I don’t remember for sure when CdL’s 1st came out i am thinking in the early 80’s before that each state had different class’s of licence.my first test was taken in a car in the earler 60’s then when the CDL came out all I had to do was take a written test & I was grandfathered in without a road test.
At the time I seem to recall that there was some concern over driving a school bus that promted the officer to ride with me around the block. And actually I widened the route out to avoid some tight downtown intersections but obviously I passed. Traffic law was considerably more home town friendly long ago here in Mayberry II. I was delivering groceries at age 13 with no license and was never stopped. But at that time I could make a dozen deliveries without seeing another vehicle on the road until back within a block of the store.
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I don’t know when Minnesota changed and I may be misremembering, but they used to call it a chauffeurs license. I don’t think you had to do anything else to get it except pay a higher fee. Then you could drive anything. School buses may have been excluded but I don’t think so. Back in 65, seems to me I had the option of getting one at the time. My dad always had one and he said it came in handy. But now bus is different, motor cycle is different, CDL, etc.
My room mate in South Dakota drove a city bus after classes and I’m pretty sure he never had any special license either. Must have been the 70’s when everything tightened up or the feds mandated it to get federal money.
What changed was not all states checked when you applied for a license & too many trucker’s held 2 or more license’s,they would lose one for whatever reason & go to another state & get a license as most states did not check with the state you said you were from. I may be wrong but I think the final straw was when a school bus on a field trip in Fla & broke down on the interstate & a trucker hit it & killed some of the kids Also at that time trucker’s had at least 2 or more logbook’s as they was payed by the mile so they could run more mile’s.That is when the fed’s stepped in.
Semi-Trucks are “Platooning”, group of 3, lead truck driver is ‘in control’ of 2 following. The 2 following have drivers ready to take over at all times. They are pushing for exceptions to the following distance laws to be closer than 300 feet to the vehicle in front. Can’t wait to see people merging onto the interstate with these.
[quote=“RandomTroll, post:13, topic:104733”]
Airbus invented fly-by-wire; Boeing and others have adopted it.
[/quote
Air bus didn’t even exists when fly-by-wire was invented. Fly-by- wire was used by several aircraft and spacecraft long before Airbus even existed. The Concorde, several NASA craft, Avro Canada CF-105. Just to name a few.
Launched into production during 1984, the Airbus Industries Airbus A320 became the first airliner to fly with an all-digital fly-by-wire control system.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fly-by-wire
OK. What’s your point? Airbus may have been the first “commercial air liner” to use Fly-By-Wire. My contention was your statement that Airbus invented Fly-By-Wire. Nothing there proves Airbus invented Fly-By-Wire and there is plenty of evidence they didn’t.
I have a few questions for all of you. Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that we all agree that computers are better drivers than people, overall. Let’s assume again that accident rates drop tremendously as we automate driving. Here are my questions. If two autonomous cars crash into each other, who is at fault? Further, who will get sued? Also, if I am not driving, will I still need car insurance, and why? If the manufacturer programmed the self driving car, shouldn’t they be “at fault” for any crashes? How will the police write accident reports? After all, every (living) passenger will all say “I was just sitting in my car minding my own business when…”. So many questions, so many lawyers.
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If there I should no way to turn autopilot off, then the auto manufacturer would be at fault IMO. They made the car do whatever it did.
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I think that’s been settled.
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For the record, the first production fly by wire airliner was Concorde in 1969, the year before Airbus was founded. The Airbus was the first all digital system. Concord used an analog system.
The first digital fly-by-wire airplane to fly was the F-8 Crusader in 1972, which technically was 2 years after Airbus was founded, but if you want to be really pedantic, NASA’s 1964 “Flying Bedstead” LLRV/LLTV vehicles used a primitive digital fly-by-wire system - that’s the weird spindly thing astronauts used to train for the lunar landing which famously almost killed Neil Armstrong (but not because of the fly-by-wire system).
Robocop will investigate then write the reports.
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HAL: I’m afraid I can’t accept any responsibility, Dave. It’s your baby, now.
CSA
Is it possible to enforce US legal codes vs the Chinese owners of Volvo?
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HAL: I’m afraid that’s not possible, Dave.
“It’s true: For years, Musk has issued Cassandra-like cautions about the risks of artificial intelligence. In 2014, he likened AI developers to people summoning demons they think they can control.”
Elon Musk Warns Governors: Artificial Intelligence Poses 'Existential Risk' : The Two-Way : NPR**
CSA 
Well folks, I’m no lawyer (and I didn’t stay at a Holiday Inn Express) but I can tell you that it’s very nice to bloviate (I love that word) and trumpet how you will accept liability but, unless Volvo and all the other car makers are going to put that acceptance of liability in a legally binding contract that is signed by them and by you, I pretty much guarantee their lawyers will make sure they pay little or nothing. Perhaps they will work on finding ways to say that you caused the problem. I have studied air disasters extensively and, almost without exception, every equipment failure is ultimately blamed on “human error”. So good luck thinking that this trend will magically change when it the same type of technology is installed in cars.
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@VDCdriver - It should be as easy to enforce US laws in China as, say, preventing currency manipulation, or preventing the theft of American intellectual property. Oh… I think I see the problem.
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All comments here whether for, against, or “on the fence” regarding fully self driving cars are valid. I would prefer a human driver required if needed for quite some time. Unfortunately I have seen “driver” skill and focus deteriorate significantly and I am certain fully self driving cars would greatly increase the human “driver” deficiencies.
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Well, there’s a difference between human error and pilot error. If the mechanic puts the wrong bolt in the windshield and it blows out at altitude and sucks out the co-pilot (this actually happened once), it’s human error.
If Volvo programs the car wrong and it runs over a kid, it’s still human error.
I don’t care if they attribute it to human error - I just want to make sure I’m not going to be held responsible if I have no control over the situation.
Let’s not forget that shortly after HAL started abdicating his responsibilities, Dave took him apart and left him drifting around Saturn.