American Roads Are So Terrible Computer Software In Self-Driving Cars Can’t Even Find The Lanes

[marmar]

What does it take to make a CEO lose his cool? Just ask Volvo’s North American CEO, Lex Kerssemakers, who lost it while the automaker’s semi-autonomous prototype refused to drive itself during a press conference at an auto show in L.A.

As he and Mayor Eric Garcetti sat in the car, Kerssemakers exclaimed that “It can’t even find the lane markings!” and “You need to paint the bloody roads here!”

What’s this mean? Well, simply put, it means that years of neglect is finally paying its painful dividends, and serves as yet another reminder that we’re not the global power we think we are. After all, what kind of power can’t even afford to keep its own infrastructure up?

.....(snip).....

An estimated 65% of the United State roads are in poor condition, according to the United States Department of Transportation. The United States possesses a transportation infrastructure system that’s rated 12th in the World Economic Forum’s 2014-2015 global competitiveness report.

And much of the problem is partisanship, beginning with Tom Delay, who in 1995 declared that no Republican can support a bill that Democrats support. As it stands, the U.S. — to repair our crumbling surface roads — will need to spend a whopping $847 billion dollars. ..................(more)

http://winningdemocrats.com/american-roads-are-so-terrible-computer-software-in-self-driving-cars-cant-even-find-the-lanes/

[Rex]

1. Sorry, but that money had to go for a 4.4 billion dollar destroyer that can capsize easily.

We make fun of China's out of control spending and the millions of empty buildings in empty cities as a result. Yet we waste that much money on a trillion dollar fighter plane that can't fly without help and can kill the pilot. On atomic subs drydocked until someone can fix a crappy patch job.

America and Americans have to suffer so we can have the biggest military on the planet ten times over. We're not a militant plutocracy, we just have 900 military bases all over the planet.

[rhett o rick]

11. And a Clinton presidency would need a bigger defense budget. Just sayin'. nm

[Rex]

14. Rome has to either fall or rebuild itself.

Just kinda hanging around at this point to see which one happens first.

[rhett o rick]

16. My money is on fall. The greed of capitalism will kill the goose. The Clintons and the

rest of the Oligarchy are grabbing all the golden eggs they can.

[Rex]

19. I'm sticking with rebuild, just because I ran out of negativity during Bush-Cheney.

Too many people recognize our militant plutocracy for it to continue forever. Throwing neo-liberalism into it is just gasoline on the fire...but hey if that is what is to be.

We let a tiny group ruin the planet over money and power, that too cannot last. Not unless history finally decided for the very first time not to repeat itself.

Historians just kind of sit back and boggle over the enormity of it all.

[rhett o rick]

25. I thought rebuild during the Bush administration but Obama killed that dream. He has a nice smile,

demeanor and family, but he cares nothing about the 99%. And I believe the Ruling Class will do anything to keep a progressive out of the WH. Kennedy was murdered and Carter was railroaded, and that's about as close to progressiveness as we will get.

[Rex]

43. I don't think we ever recovered from the JFK/MLK assassinations.

[awoke_in_2003]

64. I am convinced

that the first briefing evey president gets is watching film of the Kennedy assassination with the warning that "we did it once, got away with it, and can do it again"

[Scootaloo]

27. it's easier to make Americans want to spend money to kill foreigners

Than it is to make them want to spend money to improve lives for American poor.

[Rex]

42. That is what really is disturbing, it defies common sense.

Then again when the people speak, we get roundly ignored.

[retrowire]

37. And the Bernie Sanders presidency would provide more jobs

by means of repairing that broken infrastructure!

It's easy for me to choose! Bernie 2016!!!

[Rex]

44. I'll be happy to vote for him. I like the idea that a socialist would be in charge.

We could use a socialist on the SCOTUS for that matter.

[Skink]

2. I'm having the same problem

[MisterP]

3. Philly! oy! of course a factor in our infrastructure stinking is BECAUSE the cons always say

"we don't need infrastructure, self-driving cars will be here any day now!"
it's a Y-combinator of mess

[Herman4747]

4. The better the condition of the roads, the more people will bike. n/t

[rhett o rick]

17. Not a problem. That's what wide mirrors on big-ass pick-ups are for. nm

[Press Virginia]

5. blame to road instead of admitting the technology lacks the basic ability

of a 16yr old with a brand new DL

[phantom power]

8. Frequently I (an experienced human) also find identifying lanes difficult.

[Press Virginia]

9. But you're able to navigate the road

[JVS]

62. But you have the cognitive capacity and problem solving skills to assess the situation...

and successfully cope with it.

