@Whitey: walk before you can run. We don’t even have a viable “hands-off” autpilot yet…why leapfrog to “driverless?” At the very least, you need a human to monitor systems and step in in the event of a failure…remember that “Murphy” shows up at the most inopportune times. (This implies a licenced and competent driver, and controls for her to operate.)
I also worry that the “driverless” bit means that they will try saying the vehicle occupant is no longer liable, which is merely the flipside of saying the driver no longer is “in command” of the vehicle. I find that ideologically abhorrent.
@meanjoe75fan: “walk before you can run. We don’t even have a viable “hands-off” autpilot yet”
Who said the Google car with no manual controls will be the only option?
I think Google has demonstrated that the technology is better at avoiding collisions than people simply due to better reaction time and better field of vision, at least at 25 MPH. It’s always on, monitoring 360 degrees. It never takes a second to look at the radio or take a sip of coffee. There are also other companies developing similar tech for cars that have manual controls, so you could always opt for that if it’s what you prefer. However, I think you’d find that by the time you take manual control to address a potential hazard, the car will have already reacted to the situation faster than you could.
Imagine losing your ability to see, and having to deal with a major loss of control of many aspects of your life, not just one. Making hay over the thought that driverless cars might be the only option several decades from now seems petty in comparison to such a major loss of control, at least to me. This tech will probably affect your life slightly, but it will be a complete life changer for the disabled, as they will be able to gain a level of independence that others would fine significantly tougher to deal with.
Of course the owner of the car responsible for the accident would be responsible if his technology causes an accident. That’s how the law is applied already. If my cruise control malfunctions and causes an accident, the driver/owner of the car is ultimately responsible, and he in turn can sue the car company if he can prove it was their fault. I think what you’ll find though is that accidents among automated vehicles wouldn’t happen or would be extremely rare and mild, and almost all collisions would be caused when a driver makes a mistake and hits an automated car that had already done everything it could to avoid such a collision.
I can find countless demonstrations of how the technology works by searching youtube for the term “driverless car.” Other than skepticism, what evidence do you have that this won’t work?
I think we’re going to have to agree to disagree about reliance on technology. I see this tech the way I see braking technology. If something goes wrong, it can be dangerous, so I make sure to service and inspect my brakes regularly, more often than other tech that has less effect on safety.
Another aspect of this tech one might consider is the elimination of impaired driving. I’m not just talking about drunk or stoned drivers, I’m also talking about people with natural or non-chemical impairments, like cognitive dysfunction or an everyday illness that affects our ability to react quickly. These people will be able to keep their mobility without putting the rest of us at risk. Think of all the lives that could be saved.
Why am I the only one in this thread considering these issues? Am I the only one who can see past my personal desire for control?
I’m with ya, Whitey.
Long trips wouldn’t be as bad with the car doing the driving. If they have vans, you could install a privy area so you wouldn’t have to even pull over for the restroom. Heck, you could probably sleep while the car was driving and wouldn’t have to worry about getting a hotel room for the night on those really long journeys
Heck, you could probably sleep while the car was driving and wouldn't have to worry about getting a hotel room for the night on those really long journeys
See, I would find that negligent behavior–to trust completely in technology to the point of catching some Zzzz’s…only to have Murphy and his law show up at an inopportune moment.
Like I said, the technology has long existed to make ships and airplanes “captianless”…would you be comfortable on an autonomous Boeing? I wouldn’t. Obviously the Powers that Be felt that human command was indispensible!
@Whitey, Let me illustrate my concern by something that happened to me. Driving PIT–>TPA, my car developed a worsening shimmy. Given that I had purchased recaps two months ago, and given that the conditions (95F, highway speeds at GVWR) favored it, I suspected tread delamination. To test my hypothesis, I began mild maneuvers that supported it. I pulled off at the next rest stop, visually verified the condition, and bought a tire (yes, they let me do that) at a NC Wal-Mart.
NOW, for a computer to pass this test, it would need 1) To know I recently bought retreads 2) To understand the inherent liabilities of retreads 3) To appreciate that current conditions favored delamination. It would then need to test said hypothesis, make a command decision that 4) It could wait until the next exit BUT 5) couldn’t wait to the destination.
