Are You Ready for Self-Driving Cars? - Comments Page 1

We are going to have to create a whole new infrastructure so that the car will stop for cops, traffic lights, and traffic signs. For now, that trumps the kindergartner scenario, which is hypothetical.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Things like cops, traffic lights, and traffic signs are already taken care of. I'm more concerned about roads covered with ice or snow.

Well I guess there will be a over ride on the vehicle which react to a person voice. You can call out "Manual drive" and a steering wheel will protrude towards you, and you can take over. Three was a car like that in one of Will Smith Movie.

Well I guess there will be a over ride on the vehicle which react to a person voice. You can call out "Manual drive" and a steering wheel will protrude towards you, and you can take over. Three was a car like that in one of Will Smith Movie.

I am not ready, but know this will be a boon to people no longer able to drive beause of age or disability. I am confident the accident rate will fall considerably.
I worry that someone will not have to be the emergency driver if the self-driving system fails. You made some interesting points about our future. No DMV is appealing for sure.

Suppose the kindergartner in the car is the next Einstein or the next Beethovan? Computers can't know that and neither can we. The real solution is a true "emergency" brake not the current "parking" brake. We need a braking system that can, in an emergency, stop a vehicle in a much shorter distance while providing better protection to the occupants and pedestrians even if some damage to the vehicle results.

I'm going to make the same statement that I made when Mr. Rankin talked about Self-Driving cars a few weeks ago:

I have absolutely no intention of ever buying a driverless car. The thought of trusting a computer to drive my car scares the living daylights out of me. Yes, there is something called "human error", but what happens when all of the technology "Crashes"? Or, as has been mentioned before, when your car's computer gets hacked? I'm hoping that most people will reject the driverless car and the whole thing will financially go belly-up. Give me a manual stick-shift vehicle anyday over this crap.

Bob,
I must agree that we are headed to self-driving cars. However it is an odd jump to the conclusion that our society will switch from a predominantly car-owner society to an Uber-like car service society just because we don't operate the vehicle.

These stories seldom consider the overwhelming psychological element of auto ownership. The auto, like our home, like our clothing, is an important projection of our personality and ego. Projecting for myself, when I get in my car it comes with my personal choices of Kleenex and all sorts of media settings and personal stuff in the cabin and trunk. The color and style were carefully chosen to reflect what I want to project as my personality.

I don't believe telling acquaintances we called up a 750i to bring us to work is going to be considered in the same league as saying we own a (self--driving) 750i.

I believe our desire for personalization and our need to project ego and customization will be stronger than the convenience of a car-service and will prolong private ownership, albeit they will mostly be self-driven.

When radio came along the pundits lamented the end of newspapers. When TV came, the end of radio, when the Internet came, the end of TV. Now this generation of pundits predict the end of ownership and of car salesmen. Instead of dying, I believe both will adjust and thrive as long as men are men and women are women and not sheep happy with a common diet.

I am totally with you, Anthony B: I do NOT trust computers to be failsafe!
In fact I have owned a (temporarily) driverless Hyundai; which skidded on black ice and crashed into a large immovable tree.
The antilock braking system's "brain" flocked itself; when the brake-light pressure switch failed.
I learnt later that there had been a factory recall on these cars around 2001-2004: ostensibly for failing brake-light switches. But the real and definitive problem is/was the computer failure it caused.
Plenty of "unexplained" Hyundai brake failures; many involving collisions; were reported in USA and elsewhere. As you'd expect for antilock brake failure to cause a reportable problem; most incidents involved ice and snow.
Hyundai dealers mostly seem to claim that driver error was to blame; but I firmly believe there must have been a computer-jamming voltage spike, at the moment of brake-switch failure.
I fully expect the manufacturers of completely driverless vehicles to similarly try to absolve themselves of all liability when those omnipotent computers fail: which they certainly will!
Keep robotic automation for trams and trains; where there are few enough variables for a computer to read and control!

