Semi-autonomous BMW will ‘fight driver’ to deliver close passes of cyclists

I think this is all too focused on a journalist making a throwaway statement about his poor practice to just “nip” round a cyclist when driving rather than indicating and moving fully over into the next lane and giving the cyclist plenty room. With more experience of the car I bet it would be intuitive to flick the indicator negating the issue.

Surely this is an issue with all stay in lane technology esp in combination with cruise control. If this is truely a smart car I’d hope it would also have collision avoidance braking that could detect cyclist and automatically apply the brakes, now that is a technology I’d like to see, esp if it works for cars pulling out of or into junctions (ie. 360 degrees around the car)

I think this is all too focused on a journalist making a throwaway statement about his poor practice to just “nip” round a cyclist when driving rather than indicating and moving fully over into the next lane and giving the cyclist plenty room. With more experience of the car I bet it would be intuitive to flick the indicator negating the issue.

Surely this is an issue with all stay in lane technology esp in combination with cruise control. If this is truely a smart car I’d hope it would also have collision avoidance braking that could detect cyclist and automatically apply the brakes, now that is a technology I’d like to see, esp if it works for cars pulling out of or into junctions (ie. 360 degrees around the car)

If it either can't spot a cyclist it shouldn't be allowed on the road. And if you have to wrestle it rather than it reverting to driver control it shouldn't be allowed on the road.

We need to set out minimum requriements for driverless cars to be sold in this country.  We already have type approval for cars so it can addded to those tests.  If BMW follow this line then their cars can be banned.

|This on top of the youtube video of the Nissan autonomous vehicle executing a close pass on a cyclist during demo, in spite of passenger highlighting it, the driver did nothing to intervene, having blind faith in the car's ability to "miss". No contngency was applied for the cyclist todeviate from his trajectory.

I think public understanding is vital but a lot of the media coverage is vague to say the least when talking about "driverless" cars. I couldn't quickly find any detailed info on what the BMW is actually doing. All the linked review says about the BMW is: 

"You can drive it or you can set it to semi-autonomously follow the road markings.

But a word of warning about that. If the road ahead is clear apart from a solitary cyclist, you do need to signal to overtake him, otherwise the steering wheel will fight you and you could pass him uncomfortably close."

To me, that is not semi-autonomous; it's driver assist at most.  More formally, I'd say it's level 1, possibly level 2 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_car#Levels_of_driving_automation). It's only level 3 and above where you can supposedly stop concentrating. 

Personally, the idea of Level 3 sounds inherently dangerous, if it expected that people could be sat doing something else and then take over immediately or within a few seconds.

To be honest, I think level 2 is dangerous enough - if you are driving, you should be concentrating.  Expecting people to maintain that attention when they're not actually doing the driving ignores what humans are like - with the best will in the world, your attention will wander if you're not directly involved and not expecting to do anything either for 99% of the time. 

Levels 4 and 5 though - that is a different matter. Properly done, I am very optimstic about this. My greatest concern is that in a rush to market, level 3 automation will be used inappropriately and unsafely, or that Level 4 or 5 will be released too soon. 

Edit: Ninja'd by Andy.

Autonomous vehicles are claassified 0 to 5; 0 being the Vauxhall Astra you used to pass your driving test in a few years ago, to 5 meaning fully autonomous and can operate in all weathers.

Level 3, where the vehicle takes on most functions, but the driver has to be alert to take back control at any moment, is the most dangerous due to drivers switching off. The insurance industry and Government are of the same opinion on this, that we should skip this level to Level 4 - the next vehicle can operate fully autonamously in all but extreme weather. I work for the insurance industry and have been to meetings with Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles/DfT in drafting legislation for a legal framework for insurance.

Not skipping Level 3 can lead to issues highlighted above, and if drivers do not take back control, then collsions can and will occur, with disasterous conqueuences.

The dream is almost reality!

AFAIK, what it does is that the steering wheel would vibrate and there would be some very modest resistance/force feedback if you attempted to move cross the white line without indicating.  It would not 'force' the driver to close pass any more than cruise control would 'force' you to drive straight into the back of a queue on the motorway.

This is a long way from autonomous driving, its intended as a driver aid, much like cruise control, lane keeping assist, etc.

Autonomously changing lane on a single carriageway potentially into oncoming traffic/pedestrians will require a degree of human interaction for the time being.

I was a passenger in an early generation driverless vehicle and found the experience deeply alarming. It had so many flaws it was unsafe for the road, though it was used on road with human back-up. The technology has been improved since then, but not enough. The systems are still not sufficiently sophisticated to understand the differing behaviour of cyclists and motorcyclists from four (or more) wheeled vehicles.

I wasn't aware BMWs came with indicators, never seen one in action! 

So, my enthusiasm for the driverless car as an answer to cyclist and pedestrian deaths is on the wain. People struggle with the level of competence required to drive on our busy roads with current distractions and the need for constant vigilance. THis new model appears to offer greater opportunity for distraction and resistance to the necessary intervention that could save a life. Lose Lose rather than Win Win! At least there will be a chance of a big payout for corporate manslaughter?

Bloody awful, well done Honest John for highlighting  the issue.

Am sure that there we be a typical BMW driver response.