MIT Study Shows Stop Lights Won't Be Necessary In The Future (computerworld.com) 264
Lucas123 writes: An MIT [Senseable City Lab] study based on mathematical modeling demonstrated a likely scenario in which high-tech vehicles, using sensors to remain at a safe distance from each other as they move through a four-way intersection, can eliminate the need for traffic lights in the future. By removing the waits caused by traffic lights, these so-called Slot-based Intersections speed-up traffic flow.The study claims this kind of traffic-light-free transportation design, if it ever arrives, could allow twice as much traffic to use existing roads.
If something does go wrong (Score:2)
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Re:If something does go wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
Humans suck at driving. The problem is that 99.999% of the time, you can be borderline incompetent at driving and you'll still get there safely, because things only go wrong on rare occasions. Most of the time, at city street speeds, you could glance at the road for two seconds out of every ten, and you wouldn't crash, because there just isn't much happening. There are situations, however, in which humans are physically incapable of being good drivers. For example:
And in some cases, each of those situations can result in a crash with a human driver, depending mostly on luck. Computers, by contrast, won't exhibit any of those physical failings, and thus won't crash in any of those situations, typically.
So the key question is whether they will crash more often in other situations where a human wouldn't (e.g. when nothing is going wrong). As long as that answer is no, then they will likely be safer than human drivers.
That's just not true at all. Google's self-driving cars have clocked over a million miles on the roads, with basically no at-fault crashes. That's a far cry from barely being able to work in a pristine environment on a fixed guideway. It has some ability to recognize pedestrian behavior, avoid obstacles in the road, handle traffic lights (as long as it knows to look for them at a particular intersection), etc. It does require a lot of pre-mapping of the terrain so that it knows where to watch for traffic lights, roughly where lanes are, etc., but still, they've gone way beyond a subway system on a fixed track as you imply.
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Has google been testing their cars in blizzards? Mostly they seem to be in fairly nice safe weather conditions. This link [3dprint.com] details Ford's ventures into this issue and it seems like good progress. But when the car simply loses traction on a snow covered street, who does it try to protect? The
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Automated cars are GREAT at the 99%. It's the edge cases, in bad weather, with mechanical failures...that will be the true test.
Automated cars are better than humans in bad weather. They have many types of sensors, while humans rely on vision. Tesla has recommended that owners engage Autopilot during snowstorms, rather than trying to drive. The sensors can detect other cars in fog or heavy rain, avoiding fatal pileups. As for mechanical failures, those cause a very small percentage of crashes, but I see no reason to assume that humans can handle them better than a computer. At the very least, the computer would have a faster rea
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Humans suck at driving.
Actually, they don't. That's why driving hasn't already been replaced, unlike say, computing a FFT by hand or screwing on a million bottle caps. For example, in the US we're down to about 11 deaths [caranddriver.com] and 1850 crashes per billion vehicle miles.
Roundabouts? (Score:4, Insightful)
What would be the comparative advantage with respect to a roundabout?
I know they are not very popular in the US, but they can be very efficient, and prevent the frustration of waiting at busy intersection (especially if going in the non-popular direction).
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They are definitely better, especially when more than 2 roads come into an intersection.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Space requirements. A high-traffic roundabout requires more land area than a cross intersection.
I thought that the US had loads of space. Roundabouts have been back-fitted all over the place in the UK, including "mini-roundabouts" (which I don't believe achieve much), Having done that though, the trend in the UK is to install traffic lights at every intersection of the roundabout as well. There is a large roundabout near me (just off the M5 at Avonmouth) that has I reckon about fifty traffic light heads; I must count them one day.
Re:Roundabouts? (Score:5, Funny)
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Must have been an American driver. :-)
With that said, I'm glad I went around the one at the Arc de Triomphe at 2 in the morning instead of during rush hour. When roundabouts even start to approach eight lanes, they get terrifying pretty quickly. They're awesome for two-lane roads, though, and serviceable for four, depending largely on traffic patterns.
