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In some crazy government scheme to make roads safer, self-driving cars may someday be mandatory.
I don't think this is too far of a stretch. It wasn't that long ago when airbags and seatbelts were optional.
There are now a whole myriad of safety features which have been introduced in recent years. Many new cars have back-up cameras and blind spot sensors; while many others have radar systems that can automatically slow you down, or even apply the brakes if you get too close to the vehicle ahead. There are even some cars that can park their self.
Ten or fifteen years ago this technology would have sounded like science fiction, yet it is a reality today.
There are actually some self driving cars now. It is only a matter of time before the technology becomes mainstream.
I for one welcome our robot overlords the technology. In certain scenarios, it makes sense to implement it. Most passenger planes already fly-by-wire. It could be very useful in public transportation as well. Why have a person drive a shuttle bus back and forth in an airport when a machine can do it just as well? The technology may also work well in city buses.
However, I do enjoy driving very much. I drive a manual, and I love the additional control over the vehicle that I have. It is getting much tougher to find a new manual car. Almost every car in a new car lot now is an automatic.
No matter how good the technology gets, it will never be as good as a skilled driver behind the wheel. No amount of sensors and CPU power will ever truly replace a human being.
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The key phrase is 'skilled driver behind the wheel'. Because it wouldn't many working sensors or a significant amount of CPU to replace some of them.
Detective Del Spooner:
You are a clever imitation of life... Can a robot write a symphony? Can a robot take a blank canvas and turn it into a masterpiece?
Sonny:
Can you?
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As more and more companies get into developing these cars, we are going to see a gradual evolution. First, many commercial vehicles will be self driving (taxi's, delivery vans, etc.). Next will be longer range vehicles (transport trucks). After that, we'll see auto driving zones in cities where auto driving is required. This will be in congested areas or possibly even in restricted areas (downtown DC). Assuming the auto driving cars perform as expected, what follows will be increased insurance liability if you are self driving. After that, people will only drive themselves for the pleasure or the release of it, not for the mundane reason of transportation. Many, if not all, of these changes will come by law, lobbied by the companies that are selling these vehicles and the insurance agencies involved(presuming, again, that these vehicles perform as expected and reduce the overall chance of an accident).
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Quote: Assuming the auto driving cars perform as expected, what follows will be increased insurance liability if you are self driving.
I don't see why that should follow. Surely all the self-drive vehicles will automatically miss you, assuming you are driving sensibly and not swerving all over the place trying to cause an accident. Therefore, the more self-drive cars there are on the road, the less your premium should be.
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I would presume, if the auto driving cars are performing as expected, then the primary source of all accidents would be those vehicles being driven by humans. Imagine the human isn't paying attention and the auto car in front of him/her has to brake for a light in heavy traffic (no where to go left or right), then the human is the cause of the accident. Same goes for loss of control due to speed or falling asleep. All of these would be reasons to increase liability if the human is driving.
As I re-read your reply, I think there was a miss-communication on my part in the original post. Self-drive = human driver. Auto-drive = computer driver. Probably bad terms that I picked there.
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Even if safety issues are handled at an acceptable level (and THAT could take years!), what could follow, especially for Americans who have had a unique cultural relationship with the automobile from the beginning, is a different question altogether, a question that has not been explored to any degree that I have seen: If I can't drive my own car without being penalized (by higher insurance rates, greater legal liabilities, etc.), AND the commuter fleets (including taxi's as you have postulated) are predominantly AutoDrive, why, then would I even bother buying my own car? Why incur the expense (purchase and maintenance) when the personal enjoyment has become so restricted? I think this could result in a significant redirection in the automobile market away from consumer ownership -- and THAT is a huge financial hit.
e2ware
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That is a very good point. I've not seen that aspect of this discussed anywhere before. It will be interesting to see how that would play out. I have a feeling that a significant market will still exist, but maybe not as much on the lower end of the price spectrum. For those living in cities, I think personal car ownership would become even more of a luxury item than it is today. Interesting line of reasoning.
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As I said to Original Griff when he raised the question yesterday, I love driving! In more then 50 years behind the wheel, I have never owned an automatic and I never will.
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I like driving too. I also swore never to drive an automatic. Now I have two. Oh well...
I may not last forever but the mess I leave behind certainly will.
