<a class="postlink" href="http://www.sacbee.com/2012/06/03/4534103/californias-taking-the-lead-on.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.sacbee.com/2012/06/03/453410 ... ad-on.html</a> Focus: Cars without drivers? Technology run amok or on your Christmas list for 2015? How would you use/abuse this technology? So, I like the sci-fi implications of a commute without actually having to pay attention to the road as much as the next guy. Let's consider for a moment the implications of a box you can hook up to your hoopty and make it convey you to your destination. I wouldn't buy a car I couldn't drive, but I would totally buy the OPTION of having a computer pilot me to and from. Imagine never getting a DUI because the computer was driving, or arriving to work already ahead of the curve because you read all the bullshit emails on the commute. I still like my antique vehicles, and the real question is whether or not I would buy a motorcycle with this capability. It would be all the fun of riding with presumably much more safety built in, with none of the purity.
I have no love affairs with cars. They are boxes with wheels to get me from point A to point B and nothing more. So give me and everyone else a self-driving car and take all the retarded human error we all commit out of the equation and we'll have a faster, safer, better commute. I hate the time I lose commuting, I'd rather read or get some more sleep or do anything else. Bring on the self-driving cars.
I'm surprised it's taking this long. Pretty much all of my farm equipment can drive itself with GPS, and it's been that way for years. If I didn't have to drive my vehicle I'd probably get a lot more done, since I can be on my laptop while I go places. I'd be able to get shitfaced at any time without having to worry about avoiding a DUI. Also, no more speeding tickets. The vehicle would still have to have a "manual mode" though. Edit: I just finished reading the article and noticed this: Because updating your Facebook is real fucking productive.
I think driverless cars would be the greatest fucking invention ever and barring malfunctions I don't see how anyone could argue against them. Unlike downndirty I would probably never opt to drive myself, I'd much rather read, sleep or do some other bullshit. Imagine how much better going out drinking or going on road trips would be if you didn't need a DD? Or imagine when you need to do a ten hour drive you start at bed time and sleep the whole way there? This is the only thing that scares me, how long until it is expected that you read all your e-mails on the commute?
Or everyone could use a system that is already in place and widely known. It's called the public transit system. Pump some more money into it, make it more economical to use and you'll have your self-driving car in no time.
Oh yeah because running on the public transit schedule, extending your travel time due to the route and getting yourself to a stop is totally the same thing as having a self driving car.
In fairness to his argument if everyone made the push to public transit there would be way more stops, so maybe us rural people would only have to walk five miles.
If you had a public transit system that went everywhere I wanted to go, when I wanted to go there, then sure. Maybe some sort of system that aligns public transit along preexisting roadways to maximize flexibility and convenience... wait, that's self-driving cars. Don't get me wrong, I like public transit too and I want more people to find easier ways to carpool (like the park and ride systems near various cities), but I don't see a self-driving car as being somehow mutually exclusive to a train.
I rode the bus multiple times daily while in college and it was perfect for my lifestyle back then. Today it is a very different story. Besides, what about rural areas (or pretty much anything but major cities)... How could you make an efficient system for towns of >1000 people? I'm totally on board with the concept of a self driven car for the aforementioned reasons. Also I'd bet a computer could drive a car much more efficiently than a human. Just imagine how much fuel could be saved by precisely accellerating/braking at the right moments (combined with topographical data).
What about combining the two? A self-driving, collective taxi would be a cheap and easy alternative to public transportation in small towns. The absence of public transportation in a lot of mid-sized US cities is fucking pointless. Anyone who has driven in Atlanta since the 1900's can agree the city would be greatly improved with fewer cars on the road.
I feel like I've been reading this story for 20 fucking years. Weren't they testing driverless freeway systems more than a decade ago by placing magnetic censors in the pavement? I mean who could argue against self driving cars? In theory it's fucking amazing. In reality, the lawyers will fuck this up, immediately. The biggest problem of the whole concept is only mentioned in a sentence in a half. I can only imagine the litany of litigators licking their chops to sink their teeth into all of the liability issues this brings up. I mean the minor fender bender is becomes an issue like they mention, you really think we'd ever be legally allowed to let these things become designated drivers for a night of heavy drinking? Get real. Really, how could lawyers not fuck this up before it got off the ground? The closest thing Ive come to this was the Taxi system in Shanghai. The government ran most of the taxi services so they were essentially public transport systems themselves. It was still the most expensive of the options. Even though you could flag a taxi right outside the door of your building it wasn't guaranteed you could find one in a timely fashion. During certain heavy traffic parts of the day or if it was raining it could take 30-40 minutes to find a taxi that was open, so even taxis youd have to plan this shit into your commute time. The few pluses were outweighed in the end by the negatives. Economically I don't think this would ever have a chance of working in the states.
As others have alluded to, this works cause there is no traffic. To speak of, similar to autopilot on planes. A freeway of driverless cars could be great, like a ride at an amusement park, but add a few human driven cars piloted by poor drivers, and shit gets real.
Everything that Kahn said 10X over. What happens when one of those cars breaks down/malfunctions? It's GOING to happen eventually. Machines eventually break.
If it's like an airplane on autopilot, then the idea that you can read/check email/be piss drunk is moot, isn't it? Planes still have pilots, and those pilots are under strict regulations about their training, their sobriety, and even the conversations they can have in the cockpit. To suggest that the car can drive itself home while you're hammered assumes that nothing will go wrong. What if a deer runs out onto the road? Someone veers into your lane? In a plane, the pilots would take over. Presumably you'd have to do the same in a car. So if you have to be sober and paying attention to the road to be behind the wheel (or whatever it has), why not just drive it yourself? I agree with the fellow quoted at the end of the article:
There have to be considerations taken when these things are designed and sold. I think part of the reason why this technology has taken so long to reach this stage is the complexity in the driving system has increased dramatically, as have our standards. We have historically low levels of accidents, and immense costs for accidents. We also have a metric shit-ton of legal challenges that vary state-to-state and the law will change much slower than the technology and the business aspect of it. I do think we are still a LONG way away from being able to surrender complete control of the vehicle to a machine, because of things like accidents, dui law, and gaps in the technology. I also think that this will be used in trucking and industrial driving way before it ever reaches one of my cars. I imagine that the road trains in Australia would benefit from having some automation, at least in terms of reduced cost and increased speed. The argument in favor of this is that it's something that's almost universally beneficial. It could result in fewer accidents, fewer emissions, better economy (not just in fuel, but transportation in general), less time "wasted" on commutes and road trips, and a different view of transportation in general. One would hope that in the face of those benefits, the law and business environment would adapt, if one were a stupid, optimistic hippie fuck.
I like driving. A lot. So much so that I'm going to drive to Monterey alone next month to take The Guy his car. I'm really good with my phone, a charger, syncing the sound, and scenery that changes. Audiobooks rock too. And for the day to day shit, none of that really bothers me.