I was wondering when this sort of activity would begin. A car w/out a driver seems like it would quickly attract prankster’s and vandal’s attention.
I believe that in the medium-term future, driverless cars will become common, rather than a novelty. Once that happens, a drop in the accident rate will be noted, and that the remaining accidents are caused mostly by conventional cars. At that point there will be great pressure placed upon state governments to require that all new cars sold be autonomous.
Well, they certainly can’t drive worse than what I see on the road now.
Yesterday I exited the Thruway onto a ramp that entered a road that was 3 lanes in my direction. I put on my turn signal and changed to the center lane because the right land became a right turn only mall entrance. The light ahead of me was already red.
A pickup that exited the thruway behind me floored it, cut to the left lane to pass me and swerved right across in front of me into the right turn lane and then went through the red light and cut left to go straight ahead of the car in front of me who had been sitting at the red light while this happened.
Sort of like cavemen attacking the inventor of fire…
recall total recall movie with the johnny cab scene? now that there is good film making.
They did get one thing right though when they said they didn’t think the folks running the large corporations had the public’s best interest in mind. Duh.
from another report:
In fact, police contact is reportedly kept to a minimum, with one incident not reported until four days after it took place. According to the NYT , Waymo in some cases is unwilling to provide footage of the attack. This defeats the benefit of self-driving vehicles always maintaining video of everything happening around the car.
the lack of transparency makes me suspicious.
We’re gonna have to install weapons on these cars to give them a chance to retaliate gonna have to turn these cars into transformers Just kidding lol. Yes automated cars are surely a favorite target for pranksters unless we put dashcams all over the car and it might still not be enough. Companies have to find a way for this.
They do. They’re called cameras. They can record for a few days. If the person can be identified on camera then they should be brought up on charges and sued for damages.
I can understand what would motivate an individual to attack these kinds of vehicles, but I don’t understand why they think it is OK to do so.
Arizonans- Keeping it classy since… well…
-An Arizonan
Actually, these self-driving cars are required to have a person in them, which amps up the danger.
also Arizona from 2009:
https://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/04/speed-camera-operator-is-shot-in-arizona/
Doesn’t make me proud…
Embrace the chaos. Florida Man is now my state’s unofficial mascot.
I can understand why some Arizonians would be upset with driverless cars since Uber killed a woman with one in that state.
But the cave-ape reaction to things we don’t like has got to stop.
Some mouth-breathing pickup truck idiots have been parking in Tesla charging spots and screaming obscenities at Tesla drivers when they try to charge. Same basic mentality. “I try to destroy anything I don’t like.”
People like that should be locked in mental hospitals until they learn more rational approaches to things that upset them.
You folks are a hoot. Read the news lately? We don’t have enough mental hospitals to hold them all. But wait until pot is legal everywhere. There will come a time when you can be arrested for possession of a plastic straw but not pot. What have we wrought?
Build more. I know where we can get 5 billion dollars…
Unlike alcohol, banning marijuana did not directly lead to fast and fun cars, so that initiative has been a gross disappointment and should be ended.
The free and responsible society we have falsely claimed to be for nearly 250 years?
Ha ha ha, but those are the folks that would be the first residents. You know the ones that think an island will tip over if you put too many people on one side. Maybe instead just contract with Venezuela, and send them there. They could use the money and they’ll blend right in.
Yeah, this is Cartalk. You’re not going to suck me into a debate over whether racism is OK as long as you disguise it as national security. Let’s get back to cars.