Self Driving Cars

[Mr_B]

These are already legal in Nevada and a lot of manafacturers are saying they will have their versions ready by as soon as 2018. The google "autonomously driven" cars have logged over 500,000 miles without ay accidents, the only accidents caused were caused by driver error on the other vehicle.
What intrigues me is what this will do to society. Thousands of people wont die on the road each year but millions of jobs will be lost as potentially there wont be any need for auto insurance, body part shops and all the industries affiliated with that. Car manafacturers will actually be hurting themselves as with less accidents/cars written off, people wont buy cars so often.
Then , there's the legalities part, will people be allowed to drink and drive as long as the car is in cruise control, thats just the tip of the iceberg, plenty more scenarios I'm sure I havent covered

 

[Superted]

I heard that Mercedes have had a car drive itself on the autobahn, and from one side of Munich to the other.

The leaks are interesting though. As with all technology, there'll be stuff ups. And when those happen, property will be damaged and lives could be lost. It will still be up to the driver to oversee you would think, to take over if things lost control.

 

[Superted]

Legals, not leaks.

 

[Craig_J]

I heard that Mercedes have had a car drive itself on the autobahn, and from one side of Munich to the other.

The leaks are interesting though. As with all technology, there'll be stuff ups. And when those happen, property will be damaged and lives could be lost. It will still be up to the driver to oversee you would think, to take over if things lost control.

There would surelly have to be controls in place for the driver to take control if somethings going wrong and so you should still require a liscence but the reason for people getting this would be because they are lazy, think many people would be watching tv, using a laptop or reading the paper rather than paying attention to an automated car.

 

[richie_spur]

If you can't sleep whilst the car does your commute for you it all seems a bit pointless. If I've got to be awake and watching the road I might as well just drive the ****ing thing...

 

[scaramanga]

There's a good Freakonomics podcast out there about this.

The problem is that socially we'll accept a few hundred deaths a year caused by human mistakes, if there were even 10 caused by a computer-controlled car they'd be banned.

 

[milo]

I heard that Mercedes have had a car drive itself on the autobahn, and from one side of Munich to the other.

The leaks are interesting though. As with all technology, there'll be stuff ups. And when those happen, property will be damaged and lives could be lost. It will still be up to the driver to oversee you would think, to take over if things lost control.

My understanding is that is the only problem that Google are having with their car and they do not want to have driver controls in the final version because it is too difficult to take control of the car whilst it is in motion. They only have them now because Californian law requires there to be driver controls.

 

[Papercut]

Will these cars give way to other cars at junctions? I hope these will indicate unlike the lazy f*ckers that refuse to!

 

[THFC]

I bet it will stick religiously to the speed limit, might be a tad frustrating

 

[SpursLodge]

I bet it will stick religiously to the speed limit, might be a tad frustrating

This is my biggest problem with it, I'm constantly running late or on the verge of running late, if I then had a car that refused to pick the pace up a bit to make up for my lateness it would drive me potty.

 

[DHSF]

It would help with people with disabilities eg blind people, or people who dont have use of legs and arms etc. That would be brilliant for them.

I guess it depends whether these cars know how to park, stop at junctions etc or whether its just another glorified cruise control mechanism.

 

[milo]

This is my biggest problem with it, I'm constantly running late or on the verge of running late, if I then had a car that refused to pick the pace up a bit to make up for my lateness it would drive me potty.

The roads would probably be able to cope with the levels of traffic that we have better if all driving was automated. So many traffic jams and delays are caused by bad and inconsiderate driving.

 

[Raziel]

I have no interest in self driving cars (I enjoy driving) or electrics (the sound of a combustion engine is part of the experience).

However, someone made a great point, tons of people don't like, don't enjoy, can't drive properly, are continuously distracted (texting, eating, watching movies, talking while driving), if those people move to self driving cars, the roadways will be both much safer, as well as much more enjoyable for the people who will still be driving (as they will be doing so out of choice)

Re speeds, my hope is speed limits will go up, with the likely drop in accident rates (speed actually has nothing to do with accident rates), we could allow for higher speed limits. Really hope in places like US/Canada where you can drive for 8-10 hours very easily, they learn that a 20mph bump in speed limit on a 8 hour journey could really help.

 

[Craig_J]

I have no interest in self driving cars (I enjoy driving) or electrics (the sound of a combustion engine is part of the experience).

