About 33,000 people die on America’s roads every year. There will eventually be a fatality caused by a self-driving car. I wonder how many of these we will be willing to accept. Say self-driving cars reduce fatalities by 10x. That is, by switching 100% to self-driving cars there are 3300 deaths a year, but they are all caused by self-driving cars. Would America accept that? I personally doubt we would. I think the nu…
Why not?
The View from the Front Seat of the Google Self-Driving Car
111–120 of 286 posts
Re: The View from the Front Seat of the Google Self-Driving Car
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some areas just give a "brief" period where both lights are red. I'm surprised not everywhere does, or that is isn't increased.
What completely infuriates me is pedestrian crossings that don't automatically allow pedestrians to cross when the lights are in a state that would allow it.
If so, consider that some intersections may require a long time (~45 seconds) for a ped to cross. When no one is crossing, this may be sub-optimal and a shorter time for that specific light combination should be used.
Re: The View from the Front Seat of the Google Self-Driving Car
#113I want to hear the argument about people who want to drive. I enjoy driving. I like driving cars. I still drive a manual and will not buy an automatic transmission. I participate in car clubs and I compete in autocross events. I enjoy automotive photography and I do my own maintenance on my vehicles. What happens to people like me who actually enjoy driving and the act of owning a car? Do my loves get phased out beca…
Manual driven cars will not disappear, what will happen is Insurance will go through the roof as more self-driving cars are added to the roads. There will be some roads declared for self-driven cars only and some that will allow both. Enjoy your cars now!
However that begs the question: by sheer numbers would that make insurance on a automatic car comparable to a manually driven one? If there are significantly less manual cars, there are less accidents to pay out. An accident in a manual car is not a guarantee just like no accidents in automatic cars is not a guarantee.
I think if manual insurance was more expensive it would be an artificial premium based on the fear of something happening.
Re: The View from the Front Seat of the Google Self-Driving Car
#114Imagine that for a moment: Self driving car companies could promise to pay all accident expenses provided it was on auto drive at the time of accident. Not only is that a marketing win, potentially reducing accidents and saving costs for owners... if you jump forward many years of Google (or other) defending owners in court you would reach a point even judges would be biased to believe that the auto-driven car could…
Keep in mind that every autocar will have an extremely accurate recording of the accident that can be analyzed and played back during a hearing. Determining fault will be trivial in almost all cases.
The ambiguity between automatic/automobile/autonomous really makes me hope a better word surfaces.
Self-driving car is a bit too long.
Re: The View from the Front Seat of the Google Self-Driving Car
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
Of course. The most google can do: send you ads for shovels. The most police can do: pull you in for murder because they correlated your car to where and when some body was buried.
I like how in your examples, "Google" is just algorithms, not the humans behind them, but for the police, you allow for humanity. You may as well say, "the most police cameras can do: send you an automated speeding ticket", which is of course painfully naïve. Google could do plenty of evil with your data.
Ideally, maybe no one should track my every move. But to talk about police and google in the same sentence in terms of ramifications is so far off I can't be anything but incredulous :)
Re: The View from the Front Seat of the Google Self-Driving Car
#116About 33,000 people die on America’s roads every year. There will eventually be a fatality caused by a self-driving car. I wonder how many of these we will be willing to accept. Say self-driving cars reduce fatalities by 10x. That is, by switching 100% to self-driving cars there are 3300 deaths a year, but they are all caused by self-driving cars. Would America accept that? I personally doubt we would. I think the nu…
Re: The View from the Front Seat of the Google Self-Driving Car
#117One thing I'm looking forward to with self-driving cars is to be able to step into a street anywhere and have all the traffic stop automatically. Every inch of street now becomes a crosswalk. Even highways. (This is an ironic statement)
It might eventually just look like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlyOom0bwwY
Re: The View from the Front Seat of the Google Self-Driving Car
#118I want to know how the person playing the trumpet was able to drive. And how well did they play?
Re: The View from the Front Seat of the Google Self-Driving Car
#119About 33,000 people die on America’s roads every year. There will eventually be a fatality caused by a self-driving car. I wonder how many of these we will be willing to accept. Say self-driving cars reduce fatalities by 10x. That is, by switching 100% to self-driving cars there are 3300 deaths a year, but they are all caused by self-driving cars. Would America accept that? I personally doubt we would. I think the nu…
I think the problem is, people really don't care about autonomous objects. There is so many unknowns with this, it's really hard to know. Like if the self-driving car gets in an accident (that is a result of the self-driving car), who is responsible? Google? Me? Other driver? Car maker? Car seller? Insurance company? Humans have kind of accepted that humans make mistakes, you're trained from day 1 to when you die, hu…
Re: The View from the Front Seat of the Google Self-Driving Car
#120I want to hear the argument about people who want to drive. I enjoy driving. I like driving cars. I still drive a manual and will not buy an automatic transmission. I participate in car clubs and I compete in autocross events. I enjoy automotive photography and I do my own maintenance on my vehicles. What happens to people like me who actually enjoy driving and the act of owning a car? Do my loves get phased out beca…