I wonder how many of these driver errors are due to the assumption that the self-driven car will behave just like a human driven one?
It wouldn't take much — an unnecessary hesitation, a slow pull away or (on the other end of the spectrum) super-human reactions to cause me to rear-end someone.
Most of my near-collision experiences have been at a junction where I've judged a situation to be safe to pull into the road for both myself and the car in front, and I start to manoeuvre while doing my one last check into the oncoming traffic to verify its clear. My assumption is that the car in front will do the same but occasionally they don't and I have to stop suddenly to avoid collision. Every time I feel surprised and embarrassed. Why didn't I check? Truth is the other 400 times we all behaved as expected.
My point being, if the cars are still being limited in their speeds and are (as sometimes reported) a little ponderous in the middle of a manoeuvre maybe it is their behaviour that is causing some of these 'driver' errors.
>
It wouldn't take much — an unnecessary hesitation, a slow pull away or (on the other end of the spectrum) super-human reactions to cause me to rear-end someone.
If you rear end someone it is almost always[1] your fault, and in the examples you give it's definitely your fault.
I'm a little bit surprised that you describe this as the fault of the Google cars.
As I understand it, from the perspective of an insurance company, rear-ending is basically always your fault no matter what the extenuating circumstances are. I couldn't stop on glare ice a number of years back (brakes basically did zero) and eventually kissed the bumper of a car I was following a good 100 ft. behind that had skidded and eventually came to a stop in the middle of the road. No damage but I mentioned this to a friend who worked at an insurance company and he said I'd have been considered at fault if a claim had been necessary.
Yes, but fault isn't the problem - if another driver is doing something that would make an accident "their fault", I normally still see their erratic driving and move my own car away from them. If I see someone flying up at me in my rear-view mirror, I move. If I see someone weaving a bit in their lane, I give them an extra lane of space between us.
I don't know if Google's cars do these things or not - but those are the kinds of avoidance techniques I would hope for, even if an accident would not have been their fault.
The one time I rear-ended someone in my life I was doing what you described. It was fully my fault and the result of me trying to gain approximately two seconds on my trip. Fortunately that was over twenty years ago and I haven't repeated the mistake.
I see autonomous cars as the solution to this problem.
Definitely they could address it somehow. They could have additional stronger red light turning on when car is about to be rear ended. And some sort of rear airbag to softly catch the car behind.
It wouldn't take much — an unnecessary hesitation, a slow pull away or (on the other end of the spectrum) super-human reactions to cause me to rear-end someone.
Most of my near-collision experiences have been at a junction where I've judged a situation to be safe to pull into the road for both myself and the car in front, and I start to manoeuvre while doing my one last check into the oncoming traffic to verify its clear. My assumption is that the car in front will do the same but occasionally they don't and I have to stop suddenly to avoid collision. Every time I feel surprised and embarrassed. Why didn't I check? Truth is the other 400 times we all behaved as expected.
My point being, if the cars are still being limited in their speeds and are (as sometimes reported) a little ponderous in the middle of a manoeuvre maybe it is their behaviour that is causing some of these 'driver' errors.