Would you ride in a driverless vehicle?

[martin-w 3,260]

Never finished. 

Edited January 15, 2023 by martin-w

[goates 576]

On 1/14/2023 at 11:47 AM, birdguy said:

More comfortable with that than the 45,222 gun related deaths each year.  Or war casualties.  Swimmers drown.  Rock climbers fall to their deaths.  Recreational pilots crash and burn.  Overeaters get fat and die of a multitude of ailments before their time.

How far do we go in trying to create a risk free environment?

Noel

I agree that number of gun deaths is unacceptable, but is a topic that will get this thread locked.

Regarding war casualties, yes, war is bad. However, through improvements to first aid, including the use of technology, more soldiers survive today than in previous wars. Not to mention precision guided weapons that mean we don't have to carpet bomb a city just to hit a single factory. Swimmers do still drown, but we have gotten better with things like teaching people how to swim, as well as identifying bad places to do it and thus avoid some drownings. I'm pretty sure rock climbing gear today is better than it was a couple decades ago, again making it safer. I'm sure you're well aware that aviation is continually working to improve safety, making it safer today than it used to be. And as for overeating, well, if that's what you want to do go for it.

If we have the technology to improve the safety, then I don't see why we shouldn't consider it.

You mentioned liking going for Sunday drives, which I also enjoy. However, I think one key difference is that for me the real enjoyment was from being with family and friends and the journey/destination. The how, as in a driver driving a car, was simply the means to enable that, not the end goal, and I could easily take or leave the driving part. People have been doing similar things for centuries before cars were a thing, and I'm sure will be doing it long after our current concept of a car is long gone.

Edited January 15, 2023 by goates

[birdguy 3,957]

31 minutes ago, goates said:

I could easily take or leave the driving part.

I could not.  I always found driving enjoyable whether it was my brothers TR4 years and years ago or the Air Force 5 Ton truck I drove from Denver to Boise and back every summer during our national guard encampment at Gowen Field.  Two of us in the weather flight would drive the 5 Ton and while I could have opted to fly up with the rest of the flight and let someone else drive I always opted to drive myself.

I always enjoyed driving.  The only thing I miss in modern automobiles is the manual transmission.  I'm sure they're available in some cars but I haven't seen them.

For me the very act of driving is recreational.  I don't want a computer taking that pleasure away from me.

I don't know where you're from goates, but I've lived in the desert and mountains most of my civilian life.  Mountain driving is a recreation in itself.

Noel

[dave2013 1,151]

No one has really answered the question: why is so much money and effort being put into developing driverless vehicles?

I don't think it has to do solely with safety.  There are already many safety features on human-driven cars such as lane deviation alerts and object sensors that alarm and even put on the brakes if the vehicle gets too close to another object.  I'm sure more safety features can be added to human-driven vehicles.

There's something else going on here.

Dave

[dave2013 1,151]

36 minutes ago, birdguy said:

For me the very act of driving is recreational.  I don't want a computer taking that pleasure away from me.

I agree.  Driving is a pleasure, excluding being stuck in traffic or very long, boring interstate drives.

We need high speed passenger trains.  Would be so much better than a crappy airline flight or hours and hours driving on the interstate.

Problem is, nobody wants to pay for them.

Dave

[goates 576]

8 minutes ago, dave2013 said:

why is so much money and effort being put into developing driverless vehicles?

I did touch on this earlier. Uber and some companies are spending money on it so they can eventually make more money offering taxi services without having to pay for drivers.

[dave2013 1,151]

Just now, goates said:

I did touch on this earlier. Uber and some companies are spending money on it so they can eventually make more money offering taxi services without having to pay for drivers.

You may be right.  It's just about money so some companies don't have to pay a driver.  How sad.

Dave

[goates 576]

47 minutes ago, birdguy said:

I don't know where you're from goates, but I've lived in the desert and mountains most of my civilian life.  Mountain driving is a recreation in itself.

I've grown up and live next to the mountains and can appreciate a nice mountain drive. However, the majority of the driving I do is either in the city, or on the boring main highways where driving is almost more of a chore than anything enjoyable. A train would be a good solution to some of this, but isn't going to happen soon for most of North America. And when I do go to the mountains, it is usually to go hiking, skiing or snowshoeing, after which I sometimes wish I didn't need to drive back home.

Perhaps in the end we will end up with cars with both manual and full autonomous modes.

