Stanford Robot Car Capable of Slide Parking 265
kkleiner writes "Stanford's Junior, the robot car that took second place at DARPA's Grand Challenge in 2007, has learned how to perform a tire-squealing 180-degree spin into a skin-tight parking space. Similar to a James Bond action scene, the maneuver is impressive and would be extremely difficult for a human to pull off. We won't be handing the keys over to robot cars anytime soon, but Stanford shows us that at least for some driving tasks robot cars can already meet or even exceed human ability."
Rude-bot (Score:4, Funny)
To counter, I'm inventing the Automatic Finger to quickly signal my frustration at being cut-off from my parking spot.
Re:Rude-bot (Score:4, Insightful)
c'mon, if a robot car took your park using the awesome sliding maneuver, you'd have to give it the thumbs up.
Toyota (Score:5, Funny)
We won't be handing the keys over to robot cars anytime soon
Heh.....let's work on getting cars to stop reliably before we start talking about that
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With the new auto-breaking system Volvos stop reliably without even the need for a driver:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNi17YLnZpg [youtube.com]
Er...okay maybe you have a point.
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Wind noise (Score:3, Funny)
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Well, they did have a Metallica song as the backing, but, well, Lars nearly had an aneurysm that something cooler than him was using their music as a backing...
This is awesome but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is awesome but... (Score:5, Informative)
IF you read TFA (a novel concept, I know!), it has a longer video which demos several different algorithms which fail variously; and then, ultimately, a final run which combines all of them to succeed. They claim that it is this smoothless combination is what is the real innovation here.
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Anyone seen the endings of those Jackie Chan movies? In the movie proper you see the fancy successes. The ending is where you see some of the other clips where stuff went "different".
Since they have resorted to "open loop" control, it means the robot is about as likely to make as many mistakes as humans. It's progress I guess, but really, if it can only get within 2 feet of actual spot, I
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Can I have said Robot Transform into Shopper With Recyclable
Grocery Bag and then pick up my groceries?
WHat do you say, Stanford? (Forget about the Toss-keys-to-valet
trick, we KNOW you guys can make it do that, eventually. We're
damn impressed by this one already!)
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I think that is really cool AI. But I don't know if failing a few times at a driving maneuver is really going to work for me as a passenger though.
To reiterate: the failures (on the video) were with a different AI (which they claim is the "conventional" algorithms used today). The success was with their AI, which is a combination of those techniques that, individually, were each failing on its own. There's nothing in the video that implies that their AI fails intermittently at this point.
Of course, I'd imagine that they've spent a lot of time testing & debugging it, and those skid marks could have come from there as well.
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"Succeed" is clearly defined by ending within the desired rectangle with the precision of 2 feet. It's all in TFA (*sigh*). It even points out that it's nowhere near enough to safely park the car in real-life scenarios.
The point is that no-one came up with a working model that could do what they're doing on the video before.
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So it's not like they were trying a bunch of times and then only filmed the one that worked (I assume that's what you meant, your post wasn't quite clear).
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Do notice all the tire tracks that don't lead into the parking spot? Like all of the robotics projects I've been involved in, this took a LOT of tries.
Sure, sure, but did you watch the rest of the videos where the demonstrate how single-modal control fails badly? That's where the other tire marks are from.
The point of the set of videos was not that the car can do slide parking per se, however incredibly awesome that is, but that it took a multi-modal approach to achieve it.
Autonomous? (Score:3, Insightful)
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Just a few points... (Score:5, Insightful)
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While I don't intend any sexism ...
Then why did you make any reference to gender at all? You could have made the exact same point without introducing any stereotypes.
Re:Just a few points... (Score:4, Insightful)
While I don't intend any sexism, the fact is that parallel parking is difficult, and many women would rather have the car do it than try it themselves. Parking assist (without the tire-scorching 180) is going to be a very popular feature among the minivan crowd.
heh every girl I know is awesome at parallel parking. I (male) have done it a grand total of twice in the more than ten years since I got my license; I would rather drive another few metres and walk a bit further than embarrass myself trying and hold up traffic.
I know it's the sort of thing I would learn with practice, but I drive infrequently and its just not a skill I need where I live, so I just can't do it.