THAT’S what I mean by “driving is more than manipulating the controls.” For a car to be “driverless,” you have to devise AI that will make those sorts of decisions as well or better than a living motorist. Failing that, you don’t have a “self-driving car”…you have an autopilot!
I think you’re crazy to buy recapped tires. There is a reason they’re illegal on commercial truck steering tires, which have to be virgin rubber. If you had bought new tires, that wouldn’t even be an issue. But like I said, there are systems that let you keep your manual controls if you want them.
Trying to convince me automated cars are unsafe by describing something you do that is unsafe really isn’t a compelling argument. Spend the money on good tires and the problem is solved.
My grandfather owned two full service gas stations, and he cut corners in many ways, but tires was not one of those areas. Having good tires is a safety issue, one that shouldn’t have to be mitigated so you can buy used remanufactured tires.
Heck, the safety conscious and professional truckers I know even insist on virgin rubber on their tandem axles. They only time they drive with recaps is when some company puts them on a trailer.
Considering we already have TPMS, traction control sensors, and stability control sensors, having a computer sense the shimmy and pull over really doesn’t require much of a stretch of the imagination.
I once had an accident that was my fault when I was young. I turned right off the highway. the highway condition was good, but the road I turned on had re frozen and I was going too fast. there was a uniform truck stopped at the light on the road that I turned onto and a pick up with 3 people in the front seat behind it
I tried to hold my lane but it was no use. I was skidding directly at the pick up.
I made the decision too stop fighting the skid and purposely let my car go left to slam into the back corner of the uniform truck. I hit the corner of the step bumper causing little damage except to spill the guys coffee in his lap. he did not even report me to his boss or the police.
I am almost certain that if I had continued to try to avoid an accident some one would have gotten hurt and the pick up would have been damaged badly.
I don t know that a computer would be able to detect black ice or would choose to hit a big truck to avoid injury.
the human brain is superior in many ways…
Geez, Whitey, Air Force One flies on recaps. That’s an awful broad brush you’re using there…
You still fail to comprehend executive decision making as a necessary part of driving, separate from the mechanics of manipulating the controls. If i understand you correctly, you’re saying “ain’t no such thing” as captaincy. That’s absurd!
@wesw: That’s exactly what I’m talking about! You encountered extraordinary circumstances, utilized your lifetime accumulated knowledge, and chose an unorthodox action based on the least lousy expected outcome. THAT’S captaincy, and THAT’S what computers still [stink] at.
there is one intersection in my home town, that the approach to the stop sign on the the road that has to stop is in a dip that the oil from all 4 ways accumulates in. when it first starts to rain all the oil rises and if you approach the stop normally at that exact time, you will skid into crossing traffic.
I don’t think that driverless cars will be mandated for a very long time, if ever. They will become an option for people that can afford them and want them. @Whitey makes an excellent point about impaired drivers and the freedom that it creates. For someone that can’t go anywhere on their own to go someplace when they want to, slow speed is not an issue. And I don’t expect to see driverless cars on the highway anytime soon. On city and suburban streets, yes. I don’t want one yet, but there may come a time that it would be attractive to me as I age. My MIL doesn’t drive. If my FIL dies before she does, she won’t be able to go anywhere unless we or the neighbors take her there. With a driverless car, she could shop, go to church, go see the doctor, and visit her friends any time.
.I wonder how it works at night....Once "terrorists" figure out how to spoof it and cause wrecks, that might be a problem...
Watching too many Tom Clancy movies.
While I agree it’s POSSIBLE - IF ANY ONLY IF - The manufacturers of the vehicles don’t put proper safeguards in place. But if you design the system properly…then it’s close to IMPOSSIBLE to break it. And I mean a .0000000000000000001% chance.
And it’s NOT that hard to do. One of our Telecom systems our company designs is installed in Israel. It gets cyper attacked THOUSANDS of times a day. But we have a encryption system which includes a 256bit encryption code that is pretty much IMPOSSIBLE to break into. Systems been running for over 4 years and NOT ONE break in.
The problem is - will the manufacturers use proper safeguards to ensure it won’t happen. I sure hope so.
Assuming the speed ante is upped to freeway rates, it would be a hoot to see how calm and collected passengers are in heavy traffic while knowing they have no control over the car other than a panic button; a device they will surely forget ever existed in times of real emergencies.
