2014-06-24

June 24, 2014

June 23, 2014

In wake of Tracy Morgan crash, rising truck fatalities lead to new scrutiny

Ted Sherman/The Star-Ledger June 15 “The Wal-Mart truck that slammed into a chauffeured van carrying comic Tracy Morgan on the New Jersey Turnpike just over a week ago was state-of-the-art.

According to company officials, its high-tech cab was equipped with sophisticated collision-avoidance systems that included forward-looking radar with interactive cruise control — all designed to begin automatically braking the big truck when it sensed traffic slowing down.

It was programmed to notify the driver of any vehicles stopped ahead in the roadway. There was an on-board computer, blind spot sensors, and electronic controls limiting its top speed to 65 miles per hour….” Read more

Hmm… I wrote last Tuesday as to how the Tracy Morgan Accident needs to be wake-up call to Walmart and other shippers and carriers (see below) to install automatic collision avoidance systems. I will repeat it again here in this special post. While Walmart might feel that it had done all it can by having what it calls a “high-tech cab”, its truck was in fact a very low-tech cab. Something like having a PrincessPhone relative to an iPhone5. The “interactive cruise control” only begins to automatically brake when it senses traffic slowing down (doesn’t bring the truck to a complete stop if the traffic ahead stops AND it needs to have been actively engaged by the driver to work at all!). Moreover…“programmed to notify the driver of vehicles stopped ahead”, but NOT programmed to automatically stop the truck before hitting the stopped traffic ahead. While subtle, these are VERY important differences between a “PrincessPhone” cab and a “SmartPhone” cab! Walmart’s and the trucking industry’s focus MUST be on automatic collision avoidance, automatic lane centering and beyond, not simply useless warnings. I applaud Walmart for taking a first baby step, but it needs to up its game substantially!

US DoT also needs to take notice with respect to its V2V and connected vehicle initiatives.

These initiatives have been timidly focused on warnings rather than automatically avoiding the accidents. I understand that the government fears resistance to its efforts to intervene, as it should. And it certainly hasn’t wanted to acquire the responsibility. However, warnings are simply insufficiently effective. Maybe government should step aside and let someone else accept the responsibility, someone like the insurance industry. Accepting responsibility is in fact their fundamental business. Alain

Driverless Cars For $10,000? This Startup Is Challenging Google With A Simple Sensor

Parmy Olson 6/23/14 “… Cruise Automation is a San Francisco-based startup that thinks it can get the technology to market sooner with something far more simple: a $10,000 accessory you can strap to the roof of your car and plug into your footwell.

As of Monday, Cruise is taking pre-orders for 50 units of its RP-1 product, and says it will start installing them in cars early next year. One caveat: the system only works on Audi A4 and S4 vehicles, but Cruise is working towards making its technology compatible with other car manufacturers too.

“We have plans to expand to other models,” says Cruise’s founder Kyle Vogt. “We haven’t made formal decisions to what would be next.” He points out that working directly with automakers can take three-to-five years, which suggests Cruise might want to create its systems independent of manufacturers….” Read more

Hmmm… Here we go!!! Watch their video on http://www.getcruise.com/. To me this is reminiscent of turn-by-turn navigation’s ADVANCE project circa 1995. That system’s price at the time must have been on the order of 10k in 2014$. Today… close to free, few drive without one and ones that you bring with you are better than the factory fit ones. I predict a repeat of history here. “Certainly” by 2034 if not 2024 aftermarket SmartDrivingCar technologies will be “close to free, few drive without one and ones that you bring with you are better than the factory fit ones”! Alain

Driverless cars approach the starting line

“…Eno Center for Transportation President Joshua Schank said the mix of apprehension and excitement that lawmakers have expressed about driverless cars is appropriate.

“This is a technology that has the potential to save thousands of lives and transform transportation,” Schank said, adding, “an element of caution is necessary.”

“We have to be able to figure out how to regulate these things,” he said. …

“Hopefully elected officials won’t stand in the way.”…” Read more

Hmmm… Hopefully elected officials (and their executive agencies) won’t stand in the way. Alain

Netherlands wants to approve large-scale self-driving car

June 20, 2014 “The Netherlands will introduce legislation in early 2015 to make autonomous driving on public roads possible in the near to medium term. The government will send a proposal to parliament outlining the legislative changes required to open the country’s traffic to driverless cars… Read more

The end of driving (as we know it)

Michal Lev-Ram June 12 “Thanks to smartphone-based services like Uber and Zipcar, Google’s self-driving “pod car,” and renewed interest in city living, getting around town will never be the same….” Read more

Driverless Cars – Impact on the Insurance Industry and just about everything else

