Regulation, not technology is holding back driverless cars

Post by Alex3917 » Sun, May 29, 2011, 11:11 PM UTC

thecabinet wrote: post #68

Alex3917 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Social stigmas are hard to sustain towards a large portion of the population." Over 90% of Americans have used illegal drugs, and yet there is still a strong stigma there. http://www.monitoringthefuture.org/pubs/monographs/vol2_2009... (C.f. page 101, as well as the methodology.)

Your phrasing of that statistic is misleading. What you mean is, "90% of Americans have used illegal drugs or used legal-drugs illegally." When you say "illegal drugs" people think of marijuana, heroin, cocaine, etc. Casually lumping in underage use of alcohol and tobacco is purposefully misleading.

Post by nazgulnarsil » Sun, May 29, 2011, 11:35 PM UTC

fleitz wrote: post #4

cletus wrote: post #2

No surprises there. The transition to driverless cars is (IMHO inevitable. At some point it will be cheap enough that the additional cost will pale in comparison to the lives that will be saved as well as the simple convenience of being able to do something else while commuting somewhere. Likewise I see this kind of thing replacing many forms of public transportation. There will simply be a fleet of cars. You'll say…

"pilots are more likely to believe erroneous instruments rather than their own senses and experience." The human brain is not setup for 3D dimensions of orientation, unless you can accurately see the horizon it's more than likely that your perception of the planes orientation and vector is wrong than the instruments. In most turbulent situations the brain is wrong and the instruments are right. This is why pilots are…

Post by burgerbrain » Sun, May 29, 2011, 11:49 PM UTC

jordanb wrote: post #28

nickpinkston wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A friend at Union Switch and Signal told me that the Chinese subways (which can run full-auto) had to provide work for two people for each train. One guy presses a large "Go" button to leave the station, which is automatically stopped at, and there's also an emergency stop button. The other guy has an "open / close door" control.

In Chicago, there was a case some years ago where a woman was pulled under a train by a door. She was carrying a very expensive violin. She got off the train and the doors closed between her and the violin, with the strap around her shoulder. Because the strap was thin, it didn't activate the door's obstruction detector. Because the violin was so expensive, she didn't want to lose it, so instead of crawling out of th…

Post by burgerbrain » Sun, May 29, 2011, 11:54 PM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #13

______ wrote: post #7

Speed limits are another realm in which regulation can hold back the development of driverless cars, besides merely allowing them on the streets in the first place. With computerized drivers, it will finally be possible to fully enforce speed limits, by introducing some ceiling to the speed attainable by the car. I'm sure some "well-meaning" legislator will make it his or her priority to ensure that speed limits are…

Or they introduce a robot-only lane where the cars can decide for themselves what a safe speed it, making speed limits obsolete. When cars can communicate with each other about dangers, much higher speeds are possible with less distance between cars.

Post by jacques_chester » Mon, May 30, 2011, 12:06 AM UTC

JoeCortopassi wrote: post #33

cletus wrote: post #2

No surprises there. The transition to driverless cars is (IMHO inevitable. At some point it will be cheap enough that the additional cost will pale in comparison to the lives that will be saved as well as the simple convenience of being able to do something else while commuting somewhere. Likewise I see this kind of thing replacing many forms of public transportation. There will simply be a fleet of cars. You'll say…

I couldn't get past the (unclosed parenthese in the second sentence. It's like my inner programmer went into OCD overload...