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I disagree. I believe it's going to take a lot longer than people think, and/or it's going to be a bloody (literally) mess.

The problem is that regardless of how quickly truly autonomous vehicles come to market, we're going to be in a mixed autonomous/manual/everything in-between environment for a very long time, and that's a recipe for disaster.
So true and lets not forget the insurance companies, who's liable if two autonomous cars crash into each other?
 
Why not do a search for the safety record of Google's cars... As of May 2015 Google logged 1.8 million miles driven, involved in 12 accidents, all human caused. The average human has an accident every 165,000 miles though this is an old statistic... with distracted driving the numbers are getting worse.


Current safety standards don't apply to a car not being driven by a human.... they aren't talking about removing safety glass or driving on bald tires without brakes.
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Why not do a search for the safety record of Google's cars... As of May 2015 Google logged 1.8 million miles driven, involved in 12 accidents, all human caused. The average human has an accident every 165,000 miles though this is an old statistic... with distracted driving the numbers are getting worse.

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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Keep your cars! You should have no problem teaching future generations about them. Autonomous cars or not, I will be driving until I can no longer safely drive. I hope I get hit by an Apple or whatever autonomous car. I will sue the hell out of the tech company.

It will be your fault. Seriously.
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I agree with the concerns others have expressed on the thread regarding easing safety restrictions on autonomous car market entry at the moment. If anything the standards should be higher until the tech is proven, but big business talks and governments that are supposed to protect and serve the electorate listen.

On another note, have they decided how the insurance market will work for these autonomous cars yet? If my car makes a mistake and rams someone else damaging their vehicle, I don't want to be held responsible.

If these vehicles are going to become more widespread on our roads, this needs to be agreed quickly.

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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If these toys drive with, say, three car lengths between them, and slam the brakes on at a closer distance, I'm going to have great fun zig-zagging my way through them to the front of the pack.

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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Say what you will, but ultimately the streamlining of this is down to government control of our daily lives. Whatever you might think of the tech, here is what will happen at some point:
  • Your every move will be recorded and stored in a company database
  • The government will have the ability to access these records and see where you were every minute of every day.
  • Now that may not sound bad at first, but consider this: You are on disability, you go and spend time at the movies, let's say at Downtown Disney at Disneyland. The government reviews the records of where your car was and determines you were at Disneyland going on rides (which you weren't), so you can't possibly be disabled and are committing insurance fraud. Alternatively you loan your car to someone else who does go to Disneyland and they determine the same thing even though you were at home in massive pain the entire time.
  • The government decides they don't like how much you are driving, so they send an override command to your car to take you home and not run for the rest of the day/week/month/year/etc.
  • Someone hacks your car and overrides the destination.
Mark my words this will happen at some point in time with self driving cars and not in the distant future, these reasons are why the federal government is interested in streamlining the approval process, they see this as a great way to take even more control of our personal lives and I think we all should be standing up and saying no.

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.
 
Maybe one day, having to give up control of driving to a computerized chauffeur would take all the fun and thrill out of owning a car. It then might be like owning a refrigerator or a toaster, just purely utilitarian.

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.
 
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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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The prevailing theory is that insurance will cease to exist and the manufacturers will self insure and indemnify all users against liability from accidents.

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.
 
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.

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 :D

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?
 
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.

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.
 
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".
 
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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.
 
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The problem is that automobile manufactures want to eliminate the steering wheel, gas and brake pedals completely, which poses A LOT of potential issues, including safety, privacy and a number of other concerns.

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.

Take those cute little Google cars out of their safe, little, and meticulously mapped/controlled, approved testing zone bubbles, expose them to real and varied traffic/road/weather conditions and see that accident rate rise like a phoenix on sterroids.

You apparently haven't seen California drivers, road conditions, or Muni bus crash statistics if you think its environment is "safe". :D

I'll grant you weather, though. California doesn't see much of that.

Will autonomous vehicles have enough sense to crash into a pole instead of hitting a child who runs into the street?

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.


Am I missing something here - 1.8m miles with 12 accidents is one accident every 150,000 miles which is worse than the human stat?

The part where a human was driving the car during all 12 accidents.
 
The roads in most places aren't good enough for this. And it's this type of attitude (I'm not judging) that is causing Tesla issues right now. People get confidence in it, over estimating it's capabilities and aren't ready at the wheel IF something goes wrong.

I said *I* would welcome one. :D 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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If you haven't, you should actually read the article you linked since the headline and the article's content don't convey the same message. The article's content definitely doesn't convey a need for a sense of urgency from US companies. Baidu is, just this month, starting road testing in restricted areas, while companies in the US (under the current regulations) have logged years of data and millions of miles. Rapid advancement at the expense of safety regulation is a dumb, dumb, dumb idea that history has proven over and over to be... a dumb idea. Besides, rapid advancement won't mean a darn thing if the infrastructure (roads and bridges) remain in a deplorable state. I'd prefer they do it right more so than doing it quickly.

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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This could be you. Autonomous vehicles still have trouble with changes to infrastructure. Construction. Malfunctioning traffic signals, obscured signage...

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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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.

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.
 
Your country never acts in the interest of the people but in the interest of companies and profit. Are you seriously surprised ?

Never acts in the interest of the people. Never. :rolleyes:

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?
 
If they're already safer, then why the need to relax the safety laws?

Um ... *because* they are safer. :rolleyes: 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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I'll never get inside of a driver-less car. It has no actual will to live nor a "personal" desire even to stay out of an accident. All it has is instructions via software, which is never perfect. No thanks, I DO have a will to live.
 
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?


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.
 
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.

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.:p
 
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