[mpol]

Aha, technological solutions for social problems, who could think that would not work :)

Driving a car in public traffic is very much a social situation. A wink here, a small hand or head gesture there. Even looking away and avoiding communication alltogether is part of social behaviour and tells something. Even the same gesture in a different context says something else.

Parking a car, driving in congested traffic and just keeping a lane is all doable by technology. Beyond that it needs a different and social way of thinking.

[AlexandrB]

Even without seeing other people's faces, you start to notice car "body language". For example, a car that is sticking close to a lane divider is probably about to try to change lanes. I always wondered to what extent (if any) self-driving AI tries to take this into account and whether, even legal, maneuvers by self-driving AI might be surprising to other drivers looking for these kinds of subtle signals.

[AlotOfReading]

It's incorporated into autonomous vehicles in a few different ways (mainly through ML), but current state of the art isn't perfect. Humans are probably still better at reading those subtle patterns earlier.

[wpietri]

Is it incorporated both ways? That is, are autonomous vehicles trained to express intention through subtle movements?

[jlund-molfese]

Isn’t that what turn signals are for? Car body language is somewhat location-dependent. Rural Missouri has more cautious drivers and downtown NYC more aggressive drivers. Seems complicated to modify the car’s behavior at such a fine level, but perhaps it’ll happen once the bigger issues are worked out. On-board, personalized learning from your commute would be a neat selling point.

[wpietri]

Yes, social signals are location dependent. But driving in traffic is a social activity. And ignoring that strikes me as a big issue indeed.

[kbrkbr]

Even the enforcement of rules and the expectation on that are location dependent. Someone I know walked on a crosswalk in a southern european country, expecting that this will be honored like it is here. Ended up in hospital for two weeks. No driver there expected it.

[r00fus]

Having driven in the SF Bay with waymo and cruise vehicles - they definitely do signal a sort of extremely hesitant/cautious "body language".

Slowing to a stop in an otherwise clear lane because it's cautious around shadows; Always ceding the initiative on 4-way stops, etc.

It's like there's a (diligent but overly cautious) student driver behind the wheel.

[AlotOfReading]

AVs can seem to do that, but it's unintentional. I've never seen or heard anyone describe encoding intent with microbehaviors. The general preference is to make driving intentions as obvious as possible because some people don't pick up on subtleties and we still want to drive safely around them.

[wpietri]

Safety is an important base. But driving in traffic is a collaborative activity, so communication can't just be one way.

[AlotOfReading]

The vehicles are intended to be very predictable for other drivers. I don't consider that to be synonymous with encoding intent into subtle microbehaviors. Instead it means straightforward behaviors like turn signals, appropriate speeds, avoiding last minute lane changes, etc.

[audunw]

Regarding those subtle communications, I was blown away by this demo of Mobileyes system:

https://youtu.be/RALg1pu9oxI

It really feels like it's driving just like a human would in so many situations, and understanding the intention of pedestrians and cars driven by humans.

Seems to me that they may be well ahead of Tesla, they just don't do much publicity or push it out to end users before it's actually ready.

[unglaublich]

The fact that driving involves social behavior is exactly the reason why 35.000 people die each DAY in traffic. If a driver is not able to pay attention or makes a mistake, consequences can be fatal.

We need to get rid of the social aspect of driving, and make it a pure, reliable system that doesn't depend on the mood or the alertness of billions of humans to not kill someone.

[mpol]

That might only be done if you make it separate from people who are walking or cycling. So maybe a lifted monorail with cars? :) As long as people are on the street, it is a social situation with social behaviour.

[cramjabsyn]

Honestly drivers who stop in traffic or hold up intersections to make hand gestures and yield their right of way should be shunned and ticketed.

This is a social norm of driving today that makes little sense. It’s actually quite dangerous to stop in the middle of traffic and wave at someone. And the person waving usually acts in an impatient and unpredictable way. They will give you about 5 seconds to lurch into the road before they get irritated and drive on. Or they could easily commit insurance fraud by luring you into an accident that appears to be your fault.

If all followed the rules of the road it’d be a lot safer and also slightly easier to automate

[Volundr]

I think you are overestimating how clear the rules of the road are. For example two people arrive at a 4 way stop. The rules dictate whoever arrived goes first. Arrived at the same time? Yield right. Easy right? But are you sure the guy in the other car agrees you arrived first and therefore has the right of way? Or in their estimation did you arrive at the same time and you should yield to them? What if 3 cars arrive at the same time? 4?

Often it can be safer to establish some form of consensus instead of assuming the cars around you have both interpreted events the same as you and are about to behave in the way you'd predict.

I'm also not sure if this was what you intended in your example, but there are roads in my town where unless someone waits and yields to let someone on a side street turn onto or cross the main road, the person on the side street is literally going to be stuck until rush hour is over. You won't find it in the DMV handbook, but yielding in this situation really is a kindness.

