So true and lets not forget the insurance companies, who's liable if two autonomous cars crash into each other?
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U.S. House Committee Unanimously Approves Measure to Ease Restrictions on Autonomous Vehicles
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This could be you. Autonomous vehicles still have trouble with changes to infrastructure. Construction. Malfunctioning traffic signals, obscured signage...
This. Thank you for citing the stats. People continue to fear change, it's pretty crazy.
Long live the buggy whip manufacturers!
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It will be your fault. Seriously.
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The prevailing theory is that insurance will cease to exist and the manufacturers will self insure and indemnify all users against liability from accidents.
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This is actually an interesting comment and a theory that has been posed by some with interest in autonomous vehicles. This will get a bit abstract and I'll try to boil it down to keep things brief. Basically we as humans all act based upon assumptions and with other human drivers on the road we need to temper our assumptions about idiotic moves those drivers may or may not make. We won't blow through a stop sign assuming the other guy will stop because what if he doesn't stop either. With autonomous vehicles that follow the laws perfectly the remaining human drivers (during a transition period, eventually human control of vehicles will be outlawed on public roads) now have a changing equation and may decide to take advantage of the fact that they KNOW what the autonomous vehicles will do. Effectively humans will become more jerk-ish than they already are. Magnifying the jerk factor of current self-centered drivers if you will.
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Largely FUD. I hate to break it to you but you carry a handy little tracker with you almost everywhere you go today. Your cell phone pings and connects to cellular towers all over and your phone company keeps a record of those which can be obtained by the government with a subpoena. Cars can be hacked today (Google how Jeep was hacked and steering and brakes overridden). Vehicles can be remotely shut down (see On-Star and LoJack). Technology is going to march on whether you fear it or not. My advice is to align yourself with products and services that respect your privacy as much as the technology will allow.
I'm not even sure if many people will own cars in the future. People would just electronically call for a car (or schedule it) and it arrives and takes you to where you want to go. The passenger doesn't have the cost and time of maintenance, insurance, etc. And the companies that run them don't have to pay drivers. I'm mostly concerned that there will be a tipping point in the future where bureaucrats will demand that all cars be automatic, and/or insurance companies will charge an arm and a leg for people to drive a human-operated vehicle.
According to some earlier in the thread - it's us as the "non drivers" - needless to say I disagree.
And I'll bet you anything that governments will demand ways for police to remotely control such vehicles.
In the future, rebellions will be led by free men who still know how to drive themselves.
I foresee a Hollywood movie based on this concept pretty darned soon
Vehicles can already be remotely disabled in many cases. Are rebellions now to be led by men on horses? Or preppers stockpiling diesel trucks without ECUs? In this dystopian future you describe I expect there will be home-brew drones doing the fighting or the rebels will be jailbreaking seized military equipment.
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Now that would be fantastic, although vehicle insurance is big business and they may not want to go down without a fight.
I remember when car insurance was reasonably priced because it was based on risk, as insurance should be. Nowadays they take complete advantage of your legal requirement to have it to charge extortionate premiums and excesses that pretty much negate that risk in the majority of cases.
It is especially taxing on young drivers with cheap cars who are often asked to pay far more in insurance than the car is worth.
Although I love driving, if it all goes autonomous and insurance "ceases to exist" as you suggest I won't be mourning the disappearance of that industry.
Correct. Even though I enjoy my vehicles (and own more than I can drive at any one time) they are a terrible use of funds. For most people a vehicle is the biggest outlay of funds they make short of their home and 90% of the time it just sits idle depreciating. There's certainly a big divide between urban and rural here but for urban dwellers it doesn't make sense to own a vehicle if the cost of ride-sharing an autonomous vehicle continues to drop. The sharing service gets much more efficiency out of their investment and total transportation costs drop for the rest of us.
Will autonomous vehicles have enough sense to crash into a pole instead of hitting a child who runs into the street?
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Mind you, my wife can't drive any more and such a vehicle would be fantastic for her.
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If I were a criminal, I'd have a field day with autonomous cars that you could call for a ride.
Just lure it into a vacant lot, close the gate, surround it with humans so it stops, then jack it up so it can't go anywhere. Now you can disable its brain and GPS, and take it away to a chop shop to be broken up and sold
I'm telling ya, they're going to have to arm these things! It'll be like the three laws of robotics; the third law being self-survival.
Someones been thinking about this for a while huh?
If your livelihood doesn't depend on being in the transportation industry then further automation of vehicles has a lot of potential as an economic benefit to you. No depreciation on your vehicle, no insurance to carry, no maintenance costs, no standing at gas stations fueling up, etc... We'll see transportation as a service packages spring up where you'll pay a smaller monthly fee to have Uber or Lyft automated vehicles get you where you need to go.
You're absolutely correct.
Outside of Taxi Drivers, Hauliers, Bus Drivers etc as unfortunately all of those jobs will be the first to be replaced.
Although, in contrast, the technology will bring much benefit to the everyday lives of many others.
