Rain Driving Is Slippery for AI Driverless Cars

Dr. Lance B. Eliot, AI Insider

Driving in the rain is tricky for humans, likewise difficult for AI self-driving cars

There is an ongoing joke among Southern California drivers that when the rain comes along, we freak out, and don’t know what to do (this might be as much a local joke as it is an East Coast view of those “crazy” drivers on the West Coast).

With just a few drops of rain, traffic seems to become snarled, even more so than normal. Drivers don’t know whether to hit the brakes or hit the accelerator. And, because traffic is delayed, it causes some drivers to speed-up as a means to try and mitigate the fact that they’ve been slowed down — all of which then contributes to fear of heightened fender benders and the traffic getting even more bogged down. It’s a viscous driving cycle during the rain.

Fortunately, we only get about 15 inches of rain annually, which is not much in comparison to the whopping 40+ inches that a New York City or Seattle would get. Nonetheless, the relative scarcity of rain does perhaps make us less prepared for the rain. Less preparation includes that we don’t have working windshield wiper blades, or we are driving on bare tires. Less preparation also includes a forgotten understanding of how to drive safely in rainy conditions.

Those little droplets of rain can be a nuisance. Many assume that rain droplets are teardrop shaped, but the…