Shane Genziuk June 19, Off beat but interesting perspectives. Alain

Watchdog: Driverless car needs more testing

JERRY HIRSCH L”… A consumer group wants the California Department of Motor Vehicles to slow Google Inc.’s rush to get driverless cars on the road.Consumer Watchdog said the state’s regulations don’t allow enough time to test the self-driving cars before allowing them on California streets and highways…” Read more

Hmmm.. Consumer Watchdog should also realize that without these systems, avoidable accidents are happening. Alain

A future beyond traffic gridlock

Filmed Mar 2011 “Bill Ford is a car guy — his great-grandfather was Henry Ford, and he grew up inside the massive Ford Motor Co. So when he worries about cars’ impact on the environment, and about our growing global gridlock problem, it’s worth a listen. His vision for the future of mobility includes “smart roads,” even smarter public transport and going green like never before” Watch the video

Even though this was filmed more than 3 years ago, it is still worth watching. Alain

Half-baked stuff that probably doesn’t deserve your time:

Driverless Cars Are Capable of Reducing Urban Traffic by 80 Percent

Calendar of Upcoming Events:

http://www.auvsi.org/avs2014/register

Invitation ONLY

Save the date September 6th, 2014 in Detroit

Recent Versions of:

June 10, 2014

If Robots Drove, How Much Safer Would Roads Be?

Claire Cain Miller, June 10 “ Human error is the culprit in 93 percent of automobile crashes – including the pileup last weekend that left Tracy Morgan in critical condition, caused, prosecutors say, by a truck driver who had been awake for 24 hours (see following)… But two studies by researchers at Virginia Tech — H. Clay Gabler, a professor of biomedical engineering, and Kristofer D. Kusano, a research associate — suggest how much safer robot cars might be. They found that even cars that are not fully autonomous but that automate some of the most dangerous aspects of driving could have as big an effect as seatbelts have had…Read more

Hmm… The studies:

Thomas I. Gorman, Kristofer D. Kusano, and Hampton C. Gabler “Model of Fleet-wide Safety Benefits of Lane Departure Warning Systems”. “…The expected reduction in road departure crashes due to LDW is estimated to be 30.3%. The expected reduction in injuries that are caused by LDW applicable crashes is estimated to be 25.8%…” Read more

Kusano, K., Gabler, H., and Gorman, T., “Fleetwide Safety Benefits of Production Forward Collision and Lane Departure Warning Systems,” SAE Int. J. Passeng. Cars - Mech. Syst. 7(2):2014, doi:10.4271/2014-01-0166. “…The 16 FCW systems evaluated could have potentially prevented between 9% and 53% of all rear-end collisions and prevented between 19% and 60% of injured (MAIS2+) drivers….For LDW systems, the 10 systems tested had similar benefits if distance to the lane marking was used as the metric for delivering the warning. For all vehicles, the number of crashes prevented varied from 29% to 32% and the number of injured (MAIS3+) drivers prevented varied from 25% to 27%. LDW benefits are more sensitive to Time to Lane Cross (TTLC) as a metric for warning delivery. The number of crashes varied from 13% to 47% and the number of injured drivers varied from 10% to 42% when TTLC was the metric used to deliver the LDW. This result suggests that future LDW tests should consider TTLC as a metric in addition to distance to lane cross….” Read more

Driver Charged in Crash Involving Tracy Morgan Had Not Slept in 24 Hours, Prosecutors Say

J. DAVID GOODMAN JUNE 9, “The Walmart driver whose truck collided with a van carrying the comedian Tracy Morgan and other performers had not slept for more than 24 hours before the crash, New Jersey prosecutors said on Monday….A preliminary police investigation found that Mr. Roper had failed to perceive slow-moving traffic ahead of him, and, at the last minute, swerved in an attempt to avoid a collision. The complaint did not explain how the New Jersey State Police determined that Mr. Roper had been sleep deprived… Walmart …believed Mr. Roper “was operating within the federal hours of service regulations,” which limit work shifts to 14 hours, with only 11 of those behind the wheel. Read more

Hmmm… this is enormously tragic because existing collision avoidance technology could have likely avoided this accident altogether even if Mr. Roper had not slept for 48 hours or was in complete compliance with all “hours of service regulations”. Even if Mr. Roper had not slept for 24 hours, tougher hours of service regulations would not have prevented this accident. What would have prevented this accident would be the application of collision avoidance technology on this truck. If Walmart somehow feels indisposed by this accident and wants to react constructively, Walmart should contribute to the advancement of collision avoidance technology and insist that all trucks moving their goods be equipped with such technology! In fact, calling this an accident may well be a misnomer; maybe we should call it irresponsibility on Walmart’s part for not insisting that the trucks serving their stores have this technology. The cost of this technology may well evolve to be more than offset by the reduction in truck insurance expense. In other words, Walmart would not be indisposed and save money. That doesn’t sound like an accident to me. It sounds like fiduciary (and societal) irresponsibility on the part of Walmart.