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Traffic lights on a roundabout? Sort of defeats the purpose
Yep, in the UK. Try the Google Street View of Avonmouth, coming off the M5, the short spur North West to a traffic-light roundabout. There are eight signal heads for that intersection alone.
I often pass here late at night when there is no other traffic, yet the lights turn red in my face all the way round. I believe it is deliberate, it is supposed to "calm" you; actually it is infuriating and when I see them changing to red I floor it and jump them sometimes, the visibility is very clear anyway. I
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That's partially correct, sometimes:
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Not true. What's true is that given an intersection with 2 lane roads coming into it, a roundabout will need more space than a light controlled intersection.
However, a roundabout causes the roads into it and out of it to be used more efficiently, as traffic flows down them constantly, rather than only coming in bursts roughly 1/4 of the time. The result is that said 2 lane light controlled junction gets replaced by one lane roads, and a roundabout that takes up the same space as the junction.
Overall resul
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They are efficient, pretty safe (no blowing through red lights, at worst low-speed collisions), have a high traffic capacity and are far cheaper to maintain. Sure, drivers tend to dislike them for a while, but that passes.
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Of course most people have to slow down. Timed traffic lights are the perfect example of using a carrot to enforce the speed limit. Speed and all your lights are red. Go the speed limit and all your lights are green.
Won't work in corrupt jurisdictions as they depend on the stick to enforce speed limits and raise revenue with safety an excuse.
Seems that they used to be common around here, drive for miles in town with no red lights. Now I think they time it for traffic management/calming as every light seems
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While you're right - roundabouts are much better than light controlled junctions, the thing I don't understand is why the US insists on using 4 way stops for small junctions, rather than just having a major/minor road configuration like in the UK. A 4 way stop results in everyone having to stop all the time, rather than allowing the 90% case (the more major road having cars on it) to work efficiently. In practice, because the more major road flows more smoothly, the minor roads get cars out quickly too.
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Stat
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Statistically, most U.S. road intersections with stop signs actually are two-way stops rather than four. Typically, every fourth or fifth intersection is a four-way stop to ensure that people who are afraid to pull out into traffic have at least one path that guarantees them the ability to get on the road. :-)
Interesting, I moved to CA about 3 years ago, and I'm not sure I've seen a 2 way stop since coming. If it were like you said, here, it would be entirely sane.
The more annoying thing to me is the overuse of traffic lights. There are many, many intersections near me where I wait for an average of a minute or more per trip and watch two cars pass. Now granted, a few of those intersections are busy enough at certain times of day to warrant a traffic light. Those lights should ideally go into a two-way-stop (flashing red), two-way-yield (flashing yellow) configuration except during rush hour.
Or, just make it a passively controlled junction - i.e. a roundabout.
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Right, we call those "mini roundabouts" in the UK. They work well in cases where there's not really one road that's more major than the other. Typically trucks just drive over them.
As I said - a major/minor junction is the default for an intersection in the UK - they always work too, and rather better than a 4 way stop.
Pedestrians (Score:4, Interesting)
How are they supposed to cross? Without lights, there could just be continuous stream of them walking over the road and cars can't pass since they try to avoid hitting them thus causing even bigger jams in big city centers.
Re:Pedestrians (Score:4, Funny)
Well, they just have to invent the high-tech autonomous pedestrian then to replace all the old models.
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Tomorrows computer controlled pedestrians will fit is seamlessly. (They better if they plan to survive).
Seriously. Eventually, fewer and less complex stop lights but still quite a few to handle pedestrians, synchronizing activity where bumper to bumper traffic streams cross and other special cases.
Oh, and, BTW, expect some monumental traffic jams when those Over The Air updates that folks regard as a solution to some problem or other cause every Honda in North America to decide not to talk to any GM car
Re:Pedestrians (Score:4, Informative)
This was my question as well. Though here in the US everyone regularly forgets pedestrians. I've even lived in a city (Columbus OH), which often omits sidewalks in highly congested areas. So I know how badly they are already treated. This would just make it lots worse.
