Your thoughts on 'Driverless cars"

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

You are giving terribly dangerous driving advice, as you would get people killed here doing that. You are more likely to cause an accident if you drive too slow rather than too fast, and you will rightfully get a ticket here for doing so. Most people here drive 70+mph. It is less likely to cause an accident if you are keeping up with the flow of traffic.

"it sucks that driving is like that where you are, and maybe you're obliged to drive in that manner because that's what everyone around you is doing and it would be more dangerous not to, but I don't think that it reflects on the general feasibility of automated cars that drivers in your area behave badly."

Even going 75-80 mph on highway 80 here and a ladder rolled across multiple lanes, all of the vehicles were able to maneuver around it without getting anyone harmed at high speeds. We have to expect vehicles to be able to do so here, or they are dangerous. Some speed limits in Texas are 85mph and we have to have vehicles that can operate at these speeds. The point of that reaction is to be able to identify what is on the side of the road and maneuver your vehicle accordingly. You DO need to be able to tell whether it is a bunch of kids is what I am saying, we as humans ALREADY do. I do not think anyone should be behind the wheel that cannot operate at those speeds. You seem to think this is fast, but I have operated vehicles with full control at much higher speeds( my Father designed, built and raced Pro stock cars).
You do not " plan" what is on the road, you have to be able to react accordingly REGARDLESS of what is on the road. Things fly out of vehicles all the time, and we have been driving at high speeds with this happening for many years now already. Of course we should expect all the vehicles on the road to be able to do the same, otherwise they should not be on the road in the first place.

http://www.carinsurance.com/Articles/driving-too-slow-tickets-insurance.aspx
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2016721/Slow-drivers-dangerous-roads-cause-crashes.html
http://www.autoblog.com/2012/10/25/texas-85-mph-toll-road-opens-weeks-ahead-of-schedule/

I think the definition of fast is defined by the context you're in. I've driven cars well in excess of a hundred miles an hour on public roads on blue light runs before without feeling that it was unsafe. The only way to do that reasonably safely is to plan your drive. Planning your drive is of course different than planning what's going to be on the road. No-one can plan what's going to be on the road, we don't have perfect knowledge. You plan so as to increase the time you have to react and options to change speed and direction. It's not going into a corner at silly speeds when there might very well be an accident on the other side or someone stepping into the road. It's moving so as to increase your sight lines and safety. It's maintaining an escape route. It's maintaining a reasonable separation from the car in front. It's noticing when someone's going to emerge from a junction and staying out so that they can do so safely. It's building enough space and time into your drive so that if something happens your options aren't 'Kill someone or slam into something.'

Maybe that's not viable where you are. That sucks for you. I don't see it as a general argument against automated cars but as an argument that your traffic laws and driver training are terrible. You don't need to be able to classify whether something's a dog or a child to know it's probably not going to be conductive to continuing your drive in a safe manner to slam into it at 55mph or take a poorly controlled swerve into a nearby object.

And frankly the statement that driving at those speeds in the context you do so is safe, considering the ridiculous number of road fatalities and injuries in America? I don't buy it. You may have no better options, I won't dispute that one way or the other. But I'm not convinced it's safe - and statements about kids stepping out in front of traffic and things flying off of cars that make you swerve at those sorts of speeds, and that you personally know one person who's crashed from that sort of thing and another who's died, does no favours in that consideration.

I've heard nothing on this point to convince me that driverless cars should fulfil the standards of Texan traffic as much as I've heard things that make me believe the standards of Texan traffic shouldn't be adopted. If that's the way it's going to be in Texas, just don't use driverless cars in Texas until the technology's more mature.

Considering the size of Texas, you can fit like 4 European nations inside this one state, and our traffic deaths are not even considered high in the US, I do not think the Driving education and laws are a problem here.

However, the idea that driverless cars will some how be safer due to the many issues that are no where near being resolved in regards to both securing the software and programming adequate object detection, identification and making judgement reaction calls is clearly false due to what it actually takes to make these calls and the inability of our systems to be able to do so safely for the foreseeable future. Outside of building specific routes just for these vehicles such as a subway system or rail system built for transportation pods, I am not seeing how automated transportation would be feasible. The idea of creating a pod like automated rail system in tunnels where the environment is controlled though could be something that works, as long as it is properly maintained.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

They aren't why would anyone think they were?
They already have been hacked, and people have been complaining about those as well. I am not sure what you are going on about.

http://rt.com/usa/texas-professor-drone-hacking-249/
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/12/17/drone.video.hacked/

The sentiment seems to be that if cars were hackable people would commit atrocities with them, drive everyone into a wall, cut breaks ect, that this would be an inevitable consequence.

I ask that if we have pilotless flying missile launchers and THESE are hackable why isnt there mass terror and hysteria as the hackers do these things already with far more potent tools?

Hackers can already commit mass murder apparently, just turn a drone around and blow up cities. But they havnt, either UAV's cant be hacked by these back garden hackers or they dont want to commit domestic terrorism. Either way theres a demonstration that theres simply not been an abuse of drones to kill people by hacking them. Why would it be different for cars, arguably a far less efficient method?

