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Self-driving cars projected to reduce injuries by 90%, save $450B annually

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Re: Self-driving cars projected to reduce injuries by 90%, save $450B annually

#31
post #2

I am really excited for the possible future of self-driving electric taxis. All the pieces kind of fit together: you can use an app to dispatch and gauge number of fleet vehicles to put out (Google just bought a huge stake in Uber), self-driving cabs can return themselves for a recharge when low on batter and another vehicle can replace it instantly, the amount of cars on the road can scale with demand fluidly. There…

There would never be a need for a car in the suburbs. If i had an app that would just bring me a car and be ready at an exact time right in front of my house, bring me to a store and leave, and when twenty minutes before I'm done shopping I order another taxi to be ready for me outside the store, not need to go to the DMV or any auto shop, that would be a huge win for the suburbs.

Re: Self-driving cars projected to reduce injuries by 90%, save $450B annually

#32
post #9

One of the big advantages of completely self-driving cars will be for the elderly. Thing about it, currently our grandparents and great-grandparents who cannot drive anymore rely on family/ public transport and expensive taxis to get around. Once we reach the age of our grandparents we will be much for fortunate to be able to still travel independently wherever we want. This is a massive plus to look forward to.

Yes and degrees of disability related to driving.

Re: Self-driving cars projected to reduce injuries by 90%, save $450B annually

#33
post #27
post #5

I am closely following the development of self driving cars specially at google and i can assure everyone of its sophistication that it's the best driver you can get for your car. I know you all would be aware of the fact but i want to take this opportunity to state that is has covered thousands of miles without a single accident isn't that an extraordinary achievement for a car without a driver(but a computer instea…

Google self-driving cars have caused accidents, although Google claims the self-driving feature was off at the time. I'm more concerned of what these cars will do to highway capacity and therefore traffic congestion due to the excessive lag/follow distance their algorithms impose. While they should be following at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRIOE1IZrq4 ) is sub-human follow times and it's apparently the only car…

> I've also read that they won't exceed the speed limit

I don't see any way they can exceed the speed limit right now - the legal liability alone would be huge. The best solution to the problems you're posing would be to adopt an German autobahn-like system.

Re: Self-driving cars projected to reduce injuries by 90%, save $450B annually

#34
one thing: I do NOT like the idea of riding in a self-driven car when the majority of other cars are driven by humans. That doesn't seem ideal to me. I worry about a self-driving car driving exactly the speed limit and not being able to speed up whenever you need to, to either keep up with the traffic, or when someone is tailgating you. Especially at night, when you are driving and tired people drive straight up to you and don't slow down until the last second. I want to speed up in those instances.

Re: Self-driving cars projected to reduce injuries by 90%, save $450B annually

#35
post #2

I am really excited for the possible future of self-driving electric taxis. All the pieces kind of fit together: you can use an app to dispatch and gauge number of fleet vehicles to put out (Google just bought a huge stake in Uber), self-driving cabs can return themselves for a recharge when low on batter and another vehicle can replace it instantly, the amount of cars on the road can scale with demand fluidly. There…

Also, think of the impact in congested and developing countries: in Beijing, there is nowhere else to build roads, yet the number of cars keeps increasing. Going all self-driving in the entire city would increase road bandwidth substantially. Not to mention the problem of people flaunting traffic rules and etiquette and causing backups as a result. This is going to be much bigger for the rest of the world than in the…

taxis won't need drivers to go back, so you could probably take a taxi from manhattan to like the middle of connecticut, which would be awesome.

Re: Self-driving cars projected to reduce injuries by 90%, save $450B annually

#36
post #34

one thing: I do NOT like the idea of riding in a self-driven car when the majority of other cars are driven by humans. That doesn't seem ideal to me. I worry about a self-driving car driving exactly the speed limit and not being able to speed up whenever you need to, to either keep up with the traffic, or when someone is tailgating you. Especially at night, when you are driving and tired people drive straight up to y…

I think a solution for this would be to have the "self driving" speed limit be 10-15mph faster then the normal limit on highways. Since driverless cars can react faster this wouldn't cause more accidents and it would allow driverless cars to keep up with traffic. Plus, if traffic slows there's nothing stopping the driverless car from slowing down as well.

Re: Self-driving cars projected to reduce injuries by 90%, save $450B annually

#37
post #31
post #2

I am really excited for the possible future of self-driving electric taxis. All the pieces kind of fit together: you can use an app to dispatch and gauge number of fleet vehicles to put out (Google just bought a huge stake in Uber), self-driving cabs can return themselves for a recharge when low on batter and another vehicle can replace it instantly, the amount of cars on the road can scale with demand fluidly. There…

There would never be a need for a car in the suburbs. If i had an app that would just bring me a car and be ready at an exact time right in front of my house, bring me to a store and leave, and when twenty minutes before I'm done shopping I order another taxi to be ready for me outside the store, not need to go to the DMV or any auto shop, that would be a huge win for the suburbs.

Err. here in Australia thats what a taxi is now.

Re: Self-driving cars projected to reduce injuries by 90%, save $450B annually

#38
post #31
post #2

I am really excited for the possible future of self-driving electric taxis. All the pieces kind of fit together: you can use an app to dispatch and gauge number of fleet vehicles to put out (Google just bought a huge stake in Uber), self-driving cabs can return themselves for a recharge when low on batter and another vehicle can replace it instantly, the amount of cars on the road can scale with demand fluidly. There…

There would never be a need for a car in the suburbs. If i had an app that would just bring me a car and be ready at an exact time right in front of my house, bring me to a store and leave, and when twenty minutes before I'm done shopping I order another taxi to be ready for me outside the store, not need to go to the DMV or any auto shop, that would be a huge win for the suburbs.

When Taxi adoption rate is high, one minute should be enough. Available cars are everywhere.

Re: Self-driving cars projected to reduce injuries by 90%, save $450B annually

#39
post #34

one thing: I do NOT like the idea of riding in a self-driven car when the majority of other cars are driven by humans. That doesn't seem ideal to me. I worry about a self-driving car driving exactly the speed limit and not being able to speed up whenever you need to, to either keep up with the traffic, or when someone is tailgating you. Especially at night, when you are driving and tired people drive straight up to y…

There's no reason for a self-driving car to prioritise adhering to the speed limit over avoiding a collision though.

Any sufficiently advanced self-driving AI will try to avoid being rear-ended like that. Even better, when a collision is unavoidable, an AI has a much better chance at making the 'right' decision as to how to crash.

Re: Self-driving cars projected to reduce injuries by 90%, save $450B annually

#40
post #30

It'll probably take at least 40-50 years before autonomous vehicles become the norm. The interesting thing will be what happens in the meantime, when there's a mix of autonomous and human driven vehicles. Will the laws change to have 'autonomous only' lanes? Will they replace HOV lanes? Will autonomous vehicles be allowed to make maneuvers that human driven cars cannot in order to improve traffic flow, such as drivin…

I think it will be less. 20. I think in 50 years it will be illegal to drive manually on a public road.
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