That driver must have been as blind as a bat.

Those are the first thoughts that you might have upon witnessing a driver that blows through a stop sign. In that same instant, you probably are also thankful that no one got hurt. Whenever a driver opts to ignore or omit stopping at a stop sign, the chances of a calamity are pretty high. The kind of ultimate tragedy that comes to mind involves the shameful driver striking a pedestrian or ramming into another vehicle.

Government statistics suggest that perhaps 20% of all traffic fatalities are annually due to running a stop sign (considered a failure-to-stop or possibly a failure-to-yield, see my collection of driving related stats at this link here).

Take a moment to give that some serious and somber thought. Stop signs are important and whenever you are near one, you have to be wary of what other drivers might do, or what they might fail to do.

A research study estimated that around 700,000 car crashes each year take place at stop signs, though this number might be somewhat higher since those are just the crashes reported to the police (presumably, the bulk would be so reported). By-and-large, the crashes studied involved angular collisions. This makes sense since the odds are that the car running the stop sign is likely to broadside another car that is already in the intersection or the street wherein the stop sign was preventing traffic from immediately flowing.

I’m focusing herein on car drivers that completely run a stop sign and thus don’t even try to come to a halt.

Perhaps just as deadly are those drivers that do a rolling stop, sometimes also referred to as a California stop (see more on this at the link here).

These drivers will come upon a stop sign and somewhat slow down, though not come to a complete halt. They then roll through the stop itself and continue brashly on their path. In their minds, they believe that since they gave a kind of wink and a nod to the stop sign, slowing down a tad, this constitutes a “reasonable” kind of stopping action. Tell it to the judge when you get ticketed for this unlawful act.

The types of rolling stops can vary in degree.

Sometimes the driver nearly comes to a halt, meanwhile crawling forward at a minuscule speed and not using the brakes entirely, but at least lightly pumping them. Maybe this is a delicate or gingerly done form of navigating a stop sign and the driver figures that no cop would ticket them for such a seemingly minuscule infraction. Of course, this is nonetheless still an illegal driving action.

The brazen driver that opts for a rolling stop does a proverbial head fake about the stop sign. They marginally slow down their car. They act like nobody can see them as though their car is invisible. The result is swiftly shunting past the stop without any demonstrative degradation in their speed.

Finally, the whoppers of the stop sign violators are the ones that do not reduce their speed by a single ounce. These lawbreakers don’t lift a finger to come to a stop. They proceed through the stop without any hesitation.

One supposes the worst of the worst whoppers are those that decide to accelerate as they run the stop. Presumably, they must be thinking that if they are going to do something egregious, they might as well go all in. Maybe too they are thinking that the faster speed will lessen the time involved in the committing of the atrocious act. I can scoot past this stop sign and slip under-the-wire, as it were, with nobody being the wiser, seems to be their mantra.

Quick question for you.

Can you name the top 10 states that have the highest percentage of drivers that fail to stop at a stop sign or a red light?

Note that the question doesn’t ask which states have the highest counts of those incidents, and instead refers to the percentages involved. This is because the states vary dramatically in terms of the number of drivers, thus the presumed answer on counts alone would likely involve the states with the highest number of drivers and be ostensibly obvious (well, one supposes this is not necessarily the case since perhaps drivers in such states could potentially be more law-abiding in their driving).

Anyway, to try and even things out, the question entails the percentage of drivers in that particular state.

Studies seem to indicate that the highest percentage as ranked #1 (not the kind of top pole position any state would wish to attain) to the lowest of the top 10 is:

1)     Delaware

2)     New York

3)     Hawaii

4)     Wyoming

5)     Virginia

6)     Oregon

7)     Florida

8)     Iowa

9)     Illinois

10)  California

If your state is not listed, the absence is no cause for celebration. It only means that your state didn’t perchance land on the top 10 list. You still can have a slew of drivers that are running your stop signs. You can still be in danger whenever you approach a stop sign and meanwhile another car is approaching too.

Starkly stated, you are still going to either die or be injured when a callous driver blows through a stop sign and rams into your car.

Why do drivers opt to entirely run a stop sign?

One of the most common claims is that they did not see the stop sign and so were utterly unaware of the need to come to a stop. In that sense, it was an unintentional mistake.