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In other countries I've been in, if the city needs to expand its roads, it just seizes the land adjacent to the road and expands it.
In the U.S. the government is required to compensate landowners for the market value of the seized land. So if traffic was highly congested as you say, the city probably made an accounting decision that it was congested enough to eliminate the sidewalks for an extra lane, but not
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Bridges and tunnels. This is not rocket-science.
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Also don't forget bicycles, motorbikes and tractors.
THIS.
Some people seem to be in such a rush to get goddamned self-driving cars that they're completely ignoring people who don't want them, won't use them, or don't drive at all. You can't just outlaw bicycles, motorcycles, pedestrians or whatever! The Real World is what's going to kill self-driving cars. There are too many variables, and you can't just arbitrarily exclude things!
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Self driving cars will be a lot safer for bicycles, pedestrians and so on. The software in the car is always vigilant and will actually see them and stop for them. Their awareness of other road user might be their biggest problem. People just will take priority of self driving cars because they know the car will stop in time to prevent an accident.
Nyh
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Every intersection will have an autonomous vehicle to shuttle pedestrians across.
Or perhaps the police will just arrest them.
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Just step off the curb, and the cars will stop. To keep busy intersections from slowing to a crawl, you'd still have to have walk/don't walk signs. Impromptu street protests where nobody obeys the signs would automatically shut down all traffic in the area because of this. Jay-walking might become a more significant offense, especially if it was done as part of a mass un-permitted march.
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How are they supposed to cross? Without lights, there could just be continuous stream of them walking over the road and cars can't pass since they try to avoid hitting them thus causing even bigger jams in big city centers.
Well duh, we'll just have to have self-driving pedestrians too. Luddite!
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Maybe with the cars seeing them and making a wide path around them?
I remember an Asimov story (one of the more forgetable ones) in which there was a room with robots all going in straight lines criss-crossing the room. The robots were in direct communication with each other so none of them ever hit another. When a person had to cross the room, he essentially had to close his eyes and keep walking, regardless of what he heard happening around him.
Not sure I would trust this in the real world, mind you. A
What about pedestrians? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Not to mention bicycles.
And it's unlikely that every motorized vehicle can be replaced by an autonomous version. Most, perhaps, but there's bound to be exceptions.
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It would work just like today. Pedestrians and bicycles press a button to let the system know they're there. Everyone else stops for a bit to let them cross.
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You're right that a button is antiquated. They would just need cameras at the corners to recognize them and priorities things. Matching the speed of the cars to all pass through without slowing down is only the best case scenario. As someone walks up to the intersection there's no way to know if they're going to cross or turn the other way so they'll mess up the timing regardless. Large cities a long line of pedestrians could cause major traffic jams if there's no way to share the road. You're wrong, people
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Build pedestrian crossings over traffic, like we do now in many locations. Then no one has to stop for anyone.
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On the plus side, this will allow the US to reverse it's dumb decision to stick pedestrian crossings right at the same places as complex traffic intersections, and stop the ever-present issue of people making right turns, only to discover (sometimes too late) someone crossing the road right in front of them.
In more sane countries, the pedestrian crossings are put a decent distance away from the actual intersection, and barriers erected to stop people crossing in the intersection.
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There are also tunnels which are more aesthetically pleasing above ground but afaik they are even more expensive and have the added downside of being dangerous since they are out of sight (ie. you walk down into one and someone robs/hurts you).
During the transition to driverless cars I think updating the existing push buttons at crosswalks to communicate pedestrians' desire to cross to the car network along with having the cars identify pedestrians appearing to be about to cross at intersections without lig
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If it doesn't make sense to you then it might be that you're not considering that uber/lyft are already preparing to have fleets of driverless cars so the majority of cars would be either be run by businesses or possibly even government owned. It would be incredibly cheap and quick to pay with NFC to travel short distances and the streets would be full of driverless taxis to take you anywhere. With the current driver operated cars nobody really considers them to go a few blocks even if they're tired or walk
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you walk down into one and someone robs/hurts you.