Honest question, if you think there would be hacker car attacks why hasnt there been a hacker drone attack? Answer that one question tbh since thats the crux of it.

It's a lot easier to get a million automated cars to crash than it is to get a single drone to blow something up.

What do you have to do to get a drone to kill thousands of people? You have to hack the drone, then take direct control of its systems, take the time to fly it somewhere with a lot of people (which could take several hours during which you would need to be in control of all the drone's systems), be able to aim the missiles, and then fire them.

What does it take to get millions of driver less cars to crash? Tell them all to turn left.

The scary thing is this is true. I think working on a pod like rail system in tunnels would be far safer and obtainable than working on "driver less cars".

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

I don't know if anyone mentioned this or not but imagine the huge improvement on traffic it would make if all vehicles were automated? If they were all working on a system in which they were synced up with each other, it'd be a great way to alleviate congested areas.

What happens when the system gets a virus?

Is the fear of something like that happening stopped us from automating many other things in the past? It is just a matter of doing your best to protect the system and have something in place to prevent issues. It obviously isn't something that'd pop up overnight. However, you can't always stick to the same way you've done things just because of a risk something might go wrong.

Also I can't imagine even the worst virus would be any worse than the average driver on the road anyway. Have you seen how poorly most of them drive?

Also, I think too many people think of a driverless system in such a way as if we'd just throw a bunch of cars without drivers on the existing transit system. Ideally, you'd probably eventually overhaul it in such a way that vehicles literally cannot crash into each other. A bit like automated rail systems everywhere, or some other kind of transit.

However, I don't think it isn't worth pursuing something just because of risk. If we avoid everything with risk, we'll never get anywhere.

 

[Nukekitten]

Considering the size of Texas, you can fit like 4 European nations inside this one state, and our traffic deaths are not even considered high in the US, I do not think the Driving education and laws are a problem here.

Last I saw the figures (2010) you had 11.87 traffic deaths per 100,000 population - or at least that's what's in my database at the moment. Which was about average for America in that year, it's not high but it's certainly not low in the same sense that somewhere like Washington was. It's dreadful by comparison to somewhere like the UK (3.5/100,000 pop) or Germany (4.3/100,000 pop), the latter of which being somewhere people also drive at very high speeds, in certain contexts.

However, the idea that driverless cars will some how be safer due to the many issues that are no where near being resolved in regards to both securing the software and programming adequate object detection, identification and making judgement reaction calls is clearly false due to what it actually takes to make these calls and the inability of our systems to be able to do so safely for the foreseeable future.

We've sort of just had that discussion. I don't find there to be a need to tell a difference between an animal and a person when you ought to be able to elect not to hit something regardless. Nor do I find the difficulty of securing something on a network convincing when it would be an act of utter stupidity to connect your car's critical systems to a network, (we're going to run into this problem with the current crop of cars anyway - when someone can make your car's brakes, for instance, do what they want and they're each individually controlled it's going to be very easy to introduce an uncontrollable spin the minute you hit 70mph. You just shouldn't network your car's critical systems. It's a Bad Idea.) and think that even if people did do so and even if someone did kill a bunch of people remotely they would then correct the mistake and in the long run the lives saved would outnumber them anyway.

There are definitely ways not to do driverless cars, but I'm not convinced the idea itself is infeasible for some vaguely defined version of the foreseeable future. Are there technological challenges to be overcome? Sure, no question about it. If your guidance system relies on GPS you're stuffed by default. Even if you can convince the military to let you into their encrypted version you're still probably stuffed because a lot of the difficulty of encryption is in the implementation rather than the maths. Will we have them in large numbers in ten years? I doubt it, though I expect that the relevant technologies will - by virtue of surveillance tech being refined have many more automated systems in cars. (Honestly I don't expect a switch to automation over night, I expect more features to be gradually added.) Fifty? I expect the relevant technologies to be fairly mature by then to a level where though people can theoretically still drive their cars they're just not bothering most of the time, if we still have cars at all (passenger-mile/energy wise they're not a smart move.)

Should we do it tomorrow, or even next year? Well if someone wants to give it a go I'm not against letting them try, a few deaths compared to the potential gain... I'm not going to say no to that gamble. But I'd be surprised if it went well.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

In addition, when we are discussing object detection and identification systems and making split second decisions, you have to account for the human decision of whether to sacrifice yourself, your car and other objects to save the life of the child in the street. This actually happened on the street near mine, they chose to hit the car in the driveway and the front of the house over hitting the child on the street. They chose to hit much larger and more dangerous objects to save the life of a toddler on a tricycle. No one besides the driver was injured and due to this decision both the driver and child are alive today.

I am not sure this will ever be possible with our current systems even if they do improve object detection and identification as they lack the human emotion and ability to self sacrifice in order to save others.

You could specify that people beneath a certain size have a higher value if that's what you're concerned about. Computers certainly have the ability to sacrifice themselves for an objective, cruise missiles do it fairly regularly. The system doesn't consider its own survival unless you tell it to - and even then you can tell it to do so only up to a point.

