Shamrock

When I was a kid I used to ride the sting ray handle bars with no hands for a short distance.I never thought 50 years later automobile operators would travel from point A to point B with no hands,the whole trip!Yes I'm talking the Tesla.We now have to be concerned about a CAR seeing or sensing us while on our bikes.

If it can not see a truck can it sense us on bikes? In all conditions? Should Tesla inform us how we can be seen better by its technology? What about snow,ice,floods,road construction,flag man,someone directing traffic,homemade stop signs after a storm because of no power? The list is endless.IMO these cars should be taken off the road and tested more,a lot more!!

andr0id

Pretty much everything in your post is wrong.

DrIsotope

When it comes to the operation of a motor vehicle, I trust a computer more than I trust a person. A computer isn't late for work, it's not checking its smartphone, it's not going to get tired or drunk. Cars don't plow into crowds of people at the Farmer's Market. They don't sneak out in the night to go street racing. People do that. If all vehicles were "self driving" there would be virtually no vehicle-related accidents at all, at least until people got in there and started messing with the programming.

Literally the last vehicle I worry about on the road is a Tesla.

MinnMan

Aww shucks, from the title I thought this was going to be a post about riding bicycles with no hands. There's a lot to discuss. Yes, when I was a kid I could ride my Schwinn Continental without hands on flat ground more or less indefinitely - not just straight but also around curves if the turn radius was not too small.

On my present bikes, it's much harder, though it varies from bike to bike. I assume that this is because of variations in wheel base and because I now ride with my saddle at proper adjustment, meaning my center of gravity is considerably higher.

I ride with people who are racers or ex-racers and they ride no handed on short wheel base bikes with ease - this impresses me greatly. I've even seen one remove a light jacket while riding. Maybe all of you can do that also, but I would crash.

brianmcg123

A Tesla can not be driven from point A to B no handed. The "Autopilot" on the vehicle still requires that the operators hands be on the steering wheel and paying attention. The accidents that have happened are in my opinion purely the fault of the driver not paying attention and or thinking the driver assist was engaged and in fact it was not.

As for the recent one where it drove under a semi, from what I can see the semi turned into oncoming traffic.

Tesla's biggest mistake is calling it "Autopilot" when in fact it should have been called Driver Assist. Autopilot makes the general public think that the drivers are able to take a nap while the car is in motion.

rm -rf

Exactly. The Tesla cars aren't supposed to be hands free.


But the Google self driving cars are. They have multiple sets of sensors, and keep track of objects all the way around the car.

From 2014, a demo video from google. If this can be refined even more, I'd much rather have a non-distracted car watching for me, instead of a texting or distracted driver.

Here's a screen shot, showing the car monitoring pedestrians crossing the street in yellow, a bike in red that is just passing the car in the bike lane, and an overtaking bike in red that the car waits for before turning right. And it's monitoring all the cars in purple, too.

deapee

Honestly, I'd trust that Tesla a lot more than a human-operated vehicle.

TimothyH

Google car crashed into a bus recently.

It was also fooled by a guy on a fixed-gear bike doing a track stand. The gentle back and forth of the guy balancing the bike caused the Google car to repeatedly start and brake, jerking itself across the intersection until the operator took control of the vehicle.

79pmooney

Hey, track stands take practice! These driverless cars are new to the game. Give them a season and they will be ready for the velodrome and match sprint. Think how long they can stay motionless once they figure it out.

Ben

Miele Man

I agree thatthe thread title is misleading and should have been "Driving no hands".

Riding no hands and taking off gloves or doing something else just takes a good sense of balance and lots of practice. Asphalt surface running tracks are a great place to practice. Even better is a level grass covered field as then a crash is more easily handled by the far softer landing.

Cheers

genec

AMEN!

Those Tesla owners are apparently NOT reading the owners manual. That "Autopilot mode" is only for controlled access roads with good lane markings...

NOT for city streets with cyclists.