Me though, despite the fact that my work has often involved a lot of travel, I still love driving. I'm going to miss it when it's a "minority sport".
Not really, drivers where I live are just as ****** as anywhere else. But my point still applies.
I worry about the decision making process. Will it swerve into a group of children walking home from school on the sidewalk in order to avoid an accident? How do these machines decide what to do? That crap should be in the safety regulations! Oh wait, who needs those!
The topic has come up here quite a few times before.
Oh, ha, or did you specifically mean the criminal part? lol. Cute!
Want to see a mess? 4 way intersection with malfunctioning traffic light. Mix autonomous and human driven vehicles with pedestrian school traffic. You'd end up with a IFTT Boolean logic conflagration that destroys 4, maybe 5 city blocks.The topic has come up here quite a few times before.
Oh, ha, or did you specifically mean the criminal part? lol. Cute!
More to the point, automobiles designed that way cannot meet current standards, so without relaxing at least some of the regulations, such fully autonomous vehicles are not possible. And as long as there's a steering wheel, there's a chance of a human accidentally taking control and causing a wreck.
You apparently haven't seen California drivers, road conditions, or Muni bus crash statistics if you think its environment is "safe".
I'll grant you weather, though. California doesn't see much of that.
Realistically, if there's enough time to avoid the child, it will do so, and if there's not enough time to avoid the child, the human driver won't be able to, either. So the "kill the kid or kill the driver" question is kind of nonsensical.
With that said, an autonomous vehicle, unlike the human, will see the child playing dangerously close to the side of the road, because it will be paying attention in all directions at once, and thus will react much sooner than the human possibly could (potentially even slowing down ahead of time), thus making a fatality dramatically less likely.
The part where a human was driving the car during all 12 accidents.
I said *I* would welcome one.
I didn’t say *it* was ready ... I’m hoping one set of rules across the board (all 50 states) helps it get “ready” sooner.I’m sure they do create a false sense of security. That’s why google was trying to go all the way to level 5 and remove the driving controls entirely.
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So you think having a hodgepodge if regulations (each individual state) is “right” while leveling the playing field nationally creating consistency is “wrong”? Tesla autopilot isn’t perfect. But having it is already safer than *not*. My original point was in response to people’s knee jerk, and predictable, reaction that this development was a bad thing ...
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Or *this* could be me:
*Humans* still have trouble with changes to infrastructure. I want this technology to get better. Faster. I think this story reflects a change that enhances that. I welcome the change. Autopilot is already safer (statistically) than a human driver without it. Our “single data points” aside.
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I have a feeling that, such as my comment above, allied with the many variables that can only come to light through experience, the outlawing of private travel will not happen. Too may people (at work or play) will require instant access to go anywhere vehicles, and will have no interest in buying/leasing a machine that is not truly theirs to outfit as they wish.
As for jerkish behaviour, nature abhors a vacuum - so do I.
Never acts in the interest of the people. Never.
Awful cheeky considering your country is well on its way to giving away the farm. The canary in that particular coal mine has been dead for a while.
Interesting the number of Luddites we can find on a technology discussion board. I suspect I am quite a bit older than a significant majority of the posters on these boards, yet I seem to have a higher level of confidence in the ability of technology to solve complex problems, and by so doing, improve our lives. It's a basic proposition that so many, presumably many of them younger than myself, don't seem to accept. How could that be, I wonder?
Um ... *because* they are safer.
They are reducing inconsistencies and patchwork *regulation* ...And, it would help to read the press release:
“The measure, which would be the first significant federal legislation aimed at speeding self-driving cars to market, would require automakers to submit safety assessment reports to U.S. regulators...”
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With respect, I don't think the Luddite syndrome, which is still alive and well, applies here. I don't object to change, but I do object to being forced into something which detracts from my chosen lifestyle.
I have neither a smart phone nor GPS, because I don't like the idea of my every move being tracked, which will be the case with driverless cars. I also demand the total right to go wherever I want, whenever I want, However I want, and why ever I want - in private.
If the eventual introduction of autonomous cars into the transport mix does not take away choice, then fine.
Vehicle automation is not just about providing basically unmanned Ubers.
Pool vehicles are okay for city dwellers and non-drivers, but I think many/most people... especially with families... will continue to purchase their own personal vehicle, but capable of autonomous mode. The advantages are the same reasons why most people right now don't just use rides like Uber:
Besides not having to constantly wait for a pool vehicle to arrive (if there's even one available - when it rains there's never enough!), and having to pay for each ride, many people prefer their own vehicle because it's instantly personally available, they know its passenger health history, and they can leave their personal belongings, kids toys, golf clubs, etc, inside.
So I foresee families continuing to own their vehicles. It's just that, without a driver being required, perhaps Mom will be able to say, "Car, take the kids to school", and "Car, go pick up Grandma at the airport", and "I'm too tired to drive, car, take me to the grocery". Not to mention letting the car drive while sightseeing, so everyone can give attention to the view
. Plus maybe teens could go on dates without Dad driving? Hmm. Maybe bad idea.
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