We've got that covered with the Second Amendment.
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...eventually pedestrian crossing could be completely eliminated since anyone could just hop in a driverless car and go a couple blocks away instead of walking and if you wanted to go for a walk/run then you would take a driverless car to a nearby park or gym.
WTF? Having to go to some special pedestrian-designated place just to walk or run in the city? Better yet, having to try to get a dog into a car which probably has a no-pets policy just so you can take Fido for a walk? You're trolling, right?
"First you use machines, then you wear machines, and then ...? Then you serve machines." I was going to say "No, thanks", but I'll amend that to say "Hell no. No. Fucking. Way."
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Grand Rapids, Michigan is built that way. In fact, lots of other northern cities are also built that way for temperature/snow reasons; that's just the only one that I have personal experience with.
Basically, in Grand Rapids, buildings are connected together at the second floor level. There are periodic pedestrian tunnels connecting across streets to adjacent buildings as well, also on the second(-ish) floor. As a result, you can walk from your hotel for a dozen blocks and never even see the street. O
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You don't need a full stop light for that. A button-operated lighted crosswalk system (lights going across the roadway that flash) is sufficient.
"We can make you safe..." (Score:2)
"...you just need to surrender your individual autonomy and hand over total control to us. It's necessary for increased efficiency!"
You know, this argument seems strangely familiar...
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The screams of the 30,000 people that die each year in cars should be enough to silence this argument as we move toward autonomous cars. Its time to remove human ego from transportation. We may live to see a day where self-drive is illegal and i cant wait.
Why assume self driving would always carry the same risk going forward? In a future where electronics can drive reliably what prevents the same electronics from rendering self driving safe?
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The only way to do that would be to allow the computer to override your decisions. If the electronics are able to take control over the car without your permission, you aren't really in control; you just have the illusion of control. At that point, you might as well just let the computer drive so you can kick back and check your email, send text messages to your friends, and make out in the back seat... or whatever.
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The only way to do that would be to allow the computer to override your decisions.
Does AEB override your decisions? What about ABS? Traction control? Power steering? Speed/Rev limiters? CTA? Cruise control?
If the electronics are able to take control over the car without your permission, you aren't really in control; you just have the illusion of control.
In the typical scenario where I get in my POS, drive to work and no electronic dumbass driver alert goes off my driving experience is none different.
The only difference is in the exceptional case where the dumbass alert goes off people don't end up in hospitals or morgues.
You are free to argue adding constraints is the same as "illusion of control" but I'm not sure how such statem
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Cruising down the freeway in a Corvette at 80mph with the top off and eight cylinders rumbling is the height of non-sexual euphoria.
Self driving sports/performance cars would be the most boring thing ever created.
At least self driving motorcycles would be further down the road, so I still would get to drive my Harley.
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Cruising down the freeway in a Corvette at 80mph with the top off and eight cylinders rumbling is the height of non-sexual euphoria.
You need to try more drugs
But pedestrians will need. (Score:2)
Pedestrians will need implants!
It astounds me daily how many volunteer to be a Darwin award winner
as they step off the curb without looking both ways expecting vehicles to stop for them.
Near hotels in the UK and Australia are words on the curb reminding Mericans to
look "the other way" too. Those little reminders are fully lost to the goof with
his or her nose in his phone.
I recently found a crazy turn signal in this area where vehicles were given
a right turn green arrow at the same time pedestrians were gi
Re: But pedestrians will need. (Score:2)
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That is the correct response, get the people off the road. Elevated platform tunnels etc etc etc.
It realy does not matter as automated cars have to take pedestrians into account outside of cities we have plenty of rarely used crosswalks that do not have stop signs and traffic laws to always yield to crossing pedestrians. It actualy works here in the burbs/rural setting.
Um, Pedestrians? (Score:2)
This is all great - I can see it might actually work (but then again, it might not).