KD5NRH

IMO, the "both hands on the wheel" thing is going to be the reason people hack the autopilot mode and remove that requirement entirely. Anybody who's driven down I-20 between Abilene and Fort Worth knows you're not going to do that with both hands on the wheel for more than maybe 5% of the trip. West of Abilene, I think I've made it to Pecos without ever having both hands on the wheel. Frankly, cruising down a runway-straight highway at 75-80mph, any maneuver requiring more strength than one hand at the top or bottom of the wheel can easily generate would put the car into a serious skid anyway.

They should have left it at one hand on the wheel, whatever position, and if no hands for more than, say, five seconds, it pulls over, parks itself safely on the shoulder, lectures the driver sternly, and has to be reset before continuing.

jefnvk

I work in the automotive world. I'm really not too worried about coming upon anyone that has the capability to hack the car and screw with the software, unless Tesla launches an app store, the people capable of such things just aren't out there in any significant numbers.

I've got the capability to reflash ECUs (including the hands-on-wheel sensing systems my company produces) sitting in front of me right now for the stuff I have access to code for, even I am probably not going to have the capability of downloading software, decompiling it, rewriting it, recompiling it and flashing the unit and have it actually remain otherwise functional.

Furthermore, I don't see anyone smart figuring it out and selling tunes to do it. Lot of difference between pulling a few more HP out of an engine, and actively suppressing safety systems, first accident with that software shut off would kill the company providing the tune in court.

KD5NRH

Just means the financial incentive for those who can is higher. As for liability, selling cracks under the table, anonymously for Bitcoin isn't exactly a new concept.

indyfabz

I can ride my bike with no handlebars, no handlebars...no handlebars.

Rick@OCRR

Back when I was younger I could ride no hands to put a jacket on or take it off, unwrap an energy bar, whatever. Now, at 66 I can still ride no hands for short periods of time (take off or put on sunglasses, zip up or unzip a jacket or vest, etc.).

Even if my skill level is the same, I'm no longer as confident as I used to be . . . probably a sign of age.

Rick / OCRR

Altair 4

I'd be surprised if ANYONE reads the owner's manual to anything. TL; DR seems to be an epidemic.

fietsbob

Pros Take their hands off to zip up their jerseys at 20mph.

genec

No doubt some of which comes from the short attention span garnered by TV and video games.

My wife just bought a brand new car... and the owners manual is about an inch thick, with some 10 different sections, some of which are 135 pages long.

Then there is the manual on the navigation console, and the quick start guides, as well as the maintenance guide.

Quite a library... and this isn't a "self driving" or even "lane keeping" automobile. It does have blind spot warning...

The ironic thing for me is that as a passenger, I have read most of the manuals... but lots of features are locked out while the car is moving, meaning that as a passenger, I have no access to stuff that I could do to relive the driver of things like communication and navigation needs.

The car for instance locks out texts from iphones... but allows android phones to display text on the main viewscreen. The car also locks out destination changes at the GPS while moving.... but allows full setting adjustment of the sound system.

Bottom line... RTFM.

genec

I used to ride hands free on tour to make quick PB&J... moving more like 14MPH...

italktocats

i can take off my bagpack, look for the thing i need, brake for the light and stop while putting backpack back on, without putting a foot or hand down, where do i sign up to get a sponsor

wphamilton

I would want at least the source code before even thinking about it. Even then, unintentionally introducing a bug could kill me, or someone else - you can't know what changing that parameter would alter elsewhere without going through the entire code base.

Even if it was feasible, if I recall correctly auto manufacturers have litigated the mere decompiling as an IP infringement under the DMCA. Too risky, in more ways than one.

FullGas

you might want to try and actually understand the technology before forming an opinion.

and fyi, Tesla has something like 130 million miles logged with their autopilot system.

what number are you comfortable with...?

Chris0516

My dad used to do this sort of thing with his MG Spirit.

jefnvk

I've played with decompiled code when I was in school. Not a fun thing at all to deal with, I agree completely. Depending on how exactly the systems were designed, an alternative could be to put a spoof transmitter on whatever bus the system was running on, tossing out fake data that made it look the steering wheel was reporting my hands were happily on the wheel.

But still, the chances I run into anyone on the road with the capability and desire to do so is relatively miniscule. Especially so, because these HOW warning/deactivation systems are probably going to go out the window as soon as regulators and the public are convinced that cars can drive themselves on a mass scale.