The issue of course is, we do not have a system that can do that nor, will we have one for the foreseeable future. We do not even have a system that can tell the difference between a child and an animal currently.

maybe you aren't aware...but google cars have proven to be quite the defensive driver

"In August 2012, the team announced that they have completed over 300,000 autonomous-driving miles (500,000 km) accident-free, typically have about a dozen cars on the road at any given time, and are starting to test them with single drivers instead of in pairs"

and since then, it's logged in over 700,000 autonomous miles. The cars are legal in 3 different states already for consumers to be licensed to use, AND get this...they are in the midst of legalizing it in texas

http://www.legis.state.tx.us/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=83R&Bill=HB2932

Now I'm not saying these should be used at all on high speed highways or for detailed driving in unique situations, but in your average city these things are damn safer than your average driver, I can't tell you how many close calls I have daily from people just not paying attention or living by their own "set of rules" that completely lacks acknowledgement for other cars on the road, not to mention they would do wonders to lower the amount of drunk driver deaths/killings we have every year.

more just food for thought, they are nowhere near perfect, but there are many benefits from autonomous cars for your average user in the city. Just imagine traffic flow in a busy city like new york if there were these instead of millions of cars all fighting each other inefficiently for where they needed to go.

 

[Programmed_For_Damage]

Can't it be more prone for hacking?

There are some videos showing that cars these days can be hacked so that you can mess with the brakes and the driver will not have any control.

It can already be kind of done, disable the ABS and what not, so auto-drive cars would be ripe for that sort of thing. As for me I love to drive and I couldn't think of anything worse than to be chauffeured around. Plus they've already got auto-drive cars, they're called buses; and if you've ever been on one you'll know how goddamn boring they are to be in.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

In addition, when we are discussing object detection and identification systems and making split second decisions, you have to account for the human decision of whether to sacrifice yourself, your car and other objects to save the life of the child in the street. This actually happened on the street near mine, they chose to hit the car in the driveway and the front of the house over hitting the child on the street. They chose to hit much larger and more dangerous objects to save the life of a toddler on a tricycle. No one besides the driver was injured and due to this decision both the driver and child are alive today.

I am not sure this will ever be possible with our current systems even if they do improve object detection and identification as they lack the human emotion and ability to self sacrifice in order to save others.

You could specify that people beneath a certain size have a higher value if that's what you're concerned about. Computers certainly have the ability to sacrifice themselves for an objective, cruise missiles do it fairly regularly. The system doesn't consider its own survival unless you tell it to - and even then you can tell it to do so only up to a point.

The issue of course is, we do not have a system that can do that nor, will we have one for the foreseeable future. We do not even have a system that can tell the difference between a child and an animal currently.

maybe you aren't aware...but google cars have proven to be quite the defensive driver

"In August 2012, the team announced that they have completed over 300,000 autonomous-driving miles (500,000 km) accident-free, typically have about a dozen cars on the road at any given time, and are starting to test them with single drivers instead of in pairs"

and since then, it's logged in over 700,000 autonomous miles. The cars are legal in 3 different states already for consumers to be licensed to use, AND get this...they are in the midst of legalizing it in texas

http://www.legis.state.tx.us/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=83R&Bill=HB2932

Now I'm not saying these should be used at all on high speed highways or for detailed driving in unique situations, but in your average city these things are damn safer than your average driver, I can't tell you how many close calls I have daily from people just not paying attention or living by their own "set of rules" that completely lacks acknowledgement for other cars on the road, not to mention they would do wonders to lower the amount of drunk driver deaths/killings we have every year.

more just food for thought, they are nowhere near perfect, but there are many benefits from autonomous cars for your average user in the city. Just imagine traffic flow in a busy city like new york if there were these instead of millions of cars all fighting each other inefficiently for where they needed to go.

Your average city user here, you will be expected to drive 65+ Mph. I can see this being useful for slow driving, however. In cities like the DFW metroplex of around 7 million people, where you drive 65mph to get to and from just about anywhere. If you could not drive 65+ mph you would not even be able to travel to most locations due to that being the only way to get there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas%E2%80%93Fort_Worth_metroplex

I honestly think some sort of pod/ tunnel transportation system in the future would be better than "Driverless cars" due to speed, efficiency and realistic implementation. Instead of "subways" you have individual units taking people where they need to go.
This seems far more doable:
http://blog.shiftboston.org/2011/05/pod-cars-the-future-of-city-trasnportation

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

Considering the size of Texas, you can fit like 4 European nations inside this one state, and our traffic deaths are not even considered high in the US, I do not think the Driving education and laws are a problem here.

Last I saw the figures (2010) you had 11.87 traffic deaths per 100,000 population - or at least that's what's in my database at the moment. Which was about average for America in that year, it's not high but it's certainly not low in the same sense that somewhere like Washington was. It's dreadful by comparison to somewhere like the UK (3.5/100,000 pop) or Germany (4.3/100,000 pop), the latter of which being somewhere people also drive at very high speeds, in certain contexts.