I’d love to see how this is going to work in the Boston area…especially during rush hour. What’s the system going to do when someone (driving without a smart car) cuts in front of you at a space of 1 foot. You drive the speed limit during rush hour in Boston before the huge congestion starts then you’ll be cut off 20-40 times during your commute.
@measjoe75fan, all I am saying is that it seems strange to me that a guy who is so terribly worried about Murphy’s law would use recapped tires. You are so risk averse in one respect but willing to take risks in another. That seems incongruous to me.
Your own story demonstrates the increased risks you get with recaps. At least that is how I see it. When the tread separates from the tire being used at or under the vehicle’s capacity, I consider that a sign of a design or manufacturing defect.
If I was in charge of maintaining AF1, it wouldn’t be using recaps.
At some point in time when artificial intelligence surpasses that of a human being , the further development of this artificial intelligence will be given over to, artificial intelligence. From there one can only guess where technology will take us including the operation of the auto. It’s for sure it will be superior to anything you or I could do as a driver now.
So what if I used recaps, once? I was down on my dough, saw a set of 4 for sale at my local shop, and figured I’d give 'em a whirl. I did “due diligence” research on the 'net, and got opinions running the gamut from “death traps” to “perfectly safe” (which is where I picked up the AF1 trivia, BTW).
More importantly, I (correctly) figured that they would give warning prior to failure, and (correctly, from experience) figured that I could handle the “worst case scenario” of a blowout. Frankly, “virgin rubber” tires do fail catastrophically, from time to time, and if you are incapable of controlling a blowout on a passenger vehicle, you have no business driving on ANY sort of tires without sufficient remedial training.
You totally missed my point that a shimmy could be anything from a wheel weight falling off…to a wheel about to fall off, and require DRASTICALLY different responses. Your suggestion of putting (yet another) sensor on the car and to mandate pulling off the road past a certain point of shimmy means you’d have people pulling over left and right (in the middle of Watts, for all the computer knows) for stuff like muddy rims! (Essentially, it’s a crutch: I KNOW compu-car is a lousy diagnostician, so I’ll err on the side of assuming the worst case scenario every time, because of that liability.)
As for my future WRT recaps…well, I found first-hand that heat is the enemy, so I doubt I’d ever buy them again on a vehicle designated for highway use, especially down South. (Or, to put it more musically…)
Don't knock it 'till you've tried it/And I've tried it, my friend/And I'll never run recaps in Dixie again!
@meanjoe75fan: “Your suggestion of putting (yet another) sensor on the car…”
When did I suggest that? I just reread what I wrote, and I never said anything close to that, so I don’t know where you’re getting that. I suggested that existing sensors that new vehicles already have (for ABS, traction control, and stability control), could sense the loss of traction and other changes in wheel rotation that you get when tread starts to separate. As a matter of fact, I’m confident that if you experienced tread separation now on a new vehicle, these existing sensors would give you some kind of warning light. Unless you’ve deliberately done something to contribute to the situation, I don’t see why there is value in doing anything other than pulling over and either calling for help or installing a spare tire.
“You totally missed my point that a shimmy could be anything from a wheel weight falling off…to a wheel about to fall off, and require DRASTICALLY different responses.”
I didn’t miss that at all. I addressed it, while also addressing the irony of the example you chose. It’s a situation no car or tire should experience if the tire company makes the tires safely and the car owner makes reasonably smart choices. In case you forgot, when Firestone had tread separation problems with their tires being used on the Ford Explorer, the first thing people did was look to Ford and Firestone to see who was responsible for making a mistake.
The fact of the matter is that any cause of a shimmy, whether it be a wheel falling off or a wheel weight falling off, is cause to pull over. Even if it’s just a wheel weight, the loss of traction and control you get when a wheel starts to bounce makes driving less safe, and could potentially damage other parts of the car.
I started working at an Avionics factory in 1966. At that time, the engineers said they had the capacity to produce airplanes that could take off, fly, and land without pilot intervention. The FAA would not permit it for many of the reasons stated here.
There was a joke going around in the factory at that time.
The first automatic flight to Paris was announced, and the plane was full.
After everyone was buckled in, a voice came over the loudspeaker. “This is the first totally automated flight to Paris. Sit back and relax. Nothing can go wrong… can go wrong… can go wrong… can go wrong… can go wrong…”
