Posted on 08/09/2017 6:22:22 AM PDT by Enlightened1
Driverless buses in Estonia have had a number of close calls, including ignoring a speeding police car's emergency lights.
The vehicles were introduced in the capital Tallinn in recent weeks as part of the Baltic state's presidency of the European Union.
Eyewitnesses have reported a few near misses since, including ignoring a red light, but no 'major incidents'.
Estonia's government brought in two of the buses on July 29 to operate a route between the city's Viru Square and the Tallinn Creative Hub.
This is the main venue being used by the Estonian presidency of the Council of the European Union.
Tallinn is the first city in which driverless buses will come in direct contact with live traffic, according to reports from state broadcaster ERR.
Each shuttle can carry up to eight passengers at a time and riding them is free of charge.
The vehicles only come into contact with traffic and pedestrians at one intersection, travelling the rest of the way following a currently unused tramway.
It is at this intersection where problems have been reported, according to eye witnesses speaking to ERR.
On another occasion, one of the Easymile shuttles ignored a green pedestrian light and surprised pedestrians by driving through the crosswalk.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
And the original model T had more in common with a modern golf cart than a car.
If these can even do this well, the writing is on the wall. Driveless will be our primary form of transportation and goods delivery in 20-30 years. It’s inevitable.
And by then, our love of automobiles will be satisfied by ludicrously realistic video games, for those that still need the experience. But once they die off, fuggetaboutit. Cars will be seen as something driven by automation.
Buses, cars, trucks, ships, trains and planes.
I don’t believe it will be that long. I suspect 10 years from now.
This is because 5G (Gigabit speeds) will be everywhere by then, and it will be easier. Plus a computer chip 10 years now should have no problem doing this.
The only question is what are all the people in the industry will be doing?
The new legal system will let the bus companies sue the pedestrians they run over for damaging their front bumper. :-(
I think I'm seeing the problem. They work great until they have to interact with something non-automated. Hey, what are a few pedestrians? Green light, what green light?
Driverless buses in Estonia have had a number of close calls, including ignoring a speeding police car’s emergency lights.<<<
On another occasion, one of the Easymile shuttles ignored a green pedestrian light and surprised pedestrians by driving through the crosswalk.<<<
It’s not texting when we do it.
Enjoy the freedoms you still have while they last.
By sister and her husband have a 115’ yacht that they used to keep moored in Seattle and Alaska. On one trip in Alaska I was talking to the captain of the boat about the automated guidance system and its connectivity to GPS and waterway mapping. The cool thing about the coast north of Seattle is that you can travel quite far north without ever hitting the open sea.
Anyway, he showed me how it worked and when I got a good idea of what it could do, I asked him if they could set a course from their location up north of Juneau to take them to Eliott bay (Seattle) and everyone could leave the boat and it would just show up there. He said that it absolutely would.
However, it would not sense other boats in its way or big floating logs, etc.
This was six years ago. Tech only gets better with time.
That’s pretty cool!
10 years from now a good portion of it will be automated.
An idea that will not survive First Contact with the tort bar in the United States.
Oh yeah that would not surprise me.
I have little doubt you are right about this.
Hopefully, we can set things right before private ownership is outlawed.
Isn’t a “near miss” actually a collision?
[WHAM! CRUNCH!]
“Look, they nearly missed!”
“Yes, but not quite.”
-George Carlin
Just wait till a ton of such vehicles are on the road, connected by wifi to the traffic systems and their handlers, often using the same or similar operating systems, and hackers get into the lot of them via the wifi, install bugs & trojans and a “driveless” road rampage ensues.
If it is “computers” it can and will be hacked and given computer viruses. There is no question it will happen.
Then after the first incident, watch and see what will happen with the liability insurance for “driverless” vehicles.
“few near misses since, including ignoring a red light, but no ‘major incidents”
Running a red light, not major.....got it.
Cue up "Red Barchetta" by Rush.
So, if you’re s*tfaced and use a driverless car to go home, would it still constitute DWI?
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