Right. There can’t get trains to have no driver and they are on rails.
Anybody who is in favor of this ought to think twice.
“American jobs for Americans” will fail if driving jobs disappear. Something like eight million jobs for persons of limited educational achievement.
We need a transition plan.
Maybe little cuckbois born to coastal Progressive parents will never drive a car, but I guarantee that every boy in flyover country and especially every good redneck boy will still learn to drive by the time he’s 12.
Will Governments Ban Drivers ?
What could possibly go wrong.
How 'bout we keep the potholes fixed for starters and time the traffic lights?
Transit planners also say self-driving cars will unlock bigger benefits, including fewer accidents, faster trips and fuel savings.
No thanks.
This whole thing just sounds like a stupid waste of money. We are Americans. We love our freedom.
In my case, I get carsick pretty quickly if I try to read in the car. I’d much rather drive than just be bored all the time.
I drive 30-40,000 miles a year. I just can’t imagine giving that over to a machine. Today, I hit a small patch of ice and the traction control kicked in. Frankly, I would have been more comfortable had it not because the truck jerked hard to the side.
I don’t want a self driving car. I love driving. I want the flying car I was promised in the 1960’s!
No. No. No. A thousand times no!!!!!
“children born today will never drive a car.”
Like many other things, I suspect this will lead to the end of Western civilization.
The problem lies in Arthur C Clarke’s quote: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
Children are now starting out in a time where there is absolutely no visceral connection to how things work. As such, it’s “magic”: they have no idea how it works, and after a couple generations almost nobody will.
I grew up at the beginning of the “personal computer revolution”: buying a computer meant knowing a great deal about how one worked, and it was simple enough that a young mind could easily grasp the totality thereof (even if it might take a career to fully understand). I watched Dad build a ZX-80 computer as a kit. My first real computer was the original IBM PC, which came with complete electrical schematics and BIOS source code; from that I built my own sound card for it. ... but today, every kid has a phone/tablet computer that is absolutely incomprehensible to them.
Likewise my first car was a Ford Escort: I did most of my own maintenance, replacing brake drums, alternators, etc and by that got a good idea how the whole thing worked. I had Fordor’s manuals showing how to disassemble the entire car completely, and to re-assemble it on my own. I eventually stopped out of convenience, and parts just becoming too inconvenient to bother with (d@mn oil filter placement). Being part electrical engineer by training, I understand all the concepts behind the newest car I’ve had - an all-electric Nissan Leaf. ...but for kids born today, the car they’ll drive will likely be a variant of a Tesla, complex to the point they won’t have any idea how it runs.
Put the two together, and you’ll get a car in 2040 that the post-driving occupant will see as little less than outright magic.
And in 2060, having been born into a world where their parents had little idea of how vehicles worked, young adults will be so far removed from how things work that they won’t be able to create anything new. Or make old things work for that matter.
Civilization as we first-world types know it will crash, having no idea how to make anything work.
Just like current third-world cultures that can’t even fix a child’s broken swing, being nothing more than a tire + rope + tree. Yes, that happens.
That won’t be good for the car magazines.
“New research suggests that children born today will never drive a car.”
That’s really sad, because I count driving a motor vehicle among the very few activities that I have really enjoyed in life!
Every time an article such as this pops up I comment on how much I love my 71’ International harvester Pick-up truck. Everything is manual from the fuel pump to the windows. It is overbuilt and was assembled by hand as opposed to robotics , that being the case disassembly and access to all of the components can be reached by a human arm/hand. The simplicity of it is why it is a daily driver to this very day. And if you read the comment of the man who hit a patch of ice and the “ride control” took over and pulled him hard right! Traction control = braking wether you want it or not. I even as 16-17 year old did not like cruise control as I looked upon it as something over riding my control of fuel to the engine. Anything that takes control over the 3-5 thousand pound vehicle that I am driving is a no-go to me...Also you would not believe how inexspensive it is to keep the International on the road , comes to just under 260.00 a year for registration/insurance/inspection sticker....so explain to me the logic of BILLIONS of dollars for communication sensors on roadways and then the absurd cost of new cars along with option 1 insurance if money is borrowed?
I think autonomous car operation will only be found in one place, the place that GM envisioned as far back as 1939: on limited access freeways. In short, when you drive on the freeway, you set it for the posted speed limit and a bunch of vehicles travel at the same speed on the freeway (with full compensation for amount of traffic and weather conditions), and there are special sequences to engage and disengage autonomous operation when you enter or exit the freeway.
I the robot cars can pay the taxes of the unemployed truckers, bus drivers, delivery people etc.
How do these things work when the road is covered with snow?
Can’t see lines. Can’t see curbs. Traffic signs plastered with snow. Sensors covered with ice.
One EMP attack away from Lord of the Flies
Will they ban “classic” cars from the roads?
I say they will not.
Not everybody can afford a new car. Or, a new “old” car.
In 50 years? Iffy, but probably not.
But insurance could make them cost prohibitive. Robot cars will be FAR safer than regular cars...and so very boring. I’m glad I won’t live to see it.