I like to drive, and sometimes travel long distances in a day. I can't imagine the boredom of sitting as a passenger for 12 hours, even with "toys" to play with in the car. I also sometimes travel off road or on seldom used dirt roads. I'd never trust a computer to do that.
By the way, if those kids are in the road and I am driving legally it's someone else's bad - they put them there when they shouldn't have been. I'll do what I can to mitigate the damage, but not go over the cliff for them.

As been said before, self-driving cars don't have to be perfect, just better than humans. As there were 32,719 deaths in cars in 2013 (a down year, it's been as high as 54,589 in 1972,) being better isn't that hard.
It's not news if you die in a car, nearly 90 people did every *day* in 2013. On the other hand, any autonomous vehicle fender bender is news worthy. I wonder how the news will react when someone actually dies in a self-driving car.

VERY interesting article. Have calculations been done as regards 'road kill'? An enraged elephant with large tusks and in 'musth' ('musth' is the time when they are most unpredictable and dangerous)would probably be worth more than myself. This is looking forward to when the time eventually comes when the African elephant (which carries large tusks)is approaching extinction. Or again, an albino moose. Is a male albino moose more valuable than a female? I understand that male deer are more dangerous in the rutting season.

Well, I think the time has come.

And it couldn't have come at a better time for me and anyone my age. Becayse we're not getting any younger. For those getting into their 60s, 70s, 80s and older, many are stuck at home since they can't drive for one reason or another. They're housebound unless a friend or relative has the time to take them to the grocery store, the doctor's office, the mall, etc. What a relief for this group of citizens to have some freedom with self-driving cars. I think cities with the elaborate bus systems that still drop you off blocks from your front door will also probably diminish. Why would someone opt for a bus when a self-driving car can take you where you want to go and take you and your bags to your home.

People don't like change -- it's been said over and over. But sometimes change is a good thing. Maybe not for you, but certainly for others. I think there's room for both the old and the new!

Surely any kindergarten teacher would have enough sense not to take her children across a road too close to a corner. That is fundamental to road safety and a rule I follow when walking.
Interesting article. There will be the need for new laws and hopefully ones based on human considerations other than profit.

Good point, Chris. But even in that situation nobody would get hurt if everyone drove the way my driving instructor taught me: always drive at such a speed that you are ale to stop safely within the distance that you can see to be clear of hazards. So when you can't see what's round the corner, or it's foggy, or the road is icy, slow down.
Driverless cars must be programmed to drive according to that principle too. Any other 'moral dilemma' scenario you can think of provides more criteria to be included in the cars' programming.

Dear Bob,
Thanks much for a very interesting article.As for me, they will have to pry my car keys out of my cold, dead, very tightly clasped fingers before I let a computer do my driving for me. I would rather a wreck be my own fault than the fault of a computer that crashed. Besides,I don't even use cruise control. I am perfectly capable of regulating the speed of my car.

I think the amount of cars will decrease. Cars sit in our driveways because we are not available to drive. When cars are able to drive, they will be able to time-share with others.
Also, I doubt very much that politicians will allow unoccupied cars. It would be nice to send a car out to pick up some items for me, but politicians are not known for nice.

Dude you are getting way ahead of yourself.
The Autonomous car thing would be nice to use so it can be turned on in crawl speed situations during your daily commute.
People have to get used to these things first.
You probably have forgotten about the out of control Toyota going 100-120 Mph with the driver scared to death sitting in there with his/her hands on the wheel yet no control with the speed.
How much is that Autonomous BS gonna cost anyway?
What we really need is an Autonomous lawn mower.
P.S.
What the he** are those kids doing on the road anyway? where is the supervision?

I love to drive,computers would take my main pleaser away.

Why do you think traffic jams will end when robot driven cars appear? Too many people travelling at the same time assures a traffic jam. Building road lanes for the peak wastes a lot of land. So, traffic jams will still be with us. The hope of those cars is to eliminate some human behaviors in traffic jam situations to make the jams less likely to produce collisions. We have lots of learning to do between that future and now.

consider a car with windows 8.0. Need I say more?