Autonomous Vehicles

[Road Guy]

So maybe I am not seeing the point, but what is driving the need for "self driving" cars?   Other than the ability to maybe put some delivery drivers out of work?

 

[MA_PE]

if you don't have to drive it, then you're free to drink, text, do your hair and make-up, watch movies, etc. while your traveling.  I know people do all this stuff now while driving but it should be easier if you don't actually have to pay attention to the road. 

 

[matt267 PE]

I have no interest in a self driving car. But I think people like shiny new things.

This will be humans in a few generations:

 

[FLBuff PE]

So we can watch porn while on the way to/from work, of course.

 

[Flyer_PE]

Same thing that's driving automating of ordering at fast food restaurants: Payroll reduction. 

 

[Dleg]

It's all about further thwarting Darwinism.  Some engineer will be able to claim he saved 35,000 lives a year by removing the human factor from our highways.

Leading Causes of Death in the U.S. (according to the CDC):

• Heart disease: 614,348
  • Cancer: 591,699
  • Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 147,101
  • Accidents (unintentional injuries): 136,053
  • Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 133,103
  • Alzheimer's disease: 93,541
  • Diabetes: 76,488
  • Influenza and pneumonia: 55,227
  • Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 48,146
  • Intentional self-harm (suicide): 42,773
  

And of the accidental deaths:


All unintentional injury deaths

• Number of deaths: 136,053
  
• Deaths per 100,000 population: 42.7
  
• Cause of death rank: 4
  

Unintentional fall deaths

• Number of deaths: 31,959
  
• Deaths per 100,000 population: 10.0
  

Motor vehicle traffic deaths

• Number of deaths: 35,398
  
• Deaths per 100,000 population: 11.1
  

Unintentional poisoning deaths

• Number of deaths: 38,851
  
• Deaths per 100,000 population: 12.3
  

 

[Ble_PE]

So we can watch porn while on the way to/from work, of course.

You don't watch porn on the way to work? Amateur. 

 

[leggo PE]

Yep, I agree with @Dleg. I think the main idea behind it is to make the roads safer.

 

[mudpuppy]

Heck, I'd love to not have to drive.  Hop in the car, watch a movie porn, take a nap and few hours later I could wake up refreshed in a different city.  Visiting my wife's family 12 hours away would become a lot more convenient (whether that's good or bad...)

However, I don't see that actually becoming feasible in my lifetime.

 

[kevo_55]

Pfft, self driving cars have been around since the '60's. Everyone knows that.

 

[Dleg]

I can totally see it happening in my lifetime.  The technology is there, it just has to be perfected.  Shit, if you can now buy a virtually self-flying quad copter as a "toy" for less than $50, I am pretty sure a self-driving car is not very far behind.

I would enjoy that, too, especially if the alcohol laws are relaxed.

 

[Road Guy]

I cant really see it to be honest, from regulatory signs, to merging, turning, stopping, interstates, roundabouts, lane markings, HOV lanes, HOT lanes, etc,  All I can see it for is maybe vehicles on private property, shuttling Disney passengers from park to park via bus, etc,. but there are too many unforeseen conditions which a PC cant make the decision (like adjusting speed for rain, snow)

 

[Dleg]

I think it will come with certain automation features built into the roads and highways - transmitters at intersections and the like, signalling the smart cars with that sort of information.  I'll go out on a limb and say the interstates and then the inner urban areas of certain well-to-do cities will be the first.  On other roads the driver wills till be on their own.

 

[Road Guy]

The US has nearly 50,000 miles of interstate so the cost is going to be very prohibitive, unless google is going to pay for it....

At a time when people rarely want to fund the replacement of the important stuff (like the bridges and pavement) I would hope we wouldn't divert funds so people can jerk off to porn while "driving"

 

[Road Guy]

 

[Flyer_PE]

It has the potential to give a whole new meaning to the Blue-Screen-of-Death.  Also, I'm late for work because the software company forced an automatic update to the operating system for my car.

 

[Audi Driver P.E.]

I think I'll pass on self driving cars until I can get a good answer to this:

What will the car do when presented with running over a young pedestrian in a cross walk, or hitting a crowd of people.

 

[mudpuppy]

I'm with RG, there's just way too much infrastructure required to make this work on a country-wide basis.  And if you don't go with an infrastructure based system (where the road basically tells the car where to go) there's still way too many unknowns to make a self-driving car work.  The first fatal crash with Tesla was where the car drove into the side of a semi-trailer because it looked like the sky to the car's camera.  How is the car going to deal with stuff like this, or snow-covered roads, or roads without stripes or potholes or deer or . . .

 

[MA_PE]

Truthfully the place for this technology is in crowded urban areas.  If vehicles could be programmed to run like "trains" there would be a lot less congestion and traffic jams.  Picture a line of vehicles with tight spaces between them all traveling at the exact same speed.  Vehicles could enter and exit the main roads at the same speed with minmal changes to allow vehicles to simply occupy an new sapce in the train.  Vehicles would then be free to be manually controlled or guided in open non-urban areas.  This technology is at its infancy but I think it's goignt o continue to progress.  Using a common alogorithm would put all drives on the same level and eliminate disaprities between rod hogs/sheepish drivers/speed demons and crawlers.  This would significantly reduce the resulting congestion when the group traveleing at 80mph hits a snag in the road where the speed is reduced to 50mph.

And of course it would be Blu-ray porn everyone will be watching.

 

[wilheldp_PE]

As perhaps the only person here that owns a self-driving (ish) car, I can honestly say that it is awesome.  With the technology in its current state, it still isn't "idiot proof."  I always keep my eye on the road and I'm ready to take the wheel if there is a situation that I think the car can't handle.  But, I can tell you that for long trips, autopilot is a game-changer.  Think about cruise control.  On a long trip, when you turn on cruise control, your legs are less fatigued when you get where you are going.  Traffic aware cruise control is awesome because you don't have to keep tapping your brakes and controlling the throttle until traffic breaks.  Autopilot is another step above that.  All you have to do is make sure that the car has good lane markers and that there aren't any unusual/dangerous traffic, and you can sit back and relax for the most part.  It takes some getting used to, but having your car take you places without intervention is freaking awesome.