For me, driving is a painful chore that I must do to get from point A to point B. I know some people enjoy it but I find it tiresome, boring, and a waste of time. I cannot wait for the day that I can get in my car and punch in a destination and sit back and read a book or idly stare out the window!
Re:Just a few points... (Score:5, Insightful)
Think of all the dangerous maneuvers and careless driving you've seen. That will be no more - speeds on highways can be increased, distances between cars can be decreased. You won't be driving the car yourself anymore, but you'll get to your destination faster and more safely than you do now.
Anyways, I very much doubt manually driving a vehicle will ever disappear. Driving is fun, it's something people enjoy - what this will simply do is eliminate all those times you wouldn't have fun driving, by giving control over to the computer whenever you feel like stopping.
the issue is proper driver education (Score:3, Insightful)
We don't need fancy robots; we need better driver training. In the US, you demonstrate basic proficiency in skills that matter 95% of the time when everything is going swimmingly, answer a very limited subset of the rules/laws of the road, and then get handed your license, and never need to do any of that again. Why are we shocked when people then miserably fail when the shit hits the fan? In other countries, you have to learn and demonstrate actual car handling skills, like recovering from a skid...and
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Yes Comrade, and as soon as we create the New Soviet Citizen, communism will work.
Anytime your plans call for people suddenly and magically becoming smarter or more responsible, you have an issue.
Re:Just a few points... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Get the scientists working on the tube technology, immediately. (tube technology)
Chop chop! Let's go!
Re:Just a few points... (Score:5, Insightful)
anyone who *dares* drive the car themselves will be considered negligent
That's about the only thing you said I agree with. Driving is stupidly dangerous [wikipedia.org] and I can't wait until computers are driving every car on the road. Freedom? Pfff, driving a car doesn't make you free. The idea is just marketing done by the auto industry to make you feel American and Free by buying 5 cars per family and the gas that goes with 'em.
Also, there is a HUGE FUCKING DIFFERENCE between a bomb, where the payload is intended to destroy, and a car carrying passengers. Think about fault tolerance...
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Think about fault tolerance...
We all know the value of splash damage...
But in all seriousness, driving with the intent of getting yourself to a destination is no fun at all. There are all these rules, speed limits, and other drivers ruining the whole experience. Cars as a mode of personal transportation are horribly inefficient and unbelievably dangerous. The act of driving itself can be tons of fun - if you enjoy driving, do it on a track (at whatever speed, and performing whatever maneuvers you'd like). The rest of us will take
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Driving in circles on a track is also no fun at all if you want to, you know, eventually end up someplace else.
But I think I have a good compromise:
You keep riding the subway in $bigcity, and I'll keep driving my cars in rural Ohio for fun. These are not mutually-exclusive things.
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What's always interesting about those statistics is how big a difference recessions make (fewer people rushing to work, fewer accidents) and how little difference speed limits make.
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Agreed.
Also - if cars drove themselves we wouldn't need so many of them. My car could drop me off at work, and then drive home to take care of my wife all day until I need it again.
If I needed a car unexpectedly I'd just punch something into my smartphone and in 2 mins a rental/taxi would drive up to pick me up.
Public transit would make a whole lot more sense if a car dropped me off on the train platform, and another was sitting there ready to pick me up for the last mile when I got off at the other end.
Fo
Re:Just a few points... (Score:5, Funny)
I guess it must just come naturally then.
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This is *really bad* from a freedom perspective. As soon as computers can reliably and safely drive cars, anyone who *dares* drive the car themselves will be considered negligent; they'll probably pass a law against it.
Probably only on public (taxpayer-funded) roads. Which I'm entirely in favor of. Public infrastructure exists to meet the needs of the public at large, not for individuals to play at being Dale Junior. I'm sure "stunt driving" by humans will remain legal on closed courses and tracks.
I expect a transitionary period with controlled-access roads like interstate highways and motorways going automation-only first, and surface streets following. And frankly, I can't wait.
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This is *really bad* from a freedom perspective. As soon as computers can reliably and safely drive cars, anyone who *dares* drive the car themselves will be considered negligent; they'll probably pass a law against it. And with pervasive networking, you can be assured the police will have the ability to remotely disable your vehicle, should the need arise (the can already do it with GM vehicles, which is problematic enough...). I do not look forward to a future where my movement *in my own vehicle* can be arbitrarily and capriciously monitored and regulated remotely.
