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Letter: Listen up, here's another blow for the robot cars

Published 15 September 2021

From Robert Checchio, Dunellen, New Jersey, US

Jeff Hecht notes the visual problems that self-driving cars have with identifying missing lane indicators, obscured road signs and so on (31 July, p 45). But there is another important set of warnings that isn’t mentioned: audible signals like train whistles and sirens. These give clues about potential conflicts that a visually oriented autonomous vehicle could miss.

Issue no. 3352 published 18 September 2021

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