It should be obvious, but of course we can’t trust driverless cars. That’s why they are not available to the general public yet. I don’t believe that they have made it onto fast roads, let alone limited access roads. There is a long way to go before driverless cars are ready for prime time, and the researchers know it.
The time might not be more than 10 years though. FCA just signed a deal with Alphabet to produce driverless minivans. I suppose that they could be used in a vanpool or as taxis. We will find out when Sergio gets his hands on them. Speaking of Sergio, her is collecting CEO jobs. First Fiat, then Nissan, then FCA, and now Ferrari too. I wonder why FCA spun off Ferrari if Marchione is going to run it too.
“1- Human drivers are horrible (generally) and getting worse”
I just have to say “so what”. Is the object of living to avoid all risk of injury? Is the object of driving to avoid all risk of an accident? Isn’t this just another instance of the adoption of the nanny state where all risk of life is avoided and everyone contained in a bubble for life? Believe it or not in Minnesota at public expense a proposal was written with the goal of the elimination of all injury. What fun that would be.
I didn’t wear a helmet cutting the grass. Maybe I should have but the body is a wonderful thing and injuries are self-healing. We are meant to explore, invent, risk, fail and recover again. We are not meant to sit in our room strapped to a chair with cushions all around lest we fall. My gosh, the air is bad today from the Canadian fire but I’m going outside anyway. Its a risk but I can live with it.
There’s risk…and then there’s unnecessary risk. If we can make driving SAFER…the I’m all for it. Since cars were introduced in the US over 100 years ago there have been over 3 million deaths. Why do you think that’s acceptable? And lets not forget TENS OF MILLIONS of serious injuries.
Our court systems have countless number of accident related court cases every year.
I see nothing but up side if we can make safer vehicles.
Your analogy of wearing a helmet while cutting grass is almost laughable.
The whole idea of driverless cars is to make EVERYONE safe…not just the driver. I’ve been in 4 accidents in my 40+ years of driving…One was non-chargable…the other 3 - I was hit (two while waiting at a traffic light).
Protect yourself all you want…but I’d like to see protection from the damn idiots I have to share the road with. If we can take them off the road I’m all for it.
I would trust them more if they had their own pathways…an impossibilty… But not mixed in with the public at large. I would say a good 6/10 people cannot drive well…and within that same group some do things that no one can anticipate, let alone what logic would dictate… So mixing it up with this type of group and then introducing an autonomous vehicle doesnt give me the Warm n Fuzzies.
Then again…a machine who’s entire purpose in life is to avoid accidents and has most if not all of its “Attention” in the driving game may be able to out perform the sleeping masses I see on the roads.
Oh Mike, your unnecessary risk is my adventure. I get it though, you’ve had a lot of accidents in 40 years so I can understand your paranoia. There are a lot of bath tub accidents too, and stairs, and chain saws, and power saws, and bikes, and sail boats, and hunting, and . . . Come to think of it, life is an accident waiting to happen.
My wife has worked in Emergency as well as in the Operating Rooms. When she meets these “adventurous” souls , especially motorcyclists she reminds them them that "we have to scrape you off the pavement at public expense, so you have no right to be careless.
A little extreme perhaps, it also costs us millions to rescue careless hikers and out of bound skiers.
Bing. Please show me the person who that accidentally killed themselves slipping in their bathtub - AND killed a family of 4 that were on their way to their 4yo bday party.
Driverless cars - just getting the estimated 300 thousand drunks how are on the road every Saturday night will make me feel a lot better when some member of my family is on the raid with them.
So take your view to the extreme, you would prefer no cars except cabs. That’s the only way you’ll be able to achieve the level of control you strive for.
Doc, we are talking about just normal life activities not fool hardy risk taking like stunt driving or sky diving. Mike prefers every other driver on the road to be a computer so he is safe. What was that Ben Franklin quote on safety and liberty?
“I guess that you don’t mind people getting killed by drunk drivers…or distracted drivers…We grew up with a totally different set of morals,”
Sheesh. Now where did I say that? Yes I mind but unlike you I don’t see the answer as robot drivers.
You don’t have to say anything about control but from your posts it is not hard to see that you have a need to severely control other peoples actions and through additional laws and regulations. Its really very transparent, whether its the air you breath that must conform, or the water you drink, or the products people use, or driving behavior that must conform, and so on. Anyone not conforming to your standard is a polluter or condones drunk drivers??? How did you ever get that?? Bad day huh?
@Bing - WHAT…are you serious? Show me ONE POST…where I said anything about control…or even hinted about control. Your arguments are so weak you have to make up things I never said so you can win.