Maybe the stop sign was hidden by an overhanging tree. Perhaps the stop sign was marred by graffiti and rather unreadable. The stop sign might have been bent and chopped up, no longer fully resembling a pristine looking stop sign. These are seemingly plausible claims.

There are counterarguments to be made.

Did the driver dismiss the aspect that though the stop sign was partially obscured, they ought to have nonetheless driven more cautiously under the assumption that a stop sign might be present? Was there a painted line to demark the stop and if so, did the driver ignore or dismiss that indication too? Has the driver ever driven at that location before, such that they would already have known that there is a stop sign there, even if it is now obscured?

And so on.

Another variant of an unintentional mistake could be that the driver was distracted while watching cat videos on their smartphone. This stretches the notion of intentionality since the driver was intentionally not watching the roadway and therefore you could argue that the alleged “unintentional mistake” was caused by a form of intentionality.

Yet another claim includes the straight out “I didn’t see it” assertion.

The driver might agree that upon hindsight that the stop sign was clearly identifiable. For some inexplicable reason, the driver just failed to notice the stop sign. They weren’t watching any videos. They were looking intently at the road. Somehow, the stop sign did not get included in their gaze or they were mentally preoccupied and failed to visually recognize and react to the stop sign.

This brings up those drivers that sometimes run the stop sign and then abruptly after-the-fact come to a full stop, doing so in the middle of an intersection or street. It is a kind of delayed reaction. They just realized they ran a stop sign, oops. To try and make up for the blunder, they decide that perhaps coming to an immediate halt will showcase their remorse. Of course, this might be handy as a driving action, or it could make things worse, depending upon where they decide to suddenly come to a screeching halt.

Besides those that unintentionally blow through a stop, there are the drivers that intentionally do so.

Some drivers assume that if they don’t see any other cross-traffic, there isn’t a need to come to a stop. The stop sign is apparently an optional form of traffic control. For all intents and purposes, a stop sign is the same as a yield sign. If there are other cars to be contended with, well, in that case, the stop sign might be of use. Otherwise, the stop sign really is a waste of time and attention.

Among those emboldened drivers are the ones that believe stop signs are meant for the sheep and not for the fox. You are the sheep since you legally come to a stop. The fox does not need to come to a stop. When approaching a stop sign, they believe that the stop is there to aid them in their progressing unabated. It was planted there to stop those other drivers that ought to get out of their way.

Whew, that is some impertinence.

Consider some other variations involving running stop signs.

We might have some sympathy for those that intentionally blow through a stop and are doing so for some understandable reason. A driver is rushing to the hospital and has a family member in the car that has suffered a heart attack and desperately needs medical care. That seems like a quite compelling basis for zipping past a stop sign.

The problem though is that if the urgency of this driver overrides the utility of the stop sign, suppose the anxious driver rams into and kills others in a car that was legally driving along where the stop sign was. It would seem erroneous to excuse the flagrant transgression of the stop sign if it endangers the lives of others.

The running of a stop sign can also occur by someone fleeing or escaping from a crime they have already committed. A driver that has just robbed a convenience store or a bank might decide that stopping at stop signs is going to slow down their absconding from the crime scene. There is some notable irony that oftentimes a crook is caught by the act of ignoring a stop sign. A police car perchance witnesses the stop sign infraction, pulls over the transgressing vehicle, and ends up capturing the suspects for the other crime that they had just committed.

Perhaps the golden rule is to always come to a full stop at all stop signs.

Our society tries to ensure that we all do indeed come to a stop at stop signs by usually making the act of not stopping into a criminal act. If you are nabbed running a stop sign, the usual penalty is a financial fee, along with added adverse points on your driving record. You might need to also go to traffic school or possibly incur some other stipulated repentant action. Your driver’s license could be revoked and the odds are that your car insurance rates will go up.

All in all, though these are important ways to threaten or browbeat drivers into complying with stopping, none of these methods are one hundred percent certain to stop someone from blowing through a stop sign.

Give that unsettling statement some added contemplation.

A stop sign does not have some magical powers that can force a car to come to a halt. The actions of the car are entirely on the shoulders of the driver. The driver can choose to stop or choose to not come to a stop. There won’t be a metal fence that suddenly pops up and prevents the vehicle from proceeding. There isn’t an underground magnet that can stop the vehicle in its tracks.

A stop sign is overwhelmingly a purely voluntary indicator and has no direct and no immediate enforcement to get a driver to bring their car to a halt.