Of course, Walmart is not the only business that relies on long haul truckers to supply goods to its stores. The Tracy Morgan collision should be a wake up call for businesses that rely on large trucks on US roads every day driven by drivers operating under pressure on deadlines. Now that collision avoidance technology is available, Walmart and other business should insist that their logistics partners use trucks equipped with this technology. They will save money in the long run and lives in the short and long runs. Alain

May 29, 2014

Just press go: designing a self-driving vehicle

Posted: Tuesday, May 27 “Ever since we started the Google self-driving car project, we’ve been working toward the goal of vehicles that can shoulder the entire burden of driving. Just imagine: You can take a trip downtown at lunchtime without a 20-minute buffer to find parking. Seniors can keep their freedom even if they can’t keep their car keys. And drunk and distracted driving? History.

We’re now exploring what fully self-driving vehicles would look like by building some prototypes; they’ll be designed to operate safely and autonomously without requiring human intervention. They won’t have a steering wheel, accelerator pedal, or brake pedal… because they don’t need them. Our software and sensors do all the work. The vehicles will be very basic—we want to learn from them and adapt them as quickly as possible—but they will take you where you want to go at the push of a button. And that’s an important step toward improving road safety and transforming mobility for millions of people. ..” Must watch video Read more

May 22, 2014

Update on my “997” Package

Since I walk to work, I haven’t had the opportunity to test my Mercedes “997 package” every day; however, it has assisted me around New Jersey’s jug-handled roads as well as the NJ Turnpike, Garden State Parkway, I-195 and 295 as well as longer trips on the PA Turnpike, I-81 and I-95 and earlier this week to and from Cleveland on I-80.

May 13, 2014

Autonomous Vehicles: Handing Over Control: Opportunities and Risks for Insurance

Gillian Yeomans, Lloyd’s Exposure Management “…The insurance industry’s expertise in risk management will be a factor in the adoption of autonomous … technology. In an area where regulation and safety standards are yet to be developed, insurers can encourage prudent progress by making their own risk assessments and providing policies for responsible operators. There is an opportunity for insurers to engage in the transfer of new risks, making it possible for continued technological innovation. This technological innovation may give rise to new business opportunities, with corresponding opportunities for insurers….“Read more Nice to see Lloyd’s weigh in here. Alain

May 2, 2014

Who Is at Fault When a Driverless Car Gets in an Accident?

John Villasenor Apr 25 2014 “It may seem odd, but we already have the laws we need for dealing with this inevitable situation.” Read more especially the source report:

Products Liability and Driverless Cars: Issues and Guiding Principles for Legislation

April 18, 2014

Newly Available Drafts of Recent Student Theses

Wyrough, Alexander Penn Hill Jr.: A National Disaggregate Transportation Demand Model for the Analysis of autonomous Taxi Systems

Included is one synthetic realization for each of the 308.7 Million individuals contained in the 2010 Census and each of the 1.01 Billion trips {oLat, oLon, oTime, dLat, dLon} these individuals were synthesized to have made on a typical weekday in October. Persons are organized in individual Home County Files (All 186,49 persons that lived in Peoria County, Il., or the 1,585,873 persons that lived in Manhattan, for example). Trips are available in files for each person residing in a county ( with many trips diffusing into other counties, states and even countries ) as well as by oCounty (the 649,781 trips that originate in Peoria County or the 8,085,055 trips that originate in Manhattan, many of which are made by 1.5 million persons that don’t live in Manhattan.). For example, one can get all the trips made by the residents of Manhattan or by all trips originating in Manhattan. The user is left with the task of finding all trips that either originate, terminate or go through Manhattan. Note, trips to work where the work place was greater than 200 miles from the home location were routed via the nearest major airports. Alain

Lee, Eileen: Uncovering Systemic Corruption in the ER: An Empirical Analysis of Motor Vehicle-Related Hospital Bill and their Impact on Insurance Companies

Sun, Zhuyi (Judy): Causal Price Discrimination: An Analysis of the Healthcare Costs Associated with Motor Vehicle and Transportation Collisions

Rhodes, Brandon Xavier: An Analysis of Economically Efficient Insurance Schemes for Automated Vehicle

April 11, 2014

Hands-On: 2015 Hyundai Genesis Flirts with Autonomous Driving

By Scott Schaen on April 7, “…Lane keep assist worked very well if you’re slow to make a slight turn. It doesn’t work for the bigger turns. Similarly, smart cruise control and the automatic emergency breaking system would slow you down a lot, but it won’t bring you to a complete stop. They’re SAFETY features; they’re not intended to auto-drive (yet)…” Read more

April 4, 2014