And if “Volvo HAL” acts up on the highway, how do you propose to disable him? And if you manage to succeed and your vehicle crashes anyway, who is at fault now? Can you tell I work in regulatory compliance?
The circuit-interrupting power switch that had better be prominently positioned on the dashboard of all self-driving cars.
I don’t care, as long as it’s not me. 
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Mr/Ms @bloody_knuckles: would you rather live in a country that had 30,000 motor vehicle fatalities annually or a country that had 10,000 motor vehicles annually but we didn’t know whom to blame?
Mr. @RandomTroll, would you rather live in a country with you NOT being one of the 30,000 fatalities, or a country where you ARE one of the 10,000 fatalities?
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The latter. I drive an average of 200 miles annually, bicycle 5,000: I’m already enlisting in the endangered brigade.
Think of military service: a few percent (our best) volunteer to risk their lives for the benefit of all of us. Choosing a society safer for everyone is analogous, if unheroic.
Then you would prefer a self-driving bicycle?
;-]
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I checked this morning and I am still Mr Bloody Knuckles, but you can call me “Sir”. In all seriousness, my comments were not made to argue against automation. If you knew me you would know that I am far from what I would call a “retrogrouch”. I love technology and use it heavily, more so than most. My comments were merely thought provoking exercises into topics that we will have to deal with as technology marches forward. We joke about the problems portrayed in movies but we are going to have lots of real life “unintended consequences” of technology taking over for people.
While I accept your argument of trading 30,000 fatalities for 10,000, I agree with another comment that points out how little consolation that will be if you are one of the 10,000. The irrational human part of us will always argue that we can control our fate better to stay out of the 30,000 deaths than a computer driving the car and won’t accept the rational argument to the contrary. Try it out on people over the age of 35 and you will find I am right. The younger crowd will LOOOOOOVE self driving cars and wouldn’t care if 100,000 people died instead.
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I agree with your point about people thinking they provide better control than automotive systems. I think ABS will stop a car far better than I can assuming the road has some traction. If you’ve participated here for a while, you will know that opinions vary on that particular point. I do not wish to open the ABS discussion again. I am just using it as an example.
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I enjoy riding my bicycle; the alertness it requires is one of its benefits. I enjoy driving too. I’ll miss it, if I last past the point that we’re allowed too. I’ll bore young people with stories of interesting drives I took.
We can make public policy in the interest of the many. People who volunteer for military service choose the interest of the many over their own. People smoke: it wouldn’t surprise me if others would choose dangerous driving.
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It’s no coincidence that we bicyclists and motorcyclists prefer self-driving cars. We’re the ones who see cagers distracting themselves and making the world less safe, and we’re the ones who they’re putting at risk.
If I wanted to, I could increase my safety by driving a cage every day, but some of us don’t adjust to life in a cage as well as others.
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I think robots can be more skilled at manipulating the controls, but highly doubt they can “out-captain” us: maintain situational awareness, make valid “go/no” and “continue/no continue” decisions, etc. I could see using a robot as a TOOL towards MY operation of a vehicle, but I’d resist by all measures handing over “command authority” to it.
And all this talk about “reduced deaths/accidents” is “facts not in evidence” at this point. W/R/T the Google experiment, their cars were involved in accidents at a statistically average rate, despite their ability to “cherry pick” when the cars were driving autonomously, which routes they took, what weather they encountered, etc. On a couple of occasions, they CAUSED accidents, only for google to state (after the fact) that the cars were “not being operated autonomously” at the time of the accident, which is conveniently self-serving.
“Well, you don’t have to call me Waylon Jennings/
And you don’t have to call me Charlie Pride/
And you don’t have to call me Merle Haggard anymore/
Even though you’re on my fightin’ side!”
(_“You Never Even Called Me by My Name,” as performed by David Allen Coe.)
You can call me Ray, or…
;-]
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Oh yes they can. It’s like playing chess. They can analyze thousands and thousands of things in an instance. You see that car braking and swerving suddenly in front of you…at that point you’re concentrating on that car and how to avoid hitting it. The computer is analyzing thousands of points…including that 5yo who ran out into the street - which is why the car in front of you is braking and swerving in the first place. The systems may not have all the programming currently…but it certainly has the potential and is learning all the time. The driverless systems on the road now are gathering gigaquads of information to be analyzed and used in the driverless cars in the future.
You’re making an poor assumption that the technology is stagnant and they’re doing anymore analysis or development in driverless cars. I contend that the technology is at it’s infancy. By the time they’ll be ready for primetime the systems in place will the 10-100 times better then they are now. Of course they are cherry picking their routes and weather. It’s extremely new technology. The engineers are still learning. It’s going to take a while.
Will that computer stomp on my brakes if a plastic grocery bag or sheet of newspaper, driven by a cross-wind, suddenly crosses in front of me?
Please explain. I want to learn about this stuff.
CSA
No…That part of the technology is working now. The sensors and software already can distinguish objects…and it’s just getting better. Many vehicles today use crash avoidance systems that aren’t braking for trash bags.
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I for one will be ecstatic if we can eliminate one of the most aggravating traits of human drivers; gawking.
We recently had a MAJOR backup on the expressway due to all the morons that just had to look at the accident scene that was completely off the roadway with all 4 lanes wide open for travel. Sure, slow down and move over for safety. But that doesn’t mean you have to drive 2 mph so you can see what’s going on. These fools almost cause numerous consequential accidents due to this behavior. It doesn’t concern you! Just drive past and pay attention in front of you!
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Here in New England we get the gawkers traveling on the other side of the highway. Accident on I93 North…then I93 South will be backed up for miles and miles.