They can't detect me slowing down before I start slowing down. So if it's t-4 until impact and I'm still moving at full speed, they would need to start braking now if they can't stop in 4s (assuming the worst case that I continue on my current trajectory).
That being said, I'm happy to find my assumptions about stopping time are incorrect and a car traveling at 25mph can stop in less than a second. So on busy NYC streets this wouldn't be an issue. Even at 50mph it appears that stopping time is sub 3s, so the vehicle could probably have avoided this collision if it were running a more intelligent program.
> They can't detect me slowing down before I start slowing down. So if it's t-4 until impact and I'm still moving at full speed, they would need to start braking now if they can't stop in 4s (assuming the worst case that I continue on my current trajectory).
Right, collision is basic physics accounting for the stopping time and distance of pedestrians and cars. So the question is whether pedestrians on sidewalks really have so many collision vectors with traffic such that autonomous vehicles would be jerky all of the time as the initial poster suggested.
I claim reasonable defaults that would far outperform humans on average wouldn't have that property. Autonomous vehicles should be programmed to follow the rules of the road with reasonable provisions to avoid collisions when possible.
That being said, I'm happy to find my assumptions about stopping time are incorrect and a car traveling at 25mph can stop in less than a second. So on busy NYC streets this wouldn't be an issue. Even at 50mph it appears that stopping time is sub 3s, so the vehicle could probably have avoided this collision if it were running a more intelligent program.