However, the idea that driverless cars will some how be safer due to the many issues that are no where near being resolved in regards to both securing the software and programming adequate object detection, identification and making judgement reaction calls is clearly false due to what it actually takes to make these calls and the inability of our systems to be able to do so safely for the foreseeable future.

We've sort of just had that discussion. I don't find there to be a need to tell a difference between an animal and a person when you ought to be able to elect not to hit something regardless. Nor do I find the difficulty of securing something on a network convincing when it would be an act of utter stupidity to connect your car's critical systems to a network, (we're going to run into this problem with the current crop of cars anyway - when someone can make your car's brakes, for instance, do what they want and they're each individually controlled it's going to be very easy to introduce an uncontrollable spin the minute you hit 70mph. You just shouldn't network your car's critical systems. It's a Bad Idea.) and think that even if people did do so and even if someone did kill a bunch of people remotely they would then correct the mistake and in the long run the lives saved would outnumber them anyway.

There are definitely ways not to do driverless cars, but I'm not convinced the idea itself is infeasible for some vaguely defined version of the foreseeable future. Are there technological challenges to be overcome? Sure, no question about it. If your guidance system relies on GPS you're stuffed by default. Even if you can convince the military to let you into their encrypted version you're still probably stuffed because a lot of the difficulty of encryption is in the implementation rather than the maths. Will we have them in large numbers in ten years? I doubt it, though I expect that the relevant technologies will - by virtue of surveillance tech being refined have many more automated systems in cars. (Honestly I don't expect a switch to automation over night, I expect more features to be gradually added.) Fifty? I expect the relevant technologies to be fairly mature by then to a level where though people can theoretically still drive their cars they're just not bothering most of the time, if we still have cars at all (passenger-mile/energy wise they're not a smart move.)

Should we do it tomorrow, or even next year? Well if someone wants to give it a go I'm not against letting them try, a few deaths compared to the potential gain... I'm not going to say no to that gamble. But I'd be surprised if it went well.

In order to compare the stats of Texas to European nations, you would have to combine the stats from like 4 European nations to be comparable to the size of Texas. People also commute MUCH farther distances here than they do in Europe, thus require higher speeds just to access work, grocery shopping, and hospitals. The way residential and commercial zoning is restricted here makes for much longer commutes. I see the idea of pod/ rail systems a much more realistic option than the idea of driverless cars due to how much safer and progress we have made on that in comparison.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

In addition, when we are discussing object detection and identification systems and making split second decisions, you have to account for the human decision of whether to sacrifice yourself, your car and other objects to save the life of the child in the street. This actually happened on the street near mine, they chose to hit the car in the driveway and the front of the house over hitting the child on the street. They chose to hit much larger and more dangerous objects to save the life of a toddler on a tricycle. No one besides the driver was injured and due to this decision both the driver and child are alive today.

I am not sure this will ever be possible with our current systems even if they do improve object detection and identification as they lack the human emotion and ability to self sacrifice in order to save others.

You could specify that people beneath a certain size have a higher value if that's what you're concerned about. Computers certainly have the ability to sacrifice themselves for an objective, cruise missiles do it fairly regularly. The system doesn't consider its own survival unless you tell it to - and even then you can tell it to do so only up to a point.

The issue of course is, we do not have a system that can do that nor, will we have one for the foreseeable future. We do not even have a system that can tell the difference between a child and an animal currently.

maybe you aren't aware...but google cars have proven to be quite the defensive driver

"In August 2012, the team announced that they have completed over 300,000 autonomous-driving miles (500,000 km) accident-free, typically have about a dozen cars on the road at any given time, and are starting to test them with single drivers instead of in pairs"

and since then, it's logged in over 700,000 autonomous miles. The cars are legal in 3 different states already for consumers to be licensed to use, AND get this...they are in the midst of legalizing it in texas

http://www.legis.state.tx.us/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=83R&Bill=HB2932

Now I'm not saying these should be used at all on high speed highways or for detailed driving in unique situations, but in your average city these things are damn safer than your average driver, I can't tell you how many close calls I have daily from people just not paying attention or living by their own "set of rules" that completely lacks acknowledgement for other cars on the road, not to mention they would do wonders to lower the amount of drunk driver deaths/killings we have every year.

more just food for thought, they are nowhere near perfect, but there are many benefits from autonomous cars for your average user in the city. Just imagine traffic flow in a busy city like new york if there were these instead of millions of cars all fighting each other inefficiently for where they needed to go.

In your average city user here, you will be expected to drive 65+ Mph. I can see the being useful for slow driving, however. In cities like the DFW metroplex of around 7 million people, where you drive 65mph to get to and from just about anywhere. If you could not drive 65+ mph you would not even be able to travel to most locations due to that being the only way to get there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas%E2%80%93Fort_Worth_metroplex

I honestly think some sort of pod/ tunnel transportation system in the future would be better than "Driverless cars" due to speed, efficiency and realistic implementation. Instead of "subways" you have individual units taking people where they need to go.
This seems far more doable:
http://blog.shiftboston.org/2011/05/pod-cars-the-future-of-city-trasnportation

jeesh, you have some crazy high speed limits in texas then if that is average in city driving speeds, I should've switched my field specialty and been a transportation engineer down there

While dallas is bloody huge obviously, you guys must really have your shit spread out if you NEED to drive that fast even casually.. I mean for work yeah I have to bloody haul ass because that is what is expected of me, time is money, but in rush hour traffic you're lucky to get above 55 at any given point in time in my city, but that is more due to humans being fucking selfish asshole dipshits rather than it being too busy.

