Posted on 03/11/2016 7:09:11 AM PST by gridlock
Can computerized cars drive better than we can?
The cover story of Time’s March 7 issue makes “the increasingly compelling case for why you shouldn’t be allowed to drive,” claiming that computerized cars are (or, it is hoped, will be) safer drivers than humans, and so the logical thing is to ban humans from driving altogether. The plan is simple and familiar: First you use behavioral economics (higher taxes) to discourage a certain behavior — think of smoking — and once it’s gotten really unpopular, you ban it. Before you know it, you can’t smoke in Central Park.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
I long for the day computers do all the driving.
The next time you are in Walmart... look around and think about the fact that these same morons who can barely drive a cart are the ones just inches away from you on the freeway driving 80.
If you want safer drivers, then make them take a physical exam and eye test every 6 months to 3 years like pilots have to (depending upon their ratings.) And, there is a whole laundry list of drugs you better not be taking. I carry a million dollar liability policy with a half million coverage on all passengers and a 100k total loss on the aircraft. That insurance only costs me 700/yr. That should tell you something. Granted, that would take a bunch of drivers off the road, but it would definitely get rid of ones that shouldn’t be there.
>> We killed off the enforcement of 55 by actually driving 55 on I5. The traffic backed up for miles.
From the retired commander of a western state’s highway patrol:
“We don’t care about speeders; we care about “over achievers”. (-:
As if today’s human race isn’t helpless enough.
I agree - computerized cars cannot deal with strange situations...and the array of cameras and sensors could not function well on a dusty dirt road.
Sadly, I think these realities will be used as reason to ban all human driving (gets rid of strange situations computers can’t handle). And, in a liberal dream world, those of us living on dirt roads may be allowed to drive to the nearest paved road, park the car, and await a computerized car to take us the rest of the trip.
Collective bus is broken. Dimitri come by with oxcart. You hitch ride.
The more extreme element among them would insist that the planets capacity for humans was limited to about half a billion, the population of the earth throughout most of recorded history until capitalism was invented in the early 18th century.
The moderates would counter that improved technology (which, of course, had nothing to do with capitalism) would allow the earth to support many more humans now, perhaps even as many as four or even five billion.
Nice!
Absolutely correct. The government cannot control where someone goes when they're in their car ... and the Left/Democrat Socialist Party hates this!
R”ace back to the farm
To dream with my uncle at the fireside”
What is this from? I love it.
I haven’t heard a Helen Keller reference in a long time. You must be well over 50 to even know who that is.
I have concluded that driving a car is the most technically challenging thing that many people ever do.
You must be well over 50
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
No, I am not. It just feels like it.
“those of us living on dirt roads”...
Under Agenda 21 we will either be moved out of the country to concentration camps or eliminated as UN Agenda 21 wants to reduce world population by 85%.
On the bright side it will greatly cut down on DUIs and save a bunch of lives. I am not sure how the states will survive without the revenue stream.
Really we just need our driver’s education to not suck, more time behind the wheel, more time understanding how a car works, more time teaching road scanning, more time on regaining control, and just generally less focus on trying to hand out drivers license and more focus on making skilled drivers. European drivers are much better than us and they don’t have to go through all that.
“They won’t need to put us in cattlecars — they’ll just tell our cars to drive to Auschwitz.”
Now that was brilliant.
They’ve been trying to get us out of our cars since the sixties, when the strategy was to make gasoline too expensive to buy.
Every day, I encounter situations that I think would challenge a computerized car. As an example, the other day a delivery truck stopped in the middle of the road. So, I had to go around him...crossing a double yellow while doing so. Do you think (from a liability standpoint) a computerized car is going to be programmed to cross the double yellow?
I also see technical challenges that are near impossible to overcome. The system relies on cameras and LIDAR - which is a blast of LASER pulses that get reflected back. We have such equipment where I work. It does not work in dusty conditions, driving rains, snow, ice storms, etc. And no amount of technology can overcome the need to keep the lenses for all this equipment free of mud, snow, dirt, etc.
There is also a calibration component to this. LIDAR is usually handled with kid gloves...but even so our unit is spending 6 weeks in a foreign land getting calibrated right now. I can’t imagine how often this would have to happen when used in an automobile. The data collection aspect of self driving cars will always involve precision instruments...and keeping them ‘precise’ is always going to be a problem.
Then there’s an economic aspect of it. In order to interpret the data and drive the car in real time, the computing almost certainly has to happen ‘on board’, and not ‘in the cloud’. This means the computers are on board. I have seen LIDAR and associated computing equipment on board a vehicle...and there was an air conditioning unit required. So, in addition to the standard cost of an automobile, you have the additional cost of precision sensing equipment, and also the additional cost of on board computers, and finally the additional cost of air conditioning. Oh yeah - and the fuel cost to lug all that stuff around.
Sure, it is technically possible to operate a self driving car, in optimal conditions...but I don’t ever see it being feasible for a mass market. IOW, these may be used in and around a large factory complex, maybe quarry equipment, etc - environments that can be controlled to some degree, and where the cost is justified. For the mass consumer, I’d actually put my bet on a flying car before a self driving car.
But, as usual with cowards, they'll do it through the government, by regulating auto manufacturers and state highway funds so that compliance with "auto-autos" become the only viable transportation alternative. The cost of a driver-driven car will become prohibitive, where you can even find one.
Looks like a golden opportunity for an aftermarket "customization" business that specializes in disabling the gestapo-drive.
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