[goates 576]

11 minutes ago, dave2013 said:

You may be right.  It's just about money so some companies don't have to pay a driver.  How sad.

Dave

We do live in a world where maximizing shareholder value rules above almost everything else.

[jon b 2,060]

1 hour ago, dave2013 said:

There's something else going on here.

Quite right, I’m with you Dave I think I know where you’re going but I won’t say anymore , no one believes you anyway when you try and tell them, I’m so tired of it all…

Back to Noel’s link to the SF Tesla accident, I’m no fan of automated car, I’m a keen motorist , I have 4 cars and 13 motorcycles and am qualified to ROSPA advanced gold standards, which is the highest qualification available to civilians here in the UK. 

As I said I’m no fan of the things but in that clip the accident didn’t seem in my opinion to really be the fault of the Tesla, all it did was pull over and stop, admittedly for no good reason, but that could happen to any car suffering a sudden mechanical failure. The fault then lay with the following drivers who just piled one after the other into the back of the growing wreckage , that was avoidable if people were driving with due care.

I know, someone will now say well ,if the following cars were all automated they would have stopped in time and avoided the pile up, and yes I have to admit you’d probably be quite correct.

[cmpbellsjc 2,963]

1 hour ago, goates said:

We do live in a world where maximizing shareholder value rules above almost everything else.

Would you invest in a company that wasn’t trying to make as much money as possible and give you a good return on your investment? I wouldn’t. Any stocks I buy are for the purpose of making me as much money as possible. 

If I don’t care about a return on my investment, I’ll donate the money to charity. Privately owned companies can do what they want, but publicly held companies have a fiduciary responsibility to create shareholder value.

[dmwalker 612]

Autonomous vehicles driving from point A to point B is one thing but how would they ever find a parking spot downtown and would they be able to tell whether parking in that spot is allowed at that particular time of day? Also, how would they ever manage to negotiate a parking garage? Would parking have to be done manually by the driver?

[birdguy 3,957]

1 hour ago, jon b said:

The fault then lay with the following drivers who just piled one after the other into the back of the growing wreckage , that was avoidable if people were driving with due care.

I disagree.  If I recall the speed limit on the Bay Bridge is 45mph.  Those cars were too close to stop in time.  And the delay of the first car putting on his brakes then the second car......BANG.

They tell you 10 feet per 10 mph.  So those cars should have been 45 feet apart.  They were much closer than that.

But you can't maintain that distance in traffic like they have on the Bay Bridge.

So my next question is how will driverless cars know how to space themselves and in heavy traffic will they be able to maintain the separation?

I have that automatic barking feature on my car.  In over three years it's never had to operate.  Just to test it I tried to pull up to the back of my carport at about 5mph.  It worked.

If I am approaching a red light a half block ahead of me I take my foot off the accelerator and let the dynamic braking slow me down before I have to step on the brake.  It's subtle, but I can feel it.

Noel

[goates 576]

1 hour ago, dmwalker said:

Autonomous vehicles driving from point A to point B is one thing but how would they ever find a parking spot downtown and would they be able to tell whether parking in that spot is allowed at that particular time of day? Also, how would they ever manage to negotiate a parking garage? Would parking have to be done manually by the driver?

Cars can already park themselves, better than many people can. As for knowing when they're allowed to, all of the parking apps I have on my phone tell me when I can and can't park somewhere, so it shouldn't be a problem to feed that data into an autonomous car. If anything, the car will probably be better at this than some of the more confusing parking signs I've come across. With parking garages they may well need additional input to navigate properly, such as pre-loaded maps of the garage, or maybe a system where the car can download the map as it enters. None of this is a show stopper though.

[goates 576]

1 hour ago, birdguy said:

So my next question is how will driverless cars know how to space themselves and in heavy traffic will they be able to maintain the separation?

By using the adaptive cruise control system many cars currently have, which use radar (and maybe lidar). My Rav4 does a great job of following cars on the highway or freeways. When combined with the lane keeping assistance, it can almost drive itself down the highway, including around corners. Makes long road trips far less tiring. In good weather at least. When the snow starts flying, and sticking to the ground in particular, the lane keeping goes out the window and cruise control becomes outright dangerous.

Autonomous cars with data links to the other cars around them could do even better as they would be able to coordinate their speed better than people do. One cause of traffic jams in rush hour are people not paying attention to the car ahead, then slamming the brakes on when they get too close resulting in a ripple effect down the line of cars behind. People really aren't as good at maintaining speeds or safe distances as we like to think.