The likelihood of the Teamster's union allowing (i.e., not obstructing) driverless cargo hauling to succeed in the US would be close to zero.
Driverless cars promise to reduce accidents, revolutionise transport
11–20 of 65 posts
Re: Driverless cars promise to reduce accidents, revolutionise transport
#12The article outlines some (current) limitations in the car's judgement when evaluating the dangerosity of an object ahead. If/when this becomes mainstream, how long until pranksters and terrorists find ways to leverage limitations and cause accidents?
That's an interesting thought. Driverless cars could also be used for targeted assassinations by provoking deadly accidents. Of course, it can be done with regular cars except that whoever causes the accident has to be willing to put his life on the line.
Re: Driverless cars promise to reduce accidents, revolutionise transport
#13They can also cut our balls once and for all and put us out of our misery. So much is spent pursuing "safety" and squeezing that extra minute of "productivity" that everyone is forgetting to live their lives as human beings.
I don't see the connection between driving and "living my life as a human being", or the connection between riding in an automated vehicle and "having my balls cut".
Human identity has nothing to do with driving. I can't wait until I don't have to do it anymore.
Re: Driverless cars promise to reduce accidents, revolutionise transport
#14The article outlines some (current) limitations in the car's judgement when evaluating the dangerosity of an object ahead. If/when this becomes mainstream, how long until pranksters and terrorists find ways to leverage limitations and cause accidents?
That's an interesting thought. Driverless cars could also be used for targeted assassinations by provoking deadly accidents. Of course, it can be done with regular cars except that whoever causes the accident has to be willing to put his life on the line.
In theory, accidents provoked by these cars would be standouts in a history of safety.
Re: Driverless cars promise to reduce accidents, revolutionise transport
#15They can also cut our balls once and for all and put us out of our misery. So much is spent pursuing "safety" and squeezing that extra minute of "productivity" that everyone is forgetting to live their lives as human beings.
I hate driving and can't wait to get my hands on such a car. I've got far more interesting things to be doing with my time than staring at a road. Don't you?
Re: Driverless cars promise to reduce accidents, revolutionise transport
#16The article outlines some (current) limitations in the car's judgement when evaluating the dangerosity of an object ahead. If/when this becomes mainstream, how long until pranksters and terrorists find ways to leverage limitations and cause accidents?
Is causing accidents in self-driving cars going to be any more a target than causing accidents in human-driven cars? Seems you could already wreak a lot of havoc with rush-hour traffic if you really wanted to. Blinding/distracting drivers, obstacles, maybe little bombs?
Re: Driverless cars promise to reduce accidents, revolutionise transport
#17I love the idea of driverless cars; it is nevertheless important to note that hacking might replace drunk driving as the #1 cause of deaths on the road.
Re: Driverless cars promise to reduce accidents, revolutionise transport
#18I think the biggest problem with adoption is going to be integrating them into traffic. A car that obeys the speed limits and follows at a safe distance is going to have issues driving in someplace like Los Angeles. It will be interesting to see how that plays out. For instance, what happens when other more agressive drivers learn that they can just cut off driverless cars and the software will just happily slow down…
The other side effect is that the driverless cars behaving like that will help reduce congestion! See the experiments and data at http://trafficwaves.org - note he does talk about "aggressive" drivers taking advantage and how effective it actually is.
And all these self driving cars have cameras and black boxes. It would be simple to prove that someone (or something) has been driving like a dick. That isn't illegal yet ...
Re: Driverless cars promise to reduce accidents, revolutionise transport
#19I wonder how those cars will perform in places like Hanoi or Nanchang. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oetF3UTIwbc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aodbmS_43M
Hopefully there can be more public transport. The problem at the moment with most public transport is that it requires a human driver. That makes it relatively expensive for the transport of one or two people, or even 8 people. Some places have a partial solution (with driver) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Share_taxi
The main reason for owning transport is because it guarantees availability when you need it, especially where you are and where you want to go. You pay quite a bit extra for that, and it does get inconvenient (having to park away from where you want to be, dealing with traffic, insurance, maintenance etc).
Mobile infrastructure is very good in places like you mention (good coverage, low price) so this is solvable.
Re: Driverless cars promise to reduce accidents, revolutionise transport
#20With driverless cars, the largest expense of taxis - the driver - disappears.
The driver of a taxi needs to make enough in a day to cover the periods when there are no fares, or travel from a low fare-density area back to the high fare-density areas (and in some regions with ridiculously constrained supply of taxis via "badges" or other such anti-competitive pro-monopoly legislation, to pay the ridiculous fee to just operate a cab).
With the drivers removed, you now have a fleet of taxis that can run 24 hours a day (minus maintenance etc.), cost zero to just sit and wait for a fare, and can be managed and coordinated easily to migrate across the changing fare-density regions throughout the day.
If the price and convenience goes down enough, various groups of people stop needing cars. They just use the "get me a cab" app on their smartphone (or just use the regular telephone) to get a cab when they need it. If this creates a positive feedback loop of cheaper & more convenient -> more people using it -> more taxis deploted -> cheaper & more convenient etc., then in some high-population areas, owning a car will become an unnecessary extravagance.
Operated automatically gives scope for further savings; heading from point A to point C via B, and someone in B is also going to C? You'll get offered a "share this ride for this discount" option.
All this leads, hopefully, to fewer cars needed to provide the same number of journeys, at lower cost. So, how do I go about shorting the car manufacturers? :p