You know, there's a reason why "slippery slope" is classified as a logical fallacy rather than a logical argument.
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I know, how dare anyone post something that isn't COMPLETELY REVOLUTIONARY, and change the way everybody does everything, in their lives. Anything less than that is not worthy of my attention. That is why I am so much fun at parties.
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Look at what the intense lobbying and marketing going into anti-drunk driving. The best example being MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Drivers.) To (rightly) save +10,000 people a year from being killed.
Once we have robotic controlled cars that can reduce traffic accidents by a suitable amount there will be a similar incentive to get rid of the bad driving of humans. Think MAHD (Mothers Against Human Drivers.) And I think saving another 10,000 plus people a year and further reducing insurance rates etc will make
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There is no reason we have to wait stuck in traffic because you feel you are losing your freedom to drive like a jackass.
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1) Yeah, that's just wrong, and missing the point. We can guide missiles into tiny spots because we have incredibly good models of their flight path. We can drive a car into a tiny spot in exactly the same way. What's interesting here is that they mix together a LQR controller with open-loop, in a way that does not require hand-tuning and gives excellent, repeatable results.
If we had a dynamic model of the car as it were sliding sideways, I'm sure we could use Lie brackets to discover all sorts of interesti
mecanum wheels (Score:2)
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Why not just put mecanum wheels on an all wheel drive electric car?
Stanford hasn't heard of gymkhana, apparently. (Score:4, Informative)
Similar to a James Bond action scene, the maneuver is impressive and would be extremely difficult for a human to pull off.
Bullshit [youtube.com]. Yeah, he's one of the best- but he's doing that in a 500hp AWD car, not a 100HP FWD diesel station wagon, at speeds several times higher than what Stanford was doing. Call me when they can do what he does.
It's also extremely difficult for a human to pull off crochet if they haven't been taught how. Or to shoot a rifle and hit a target a mile away. Or fly fighter jets in formation feet apart. Yet we do that. The question is: how hard is it to train someone, and how consistently can they do it, and how much effort did it take to get the computer to do it?
The answer to the first part: Top Gear did a show segment where they had Russ Swift [youtube.com] teach a bunch of people off the street how to do it. If I recall, they were grandmothers. They were going for a larger area, but come on- they were octogenarians.
The answer to the second part:
Apparently Stanford hasn't heard of rallying or gymkhana. Tens of thousands of people do stuff way, way more impressive than what Stanford is demonstrating- at much higher speeds in much more powerful cars. It's not hard, and the Stanford guys are grossly overexaggerating the complexity of the problem to model, as well. The whole point is that you use the car's momentum and lock wheels to make it slide predictably. Practice makes perfect for timing and aim (in the case of Top Gear, they practiced with inflatable boxes that were harmless to the cars.)
And, how many tries do you suppose it took the Stanford team to get it right?
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Wow. What bug crawled up your ass? If it's so fucking easy, why the hell should I be impressed by what's-his-face doing it?
Re:Stanford hasn't heard of gymkhana, apparently. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, he's one of the best- but he's doing that in a 500hp AWD car, not a 100HP FWD diesel station wagon, at speeds several times higher than what Stanford was doing.
It's a hell of a lot easier to pull off maneuvers like that in a powerful, lightweight, AWD car set up for sliding than it is in a family wagon....
Do you know anything about control theory? At all? It certainly doesn't sound like it. They're not just programming the car what to do and when, the car sees where the cones are and works it out for itself.
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Call me when they can do what he does.
Ok mr super unimpressed, you forgot to leave your phone number.
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I'll raise you one: Ari Vatanen driving up Pikes Peak:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKgeCQGu_ug [youtube.com]
And Ari's not only a wonderful driver, he doesn't need to do spin-out videos just to show off how great he is.
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Cool video, cool stuff. But there is good reason these stunts are done on closed tracks only.
Anyway to come back on learning capacity: we have been building computers for just over half a century now, and they are getting quite powerful. And indeed some AI is appearing.
