Hold Your Skepticism About Google's Robot-Cars - Technology - The Atlantic Wire

From the Atlantic, Google's safety record is still really good:
Hold Your Skepticism About Google's Robot-Cars - Technology - The Atlantic Wire

Google's Self-Driving Car Crashed!

Google's self driving car crashed, but it was still the driver's fault.
From Jalopnik (Click the link for exciting photos of people standing around and more of the story):

Self-Driving Cars
By Justin Hyde Aug 5, 2011 11:45 AM
22,306 124
This is Google’s first self-driving car crash

This photo of what looks like a minor case of Prius-on-Prius vehicular violence may actually be a piece of automotive history: the first accident caused by Google's self-driving car. Whose name should the cop write down on the ticket? UPDATE!

Sent in by a Jalopnik tipster, the photos were snapped earlier this week near Google's Mountain View, Calif., headquarters. The Prius — recognizable as a Google self-driving prototype from the roof equipment that's smaller than a typical Google Streetview image collector — appears to have rear-ended another Prius.

Google released a statement to Business Week:

A Google spokesperson gave us this quote about the accident: "Safety is our top priority. One of our goals is to prevent fender-benders like this one, which occurred while a person was manually driving the car."

Ironic that the car got in an accident while being manually driven. Maybe they should have stuck to letting the robot control things.

Somewhat related, Patrick Smith at Ask the Pilot pushes back on the widely held beliefs that planes generally fly themselves here. Smith's point is that there will be lots of human control on vehicles (planes, in his case) for the foreseeable future.

Dumb Ways to Save Gas

Shell Oil is sponsoring John and Helen Taylor to drive around the country demonstrating how parsimonious they are with their gasoline. Here is the Shell Oil webpage for the "Smarter Driving Tour."

Let's meet the Taylors:

About the Taylors

The Taylors are passionate about fuel economy. They have two companies, Fuelacademy and Eco2driving whereby they run global education programs, teaching drivers how to reduce their fuel consumption, reduce CO2 emissions, save money, drive smarter and safer. Between them, Helen and John hold 88 world records of which 42 are for fuel economy.

Forty-two records for fuel economy? What the heck is that? What are their other 46 records? Feats of excess and unnecessary driving? Most congestion caused due to driving slower than traffic? Here is a link to their all of their world records, which are apparently adjudicated by FuelAcademy, which is the Taylor's driving business.

I'd also like to point out that they aren't any tips or tricks for saving fuel actually listed on the Smarter Driving Tour webpage. You have to go to the Smarter Actions page here, which just restates what the federal government says here.

Anyway, if you want to save gas, drive less. That's the best way. But I don't think you can get any records for it.

China Envy: Autonomous Cars

China Daily reports on Chinese researchers who developed an autonomous car that drove 285 km. From the story:

The car, a Hongqi HQ3 with full intellectual property rights developed by the National University of Defense Technology, traveled in daytime, taking only three hours and 20 minutes to finish its trip under full computer and sensor control.
"We only set a maximum speed and then left everything to the car itself," said Dai Bin, a professor in the research team.
"It knew the speed limits, traffic patterns, lane changes and roads using video cameras and radar sensors to detect other cars. It was all controlled by a command center in the trunk," Dai said.
The car encountered several complicated situations that made the test even more difficult.
"We had fog and thundershowers as well as the complex route and unclear lane markings in some sections," he added.
He noted that the car was not equipped with GPS, but relied solely on its sensors and lasers to detect the surrounding environment and choose the correct route.

I believe that most of the current autonomous vehicles under development and testing do not rely on GPS. They are all sensor based. I love that China Daily made note of the "full intellectual property rights developed by the National University of Defense Technology."