But I am typically a pedestrian. How will I cross the street? Do these smart cars just do their "ballet dance" around me? Do I press a button and tell all cars to stop, while I proceed through the intersection? All the article can say is
seamlessly knitting together flows of cars, pedestrians and bikers.
How, exactly? I can see a system of autonomous cars being able to do this, but TFA mentions squat about how it will handle bicycles and pedestrians; only that somehow, magically, it will. T
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Not at all. When you're driving and you see a pedestrian walking up to the intersection, you have several seconds of visibility before he or she reaches the edge of the curb. If you'll arrive first, you keep driving. If the pedestrian will arrive first, you stop. If you aren't sure, you stop.
And with computers driving, the car five cars ahead of you spots the pedestrian, and your c
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How will I cross the street?
You'll call up an autonomous car, obviously!
"Hello, car. Please take me across the street."
Roundabouts (Score:2)
We can dispense with them already by using roundabouts.
If you remove humans? yes. (Score:2)
Problem is humans are at the core selfish assholes, which is why we have traffic lights.
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Problem is humans are at the core selfish assholes, which is why we have traffic lights.
Agreed. In the excellent book "Traffic", (by Tom Vanderbilt), he cites studies showing that in comparison to traffic lights, roundabouts:
- Move a lot more traffic.
- Have a fraction of the accidents.
- Have much less severe accidents, resulting in a fraction of the fatalities.
Wow MIT figured this out, wow. (Score:3)
What I find much more fascinating is the economic impact of this sort of thing. How much economic activity is generated by traffic lights. Obviously there are the companies making them, maintaining them, their electrical usage, the cost in having people idle at them, and the ticket taxes generated by having police ticket people for not obeying the tax laws.
I would not be surprised that the savings to the taxpayer and the public by removing a single unimportant traffic light could be well in excess of $100,000 per year. For instance there was one major downtown street near my old house where they had the lights perfectly timed so that you pretty much missed all of them. Thus the average speed on that street in low traffic was maybe 15mph tops. With about 8 lights and the street being 1.5 miles the savings in time alone to get that up to 25mph would be astounding, let alone in gas.
Also many busy intersections are pretty much car accident factories. So to remove those would be just another layer of costs removed.
But what is interesting about all the above costs is that they are all very parasitical. Most of the costs in having a traffic light don't really "benefit" society. Obviously a typical traffic light today massively reduces accidents and other problems but when we have 100% SDCs their removal will only be a net benefit to all.
Where this is also going to get interesting is that some traffic lights are political. For instance there is a neighbourhood in my old city where a 3 way stop was replaced with a traffic light. This then encouraged people to take a short cut through a rich influential neighbourhood so within about 10 days the light was removed and went back to a 3 way stop. I can see attempts to prevent self driving cars from "navigating" through rich neighbourhoods but that is going to impinge upon fundamental freedoms and those laws are going to be hard to sustain. But with enough political influence there will be a way to keep the plebs away from the rich. Which will simply be part and parcel of the many many stupid laws that I see coming when politicians don't realize that every stupid traffic law they implement will be diligently followed by computerized cars. I can see every squeaky wheel along rural highways calling for the speed limit to be dropped in front of their house because of "the children" thus the speed limit will be very much an indication of how influential any given household is in rural communities.
via Internet? (Score:2)
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Europe? Wired Internet is usually pretty reliable, wireless networks are very reliable. And the last electrical outage where I live was more than 10 years ago. But this is about vehicle-to-vehicle communication over short ranges, an entirely different thing.