OTOH the human brain has been in development for millions of years. Admittedly trial and error is less efficient than the direct approach like we have with computers, still I would say the learning capacity of our brains is far more mature
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Wow, way to miss point and be an idiot at the same time.
You must get really pissed off when people show off their computer programs that do natural language processing. I mean a 6 year old do better, and we manage to teach almost anyone to do it without difficulty much better than the stupid computer can.
Or their little robots doing stuff with video recognition in order to recognize and move blocks around - I mean toddlers can do that!
Umm... I have a question. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Umm... I have a question. (Score:4, Funny)
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If one parks a car this way, is it possible to un-park it?
Depends if it is a Hummer or a Hyundai parked in front of you.
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I always learned that to un-park your car you basically just go the same way you got in... some pushing to the side may be necessary in this case but should be doable.
Meh (Score:5, Insightful)
Impressive... (Score:5, Funny)
But where's the style? I thought it was common knowledge that the very first thing you're supposed to do after you've programmed a park to screech into a parking space is install a loudspeaker behind the grille which yells out, "heeeee-like a glove!"
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goddamn it, I'll sooner win the lottery than post a joke to slashdot without a glaring typo in it
VW's luxury brother already poked fun at this... (Score:5, Funny)
... before it even happened. A few Lexus introduced the automatic parallel parking feature, and Audi responded with this:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3593724097279407250# [google.com]
Amusing retort. Irrelevant for 99.9%+ of people, but sold right into the person you'd love to be.
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Awesome.
Human vs. robotic sensor suites (Score:2)
This really isn't so surprising at all. Humans have a rather limited sensor suite compared to some of the robotic systems we can now build. Maneuvers like the one described are all about full panoramic visibility and awareness, something humans don't really possess... at least not individually. Is it any wonder that humans so often cooperate in similar situations where one set of fixed eyes and ears really isn't enough? Think about a squad of soldiers: it's as much about combined awareness as it is comb
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That's kinda the point of robotics, ain't it? Successful repeatability. We can add boobies to the package later.
Copycat vs Brains ? (Score:2)
So basically they show that their car can learn by copying some known process in addition to their physics model.
Yet I'm curious to know how the car decide that they should use the learned process rather than their model. I mean, if they learned this parking maneuver on gravel, and tried that on slick pavement, anybody would probably fail. Can this car actually do better? I would be curious to see if the car can learn a maneuver in some given conditions and repeat it in slightly different conditions.
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In theory, the AI could learn (and/or be taught) just about every conceivable road surface and driving condition and how the parameters are inter-related. With appropriate external sensors, and for a single test manoeuvre, it is likely to be able to best just about any human driver.
This is simply an example of a robotic driver AI being demonstrated with more flare than the usual run-of-the-mill reverse park.
A vehicle AI driving blindly is equivalent to letting a blind man drive a car. The real innovation co
Intuitive Parking Assist (Score:2)
Pffft... (Score:2)
Well, Sebastian is German... (Score:2)
Various members of the Stanford DARPA challenge team have spoken at the IEEE Robotics & Automation society meetings here in Sili Valley, including Sebastian Thrun. All said at one point or another that one of their secrets of success was tuning the driving algorithms to "drive like Sebastian" (direct quote) because he "is an aggressive driver" (direct quote, delivered with a tone of understatement.) Sebastian Thrun likes cars... and robots. Right now I'm wondering what his arrival in the faculty park
So... (Score:4, Funny)
I'm looking for funding to put ramps and pyrotechnics all over national highways.
Thanks for checking this out (Score:5, Informative)
Thanks for checking this out! To answer a few questions that have been asked:
This video actually was indeed shot the first time we put the whole system together. Of course there were other runs, both demonstrating the alternative approaches and before we had everything working properly, that didn't succeed, but the final system was pretty reliable as autonomous driving goes. That said, we'd want to test this quite a bit more before I'd be willing to lie down where those cones are, and a big issue here is that the maneuver does shred through tires pretty quickly and is pretty tough on the car in general :-).
Second, I certainly wouldn't argue that what we're doing here rivals the very best human drivers (the claim we're making is just that this is one of the more challenging _autonomous_ maneuvers that has been demonstrated). The best humans are certainly able to drive incredibly impressive stunts, and we only claim to be making progress towards this level of ability. However, it's worth noting that this particular maneuver is probably one that _most_ people would have trouble with (I know I certainly can't do it!).