While the pod cars are a nice idea, it would take massive reconstruction on most of america's cities, as very very few cities aren't built around heavy car use, and the pods are too impersonal because they can only take you too/from hot spots, not to and from home when you live out in suburbs and such. Not that I wouldn't mind cleaner and more efficient transportation methods, I just don't think we'll see the switch away from cars anytime soon, it's become too engrained with how easy it is to just hop in your car and go.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

In addition, when we are discussing object detection and identification systems and making split second decisions, you have to account for the human decision of whether to sacrifice yourself, your car and other objects to save the life of the child in the street. This actually happened on the street near mine, they chose to hit the car in the driveway and the front of the house over hitting the child on the street. They chose to hit much larger and more dangerous objects to save the life of a toddler on a tricycle. No one besides the driver was injured and due to this decision both the driver and child are alive today.

I am not sure this will ever be possible with our current systems even if they do improve object detection and identification as they lack the human emotion and ability to self sacrifice in order to save others.

You could specify that people beneath a certain size have a higher value if that's what you're concerned about. Computers certainly have the ability to sacrifice themselves for an objective, cruise missiles do it fairly regularly. The system doesn't consider its own survival unless you tell it to - and even then you can tell it to do so only up to a point.

The issue of course is, we do not have a system that can do that nor, will we have one for the foreseeable future. We do not even have a system that can tell the difference between a child and an animal currently.

maybe you aren't aware...but google cars have proven to be quite the defensive driver

"In August 2012, the team announced that they have completed over 300,000 autonomous-driving miles (500,000 km) accident-free, typically have about a dozen cars on the road at any given time, and are starting to test them with single drivers instead of in pairs"

and since then, it's logged in over 700,000 autonomous miles. The cars are legal in 3 different states already for consumers to be licensed to use, AND get this...they are in the midst of legalizing it in texas

http://www.legis.state.tx.us/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=83R&Bill=HB2932

Now I'm not saying these should be used at all on high speed highways or for detailed driving in unique situations, but in your average city these things are damn safer than your average driver, I can't tell you how many close calls I have daily from people just not paying attention or living by their own "set of rules" that completely lacks acknowledgement for other cars on the road, not to mention they would do wonders to lower the amount of drunk driver deaths/killings we have every year.

more just food for thought, they are nowhere near perfect, but there are many benefits from autonomous cars for your average user in the city. Just imagine traffic flow in a busy city like new york if there were these instead of millions of cars all fighting each other inefficiently for where they needed to go.

In your average city user here, you will be expected to drive 65+ Mph. I can see the being useful for slow driving, however. In cities like the DFW metroplex of around 7 million people, where you drive 65mph to get to and from just about anywhere. If you could not drive 65+ mph you would not even be able to travel to most locations due to that being the only way to get there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas%E2%80%93Fort_Worth_metroplex

I honestly think some sort of pod/ tunnel transportation system in the future would be better than "Driverless cars" due to speed, efficiency and realistic implementation. Instead of "subways" you have individual units taking people where they need to go.
This seems far more doable:
http://blog.shiftboston.org/2011/05/pod-cars-the-future-of-city-trasnportation

jeesh, you have some crazy high speed limits in texas then if that is average in city driving speeds, I should've switched my field specialty and been a transportation engineer down there

While dallas is bloody huge obviously, you guys must really have your shit spread out if you NEED to drive that fast even casually.. I mean for work yeah I have to bloody haul ass because that is what is expected of me, time is money, but in rush hour traffic you're lucky to get above 55 at any given point in time in my city, but that is more due to humans being fucking selfish asshole dipshits rather than it being too busy.

While the pod cars are a nice idea, it would take massive reconstruction on most of america's cities, as very very few cities aren't built around heavy car use, and the pods are too impersonal because they can only take you too/from hot spots, not to and from home when you live out in suburbs and such. Not that I wouldn't mind cleaner and more efficient transportation methods, I just don't think we'll see the switch away from cars anytime soon, it's become too engrained with how easy it is to just hop in your car and go.

I think there are ways to implement the pods by either going above, below or reworking traffic lanes in order to do so since pod lanes do not take up much space, they would be more doable than most solutions offered thus far. If Pods can be made as easy to just " hop in" and be implemented in the suburbs as well, I think that would be the best solution thus far.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

I don't think a computer program can actually drive better than me and make better time with regards to city driving. Now, highway driving I think it would do just fine as it's simple and make the highways safer since that's where a lot of driving fatalities happen.

Bring it.

Imagine a road system where every driver has a complete 360 view that it was constantly aware of.

Already done, I have a 360 degree view when driving by using my mirrors.

They aren't limited to 2 eyes and don't have a blind spot.

