Re: Reasonable defaults
"so the too conservative is the correct setting, "
For uncontrolled roads, yes. But in reality you can't test other strategies if low level collision avoidance is stopping you all the time.
The proper answer is to present the system with only the variables you can handle at present, and only when you believe that to be representative of reality can you unleash it on the streets.
To be fair to Uber, they were doing that by running at night in an area that was relatively quiet. But still had nowhere near enough control of the environment and should in any case have then used the more careful strategies (with the expectation that they wouldn't be invoked).
There's some marketing in this too : clearly such a low-function prototype is a very long way from being safe to run on the streets. But 39MPH on an urban road looks far more progressive to your investors than 5MPH stop and go, so you'd want to demonstrate progress on that earlier rather than later.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
