Self-driving cars--seriously?

[andrew whicker]

Yeah, we all go down the highway at 75 mph with only a few feet of space between us and some PhD, an ex racecar driver, some teenager sending texts, a meth addict and someone who had a few beers at the after work meetup.

Imagine if all those people were taken out of the equation...

[Lee DeRaud]

Yeah, we all go down the highway at 75 mph with only a few feet of space between us and some PhD, an ex racecar driver, some teenager sending texts, a meth addict and someone who had a few beers at the after work meetup.

Well, there's your problem: you're not going fast enough.

[Carlos Alvarez]

Again, there are still going to be traffic fatalities even if all cars are self-driving, just as there are still (relatively infrequent) airline crashes. The question is, just how much better than human drivers do they have to be to become acceptable to the public? I'm guessing the public and/or vested interests will insist on a much higher level of safety from robotic cars than they do from human-driven cars, even if it pushes them further into the future than necessary. And yes, I for one think that would be unfortunate.

Yeah, there's this weird human trait where many people think it's better for ten people to drive to their own deaths than for one person to be driven to his death by a computer. Totally stupid, I wish I could understand it.

If every car were automated TODAY, we'd probably have 1/100th as many deaths. In 10-20 years the number would approach zero.

While people whine about gun-related deaths, terrorists, and other tiny numbers of deaths that are hard to solve, they ignore and/or are fine with 30k people a year dying in cars, and that's easy to solve. Not counting the astronomical societal cost of accidents and related issues.

[David Bassett]

Well, there's your problem: you're not going fast enough.

You added a smiley and he's in Utah, so he probably thinks you're joking.

My Mom, 70+ at the time, was rear ended when doing 70 in the slow (right) lane of the 22 freeway. Guy came around a bend, not paying attention and never imagining someone would be driving that slow. (But, yeah, self-driving cars are dangerous. )

[andrew whicker]

haha, our highway speed is 70 mph. As everyone knows, Utah is known for being a super dangerous place to live. Therefore, the police surely have more important things to do than to regulate speeding before and after work.... surely, right?

: )

[andrew whicker]

I live in the SLC area. Our digital highway billboards tell us how many traffic deaths have occurred over the year to try and keep us thinking safety first. I think it usually works out to one a day. One a day in the state of Utah. Not a very populace state for sure.

That's the minimum we need to shoot for. Anything safer than that is icing on the cake.

[Yonak Hawkins]

There were 5984 pedestrians killed in 2017 by drivers, and you believe a person behind the wheel is safer ?

[Malcolm McLeod]

Your points make me wonder what was the things that did or didn't happen to kill that pedestrian. I would have thought that the car would have "known" the person was crossing the street. Seems like the car should have stopped, but to your point, we don't know what mode the car was in or the state of its operation (faulty sensor, driver mode) or if the pedestrian did something out of the ordinary. Even if the pedestrian did do something extreme, I would have thought the car should have prepared for it.....

Condolences and all due respect to the victim and their family. I hate to reduce them to a science experiment... even if they made a mistake.

Even a computer can't suspend the laws of physics. Just speculating, but perhaps the cyclist came out from behind/between a screening object(s) (parked van/truck, with trash/mailbox/hydrant/etc at ground level) at 15mph, if auto-auto (is that a good description?) was doing the legal limit (say 35-40 mph), with 30ft to the cyclist, this isn't a sensor problem. It is a problem with braking and adhesion limits of the tires. Even the back-up driver would fail this test.

And then again, perhaps it IS a computer/sensor failure? Time will tell.

Also interesting that this 1 fatality will be national news for a few days (maybe). Compare that to the 80+ people we lose to traffic accidents every day in US, on average (using others 30k+/yr).

[Yonak Hawkins]

You are right. Think about when lanes merge. All the human-driven vehicles will pull in front of the autonomous cars and trucks, because of the way they are programmed and because there will be no driver to make angry, which will automatically let them in. This will become standard practice and leave the right lane stalled.

[Tom Stenzel]

While the whole thing was hilarious, the spider bit made my brain stick on that sentence. Which of the 27 sensors? All of them?

The other sensors were checking out the hot new data server at the end of the aisle.

We already have a road system with limited access points and controlled schedules. It's called the rail system. Congress mandated that it have electronic controls a decade ago with a completion date of 2015. Last I read they were about 30% done. I'd like to see that finished and working before we scurry around and try to control the roads with its myriad number of intersections and access points.

My daughter has a car that has computers that control everything. Without any prompting from me she named it Marvin.

-Tom

[Lee DeRaud]

My daughter has a car that has computers that control everything. Without any prompting from me she named it Marvin.

Some years ago, a friend of mine bought a talking GPS widget, which of course she named Hal. When she added an iPhone somewhat later, the running joke was that she hated driving the car because Hal and Siri wouldn't stop arguing about the route.

[Carlos Alvarez]

My facts are straight, and it was just a general reply to people who think humans can drive more safely than cars. I was agreeing with you. Sorry I used "you" in a confusing way, it was meant generally.

[Yonak Hawkins]

The word, "ignorant" has gotten a bad rap. It doesn't mean, "stupid", or "uncaring", or "opposed to". It simply means "unaware of" or "not informed". Everyone's ignorant on some subjects.

[Greg Peterson]

Autonomous cars will revolutionize society in several ways.
1. Many will not own a car. You will subscribe to a service where a car arrives at your home at your departure time and takes you to your destination. When it is time to leave, another car will arrive and pick you up and return you to your home.
2. Traffic congestion will decrease if not be eliminated. Autonomous vehicles will not require traffic control signals or signs. They will negotiate intersections. Think computer aided round abouts.
3. There will be less cars in the general population, but the cars that remain will be in use virtually 24/7. Think about how much time your vehicle spends in park.

[andrew whicker]

I love your vision of the future, but..... Uber, Lyft, and every other (I think with the exception of one) company that has tried to make money with ride sharing has lost money. Uber has lost records amount of money and has yet to make a profit.

So, we'll see how it pans out.

article: https://www.forbes.com/sites/lensher.../#5823df8410ec

Basically the gist of the one above is that taxi companies NEED subsidies / barriers to entry or the race to the bottom drives out the profit. As a pro free market guy, it's an interesting read.