Driverless cars and how they would change motoring

[Rich]

Nobody drives to work for fun. Theres different kinds of driving.

lol

I do... I'd go nuts if I didn't have a drive to work in the morning.

[Eye of the Tiger]

Nobody drives to work for fun. Theres different kinds of driving.

You just live in a horrible place.

[Speed_Racer]

But in the long run insurance should go down even if you choose to drive, as everyone else will be safer.

I don't know if the insurance agencies will go for that

[Raza]

You put your life in the hands of computers on a daily basis, stop the silliness. Your car's throttle & brakes are controlled by computers. Many cars have computer controlled steering as well. Nobody has even been injured by the failure of any of these systems, and they will only grow more and more developed/fool proof.

No one has ever been hurt by a computer malfunction relating to steering, throttle, or braking?  Please prove that.

Not to mention, a computer program written by Google to drive a car has way more knowledge/"training" on how to drive than the avg person. A computer won't speed, get road rage, text its buddies and take its eyes off the road etc. etc. A computer doesn't have an ego that will rationalize treating public roads like private race tracks. And w/enough $$$$ computer crashes can be programmed out.  So what are you talking about.

If one in a million drivers have the characteristics I described previously, that's still 100 more than computers will ever be able to match. 

Man vs. computers, computers lose.  They can only do what they are told to do and nothing more.  You seem to think autopilot on cars will fix everything.  If you honestly think that, then you're fucking stupid. 

[Raza]

Nobody drives to work for fun. Theres different kinds of driving.

Nobody drives to work for fun.  That doesn't mean that people don't have fun while driving to work.

And I'm leaving the "fun" argument out of this for now, since we all know that you don't believe that driving should be fun.  Arguing fun driving with you is like arguing the merits of gay adoption to a dead Republican. 

[93JC]

Oh Raza, you so sirry.

If only you knew how many computers were keeping you alive on a day to day basis.

[sportyaccordy]

Oh Raza, you so sirry.

If only you knew how many computers were keeping you alive on a day to day basis.

Thats preposterous. Prove it. Computers can't do anything.

[sportyaccordy]

No one has ever been hurt by a computer malfunction relating to steering, throttle, or braking?  Please prove that.

Theres only been one documented case in which a computer was even considered to be a problem, and that was dismissed. Plus in any case you made the claim that computers would kill people in cars. Well, computers have been in cars for a good 15 or so years, so why don't you prove your claim? Find me a case where a stability control system caused an accident.

If one in a million drivers have the characteristics I described previously, that's still 100 more than computers will ever be able to match.  

Well then woo hoo for that one in a million driver. Let me guess, you are him? How you rationalize keeping 999,999 bad drivers on the road w/no additional training or driving aids because of one driver who *might* be able to drive better than a computer is beyond me. Driving is getting safer in spite of drivers becoming worse and worse. What's the cause? Computers. Computers that enable better chassis + tire design, computers that intervene in accident situations, etc. etc. And computers range in quality. Your desktop sucks because lives are not at stake if it fails. I dont think its unreasonable to say computers controlling a car *might* be a *little* more robust and failproof. A computer is not a computer.

Man vs. computers, computers lose.  They can only do what they are told to do and nothing more.  You seem to think autopilot on cars will fix everything.  If you honestly think that, then you're fucking stupid.

Its entertaining to see you get so emotional about this. But in any case, you're still wrong. How else do you explain not only a drop in fatalities, but crashes period?

http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/811401.pdf

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3217442/

Raza maybe you are a god among men and can outdrive a computer. You can keep living that fantasy. But for most people, even good drivers, there are circumstances that overshadow their abilities, in which computer aiding can prevent an accident.

Given the abysmal state of driver training + skill in the US, w/o a reevaluation + overhaul to our licensing system, providing the option of automated cars may be a good way to counter all the distracted drivers. Are there downsides? Sure... I don't like that people would be so dependent on computers, not because computers fail but because there may come a day when they have to actually drive a normal car, and they won't know how. But if the overall trend is safer, then as someone on a bike who has to do battle w/incompetence everytime I ride just to stay alive, I am def for it.

You are such a slave to your ego lmao. What is all the uproar. Youre making big baseless quantum leaps. Theres no proof that this will become mandatory. Theres no proof that computers in cars fail. Hell there is no proof that this will even affect you, aside from there being less stupid drivers on the road. Unbunch your panties.

[565]

You could license a brick on the accelerator as a valid driver in alot of Nevada.

That said I think it is a great idea.  I think it would probably be most useful as a sort of advanced cruise control option.  We almost have something similar with laser guided cruise control capable of bringing cars to a full stop, and lane assists capable of keeping cars in lane.  We also have parking assists that can put a car into a tight spot.  We just need to string these all together with a great navigation system and we are set.

Also it would be great if this system fed into a system like Waze (smart phone ap) where it tracks all its user's locations.  Then you can feed all this user location information into a network that not only avoids accidents, but also activity works with traffic lights and traffic routing patterns to avoid traffic jams.  

[Eye of the Tiger]

You could license a brick on the accelerator as a valid driver in alot of Nevada.

That said I think it is a great idea.  I think it would probably be most useful as a sort of advanced cruise control option.  We almost have something similar with laser guided cruise control capable of bringing cars to a full stop, and lane assists capable of keeping cars in lane.  We also have parking assists that can put a car into a tight spot.  We just need to string these all together with a great navigation system and we are set.

Also it would be great if this system fed into a system like Waze (smart phone ap) where it tracks all its user's locations.  Then you can feed all this user location information into a network that not only avoids accidents, but also activity works with traffic lights and traffic routing patterns to avoid traffic jams.  