All of us are betting that other drivers will realize a stop sign exists, they will observe the stop sign and proceed to properly come to a stop, they will remain at the stop for a sufficient amount of time to ensure that it is safe to proceed (some argue that there are a three seconds rule-of-thumb, namely you should wait for at least three seconds, but this is a slippery slope and the real answer is that you should wait for however long is needed to ensure proper safety), and they will then cautiously continue to drive ahead.

That is a mouthful and something that we all stake our lives on, daily, during the course of each and every driving journey.

Shifting gears, the future of cars entails the advent of self-driving cars.

These are cars that are being driven by an AI driving system and do not involve a human driver. We generally take for granted that self-driving cars will drive legally at all times. This implies that whenever a stop sign is encountered, a self-driving car will dutifully come to a full stop.

Even if that is the case (which we’ll examine further in a moment), there are still those darned human drivers that are driving around and opting to roll through or entirely blow through stop signs. That is a harsh reality that needs to be included in the calculations and computations of any semblance of a viable AI driving system.

Here is today’s intriguing question: What should an AI-based self-driving car be doing to contend with human drivers that blow through a stop sign?

Let’s unpack the matter and see.

Understanding The Levels Of Self-Driving Cars

As a clarification, true self-driving cars are ones that the AI drives the car entirely on its own and there isn’t any human assistance during the driving task.

These driverless vehicles are considered a Level 4 and Level 5 (see my explanation at this link here), while a car that requires a human driver to co-share the driving effort is usually considered at a Level 2 or Level 3. The cars that co-share the driving task are described as being semi-autonomous, and typically contain a variety of automated add-on’s that are referred to as ADAS (Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems).

There is not yet a true self-driving car at Level 5, which we don’t yet even know if this will be possible to achieve, and nor how long it will take to get there.

Meanwhile, the Level 4 efforts are gradually trying to get some traction by undergoing very narrow and selective public roadway trials, though there is controversy over whether this testing should be allowed per se (we are all life-or-death guinea pigs in an experiment taking place on our highways and byways, some contend, see my coverage at this link here).

Since semi-autonomous cars require a human driver, the adoption of those types of cars won’t be markedly different than driving conventional vehicles, so there’s not much new per se to cover about them on this topic (though, as you’ll see in a moment, the points next made are generally applicable).

For semi-autonomous cars, it is important that the public needs to be forewarned about a disturbing aspect that’s been arising lately, namely that despite those human drivers that keep posting videos of themselves falling asleep at the wheel of a Level 2 or Level 3 car, we all need to avoid being misled into believing that the driver can take away their attention from the driving task while driving a semi-autonomous car.

You are the responsible party for the driving actions of the vehicle, regardless of how much automation might be tossed into a Level 2 or Level 3.

Self-Driving Cars And Stop Signs

For Level 4 and Level 5 true self-driving vehicles, there won’t be a human driver involved in the driving task.

All occupants will be passengers.

The AI is doing the driving.

If an AI driving system has been programmatically devised to always stop at stop signs, this is some reassurance that the self-driving car will in fact be stopping at stop signs. The assumption is that unlike human drivers that might choose to abide by a stop sign, the AI is going to always bring the self-driving car to a halt at each and every stop sign.

Please realize that this is a somewhat arguable contention.

The AI might be programmed to come to a stop at a stop sign, but there are various means by which this might not get properly performed. For example, suppose that the sensors of the self-driving car do not detect a stop sign. Similar to how humans can contend that a stop sign was not fully visible, the same problems can impact the AI driving system.

The sensors on the self-driving car will typically include video cameras, radar, LIDAR, ultrasonic units, and the like. These sensors might detect a stop sign, or they might not. Furthermore, a stop sign might be somewhat detected, as in the system assigning a probability, and the question arises as to whether the AI ought to bring the car to a halt depending upon the assessed probability (obviously, this is helped mightily by having predefined maps of an area, though this can have its omissions too if a new stop sign has been set up since the map was last refreshed).

Imagine that the probability estimate was that a stop sign exists up ahead is at 10%. Is that sufficiently high enough to warrant the AI bringing the self-driving car to a stop? Your first answer is that it must do so, based on the belief that it is safer to stop than to not stop.

