Would you risk being a passenger in a self-driving Audi for a trip from San Francisco to New York?
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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In the circumstances given in the link, yes I would trust myself in an mostly autonomous vehicle across the country. I strongly suspect even at this point it is safer than my driving.
probably safer on I-80 than on a winding mountain road. OTOH, on a winding mountain road with a 1000-foot cliff on my right, I’d be happy to close my eyes and let it drive.
I’m sure the technology will mature to the point it’s far safer than human drivers. But for now, my bias is to trust myself more than a beta-test machine.
Maybe not for the entire time, but for large sections of the trip when I’m just driving straight on a highway? Sure.
My response: why do we need self-driving cars and who asked for them?
I would love a self-driving car. If I could spend my morning commute reading news, talking to people, or just overall relaxing instead of concentrating on my driving, my quality of life would improve immensely. Of course, this is all predicated an the assumption that it actually works as advertised, but if it does I don’t see why anyone would want to go back to spending days per year driving themselves.
I actually like driving.
Well, you wanted to know who asked for self-driving cars, and I’m one of them. I’m not alone either.
I love to drive… but not in the traffic of my daily commute. So many other things I could do during that time.
There are so many people out there who are driving even though it’s not medically ideal, and many more who can’t. This will open up the world for them.
Sure, especially for the boring bits like I90 or whatever. Its going to be illegal to drive a car except in emergencies by 2025.
No, because if it never exceeds the speed limit I’m going to get the finger about once every two minutes, and possibly get shot at or run off the road.
And that is why self-driving will become illegal
I’d probably prefer to wait until Tesla develops one. Meantime, I hope someone is developing the autonomous big-rig truck.
I’ve been an IT professional for 20+ years.
There is no way in hell I would bet my life on somebody else’s code. That way lies insanity.
But you trust your life in the hands of other drivers around you, many of whom are texting, eating, and/or applying make-up?
These will be safer than human drivers. Because human drivers are pretty bad.
It’s a bit of a moot point, anyway, because it’ll never work as a business model. The current system works because liability is distributed across the pool of drivers. With self-driving cars, the manufacturers end up absorbing all that risk. It’s simply not sustainable.
And no, I don’t think sharing the road with bad drivers is more dangerous than sharing it with buggy code. Quite the contrary, in fact.
You are already sharing the road with code driven cars. Adaptive Cruise Control is in a lot of vehicles. Let alone the auto-braking, lane awareness, abs, slip control, etc in cars.
Given how many car accidents(?) occur per year I find it hard to believe that code will make it worse.
I’m betting that, once these get fully tested and proven, they will be an order of magnitude safer than human-driven cars.
Then the insurance companies will basically refuse to insure non-self-driven cars, and that will be that.
You assume the insurance companies will survive? If self-driving cars really work, who will need insurance?
Then I’m still right!
Insurance companies are legislatively required for drivers. I doubt that would change without other changes that render my powers of prediction moot.
An Audi? OK, I’m in.
A Chrysler, Cadillac, or Hyundai? Maybe not.
As I said to my elderly mother, who at 80 still drove; ‘mom, I know you’re a good driver, it’s just the other folks that you have to watch out for and btw that thumping sound you’re complaining about is not that your Rabbit is falling apart it’s that you’re driving with the tires on the lane bumpers so you need to move over’.
I’d like to know how well the car dodged drivers like my mom who on any given day left a trail of mangled cars who crossed her path behind her.
Why does it need a passenger?
Only if the car came with dual controls so I could over-rise the autopilot.
I don’t think so. The highways are full of other drivers including many 18 wheelers, for example the other drivers who think tailgating an 18 wheeler is somehow going to help them get where they want to go. Then there are the smaller roads full of herds of cows and buffalo.
No.
i am through surrendering my safety…and my active life in general…to others or other programs. I’ll take my chances on myself. This movement is a microcosm of the ongoing worldwide surrender to Big Government. No. Never. Look at what has happened so far. Where is our John Connor?
AG
In a heartbeat.
Driverless cars can’t come soon enough.
Drunk driving, hit-n-runs, falling asleep at the wheel, preventable accidents, over-reactions…all kill thousands of people each year.
Human car insurance will eventually be more expensive than computer car insurance.
And traffic. Oh man, when traffic lights and driverless cars work together, it will be substantially less everywhere. Most traffic is actually a byproduct of terrible drivers driving terribly, hitting their brakes because they’re driving terribly, etc.