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I feel you. The reason I went to an automatic so long ago was because I occasionally enjoy two-wheeled sports like MtnBikes and DirtBikes... and I thought about how screwed (or at least how expensive) It'd be if I got all the way out to the desert and then broke an ankle and couldn't drive myself back home, or to go get some medical care. And then I also started thinking about how tired I become after a hard days ride, or a long days hike... and how I'd appreciate that auto transmission.
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... actually has nothing to do with the technology or the code. I like to be in control, and to make that worse I have road rage. Very, very bad road rage. As it is I want to kill people on the road. If I have to sit in a car without any control I'll keep all that anger inside and most likely kill the first person I see when I get out of the car. In my opinion that would be bad for society.
My plan is to live forever ... so far so good
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A mirror on the sun visor might solve society's problem. Unless you're a vampire as well.
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For a self driven car manufacturer may focus a lot on the AI which does all the operation. it needs a lot of data processing. they may have tested every single line of code 1000s of time and can guarantee that this code will work perfect even in the real time situations but what if the front / rear Camera which sends the real time images to the processor stops working or the battery goes down or may be some chip internally used for some critical operation blow away. how would a car will handle such situation? The actual problem is with the hardware as no manufacturer can give guarantee that this camera will defiantly work for so and so time. even today all the electronics / mechanical / computer hardware like mobile , hard disk drive , ram or name anything generally works for a quite long time if you use properly but still it may stops working without a single notice at anytime.
And i also love driving car myself so the answer of the survey "No".
Ravi Khoda
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If you have problems like those described, you better not enter ANY modern car. There is so much electronics in any car, you will not be better off, if the motor electronics, the ABS, ESP or any other critical system fails now.
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its not about the problem but the consequence of such issues when compare human driven car and self driven car. Human eyes can't just shut down even when he is tired. at least your body will notify you by means of yawn and may be some other like feeling bore etc. while a front or rear view camera can just stopped working without even a notice. In such cases Human can take better decisions or he will have some more time compare to self driven cars.
Ravi Khoda
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Well - human eyes shut down often enough unexpectedly while driving because the driver is too tired, which causes heavy accidents regularly.
And even if not - I doubt that most human drivers can really handle unexpected system failures in cars better than an automatic system can.
What happens if your tyre blows while driving 200 km/h? Or if power steering fails at that speed? Or the break boosters? What if the electronic stability program fails right at the moment when you enter a sharp turn on the highway?
I am quite sure, that most human drivers will not be able to handle such an incident without having a crash, while I trust an auotmatic system to at least take the car to a safe stop. Also, really critical systems will for sure have a redundancy, so that the failure of one will not result in immediate desaster.
In my oppinion the hardware is the least problem in fully automatic cars...
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Well yes You are right my friend but Tyre / break or even a power steering are common controls for both human driven car and a self driven car. what I am talking about is the hardware which is used to design a self driven car. above situations are common for both human driven and self driven car and as I have mentioned in my above comment that company may guarantee about the AI Code that it will work 100% even in the real time conditions (which includes all above your cases , condition apply that all AI hardware functions properly), but here my point is that ability to take decision is different in both cases. if AI hardware fails the car will be dumb (as it won't get any data to process or can't process data due to critical hardware failure / it won't know if the tyre blows / break fails ) but human can at least response in some way.
Ravi Khoda
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Not to mention the fact that if the system were using an optical camera... a single piece of mud flicked-up and covering the lense would render it useless.
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We're supposed to mag-lev flying cars by the end of the year! 
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For the city commute, maybe, but bloody hell I want to drive a car, it is fun.
Cruising through the countryside is one of the most enjoyable pastimes there is! And yeah you can keep your 3+ lane freeways.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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If it was like Autopia back in the late 60's, 70's and 80's yes. The car can drive in the safe little concrete lanes, and I would get a kick out of the novelty of it.
But on the open road, like Interstate 15 to Vegas, no way!. Throw a 100 humans into the equation all wanting to be in Vegas as fast as possible, and that's a recipe for disaster. Even worse leaving Vegas. Oh I can see it now, that self driving car is driving to fast or the tire pressure is too low, it's going to crash or cause an accident. Perhaps get a speeding ticket.
If it does get a ticket, does the car get the ticket, or the owner of the car?
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I knew a guy that helped write air traffic control software... he refused to fly.
I knew a lady in the banking industry... she refused to use direct deposit.
Based on that trend, I would rather not ride in automated cars!
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Intelligence matters...
I knew a guy in the waste mgmt industry ... he refused to pee.
Based on that trend...  Are my eyes yellow, yet?!?
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