[cameronh90]

That's a problem with 4 way stops. Equal priority four way stops are just bad road design and should be replaced. Similarly your side street situation is why traffic lights were invented. Alternatively, you could give priority to the side street and force cars on the main road to yield.

That being said, I do think standardising some form of "go ahead" message is worth considering due to the prevalence of these poor road designs, particularly in the US. In the UK, officially, you're not supposed to make any form of signal. If you must, you are supposed to just stop, but that can be ambiguous, so most people flash their lights. However, that is unambiguously against the highway code. If it was possibly to explicitly state, through a light or some other kind of means, "I am yielding my priority", that could be unambiguously understood by both AI and humans alike...

That being said, these situations where you need to rely on messages are actually reasonably rare on the UK roads and usually as a result of roadworks messing something up.

[cramjabsyn]

> there are roads in my town where unless someone waits and yields to let someone on a side street turn onto or cross the main road, the person on the side street is literally going to be stuck until rush hour is over.

It’s my view that this is a failure in road design, and leaving it up to drivers to make up their own rules is dangerous.

Understood this is the status quo, but I wish more would be done to address these types of situations because they cause stress and accidents

[ghaff]

I'm not sure what you do when you have a busy main street and lightly trafficked side streets (and driveways) that require people to make unprotected lefts. You're not going to put a traffic light on every country lane dead ending at busy road.

[ghaff]

>but there are roads in my town where unless someone waits and yields

Making a left hand turn into my driveway at certain times of day can take forever to do safely with cars either piling up behind me or somewhat dangerously passing on the shoulder. Even worse it's at the bottom of a hill so traffic tends to speed up. Sometimes there's a break but often someone will flash their lights and let me go.

[nottorp]

Actually I think the "zipper rule" is taught in driving school in some countries in Europe and applied informally in more.

[I mean: when both the main road and the secondary road that has to yield are clogged, everyone on the main road lets one car from the secondary pass.]

I've certainly applied it and benefited from it countless times.

[Tomte]

It's actually the law in Germany.

We have a slightly different problem: people don't understand that the full capacity of the road should be used, zipping only shortly before the constriction. People switch lanes far too early, other people pass them (because the lane is free until the constriction), people who switched early feel cheated, everybody gets aggressive.

[cameronh90]

The thing is about the zipper rule is that it can genuinely be difficult in practice sometimes. If it's a simple example of a busy slow moving two lane road becoming a one lane road, it's absolutely simple and unquestionably the best practice to merge late. But in other situations, especially ones involving exits and junctions, it can be down to judgement.

In very low density traffic on high speed roads, waiting until the lane is actually closed to move over can create slow downs, but moving left earlier doesn't. The point where the optimum behaviour changes isn't always clear and can change rapidly.

In the UK, the rule is that in slow moving congestion you should late merge but in other cases you should stick in the left lane unless overtaking. There isn't a specifically defined point where one behaviour should take precedence over the other.

[radlad]

This occurs in the US too. It drives me crazy when a two-lane highway turns into a one-lane highway for miles, despite a free lane leading up to the accident.

And any attempts to use the free lane will result in cars dangerously cutting you off.

[cramjabsyn]

I wish this was a formal/enforced rule. I do it too (leave a reasonable gap ahead of me) it helps a lot in traffic

[danuker]

> by luring you into an accident that appears to be your fault.

And it'd be your fault for not yielding to the idiot stopping in the middle of the road, not knowing what "right of way" means.

These laws were made exactly to avoid the uncertainty of who goes first.

[082349872349872]

Militaries might be very interested in funding "self driving" vehicles that were not meant for public traffic.

(much like maritime rights of way exist, but some navies prefer the simpler rule: "if it's grey, stay away")

[DocTomoe]

Incidentally, those are often the Navies who lose ships due to getting rammed by a cruise ship [1], allied vessels [2] and shipping boats [3]. Might may make right, but can be expensive.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuelan_patrol_boat_Naiguat... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melbourne%E2%80%93Evans_collis... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ehime_Maru_and_USS_Greeneville...

[skybrian]

It’s useful but its importance seems exaggerated because often you can’t see the driver at all. For example, at night or in bad weather. The driver of a truck or bus can often be hard to see. Yet we can still drive if we can’t see other drivers.

[uniformlyrandom]

You must be extroverted.

Couple of counter-arguments:

1. This is completely optional. I can get from point A to point B without ever looking at another human face (and that is the way I like it, aha aha).

2. In real life, you may see some middle finger as well, especially if the traffic is bad.

[amelius]

I'd rather have an AI that can cook meals. Because that would actually save me time (I have to spend time in the car anyway, and there's not much I can do than stare out of the window, as I would get car-sick otherwise).

[johndevor]

Agreed. I always thought these AI cars needed extra lights or indicators to show intent, or at the very least show that it's in self-driving mode.