Self-driving cars--seriously?

[Dave Zellers]

Are you suggesting that a person with a license has the right to drive drunk?????????????????

Hi - Oh! 90 minutes till this thread gets "moved".

[Doug Garson]

Yes it's gone off the rails.

[Ole Anderson]

Ok, take it outside boys. Interesting discussion, but find another place, so we can keep the self driving car discussion alive. Sorry I brought up the subject. Well actually I didn't, somebody simply jumped off the tracks...

But it does bring up the point that it is not likely that all cars on the road will ever be self driving, for a variety of reasons. My old RV and CJ7, not likely.

[Chase Mueller]

The Supreme Court.
I understand. I violated the "law" until we got constitutional carry in AZ. Now you can carry openly, concealed, whatever. We already had such a law but the cities and courts ignored it, so a few years ago we had a good clarification on the law that made it impossible to ignore.

Man, I wish we had constitutional carry in Georgia. I'm honestly not sure how we don't. We're one of the reddest states in the U.S

[Thomas L Carpenter]

As I keep getting older, self driving cars sound better and better. I'm too much of a spur of the moment guy to be able to use Uber or Lyft much.

[Edwin Santos]

As I keep getting older, self driving cars sound better and better. I'm too much of a spur of the moment guy to be able to use Uber or Lyft much.

Maybe Uber and Lyft really vary based on your location. In L.A. and Phoenix I found the average wait time to be about 2-3 minutes, sometimes less. In Paris it was about the same for Uber with way more driver coverage. In a smaller town or rural area, I could see where it would be very different.

[Carlos Alvarez]

That's good. You can send your driver's license back to the DMV and tell them that driving is your inalienable right and you don't want it any more.

Make sure you report back here what your experience is the first time you're stopped and asked for your driver's license.

Mike

As someone else noted, this is a real thread derail, so it's my last answer on the matter. As I said before, I've never licensed a right, including driving. I don't have a license to "send back." I don't have any government licenses for anything. I don't understand why you assumed I had one.

[Yonak Hawkins]

We're one of the reddest states in the U.S

You could not be righter.

[Kev Williams]

Ok, I'll put it back on the rail...

https://www.sltrib.com/news/business...rousel-3637833

this crash happened about 3 miles from where I'm sitting right now. Not in some farmers field, but on a major street that I use regularly.

Elon mentions how wonderful it is the woman only suffered a broken foot. He doesn't mentioned what may have happened had that Tesla hit a minivan full of kids at 60mph instead of a fire truck. Or ME... He also says it's 'messed up' that this one crash is getting so much attention while 40,000 people were killed by regular cars last year. There's a study online, from 2015 so a bit dated, that self driving cars caused 5x more accidents and a 4x higher injury rate vs. human driven cars at the time. Not sure what the stats are these days, can't seem to find any, but I can't imagine they've improved all that much.

I don't really care how safe a self driving car is supposed to be, it's still a 2 ton projectile being navigated about by a human-programmed computer, managed by electronic 'eyes', sensors and other gizmos, and supposedly assisted by another human, who very likely suffers from an ever growing false sense of security...Not an ideal combination for the common good IMO. So I have to ask, who reading this has never had a computer or electronic gizmo fail? It's one thing for a car's computer to suddenly not be able to accurately compute the fuel injectors pulse width in order to deliver the optimal amount of fuel per engine cycle, it's quite another for the car's computer to suddenly not see a huge red fire truck ahead while traveling at 88 feet per second...

Farmers are welcome to them. And using them to get would-be drunk drivers home after midnight isn't a bad idea. As long as it's AFTER midnight. Otherwise....

[Carlos Alvarez]

That wasn't a self driving car.

[Pat Barry]

Might still be a little bit left on the self driving learning curve, but, that isn't going to stop it from happening whether you like it or not.

[Carlos Alvarez]

Might still be a little bit left on the self driving learning curve, but, that isn't going to stop it from happening whether you like it or not.

But this wasn't even a self driving car. Let's keep reminding people of that. The rants and anti-self driving hype is being mixed in with these cars that are not self driving.

[Pat Barry]

But this wasn't even a self driving car. Let's keep reminding people of that. The rants and anti-self driving hype is being mixed in with these cars that are not self driving.

The article said it was on autopilot, right?

[Carlos Alvarez]

The article said it was on autopilot, right?

By the way you asked the question, I'm assuming you think "autopilot" is self-driving? It's not, and is more like the old airplane autopilots that were just assistive, but not self-flying. Meaning that the car HELPS the driver, but doesn't manage driving by itself. In fact there are steering wheel sensors to make sure the driver is still holding it. It's a slightly more powerful version of adaptive cruise control.

EDIT: And I've always hated the idea of partial systems like this, because people DO in fact think they can then ignore the road. Then this happens. Then actual self-driving cars get a certain guilt by association by anti-tech people who don't understand the difference, but want to speak anyway.

[Pat Barry]

By the way you asked the question, I'm assuming you think "autopilot" is self-driving? It's not, and is more like the old airplane autopilots that were just assistive, but not self-flying. Meaning that the car HELPS the driver, but doesn't manage driving by itself. In fact there are steering wheel sensors to make sure the driver is still holding it. It's a slightly more powerful version of adaptive cruise control.

EDIT: And I've always hated the idea of partial systems like this, because people DO in fact think they can then ignore the road. Then this happens. Then actual self-driving cars get a certain guilt by association by anti-tech people who don't understand the difference, but want to speak anyway.

What you say reminds me of a scene in one of the Anchorman movies. Ron Burgundy is chatting and laughing with the guys in the back of the motorhome while it is rolling down the highway without a driver. Ron thought it was self driving but really was just cruise control. Very funny movie clip. Worth the view and some laughs.