[marmar]

12. Maybe true, but the roads are still bollocksed up.

[Press Virginia]

13. Then you might have to drive yourself

[Scootaloo]

29. One might think you would be concerned that our roads look like they're paved with smeltery slag

[Press Virginia]

31. And yet my car and its driver are still able to function as planned

Volvo might have to get its technology to function in the same way

[Scootaloo]

34. And I can live off dumpster-diving. I'd rather have a stable pantry of good food, though

I'm sure you can navigate shitty roads just fine. It doesn't make them less shitty, and you'd do even better on good roads.

[Press Virginia]

36. Take a bus if you don't want to drive yourself. Until then, Volvo is going to need

to wait until its product works in the real world

[Scootaloo]

54. I think you're making a very strong effort to completely miss the point.

it's not about volvos, it's about road conditions.

[Press Virginia]

57. No. Volvo has created a car that can't actually function with existing roads

roads that are able to functionally accommodate human drivers on a daily basis.

I live in an area with constant new development construction with changing traffic patterns and roads that might take weeks to paint after being resurfaced. We get snow that covers the roads, obscuring the lines that may or may not exist...clearly creating conditions that Volvo's car can't navigate.

It's called the real world and clearly self driving cars aren't ready to take it on

[Scootaloo]

61. And hte fact remains that our roads are in very poor condition across the nation

Not quite sure what you're doing, yelling for kids to get off your lawn or something, but you're missing the point.

[Press Virginia]

67. No, they're actually not.

Last edited Sun Apr 3, 2016, 10:16 AM - Edit history (1)

We've been hearing this since the 1980's.

The power grid is actually in bad shape

[Press Virginia]

52. I'm less concerned with volvo's needs than you are

I don't care what the road looks like as long as it's drivable

[marmar]

38. But the larger point of the piece...

..... is that the infrastructure is crumbling. The self-driving car problem is just an example.

[Press Virginia]

48. oh please. Volvo's shit doesn't work. Where are these crumbling roads

where human driven cars stop functioning because they can't find their lane

[marmar]

49. Way to miss a point.

[Press Virginia]

50. im not missing anything. The real world doesn't work the same way as

the world of the drawing board.

[rhett o rick]

26. Distinction without a difference. nm

[Logical]

63. LOL, it will happen, much quicker than you think! Nt

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

6. Kerssemakers was going to show off a car's ability ...

... and never had it tested where it was to be shown off?

Maybe the road should have lines painted on it. And maybe the Volvo's software should be able to recognize real-world conditions. How will the car react when the road is under an inch of rainwater? Or an inch of snow? Or when the white stripe is actually the design of a woman's jacket? Or when the road surface is just dirt?

Back to the drawing board, Lex.

[Indydem]

35. Ding ding ding! You win the thread!

There are plenty of scenarios where lines will be absent.

Road construction is one you could add. What about city streets that have no lines?

This guy is just an asshole.

[kentauros]

40. They could solve their navigation problem

with surveyor-quality GPS systems (since surveyors have to be accurate to within six-inches or less of a boundary line or benchmark.)

I would add that they'd also do well to map all roads with LiDAR, so that they have an accurate map of the roads' pavement boundaries, something that isn't always reflected on construction plans and as-builts.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

45. They still need some sort of optical recognition in addition to navigation.

A driver (human or otherwise) needs to be able to react to the unexpected: other drivers making errors, pot-holes, pets, kids, soccer balls, emergency vehicles, construction barriers. I assume Google cars already interpret much of this.

[Nye Bevan]

7. Many, many roads are not painted in residential neighborhoods.

And what about when a road has been recently repaved and has not been painted yet? A self-driving car that will only work on a road that has been properly painted is a non-starter.

The more stories like this I read, the more skeptical I am becoming of this self-driving car concept.

[Fumesucker]

66. The thing about driving is that people are already as good as they'll ever get at it

While the machines are just starting the learning curve and we have no idea where the end of that curve may be, I suspect it will eventually be far beyond the average human capability.

I just showed a friend an online dictation program to help her out with the daily reports she has to generate for her work as her typing is badly hindered by arthritic fingers, we were both pleasantly surprised at how well the voice to text works in conditions that were far from optimum (webcam microphone sitting on top of the monitor in a fairly noisy location).

https://dictation.io/

[killbotfactory]

10. I guess he comes from a country that gives a shit about infrastructure. nt

[tymorial]

15. That looks like many of the roads here in Massachusetts

It all depends on how wealthy the city.. of course then you have Belmont with an affluent population and their man road was one gigantic pothole for years until recently.

