Posted on 08/22/2014 10:56:23 AM PDT by Citizen Zed
The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) is now making it mandatory for Google's driverless cars to be equipped with steering wheels and pedals.
The new regulations on testing have been released to make sure that a human can take control of the vehicle in case something goes wrong with the car's software, according to The Telegraph. The search giant is now unable to take its autonomous vehicles on public roads without giving drivers the ability to take "immediate control" of the car.
(Excerpt) Read more at hngn.com ...
There is no ‘the computer’. Planes, and probably the car, have a LOT of computers. One can fail, several can fail, and the plane is still controllable. The probability for more than one failure to take out a plane is astronomically high. I am not just saying that. In the avionics industry we have to do the math and KNOW how likely is for something to completely take out a flight critical system. Is the Google car developed to those standards? Can they prove it? I highly doubt it.
Politicians/bureaucrats are much smarter and more honest than ordinary peasants.
Get in, plug in the address and sleep on the way there. I’m ready for it. I can only die once.
/johnny
Most of present day cars are controlled by the ‘computer’.
ABS, steering assist, Stability Control, throttle, braking ...
I’m in the avionics business myself; I have a rough idea of what’s involved in building/maintaining a Cat IIIc Autoland approach, and would hope a “driverless” car would be built to the same standards.
But, given the cost, I know they won’t be.
When I die, I want to die peacefully in my sleep like my Grandfather.
Not screaming like the passengers in the back of his car.
Cool to see a fellow FR who knows what DO-178b is!
I bet there very few.
There’s at least two.
I think it makes sense. Planes have autopilot, but pilots can disable it and control things manually. An autopilot system in a car might be able to do 90% of the routine parts of a journey, but it makes sense for a human to take over as needed.
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