Posted on 03/07/2015 3:05:54 AM PST by SMGFan
We don’t have driverless trains and they are on RAILS! LOL.
You are absolutely right. Just think of the benefits. The elderly who lose their right to drive will be mobile once again. ER visits for trauma will free-fall. Trial lawyers will no longer clog up courtrooms with bogus liability cliams. I can think of dozens more.
Interestingly, this is probably a much bigger factor in the development of self-driving cars than anything else. As modern, developed nations face a demographic disaster, one of the few growth opportunities for auto manufacturers will be in selling cars to elderly people who have no business driving them.
They're coming! The locomotives in a nearby switching yard are driverless. The tram (train) at our airport is driverless.
You notice how similar the pro driverless car arguments are to Willie Green’s train fantasies?
All the wonders of the star trek age and all it costs is a little freedom and a lot of taxpayer dollars.
P.S. I'm pretty sure those locomotives in the nearby switching yard aren't exactly "driverless." It's just that the "driver" isn't in the locomotive. They're operated by remote control.
Why does “Colossus” come to mind?
Ofcourse, I don't want government driven cars. But, then, I look around me and I see mass levels of morons who don't have enough impulse control to not check Facebook while driving 75 miles per hour on the highway. People with zero critical thinking or ability to use cause and effect in their daily thinking and choices. The idea of those jackasses no longer sharing the road with me is enticing.
Regardless of what I want, the infantilization of society marches on.
A whole new meaning to BSOD
Yeah I can see the practical aspects of driverless cars but they’re very limited unless all are forced to use them. I can think of times when I might enjoy just riding and enjoying the scenery but I want the choice.
I think there’s already a model to look at in this regard, and it’s the automotive costs themselves already have built in liability expense. The costs of recalls are certainly an accounting accrual, whether they happen or not for a model. I would think the same would hold true for the manufacturer liability for this technology as well.
That cost will be part of the fallibility calculations.
There's a reason why this is the case: With a self-driving vehicle, the only feasible automated function in the event of a technological failure or malfunction is to stop the vehicle. Stopping a vehicle in a self-parking mode is harmless. Stopping a vehicle under normal driving conditions is disruptive at best and disastrous at worst.
Interestingly, the biggest impediment to self-driving cars may be a legal system that can't figure out how to deal with them.
I would enjoy it for a trip north on the highway but it would have to be very sparse traffic and I would be alert and ready to take control immediately.
Driverless cars will be here much sooner than people think. Available on the market in 3 years. Majority on the road in 5-6. With reduced crashes come reduced vehicle weights, fuel optimization, engine optimization, speed optimization. Fuel use could be cut in half. The cars would be tin cans, but they'd be safe and dirt cheap.
The remaining 10% will be real doozies!
“Can a self driving car see a child playing with a ball in a yard and know to slow down in case the kid runs into the street?”
I’m not sure if the car will anticipate anything in the normal sense, but once the ball or child move towards the street the 360 degree LIDAR will detect it and react faster than a human. The car won’t be speeding either, so stopping distance will be short.
Even with current technology reaction times and braking are far better than humans - and most drivers are far worse than the best. It will only improve from here.
“Can the self driving car determine if the object ahead is a squirrel, dog, or child and if needed swerve accordingly?”
Yes, that has already been demonstrated, again with LIDAR.
Of the other concerns you cite, weather in general and ice in particular is probably the hardest issue. I’m not sure what’s being done there, but it wouldn’t take a lot to exceed typical driver performance.
Regardless, manual control will be available for the forseeable future when you think you can do better than the computers....
In my case, the car was driven by the road (it interacted with transmitters and transponders in road signs and other roadside elements). Today, there’s a GPS component that wasn’t developed at the time.
It was not practical and never would have been. The system used today is the “electronic tuner with infrared remote.
In other words, self-driving cars may come at a time when the need for them is diminished, and the cost of them is higher than a standard automobile.
It’s filled with classic bits. As another poster said (of another movie) — fantasy then, documentary today.
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