There is no blind spot if you set up your mirrors properly; I have my side mirrors set up so that I can still see the car along side me in the mirror just as it enters my peripheral vision. I never even turn my head to change lanes because I know where every car is. I'm constantly looking in my mirrors getting snapshots of the traffic behind me much like always peeking at the radar in a shooter and knowing where your teammates and enemies are. You never know when you'll have to immediately change lanes for whatever reason so you have to always know if you can without turning your head, it has saved me getting in a few accidents. And I have a perfect driving record all while cheating on my driving eye test because I'm nearsighted.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

In addition, when we are discussing object detection and identification systems and making split second decisions, you have to account for the human decision of whether to sacrifice yourself, your car and other objects to save the life of the child in the street. This actually happened on the street near mine, they chose to hit the car in the driveway and the front of the house over hitting the child on the street. They chose to hit much larger and more dangerous objects to save the life of a toddler on a tricycle. No one besides the driver was injured and due to this decision both the driver and child are alive today.

I am not sure this will ever be possible with our current systems even if they do improve object detection and identification as they lack the human emotion and ability to self sacrifice in order to save others.

You could specify that people beneath a certain size have a higher value if that's what you're concerned about. Computers certainly have the ability to sacrifice themselves for an objective, cruise missiles do it fairly regularly. The system doesn't consider its own survival unless you tell it to - and even then you can tell it to do so only up to a point.

The issue of course is, we do not have a system that can do that nor, will we have one for the foreseeable future. We do not even have a system that can tell the difference between a child and an animal currently.

maybe you aren't aware...but google cars have proven to be quite the defensive driver

"In August 2012, the team announced that they have completed over 300,000 autonomous-driving miles (500,000 km) accident-free, typically have about a dozen cars on the road at any given time, and are starting to test them with single drivers instead of in pairs"

and since then, it's logged in over 700,000 autonomous miles. The cars are legal in 3 different states already for consumers to be licensed to use, AND get this...they are in the midst of legalizing it in texas

http://www.legis.state.tx.us/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=83R&Bill=HB2932

Now I'm not saying these should be used at all on high speed highways or for detailed driving in unique situations, but in your average city these things are damn safer than your average driver, I can't tell you how many close calls I have daily from people just not paying attention or living by their own "set of rules" that completely lacks acknowledgement for other cars on the road, not to mention they would do wonders to lower the amount of drunk driver deaths/killings we have every year.

more just food for thought, they are nowhere near perfect, but there are many benefits from autonomous cars for your average user in the city. Just imagine traffic flow in a busy city like new york if there were these instead of millions of cars all fighting each other inefficiently for where they needed to go.

In your average city user here, you will be expected to drive 65+ Mph. I can see the being useful for slow driving, however. In cities like the DFW metroplex of around 7 million people, where you drive 65mph to get to and from just about anywhere. If you could not drive 65+ mph you would not even be able to travel to most locations due to that being the only way to get there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas%E2%80%93Fort_Worth_metroplex

I honestly think some sort of pod/ tunnel transportation system in the future would be better than "Driverless cars" due to speed, efficiency and realistic implementation. Instead of "subways" you have individual units taking people where they need to go.
This seems far more doable:
http://blog.shiftboston.org/2011/05/pod-cars-the-future-of-city-trasnportation

jeesh, you have some crazy high speed limits in texas then if that is average in city driving speeds, I should've switched my field specialty and been a transportation engineer down there

While dallas is bloody huge obviously, you guys must really have your shit spread out if you NEED to drive that fast even casually.. I mean for work yeah I have to bloody haul ass because that is what is expected of me, time is money, but in rush hour traffic you're lucky to get above 55 at any given point in time in my city, but that is more due to humans being fucking selfish asshole dipshits rather than it being too busy.

While the pod cars are a nice idea, it would take massive reconstruction on most of america's cities, as very very few cities aren't built around heavy car use, and the pods are too impersonal because they can only take you too/from hot spots, not to and from home when you live out in suburbs and such. Not that I wouldn't mind cleaner and more efficient transportation methods, I just don't think we'll see the switch away from cars anytime soon, it's become too engrained with how easy it is to just hop in your car and go.

I think there are ways to implement the pods by either going above, below or reworking traffic lanes in order to do so since pod lanes do not take up much space, they would be more doable than most solutions offered thus far. If Pods can be made as easy to just " hop in" and be implemented in the suburbs as well, I think that would be the best solution thus far.

as someone who works in the construction/engineering industry...it is nowhere near "more doable", the amount of money needed and redesign of everything would take a lot of time and effort,say goodbye to every cent you pay in taxes for decades, and you run into the same problems of driverless cars if the pods are that accessible, there would be monorails down every damn street and it would be autonomous based on your destinations, so you're still depending on a computer for travel.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

In addition, when we are discussing object detection and identification systems and making split second decisions, you have to account for the human decision of whether to sacrifice yourself, your car and other objects to save the life of the child in the street. This actually happened on the street near mine, they chose to hit the car in the driveway and the front of the house over hitting the child on the street. They chose to hit much larger and more dangerous objects to save the life of a toddler on a tricycle. No one besides the driver was injured and due to this decision both the driver and child are alive today.