Aha, suppose that there isn’t a stop sign there, and meanwhile, there are cars directly behind the self-driving car. The self-driving car suddenly opts to come to a stop, yet the human drivers see no explicable reason for the self-driving car to do so. The human drivers are caught entirely by surprise, perhaps ramming into the rear of the self-driving car.

So, you see, summarily coming to a stop is not necessarily the always right answer.

One reaction to that scenario is that it “proves” that human drivers ought to be banned from driving. If we had only self-driving cars on our roadways, the aforementioned rear-end crash would presumably not occur. A self-driving car could use V2V (vehicle-to-vehicle) electronic communications to forewarn other nearby self-driving cars that a believed stop sign exists and thus the self-driving car is going to execute a full stop. All other nearby self-driving cars would ergo respond accordingly.

Yes, that’s a nice idea and it is a perhaps dreamy world of some far off future. Currently, there are about 250 million conventional cars in the United States alone, and they aren’t going to miraculously be replaced with self-driving cars overnight. It will likely take decades to gradually witness the advent of self-driving cars and the winnowing of conventional human-driven cars. On top of that, some say they will never give up their human privilege of driving, other than when you pry their cold dead hands from the steering wheel.

Setting aside the question of self-driving cars coming to a stop at stop signs, let’s assume for sake of discussion that they will do so, and shift our attention toward the other cars that are approaching a stop sign.

If a self-driving car detects a car approaching a stop sign, for which the AI driving system is expecting that the other car will come to a stop (let’s say it is a four-way stop and the self-driving car is now at one of those stop signs), what happens next?

Your first thought might be that the self-driving car should assume the other car will indeed come to a stop. But that flies in the face of the earlier discussion about the nature and frequency of human drivers that disobey a stop sign.

In short, the AI driving system has to take the posture that the other car might not stop.

As a human driver, if you are quite cautious, you do the same. You wait patiently to see if the other car is going to come to a halt. Does it seem to be slowing down? Does the driver of that car seem to realize a stop sign is there? Is the driver still in motion as though they are going to roll through the stop?

There is that shocking moment when you realize that the driver is going to entirely blow through the stop sign. It takes your breath away, that’s for sure.

Anyway, the AI driving system cannot simply be detecting that the other car has stopped. Similar to a human formulation, the AI should be detecting and tracking the other car as it approaches the stop sign. A vehicle that is approaching a stop sign should be reducing speed. If the speed is not being sufficiently reduced, it is a reasonable predictor that the car is likely not going to come to a full stop.

This requires the AI driving system to do anticipatory detection, tracking, and planning (see my coverage at this link here).

Rather than simply waiting to see if the other car comes to a halt, there is a need to anticipate what might happen. The AI driving system then needs to figure out the best strategy and tactics for the self-driving car to take accordingly.

Conclusion

You might be tempted to say that if the self-driving car can ascertain that the other car is also a self-driving car, the AI can essentially let down its guard and assume that the other self-driving car will come to a proper stop.

Nope, this would still entail a trust but verify kind of calculation.

Let the physics decide what the reality consists of.

AI driving systems are entering into a dog-eat-dog world of driving. Human drivers are susceptible to not obeying a stop sign. Fatal car crashes and terrible injuries can result from this human driving “foible” or lack of responsiveness.

Some pundits have argued that a future feature on cars, encompassing especially conventional human-driven cars, ought to be an electronic stopping switch that is activated electronically by a stop sign. All stop signs would be outfitted with an Internet of Things (IoT) electronic transmitter with a beacon that is continuously broadcasting a signal telling cars to come to a stop (known generally as V2I, vehicle-to-infrastructure devices).

All cars would be programmed to automatically come to a halt upon receiving the stop signal. A human driver could not override the stopping action.

Do we need to go that far in terms of forcing human drivers to stop at stop signs?

There are some that worry this would be a bridge too far. Suppose too if the automatic feature went awry and suddenly stopped human-driven cars when there wasn’t a stop sign present. And so on.

One last thought.

Many of the AI driving systems are being trained to drive via the likes of Machine Learning and Deep Learning, which are computational pattern matching techniques. Imagine if an AI driving system has been given driving data that contains examples of human-driven cars that blew through stop signs.

Would the AI “learn” that this is an acceptable driving action?

It would be an odd twist of fate to envision human drivers being wary of self-driving cars because you just never know when that zany AI is going to opt to run a stop sign.

Bad AI, bad.