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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

#81

Post by yongjik »

jrs99 wrote: 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…

On the contrary, this is the kind of situation a self-driving car can (eventually) handle quite smoothly, by closely monitoring the speed of all the vehicles approaching from behind, estimate how likely each driver is paying attention (by drawing a graph of speed/position in, say, 15 seconds), and if collision is likely, either accelerate away or flash break light rapidly to warn the driver behind.

All these things are near impossible to an average human driver, but there's no reason why an AI would have more trouble looking behind than forward.

* If there are enough self-driving cars, it will also (hopefully) teach those drivers who feel entitled to go 90mph at 3am that tailgating is no longer a working strategy.

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

#82

Post by seanmcdirmid »

ekianjo wrote: post #75
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, because like...roads are free, just like airports and air traffic control systems. Pesky governments building infrastructure. In a libercrazian future, the free market would make such trivialities free!

Yeah, like, because, airports need to see their taxes quadruple in 10 years, with no improvement whatsoever in their infrastructures ? Isn't that very obvious to you that they are just milking the cow and not just paying back for the operational costs ? Same for motorways.

If you are American, your cost of flying and driving is already quite low compared to the rest of the world, what's being "milked?" Since you used motorways and might be from the UK, I don't know what your situation is. Transportation infrastructure is one of those monopolies that the government is the best choice to take care of.

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

#83

Post by ekianjo »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #82
ekianjo wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, like, because, airports need to see their taxes quadruple in 10 years, with no improvement whatsoever in their infrastructures ? Isn't that very obvious to you that they are just milking the cow and not just paying back for the operational costs ? Same for motorways.

If you are American, your cost of flying and driving is already quite low compared to the rest of the world, what's being "milked?" Since you used motorways and might be from the UK, I don't know what your situation is. Transportation infrastructure is one of those monopolies that the government is the best choice to take care of.

> Transportation infrastructure is one of those monopolies that the government is the best choice to take care of.

There are many countries around the world where the government has no money to take care of the infrastructure and you need private ventures to step in.

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

#84

Post by rurounijones »

jrs99 wrote: 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…

Would be intresting to do something like

"The central zones of $CITY are self-driving only". You could still use your normal car to get to parking lot near the city and switch to public transport but if you want to get INSIDE the zone then you need to be self-driving.

(On sidenote, you could have self-driving electric taxis that ONLY serve inside the zone as well as zone-only buses)

Then gradually expand the zone.

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

#85

Post by hrjet »

rogerbinns wrote: post #80

I wonder how the cars will deal with inevitable accidents - what does the self driving car prioritise? If there is no choice but to hit one of two different cars does it pick the one with the fewest occupants? Is there calculation of likely injuries (eg bounce off two cars causing less severe injuries to both than hitting one harder). Avoid all other vehicles resulting in more severe injuries to the occupant? Cars ca…

This. I am reminded of Isaac Asimov's three robot rules.

I am also led to wonder, who will be implicated if an accident happens? What if the auto-driving car has a bug? Or if it was infected with a virus or hacked? What if the driver deliberately modified a self-driving car to cause injury to a target?

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

#86

Post by landryraccoon »

Does anyone think that self driving cars will lead to increased traffic? I think they're an amazingly good idea, but a lot of people live close to the city center and take public transportation because a long driving commute is a pain. If you can work or surf the web while commuting, why not have an hour and a half commute both ways? This could actually lead to way more driving and way more petrol burned.

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

#87

Post by jl6 »

It's important to note that that $450bn isn't just ploughed into the ground each year. That's the wages of taxi drivers, truck drivers, mechanics, engineers, and all their associated support. While losing all that will be a net win for the economy, we're talking about millions of people becoming unemployed.

This is not a new problem. Automation has already rendered a very large part of the world's population economically unnecessary.

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

#88

Post by thesash »

I can't wait to explain to my grandkids someday that back when I was young we used to let humans drive big hunks of plastic and steel at breakneck speeds, with nothing more than our laughably slow reflexes standing between life and death. They'll rightfully think it was barbaric and tragic that we let thousands of people died each year in accidents caused by distraction, drunkenness, exhaustion, and plain old human error, all at the hands of people granted the right to operate killing machines by way of a test passable by the average teenager.

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

#89

Post by zaroth »

TIJ wrote: post #44
zaroth wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You straightaway want it to overtake lemans and lamborghini's did i not mention that it is still in the development phase?? all i can say is be patient and hope for a better product.

Please note, "overtake" and "overtaken" do not mean the same thing. Also, your writing style feels off... almost like a turing test?

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

#90

Post by zaroth »

objclxt wrote: post #33
zaroth wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What if it had a dial that I can set to (at least) +10mph on the highway

It seems simple to give the user control of a 'speed adjustment factor', and hence transfer liability to the user. Should be no different from adaptive cruise control letting me pick a speed. Cruise control doesn't stop working at 100mph.

Personal liability for operation of your automobile, regardless of the level of digital augmentation, must be very hard to relinquish.

I mean, they are willing to take over steering the car, but oh no, they can't break the speed limit while doing it?

More realistically, they don't break the speed limit because their error tolerances fall too much when they do.

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