However, someone made a great point, tons of people don't like, don't enjoy, can't drive properly, are continuously distracted (texting, eating, watching movies, talking while driving), if those people move to self driving cars, the roadways will be both much safer, as well as much more enjoyable for the people who will still be driving (as they will be doing so out of choice)

Re speeds, my hope is speed limits will go up, with the likely drop in accident rates (speed actually has nothing to do with accident rates), we could allow for higher speed limits. Really hope in places like US/Canada where you can drive for 8-10 hours very easily, they learn that a 20mph bump in speed limit on a 8 hour journey could really help.

What evidence do you have to support this claim? Not only is speed more likely to cause a collision with another vehicle but it also increases the damage (both mechanical and biological) occurred through a collision and it also poses much more danger to pedestrians.

There's a particular road near mine and I can't tell you the ammount of times I've checked both ways, crossed only for some disrespectful nobhead to come round the corner thinking he's competing for an F1 title and almost kill me.

Come to think of it, if this cars are to be whizzing about as fast as possible how will they detect pedestrians?

All of this sounds to me like a waste of money, technology and engineers that could be spent on something much more beneficial to humanity.

 

[Raziel]

What evidence do you have to support this claim? Not only is speed more likely to cause a collision with another vehicle but it also increases the damage (both mechanical and biological) occurred through a collision and it also poses much more danger to pedestrians.

There's a particular road near mine and I can't tell you the ammount of times I've checked both ways, crossed only for some disrespectful nobhead to come round the corner thinking he's competing for an F1 title and almost kill me.

Come to think of it, if this cars are to be whizzing about as fast as possible how will they detect pedestrians?

All of this sounds to me like a waste of money, technology and engineers that could be spent on something much more beneficial to humanity.

Mate, no disrespect, but you just grouped a whole bunch of variables into a single statement that makes very little sense

- Speed, as in maximum allowed speed on the appropriate roadway (i.e. highways) has had several surveys that show the speed limit does not impact number of accidents/fatalities, the autobahn being a frequently used example.
- Higher speed limits on those roadways would not mean higher speeds on small/country/in city streets (where your nobhead is speeding)
- Pedestrians would not be affected as the speed limits would be adjusted to areas where pedestrian traffic is allowed/expected -> look up the new Mercedes test with journalist where the car will not allow a driver (who is driving) to impact a pedestrian

Human error, incompetence, lack of attention span and just discourtesy in driving leads to thousands of deaths per year, and millions if not billions of dollars in lost productivity due to associated traffic, I somehow think it's a fairly decent use of private company funding (not your taxpayer money) for something that could be achieved in the very short term future with immediate benefit.

 

[scaramanga]

What evidence do you have to support this claim? Not only is speed more likely to cause a collision with another vehicle but it also increases the damage (both mechanical and biological) occurred through a collision and it also poses much more danger to pedestrians.

It's quite simple.

By not crashing at 155mph I do a lot less damage than someone crashing at 30mph.

 

[scaramanga]

The roads would probably be able to cope with the levels of traffic that we have better if all driving was automated. So many traffic jams and delays are caused by bad and inconsiderate driving.

That's very true - most of the delays I see are down to people braking when there's no need to - just bunching. That and people getting really scared because there's a junction coming up so they slow down to 50.

If you have a car programmed to drive at, say, 120mph and only to slow/stop if there's going to be a collision then I suspect we'd all get where we're going faster with far fewer accidents and jams.

 

[scaramanga]

That's very true - most of the delays I see are down to people braking when there's no need to - just bunching. That and people getting really scared because there's a junction coming up so they slow down to 50.

If you have a car programmed to drive at, say, 120mph and only to slow/stop if there's going to be a collision then I suspect we'd all get where we're going faster with far fewer accidents and jams.

Oh, and getting scared and slowing down to 40 because it's raining a little.

 

[Spursalot]

That's very true - most of the delays I see are down to people braking when there's no need to - just bunching. That and people getting really scared because there's a junction coming up so they slow down to 50.

If you have a car programmed to drive at, say, 120mph and only to slow/stop if there's going to be a collision then I suspect we'd all get where we're going faster with far fewer accidents and jams.

Most of the delays i see are people driving below the speed limit to start with. Drives me insane, on my way to work and some muppet decides he's going to drive at 30 in a 60.

 

[Sandman]

Surely if they are self driving and the traffic is regulated. Then self driving cars could go a lot faster. They would basically become mini trains. So why not over 100mph.