Comment Re:How hard is it to recognize a stoplight? (Score 2) 287
But it can still drive on other roads with good accuracy.
The lights are out at a junction. How does "good accuracy" help the car figure out when it's safe to proceed, or the order to proceed when there are buses, cars, trucks coming from all direction with an implied priority based on conditions and time people have waited?
Now a cop turns up to direct the traffic because of a fender bender. How does the car with "good accuracy" know to obey the cop's hand signals?
Now the repair crew turn up to fix the lights and put cones out so people turning have to do so from the adjacent lane. How does "good accuracy" cope with that?
Now a crazy person turns up and begins directing traffic. How does "good accuracy" tell the difference between the cop and the crazy person.
That's just a trivial demonstration of the problems a self drive vehicle would face. It's trivial to think of others - road flooding, narrow roads, diversions, vehicle break downs, animals running out, snow / leaves obstructing sensors etc. Of course in every case the simplest answer would be for the driver to override the car and manually drive it. But that naturally puts a dampener on some of the absurd expectations people have for these vehicles (e.g. that they can drive off and park themselves, self drive taxis, sleeping or drunk drivers etc.). And if the car gets confused too often or "fails to safe" for no reason then it will be infuriating.
It would be far more productive to concentrate on advanced driver assistance - cruise control, distance maintenance, lane tracking / marker detection, collision / hazard avoidance and parking assistance.