You must use a 4 cornered brick with 4 harmonic corners that occur upon single 24 applications of 1 gas pedals or else you must destroy 1 gas and simultaneous 4-bricked corners and use the brake brick to slow the vehicle.

[sportyaccordy]

Interesting article from Bloomberg on this.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-04-09/ford-is-ready-for-the-autonomous-car-dot-are-drivers

Bill Ford suggests if # of cars continues to increase automation will be the only way to avoid global gridlock- during rush hours. Similarly highly congested cities would mandate automated cars (i.e. if you want to bring your car to NYC you would have to forfeit control on the island). The implications for safety, gas mileage and driver comfort could be huge- drive when you want, be a passenger when you want. Def interesting

[NomisR]

Considering how often my computer crashes, there's no way I'm going to get into a car run by one. 

The problem lies with the user..

[sportyaccordy]

The problem lies with the user..

IMPOSSIBLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[280Z Turbo]

Once this technology is perfected, driving will become illegal.

[Laconian]

I....don't?

You entrust your life to computers on a daily basis. When done correctly, computers can be quite reliable. Reliability is not a priority with consumer computing operating systems, hence our perception that they are inherently crash-prone.

[sportyaccordy]

Lololol @ decrying the intrusion of computers in cars, but flying on a commercial airliner on which auto pilot is regularly used.

People need to let go of their egos and look at the upsides of this. I think there are definite advantages at splitting up driving into pleasurable driving and non-pleasurable driving. If you are one of those nuts who enjoys clutching in and out in stop and go traffic have a ball. I don't. But if I am heading up into the Palisades or something, yea I'm gonna wanna be fully engaged in the driving experience. Who cares? It's all about options and convenience

[Eye of the Tiger]

Lololol @ decrying the intrusion of computers in cars, but flying on a commercial airliner on which auto pilot is regularly used.

People need to let go of their egos and look at the upsides of this. I think there are definite advantages at splitting up driving into pleasurable driving and non-pleasurable driving. If you are one of those nuts who enjoys clutching in and out in stop and go traffic have a ball. I don't. But if I am heading up into the Palisades or something, yea I'm gonna wanna be fully engaged in the driving experience. Who cares? It's all about options and convenience

Cars and airliners = apples and bananas.
And fuck computers in cars.

[Raza]

The problem lies with the user..

I run the same five programs everyday.  If I don't run them, I can't do my job.  Period.  And it's not like I'm the only one having problems. 

[Raza]

Lololol @ decrying the intrusion of computers in cars, but flying on a commercial airliner on which auto pilot is regularly used.

I don't like flying either...

People need to let go of their egos and look at the upsides of this.

It's not ego.  You need to look outside of your provincial world of NYC and see how stupid of an idea this is.

I think there are definite advantages at splitting up driving into pleasurable driving and non-pleasurable driving.
If you are one of those nuts who enjoys clutching in and out in stop and go traffic have a ball. I don't. But if I am heading up into the Palisades or something, yea I'm gonna wanna be fully engaged in the driving experience. Who cares? It's all about options and convenience

We all know you don't like driving, you don't have to keep telling us. 

[sportyaccordy]

I run the same five programs everyday.  If I don't run them, I can't do my job.  Period.  And it's not like I'm the only one having problems. 

Then it sounds like your IT group sucks

Plus in any case the same folks who designed Windows will not be designing these programs. Its a moot point.

[sportyaccordy]

I don't like flying either...

It's not ego.  You need to look outside of your provincial world of NYC and see how stupid of an idea this is.

We all know you don't like driving, you don't have to keep telling us.  

How is this a stupid idea?

[Onslaught]

As someone who needs dumb people to wreck then I'm against this!!!!


But really, we need people to die. We save too many people these days from themselves and the world has too many humans on it already.

[Eye of the Tiger]

As someone who needs dumb people to wreck then I'm against this!!!!


But really, we need people to die. We save too many people these days from themselves and the world has too many humans on it already.

Unfortunately for stupid people everywhere, this is true. They are allowed to reproduce way too much.

[AutobahnSHO]

You guys realize a car in a computer won't also be multitasking a bazillion things at once, right??

Cisco routers literally process bazillions of packets a second, many have single-core 500Mhz processors. Wouldn't do crap on a windows computer but the engineering and single focus means it's plenty of horsepower to do the job..

[Eye of the Tiger]

You guys realize a car in a computer won't also be multitasking a bazillion things at once, right??

Cisco routers literally process bazillions of packets a second, many have single-core 500Mhz processors. Wouldn't do crap on a windows computer but the engineering and single focus means it's plenty of horsepower to do the job..

Now, that's an idea I can get on board with. We should be putting the cars in the computers! Imagine how much easier life would be if all you had to do was drive back and forth between your front side bus and your random access memory. Perfectly safe, too!

[Laconian]

Driving a car is many orders of magnitude more complicated than just passing packets around. Lots of fuzzy data from lots of sensors that needs to be processed, and algorithms that take those inputs to decide what to do, and algorithms that determine how to actually drive the thing. It'll be multitasking bigtime...

[Laconian]

Now, that's an idea I can get on board with. We should be putting the cars in the computers! Imagine how much easier life would be if all you had to do was drive back and forth between your front side bus and your random access memory. Perfectly safe, too!

Front side bus? Public transportation is for communists. Where's my front side car?

[Eye of the Tiger]

Driving a car is many orders of magnitude more complicated than just passing packets around. Lots of fuzzy data from lots of sensors that needs to be processed, and algorithms that take those inputs to decide what to do, and algorithms that determine how to actually drive the thing. It'll be multitasking bigtime...

Yeah, but there are no speed limits inside of computers. In fact, faster is always better, because there are no collisions!

[Laconian]

Tell that to my old LAN party hub. That collision light was a disco party.

[Laconian]

HONK! HONK!