Autonomous Vehicles

[Audi Driver P.E.]

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.

Crowded urban areas only exacerbate the moral dilemma problem I mentioned above.

 

[jeb6294]

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:

False...the way things are going, everybody wants everything delivered right to their door so people aren't even going to be leaving their houses kind of like that Bruce Willis movie Surrogates.

I'd heard it predicted that kids today won't know how to drive a manual transmission and that soon they won't even know how to drive a car at all.  They'll all be getting chauffeured around ala Uber.

 

[MA_PE]

Not predicted, I belive it's fact.  Many kids today have no idea how to drive a manual transmission.

 

[snickerd3]

Not predicted, I belive it's fact.  Many kids today have no idea how to drive a manual transmission.

I know how, its been years since I have driven a manual car, but I could do it

 

[Road Guy]

The newer Manual transmissions make it too easy, the brake will hold so if you are on a hill the car won't roll so you don't have to feel like you need three feet (when learning)

I'm slowly teaching all 3 of my kids to drive the jeep- it's painful but hopefully worth it...

Overseas is still predominantly Manual transmissions cars from what i hear

 

[leggo PE]

I'm not a kid, but I (embarrassingly) never learned to drive manual.  :blush:

It's rather difficult to learn when you have never had access to a manual car.

 

[Audi Driver P.E.]

Not predicted, I belive it's fact.  Many kids today have no idea how to drive a manual transmission.

My first two both drive sticks, and my third will this year.

 

[MA_PE]

My sons both do.  The car they used for college was a stick.  24k miles and I had to put in $1800 worth of clutch. 

hmmm, maybe they don't know how to drive one.

 

[Dleg]

How are guys ever supposed to get girlfriends, if they don't make manual transmissions?  Seriously - I got at least 4 dates out of "I can teach you how to drive a stick" while in college.

 

[snickerd3]

How are guys ever supposed to get girlfriends, if they don't make manual transmissions?  Seriously - I got at least 4 dates out of "I can teach you how to drive a stick" while in college.

snickette is obsessed with cars...I'm thinking she might be one to try that line with guys when she is older 

 

[matt267 PE]

How are guys ever supposed to get girlfriends

jello shots?

 

[envirotex]

I learned to drive a stick in Mr. Tex's mom's BMW.  The clutch was never the same after that. 

 

[willsee]

How are guys ever supposed to get girlfriends, if they don't make manual transmissions?  Seriously - I got at least 4 dates out of "I can teach you how to drive a stick" while in college.

Roof.... Charm and wit?

 

[jeb6294]

I learned how to drive a stick when I was about 12.  It was pretty easy though because I had already been riding my motorcycle for a couple years by then.

 

[Flyer_PE]

If a tractor counts, I learned how to operate a manual transmission at age 6.  I wasn't driving the truck unattended until age 9.  I'm still trying to figure out how to teach my kid how to drive without a 15 acre hay field and several hundred acres of pasture to play in.

 

[Audi Driver P.E.]

I learned how to drive a stick when I was about 12.  It was pretty easy though because I had already been riding my motorcycle for a couple years by then.

Same.

 

[csb]

http://www.denverpost.com/2016/10/25/self-driving-beer-truck-colorado/

This is already happening. The first step is connected vehicles, which exist. Three transportation agencies have pilot projects for connected vehicles (http://www.its.dot.gov/pilots/). A car doesn't need to see a sign, but it will need pavement markings. Dow is already working on a marker that can go in paint, rather than an expensive transmitter under marking tape (like 3M will try to sell), that can be "seen" under snow. 

The old saying in traffic engineering is that the you can't make the road totally safe because of the nut behind the wheel. Autonomous and connected vehicles remove that nut. 

 

[csb]

Also, our household only has manual vehicles. My parents only drive manual vehicles. My kid is going to have to learn. 

 

[leggo PE]

http://www.denverpost.com/2016/10/25/self-driving-beer-truck-colorado/

This is already happening. The first step is connected vehicles, which exist. Three transportation agencies have pilot projects for connected vehicles (http://www.its.dot.gov/pilots/). A car doesn't need to see a sign, but it will need pavement markings. Dow is already working on a marker that can go in paint, rather than an expensive transmitter under marking tape (like 3M will try to sell), that can be "seen" under snow. 

The old saying in traffic engineering is that the you can't make the road totally safe because of the nut behind the wheel. Autonomous and connected vehicles remove that nut. 

I saw one of the founders of this company talk about this technology at a dinner back in October, less than a week after this happened. It was cool, I admit. But I was also kind of left thinking, is this really where we should be spending money for transportation-related things?

Then again, the safety card is a very strong one. So I go back and forth. I'm still not sure I'd ever want a self-driving car myself, though. And seeing a self-driving truck on the road would probably freak me the heck out.

 

[Supe]

My father taught me to drive by making me drive entirely in reverse in an 85 Toyota pickup with a 5 speed with the worlds worst gearbox and stiffest clutch release imaginable.  He made me drive backwards laps around the nearby middle school, doing loops around islands, etc.  His justification was "if you can do this, then the rest of it will be easy."