[EmperorHasNoClothes]

18. We're building roads over in Afghanistan so we don't have to build them over here.

[DamnYankeeInHouston]

21. Perfectly stated.

[ToxMarz]

20. So I guess self-driving off road vehicles are a ways in the future

Ii actually thought they just used gps to navigate and sensors to detect objects

[Humanist_Activist]

22. This is an example of either a design oversight or the fact the technology is still in its infancy.

Hopefully they can work out the bugs to allow cars to navigate in a variety of road conditions.

[Oneironaut]

23. But what about the CEOs?

Corporations (mostly foreign) need that money, or otherwise they'll go out of business. They have hefty expenses, like exotic dancers and $5000 bottles of wine.

People will be just fine. They got around on dirt roads in the 1700s, didn't they? As long as my tax money goes towards blow-addicted CEOs burning their nose out for the night, I'll be happy!

[jtuck004]

24. It's the same way we treat many of our people. Roughly 99%. n/t

[Spitfire of ATJ]

28. Republican solution: Emergency tax cuts for the rich.

[AgerolanAmerican]

30. If a human driver can understand where to drive

and the software can't, then the software is not good enough to get the job done.

[Fumesucker]

53. Welcome to America!

Where drivers stop at the end of the acceleration ramp to merge onto the Interstate...

One thing I have noted in the past going to Europe is that the drivers are generally much better than here, the vast majority of Americans can't even drive a car with a clutch.

Although the person driving this car in Ireland might tend to make us think otherwise, of course plenty of Americans can't parallel park either. As the lad says on the video, abandon ship even the fookin seagulls are laughing.

[YOHABLO]

32. What's ironic is Americans love their cars; roads, not so much. Hmm, strange isn't it.

[SoapBox]

33. Thank you! I live in Los Angeles...

And there seems to be hardly a painted lane line in the damned region. And don't get me started on the crumbling streets and broken sidewalks. Oh...and every place you go, fucking construction of some kind (water, power, etc.) digging up the damned road, repairing it and weeks later some other company digging it up again!



About the sidewalks...city is now saying they are going to make them the responsibility of homeowners fronting the section...WTF! City says that there is so much damage due to tree roots (of trees the city planted!) that they can't afford the repairs.

[Android3.14]

39. People can find the lane, and driving is the most prominent job for men

An analogy.
Self-driving cars are to future unemployment what methane is to future global warming.

[Fumesucker]

55. You have obviously never driven in New York City

A person can't find the lane because there are cars double and triple parked in it...

[chapdrum]

41. As if this will stop the madness.

What utter crap, start to finish.

[Beartracks]

46. Nutshell: "What kind of [super]power can’t even afford to keep its own infrastructure up?" n/t

[Initech]

47. All that money we spend going to meaningless war could be spent on our infrastructure.

And unlike the meaningless wars we're in, rebuilding our infrastructure would pay for itself a million times over.

[longship]

51. And good luck where I live where roads are not even paved.

And even the paved ones are snow covered during months of the year.

Almost all the roads are narrow two laners. I would not trust a self-driving car here ever.

[Fumesucker]

56. I wouldn't trust a bunch of people I know to drive in conditions like that

One of my female relatives is positively allergic to actually looking at the damn road, every time I get in the car with her that Doors song plays in my head.. Keep your eyes on the road and your hands upon the wheel.

Personally I'd trust in a machine to get me somewhere safely before I would this driver.

[longship]

58. Here: FS enjoy!

Or possibly not.

[Fumesucker]

59. On whacky song deserves another

The scary thing is I think I remember hearing that somewhere way back in the Silurian or maybe it was the Devonian.

[central scrutinizer]

60. Example

[link:https://m.

|

[longship]

65. OMFG! That guy couldn't make it, BUT I CAN!! nt

[Thor_MN]

68. If self driving cars are so reliant on lane lines, they could be caused to crash with paint.

If they are to be safe, they have use technology that can't be tampered with by an idiot with a paint brush.

[Heeeeers Johnny]

69. I kind'a like the idea myself.

It would allow drivers to kick back and cruise in comfort given the larger road space...

FF to 2:05

[Heeeeers Johnny]

70. Oh fuck him!

I agree, something needs to be done to fix the country's infrastructure, but doing it to accommodate his pipe dream
should be on the bottom of the list.