I am not sure this will ever be possible with our current systems even if they do improve object detection and identification as they lack the human emotion and ability to self sacrifice in order to save others.

You could specify that people beneath a certain size have a higher value if that's what you're concerned about. Computers certainly have the ability to sacrifice themselves for an objective, cruise missiles do it fairly regularly. The system doesn't consider its own survival unless you tell it to - and even then you can tell it to do so only up to a point.

The issue of course is, we do not have a system that can do that nor, will we have one for the foreseeable future. We do not even have a system that can tell the difference between a child and an animal currently.

maybe you aren't aware...but google cars have proven to be quite the defensive driver

"In August 2012, the team announced that they have completed over 300,000 autonomous-driving miles (500,000 km) accident-free, typically have about a dozen cars on the road at any given time, and are starting to test them with single drivers instead of in pairs"

and since then, it's logged in over 700,000 autonomous miles. The cars are legal in 3 different states already for consumers to be licensed to use, AND get this...they are in the midst of legalizing it in texas

http://www.legis.state.tx.us/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=83R&Bill=HB2932

Now I'm not saying these should be used at all on high speed highways or for detailed driving in unique situations, but in your average city these things are damn safer than your average driver, I can't tell you how many close calls I have daily from people just not paying attention or living by their own "set of rules" that completely lacks acknowledgement for other cars on the road, not to mention they would do wonders to lower the amount of drunk driver deaths/killings we have every year.

more just food for thought, they are nowhere near perfect, but there are many benefits from autonomous cars for your average user in the city. Just imagine traffic flow in a busy city like new york if there were these instead of millions of cars all fighting each other inefficiently for where they needed to go.

In your average city user here, you will be expected to drive 65+ Mph. I can see the being useful for slow driving, however. In cities like the DFW metroplex of around 7 million people, where you drive 65mph to get to and from just about anywhere. If you could not drive 65+ mph you would not even be able to travel to most locations due to that being the only way to get there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas%E2%80%93Fort_Worth_metroplex

I honestly think some sort of pod/ tunnel transportation system in the future would be better than "Driverless cars" due to speed, efficiency and realistic implementation. Instead of "subways" you have individual units taking people where they need to go.
This seems far more doable:
http://blog.shiftboston.org/2011/05/pod-cars-the-future-of-city-trasnportation

jeesh, you have some crazy high speed limits in texas then if that is average in city driving speeds, I should've switched my field specialty and been a transportation engineer down there

While dallas is bloody huge obviously, you guys must really have your shit spread out if you NEED to drive that fast even casually.. I mean for work yeah I have to bloody haul ass because that is what is expected of me, time is money, but in rush hour traffic you're lucky to get above 55 at any given point in time in my city, but that is more due to humans being fucking selfish asshole dipshits rather than it being too busy.

While the pod cars are a nice idea, it would take massive reconstruction on most of america's cities, as very very few cities aren't built around heavy car use, and the pods are too impersonal because they can only take you too/from hot spots, not to and from home when you live out in suburbs and such. Not that I wouldn't mind cleaner and more efficient transportation methods, I just don't think we'll see the switch away from cars anytime soon, it's become too engrained with how easy it is to just hop in your car and go.

I think there are ways to implement the pods by either going above, below or reworking traffic lanes in order to do so since pod lanes do not take up much space, they would be more doable than most solutions offered thus far. If Pods can be made as easy to just " hop in" and be implemented in the suburbs as well, I think that would be the best solution thus far.

as someone who works in the construction/engineering industry...it is nowhere near "more doable", the amount of money needed and redesign of everything would take a lot of time and effort,say goodbye to every cent you pay in taxes for decades, and you run into the same problems of driverless cars if the pods are that accessible, there would be monorails down every damn street and it would be autonomous based on your destinations, so you're still depending on a computer for travel.

AND yet THAT is still more doable than having driver less cars that car drive outside of controlled environments where children can run into the streets. That is my point. Having a pod in a controlled environment tube is MORE doable than putting this on the streets. Building a whole new system for these pods is still more doable than driverless cars.

 

[Jesterscup]

I honestly think some sort of pod/ tunnel transportation system in the future would be better than "Driverless cars" due to speed, efficiency and realistic implementation. Instead of "subways" you have individual units taking people where they need to go.
This seems far more doable:
http://blog.shiftboston.org/2011/05/pod-cars-the-future-of-city-trasnportation

Kinda apologies for my heavy use of sarcasm after quoting you, But I live in the future....

Sure my country is kinda small, but to get from one urban density to another I go via a rail-based system. we even have these in towns, some of them fully automated, some are underground, some on the roads. we also have these things that are like cars, but bigger, they can hold like 70 people, generally get around town faster,and are so much safer, and cleaner.

ok sarcasm aside, I know not having a car isn't an option for everybody, but there are lots of people who would have a nicer life if they didn't drive.

Case in point, I used to travel for around 90 mins each way for a job. a colleague, lived 10 mins further away, drove and took the same time. Overall my journey was slightly cheaper, and I got to relax, work read books, play games. But he 'needed' his car....