Point/Counterpoint: The 710 Tunnel Project in Los Angeles

USC Professor James Moore argues for the 710 tunnel here, saying it is necessary and cost effective. The core of his argument:

The regional need for building the last 4.5 miles of the basic local freeway grid — between the end of the 710 Freeway in Alhambra and the intersection of the 210 and the 134 freeways — is beyond any informed dispute. Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Southern California Assn. of Government studies show that this project would offer more relief from congestion and pollution than would any other local highway project. The 218,000 daily vehicle trips postponed or diverted by the 710 gap are nearly half the number of trips affected by the recent closure of the 405 Freeway.

About half of these trips are burdening other freeways, and about half are tying up surface streets. As a result, we face a self-inflicted "Carmageddon" every day. Public polls of 26 cities and political districts find not a city or district in which the majority opposes the tunnel. (South Pasadena and La Cañada Flintridge are evenly split.) A review of poll results collected by Godbe Research in 2004 and by the Rose Institute in 2000 shows Los Angeles voters favored completion by 5.6 to one, and San Gabriel Valley residents by 5.7 to one.

Many of the voices that had been against a bulldozed surface connection have been muted by the underground tunnel alternative, which would leave elegant, mature neighborhoods intact. Tunnels are expensive, but they solve problems, and the technology needed for the 710's tunneling project is proven.

Michael Dieden argues against the 710 project here, claiming that Moore's thinking is outdated and any investment should be in mass transit. From his op-ed:

But most importantly, why spend the precious time and money on yet another obsolete freeway when the entire country, and world for that matter, is abandoning freeways and moving to mass transit, both bus and rail? Moore needs to let go of the past and embrace the future, which relies on no more public money for freeways and increased investment in public transportation.

For example, why not build a trolley on Huntington Drive through Alhambra, South Pasadena and East L.A. on the same route as the old Red Car, which would absorb much of the 710 traffic and make each transit stop an economic catalyst for job growth and new transit neighborhoods? In lieu of wasting money on the 710, the region's public policy goal for the San Gabriel Valley should instead call for linking the great educational institutions of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena City College, the Claremont colleges and Cal State Pomona with transit, thereby allowing "creative nodes" to be built at each station, creating hundreds of entrepreneurial small businesses and well paying jobs.

The last 50 years of transportation planning in L.A. have not been about "talk," as Moore states, but about the struggle to transform the means by which we transport people, save neighborhoods and create more walkable and livable neighborhoods. Southern California once had a great transit system; it was destroyed by freeway advocates. That system failed, and it is incumbent on this generation to replace it and finish the public mass transit system throughout the region.

As near as I can tell they are not talking about the same thing (Moore discusses traffic and Dieden talks neighborhood preservation and land development around transit). Dieden makes a common and critical error by ignoring freight and goods movement, which is a major contributor to congestion, pollution and traffic in Los Angeles. As nice as mass transit investments are, they really don't do anything to reduce congestion (at least how we build them in the states). The Gold Line that Dieden praises in his op-ed only carries about 34,000 passengers per day, while the 710 gap affects about 218,000 vehicles, which at average vehicle occupancy is nearly 10 times the total number of travelers. Also, in the case of local transit projects generally ignore "job growth" claims. Transport investments redistribute economic activity rather than create economic activity. Jobs "created" near transit largely come from elsewhere in the region.

But whatever your preferences for getting around, we simply can't ignore roads. Transit investment can be worthwhile and should be encouraged, but that doesn't mean we should never invest in roads. The 710 tunnel very well may do more for quality of life in the affected areas than trolleys.

Anyhoo, point/counterpoint.

There Isn't Any Traffic in North Korea

This piece in The Atlantic on North Korea is fascinating. Lots of photos, which is novel, and the views of the infrastructure are amazing. There are clearly no cars, trucks or trains operating regularly. There is scant evidence of electricity. And the traffic cops, shown above, have nothing to do.

UPDATE:
HEre is a whole YouTube channel dedicated to North Korean traffic bots.

Civil rights group: Highway bill needs 'equity' - The Hill's Transportation Report

Civil rights group: Highway bill needs 'equity' - The Hill's Transportation Report