Let me know if there are any other questions, and I'll do my best to clarify.
Thanks!
Zico
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Sir;
Thank you for building the future. It looks neat.
Respectfully yours,
The present.
Re:Three Points (Score:5, Funny)
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I was thinking more of the Ghostbusters.
Who you gonna call? STANFORD!
Nope, doesn't have the same ring to it.
Turbo Boost (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Turbo Boost (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Turbo Boost (Score:4, Funny)
Your hostillity toward the Computer has been noted citizen, please report to the "armour testing lab" for re-assignment.
Praise the computer!
note: that is the lab right beside "exotic unstable weapons testing" lab.
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Re:Three Points (Score:5, Insightful)
"2. Parking like this is stupid and wears down the tires unevenly and too fast."
Obviously the point isn't that this is an efficient parking method, it's that it's a fucking awesome method that's being performed by a ROBOT. Of course you can't do this on problematic conditions, that ain't the fucking point in the first place.
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Actually, if the thing has adaptive suspension, it likely could make up for limited irregular conditions.
As for "wet road" and "hot road" adverse conditions, those could be calculated rather easily from the start.
And yes, I agree, if it can pull a park like that (obviously showing it off) it can probably do a regular park a whole lot faster and more accurately than any of us could.
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On #2, I ripped a front tire from it's rim in a Crown Vic once doing that. Well, it was actually a 30mph J-turn, but still the same general movement. Low profile tires help reduce that. In my case, a fun J-turn on a closed course (performance driving training pad, after hours), turned into an exercise of changing a tire when it was 95 degrees out with the sun beating down on you.
I wouldn't worry about the uneven treadwear. I'd worry more about the stress it's putting on th
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3. That would be a disaster for pretty much any human attempting that sort of maneuver. I'd probably still put my faith in robots.
To put one's faith in a robot, is to put one's faith in the [ability/morality etc of the] human(s) who designed said robot.
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If your definition of robot is "machine controlled by an intelligent computer program" then I'm sorry to say, you're ALREADY putting your faith in such things, hundreds of times per day. Hell, you're putting your life in a computer's hands on a second-by-second basis just by being within ten miles of a nuclear power plant.
Unless pebble bed reactors [wikipedia.org] become deployed on a commercial scale.
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Most nuclear power plants have containment buildings around their reactors, that keep anything bad from happening to anyone even if the reactors were to blow up. Newer ones also have reactor designs which the laws of physics prevent from blowing up, no matter what the controller does.
But hey, keep on scaremongering, so we can keep on enjoying breathing coal ash.
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The people who designed those robots spend a lot more time than the average person does, thinking about the road.
Still, this needs a lot of testing.
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3. That would be a disaster for pretty much any human attempting that sort of maneuver. I'd probably still put my faith in robots.
To put one's faith in a robot, is to put one's faith in the [ability/morality etc of the] human(s) who designed said robot.
Rather than answer all of the other replies to this...I thought I'd follow up and say the above was more of a clarification than an attempt to disagree with the parent.
I was not saying we shouldn't put faith in robots (or machines), but rather that we should understand what we are putting our faith in. Otherwise it technically wouldn't be faith at all, it would be "hope".
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It was actually a Fairmont.
http://www.ls1tech.com/forums/attachments/vehicles-wanted/172653d1238176562-wtb-78-82-ford-fairmont-futura-mercury-zephyr-fairmont-futura.jpg [ls1tech.com]
From the Crappy Days of the american auto industry. I think it was built on a Friday :-)
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Look up the Ford Model T. I hear it sold a few units and changed a few business models.
Well, except for the part... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, except for the part that you very likely could have killed yourself and two other people, possibly more. You were extremely lucky, as 99 times out of 100, when you lose control of your car while swerving, EXTREMELY bad things happen. The fact that this once it didn't doesn't make this an awesome story, it makes it a bit of a sad one to hear that your stupidity was rewarded.