The benefit of less people driving, is that public transport gets better, it scales better, less cars mean ever faster journeys, more commuters means more better & faster services, and better investment in the future of these services.

 

[DefunctTheory]

Bring it.

Imagine a road system where every driver has a complete 360 view that it was constantly aware of.

Already done, I have a 360 degree view when driving by using my mirrors.

No, you don't.

You have 360 degrees of vision that your constantly cycling through. And 90% of drivers do a really shitty job of it.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

I honestly think some sort of pod/ tunnel transportation system in the future would be better than "Driverless cars" due to speed, efficiency and realistic implementation. Instead of "subways" you have individual units taking people where they need to go.
This seems far more doable:
http://blog.shiftboston.org/2011/05/pod-cars-the-future-of-city-trasnportation

Kinda apologies for my heavy use of sarcasm after quoting you, But I live in the future....

Sure my country is kinda small, but to get from one urban density to another I go via a rail-based system. we even have these in towns, some of them fully automated, some are underground, some on the roads. we also have these things that are like cars, but bigger, they can hold like 70 people, generally get around town faster,and are so much safer, and cleaner.

ok sarcasm aside, I know not having a car isn't an option for everybody, but there are lots of people who would have a nicer life if they didn't drive.

Case in point, I used to travel for around 90 mins each way for a job. a colleague, lived 10 mins further away, drove and took the same time. Overall my journey was slightly cheaper, and I got to relax, work read books, play games. But he 'needed' his car....

The benefit of less people driving, is that public transport gets better, it scales better, less cars mean ever faster journeys, more commuters means more better & faster services, and better investment in the future of these services.

I do think many people would have a nicer life if they didn't drive, and I think we need to implement more of pod/ rail systems rather than try and focus on " driverless cars" as much simply because we already have the technology to do the pod systems, and we currently have no way of knowing if we will be able to successfully do the driverless cars in the future or not yet. There are many unknowns with driverless cars but with pods, we already know what we can do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uUsI052pRI

 

[Dagda Mor]

They would need to be able to be taken over at any time by the driver. Sure, this sounds great for regular highway commuting, but what if something unexpected happens? The automated car won't handle that well, and it needs a human to take over until the threat has passed.

In any case, yeah, I'd love this. I hate driving, and I'm really bad at it.

 

[Nukekitten]

In order to compare the stats of Texas to European nations, you would have to combine the stats from like 4 European nations to be comparable to the size of Texas. People also commute MUCH farther distances here than they do in Europe, thus require higher speeds just to access work, grocery shopping, and hospitals. The way residential and commercial zoning is restricted here makes for much longer commutes.

I'm not sure how combining the stats would be meaningful, considering that the stats were given as a ratio of deaths to population. I mean I know how you'd combine the populations and move your average, I don't know how it would make much sense as compared to going off of something like per billion vehicle KM or something like that.

By the latter measure Texas comes out at 1.4 deaths per 100,000,000 passenger miles[footnote]http://ftp.dot.state.tx.us/pub/txdot-info/trf/crash_statistics/2013/01-2013.pdf[/footnote]. Germany gets 4.9 per billion KM[footnote]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate[/footnote]. Which if I've got my maths correct works out at around 0.78 deaths per 100,000,000 passenger miles. Or to put it another way Texas would have around 179% of Germany's deaths on a per KM for KM basis. (Which I think is pretty much average for America as a whole.)

You might still meaningfully protest that people in Texas need to travel further on a more frequent basis and thus more speed in urban areas and thus more deaths. Which is fair, but that seems to me to be more to do with bad design forcing people to drive dangerously than it does an argument that people aren't driving more dangerously.

I see the idea of pod/ rail systems a much more realistic option than the idea of driverless cars due to how much safer and progress we have made on that in comparison.

If people could solve the planning and regulation issues with that so that we could actually have a decent rail system again, that would be lovely. I still take the train for any long journeys because ... well, drive or sit in a carriage being served tea and hot meals while browsing the internet? I think I'll take the train. ^_^

But I think the problems to solve there are going to be on the one hand regulatory for the train system and on the other ... there just isn't a good last mile solution yet. Not one that doesn't require heavy investment in infrastructure anyway.

 

[thewatergamer]

Honestly, I would much rather trust a computer with a wheel than a human, so frankly if this ever becomes a thing that would be pretty awesome.

I do understand the concerns about hacking and or glitches, but the amount of deaths due to that kind of error would #1 be completely on the company that made the car, and #2 be WAY less likely than dying because some idiot decided it would be a brilliant idea to get drunk and drive

So yeah, could have problems ESPECIALLY early on, and I do think their should be some type of manual overide option available in case something happens that the computer isn't programmed to deal with, but overall given the choice between a human and a computer behind a wheel of a car, I'd trust the computer more

 

[Flames66]

In theory, I like the technology, but I will never get one. I suspect they would be linked to easily track-able GPS systems and record destinations entered and that is unacceptable to me. I quite like the idea of self driving public transport though.