprise]

Human drivers don't follow the static distances between the cars. Although that would be the safest solution, it wouldn't be the most economical. Just like having parachutes for all the airplane passengers would be a safer solution, but totally impractical and expensive. Instead, human drivers drive much closer to the car in front, which increases the traffic flow and saves time, but increases risk.

Actually, that's not really true... most traffic flow theories show that if EVERYONE kept the same distance between cars, and EVERYONE drove "properly", EVERYONE would get to their destinations faster.

The flaw, of course, is that people are not machines - Some people are always trying to "cheat the system" by driving faster, weaving in and out of traffic, tailgating, etc....

This has nothing to do with economics and everything to do with human nature. While humans are better than machines at lots of things (anything creative, for instance), driving is something that, in theory, machines WILL BE far superior to us at. What will obviously make them even better is if EVERY car is driven by an AI - but even if that isn't the case, with the advance in AI technology, they will soon outstrip us.

Check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_flow for some interesting reading on actual trtaffic flow (and check the references as well).

AI obviously still didn't master this dynamic behavior and their mistakes cause all of those accidents. Theoretically it's the fault of the driver behind, but in practice it's the fault of the erratic driver in front.

A lot of women drive like that. They will hit the brakes even when it's clear the situation in front of them can clear up in time. This will cause them to be rear-ended, and the police will say "it wasn't their fault". So it appears that women don't do a lot of accidents, but in practice, it was their fault. They cause accidents, and then get away with it because our law is not in sync with the reality.

Nobody drives exactly by the law, because driving has evolved to become more economical in the terms of wasted time and gasoline. So if you have an AI driver which drives too cautiously, constantly breaking the norms, it will constantly cause accidents. Even if it seems it wasn't their fault. But when you let them in the traffic, they cause accidents. That means IT IS their fault.

AI might not have mastered the art of driving yet.... but it almost certainly WILL. As they acquire more data, AIs become dramatically more effective. Humans have been driving on roads for 100 years - AIs for only a few... and already, they are just about as good as us. In another 10 years (or less), they will surpass us.

As for your blatantly sexist remarks, I wouldn't touch them with a 10 foot pole, except to point out that there are plenty of really aggressive female drivers - and plenty of passive male drivers....

 

[cliffordcooley]

Some people are always trying to "cheat the system" by driving faster, weaving in and out of traffic, tailgating, etc....

If I didn't do that I would end up in an accident. It keeps me in a state of heightened alert while around others. Then between cars I can finally relax and drive alone. Give me a section of road without anyone, I can abide by the rules. Put me in a group and I will do what ever is needed to get out of the group.

 

[Yggdrasil]

It _bothers_ me deeply that with all these comments, not one of you has realized this article cannot be true, not a word of it can be sourced, because Apple doesnt’ even have any ‘Apple Sensors’ to _put_ on a Lexus. In order to test their sensors, they would have already filed patents, because no way is Apple getting into the car business without rock solid patent territory clearly drawn, and that would be public knowledge. Just search for “Apple Car” and you’ll see that no such thing exists. And by “exists” I mean “no, not even that rudimentary yet.” AND I mean “NO. Not even at the stage where it would be being tested at all.” and if it WAS at that level, how do you think a bunch of yahoos like THESE guys would get ahold of that news before any other news outlet? You’re all so quick to just believe anything you read as long as it supports beliefs you already have. Reach! Stretch your world to include things you’re very offended by. You can do this! I know you’re good enough to!