YOU’RE the one who said that “My risk is YOUR adventure”. So yes…you’re the one arguing against a technology that will make this better. “So what” you don’t believe in the technology. I know that people like you who really don’t understand technology more then the clicker for your TV is afraid of it. Something you don’t understand or completely incapable of understanding you’ll always be afraid of.
You keep coming up with GOVERNMENT conspiracies and people MANDATING of FORCING you to do something. Some PRIVATE company comes up with way to possibly make our commutes safer…and right away you jump to CONTROL.
Good morning…I dunno, Mike: maybe you’re not intending to come off like you’re attacking people, but it reads that way. I know we all only know each other by what we post on a screen, but please be mindful of how you’re coming across, because it’s got the effect of goading others into jabbing you back.
Carolyn - I am going to defend Mike here. There are several people on this board that are vehemently against any appearance of someone or something taking away their driving privileges. Mike has been trying to (fairly patiently) respond to them. It might be better if he did not capitalize words for emphasis, as that makes it look more pointedly argumentative, but I would have to say that his responses have been just that. Responses. The people who have made their point that they want to keep driving have, in fact, made their point. We get it. But in their zeal they want to attack Mike, or anyone who they feel would agree with a point of view that would make them relinquish control of their vehicles.
Frankly, I believe most of us will be dead or in old age homes before mandatory driverless vehicles take over the roads completely. Our children and their children will embrace the technology, as they embrace technology now. All of us cranky old-timers with “tales of yore” and how we raced though the night or up a mountain road will be dusty relics. Time moves on, the world changes, despite anyone’s best efforts. Besides, the good old days weren’t always good.
One point…I NEVER EVER said to take away someones driving privileges…EVER. But I do see the advantage of a driverless car when someone is impaired…or insists on texting while driving. But I never ever said they have to. I know several people in my golf league who would LOVE a driverless car so they can stay at the bar after golf and get totally wasted…then they don’t have to worry about driving home drunk (although some still do). But I’m NOT forcing them to buy one.
I’m a Ph.D. social scientist (and now training as a programmer too). Here are my thoughts:
Regardless of how much “better” a computer-controlled vehicle (CCV) is than a human controlled one (a controversial comparison at best, at least at this point), any such CCV must necessarily integrate into the existing transportation system(s).
People (or large fractions of them anyway) are inherently resistant to change. Traditions die very hard, if ever.
Money makes the world go round. If it is not cost-effective, it will not happen, except in the lab and the test site.
Except for number 4, these “social factors” are largely irrelevant to the excellent examples provided above for highly advanced “autonomous control systems” in things like space vehicles. By degrees the social factors are also less important for military and industrial situations. Yes, there is “Tradition Inertia” in those contexts too, but pragmatism and politics seem to trump tradition in those institutions/industries.
When something ‘works’ most people are naturally not inclined to ‘fix it’ or ‘replace it.’ Windows 7 and XP probably still to this day comprise the vast majority of Operating Systems being used by humans on Earth. These are “obsolete” in terms of the latest industry standards and in terms of the scientists and business people who would wish that people switch to Win 10, but that is irrelevant. People (most of them anyway) do not go buy the latest thing simply because it is the latest thing.
I understand that Google has a campus somewhere on which most or all the vehicles are driver-less, so it seems the technology IS here, and it works (at least within a margin of error that is equal to if not less than that of human operated vehicles). But that point alone does not address the preceding five points.
As someone pointed out above, imagining a large infrastructure in which 99% of all the vehicles were CCVs is one thing; and in that circumstance, such technology might well serve well = lower costs, less environmental impact, more efficiency, less morbidity and mortality, etc.
Imagining a context in which initially only 0.01%, of vehicles in a large regional or national infrastructure are CCV and 99.09% are human controlled vehicles is another thing entirely. How are the 5 “Social Factors” cited above which comprise the impediments to the spread of the new technology addressed? How can the ratio continue to shift progressively in favor of the CCV technology when the “threshold of effectiveness” of such a system might well be quite “high”? By which I mean: the putative benefits of a CCV land transport system might well not be realized for users or producers until the ratio of CCVs to HCVs is up around 1/4 or 1/3, maybe even higher!
Based on these considerations, I do not expect driver less cars to be much more than a fascinating curiosity for many years to come.
I am not trying to psychoanalyze, which is why I modulated my comment. All’s I am saying is that today it was Bing responding to Mike that he has control issues. The other day was Mike and meanjoe, again with captaincy vs. the crash rate. I am only observing that the last few days have had a number of more heated and apparently personal comments than usual, and I ask in general to please consider how your comments come across to others – whether a comment ascribes a personality trait to another person, or just using the caps. I am sorry we don’t have bold to use () but caps looks like yelling.
) but caps looks like yelling.