What you did shouldn't be glorified. These maneuvers are exciting to watch on television and in the movies when performed by professionals with years of training and under extremely controlled conditions (and, incidentally, medical personnel immediately ready in case of accidents, some of which have killed even those professionals). But frankly, it sounds to me like the guy who was pissed off wasn't the asshole. I would have been pissed off too, and would have rather taken the damn bus than ride with you again. Maybe after two or three people you know are killed in car wrecks, you'll look back on this story and "awesome" will no longer be the word you use to describe it.
Seriously. I feel like you're saying, "I played Russian Roulette with FIVE bullets loaded in the gun, and I won! It was awesome!" No, it wasn't awesome. You were a dumbass.
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Oh shut up. The guy was a TEENAGER.
I have a friend who swerved as he was coming over a rise and a truck was hanging ass into his lane (he was going a bit too fast). Swerved across the road, then back, hit the gravel, spun it, flew into an orchard, and miraculously flipped end-over-end 6 times keeping a perfectly straight line down the aisle. He crawled out the busted window and walked away from it.
Similarly awesome story to retell. In an infinity of alternate universes that guy is dead. No question about it
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You are wrong, whether or not you are willing to admit it. It is, actually, awesome.
His actions being stupid, reckless, and dangerous are not detractors from this being awesome. In fact, the reckless and dangerous part, in combination with nobody getting hurt, are the very things that make this awesome.
You clearly have a bad concept of awe. You yourself believe this event to be one in a hundred, yet he rolled that magic one on his first roll (roll being the metaphor for uncontrolled swerve, not swerving in
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I didn't realize he was a TEENAGER, that makes it all right. I forgot that teenagers are invincible
The point is - he was a teenager. His UID belies the fact that he's no longer a teenager. I'm pretty sure that he doesn't swerve side to side across the road anymore, or carpool to high school. I'm willing to bet that he doesn't drive in an unsafe manner at all, anymore. I'm also willing to bet that the reason for that is due, in part, to that little story. Have you ever been behind the wheel of a car that, even momentarily, was completely out of your control? Did it give you a fear-for-your-life adre
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Lots of people here like to say "censorship= evil" etc, but basically you don't want to make it so easy for teenagers to get stupid ideas - they can come up with plenty by themselves. Once they've survived that period, then sure.
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"censorship= evil" etc, but basically you don't want to make it so easy for teenagers to get stupid ideas
No, no, no. If you allow it for a good reason, people start doing it for bad reasons.
Just don't censor the videos of teenagers doing stupid-ass stunts and ending up as chunky hamburger. And make them compulsory in Drivers Ed.
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Exactly, please don't have kids.
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It's life, you will eventually die anyway.
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Oh shut up you crab in a bucket!
People also were extremely lucky to get to the moon, as previously 99 times out of 100, everyone would have died a firey accident.
If you only think about what could happen, you have to lock yourself down in a sterile environment below ground and everything.
Take a fucking risk will ya?
I’m not saying go crazy. I’m saying learn to know what you can do and what not, and get to your own limits. Because that’s literally the difference between a genius an someone c
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That's what you do if your car for some insane (and likely impossible in reality) reason accelerates by itself.
If your car is actually out of control, that is, sliding and not responding to steering and brakes, the last thing you need is locked up brakes or ramming a guard rail at 45 degrees angle.
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ksemlerK, clearly you don't even have a minute of winter driving or gravel experience. Frankly, I don't think I've ever seen anyone quite so misinformed about what to do. I hope that nobody heeds your advice and that I never run into you on on the road...
If your car is sliding on gravel, rain or ice you want to steer INTO the slide, not in the opposite direction. Te same applies if you misjudged a turn. If you end up going in a turn too fast and your car is understeering or oversteering. Simply reduce the
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Speaking as a former teenager..
If you had swerved like that while I was in the car, then - assuming we survived - once we stopped, I would have punched you as hard as I could, preferably on the nose. Then I would have called the police, explained the situation, and made sure your license was taken away.
Not all teenagers are so eager to get killed, moron.
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Fair few racetracks and testing areas will not allow a vehicle to be operated without someone at the wheel (insurance is hell).
Found this one out when I was in high school and a few of us made a remote control datsun 120y. The problem we had was that no one trusted anyone else enough to sit in a car someone was driving with the remote kit.