There are Simpler Ways (Score:2)
There are junctions near me where the lights hold everything stopped for anything up to 30 seconds (and there no pedestrians crossing, in case you were wondering). Another junction has a pedestrian crossing 25 yards before it, and the two sets of lights are not synchronised; usually they are out of phase so when the junction lights go gre
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You're operating under the mistaken notion that the primary purpose of traffic lights is to increase safety and maximize throughput. In reality, the primary purpose of traffic lights is to make city streets so annoyingly slow that drivers will be forced to get on the freeway as soon as possible, then sit there at 3 MPH. It's called "traffic calming", mostly ironically, as the primary effect appears to be an uptick in road rage.... :-D
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You're operating under the mistaken notion that the primary purpose of traffic lights is to increase safety and maximize throughput. ...It's called "traffic calming",
I'm not under that notion at all, well aware that it is for "calming", as you can see from other posts of mine here, now and in the past :-). As you say, it's infuriating, not calming, and I have even complained to my local council about it.
Bad headline (Score:2)
Neither MIT nor anybody else has shown me how their autonomous cars will work with the potholes on Michigan roads, the black ice common in this area, ice in general, the lack of municipal funds to plow many roads, driving on the highway with 6-12 inches of snow on the ground with more coming down, or driving with whiteout conditions where the road is not visible. In Michigan in many places no indication of lanes is visible. The local residents simply memorize where the paint used to be. It's very exciting t
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As a fellow Michigan resident, I'd rather fix whatever policy or lack of oversight that allows our roads to be so bad (when they are paved) and the madness that is refusing to pave roads in major metro areas in the first place. I almost feel ashamed to live in this area - why are people so against making first-class infrastructure? (Cue theories about the mob, wanting to encourage more new car sales, and similar here.)
And I second the comment on the terrible lane paint they use here; any time the roads get
And save gas (Score:2)
My son and I were just talking about this idea a couple of weeks ago. What we were focused on is how much fuel and break pads would be saved by eliminating traffic lights. Here in Vermont they've been putting in a lot of round abouts which have a similar effect but it would be even better we thought if auto autos communicated with each other and solved this.
They won't go away. (Score:2)
All it will take is one idiot on their cellphone trying to cross the light-less intersection to show MIT just how short-sighted this idea truly is.
What about crosswalks for pedestrians, then? (Score:2)
Some of us walk.
Like traffic circles (Score:2)
Already been done with traffic circles.
In some places these are problematic due to some people being too stupid to drive
Assuming all cars cooperate (Score:2)
Not everyone is going to want to t
But, but ... (Score:2)
But what about (Score:2)
Pedestrians? Cyclists?
Not everything is going to be controlled by computer
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What makes you think that not everything will be controlled by a computer?
http://www.bostondynamics.com/... [bostondynamics.com]
Except for... (Score:2)
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Except wouldn't slowing down the cars or making them stay apart by "safe distances" decrease the traffic flow anyways? So you're just back where you started from
Not true. They just added a traffic light at a "T" intersection near me. Now it only handles 1/3 of the traffic since each leg gets green only 1/3 of the time. Traffic is now backed up on all 3 legs where before it was only on the left turn leg.
Meh... (Score:4, Funny)
...Happening already [youtube.com]
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Most likely the autonomous cars won't be slamming on the brakes and revving up from a stand-still like you and your parents seem to. Barring emergencies it will probably be doing the usual slowing down, which you will anticipate by seeing an intersection ahead, followed by comfortable acceleration, which you will anticipate by NOT seeing an intersection ahead.
I don't think anyone's talking about windowless boxes just yet.
I am funnily reminded of a Donald Duck story I read several decades ago, in which Scroo
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Like pretty much everybody, I never look at what's ahead when in a bus. The bus stop and go, and I just don't care. It doesn't "damage" myself. Also, my parents never said "whoa" and "go" to signal me anything when I was a kid.
Sorry, but your comment is idiotic.
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Your parents had to say "whoa" and "go" to signal you to adjust yourself.
I grew up in an age when my parents didn't do that. In fact they'd smack me if I made too much noise in the back seat. Kids nowadays have no idea how spoiled they are.
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Re: NOT SAFE! (Score:4, Funny)
People did that when automobiles were first becoming mainstream because the driver was used to talking to their horses. Are you sure your not just old?
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This is the future. Pedestrians go in tubes, duh.