Posted on 07/21/2012 12:05:53 PM PDT by garjog
California’s proposed bullet train between Los Angeles and San Francisco—which Gov. Jerry Brown is likely to sign off on soon—has been characterized by the Obama administration and its other supporters as an effective way to reduce highway congestion.
These costs amount to more than $100 billion annually in wasted time and higher fuel expenses. In fact, a much better technological solution is on the horizon, if we pave the way by getting rid of obsolete highway design.
It is already possible to imagine a world in which you could predict exactly how long it would take to drive in your car from one point to another. No worries about rush hour, vacation congestion, bad drivers, speed traps and accidents. You could also text while you drive with no safety implications.
All this may be possible thanks to a “driverless” car that does a human driver’s normal job and much more. The car is operated by a computer that obtains information 10 times per second from short-range transmitters on surrounding road conditions, including where other cars are and what they are doing. That’s exponentially faster than the human mind can process the same information.
By gathering and reacting immediately to real-time information, the technology can drastically reduce highway fatalities by preventing collisions. It also can significantly reduce delays by creating a smoother traffic flow and rerouting drivers who have programmed their destinations.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.wsj.com ...
“our God-given right to freedom of movement to Big Brother”
We don’t turn it over to the government with the right autonomous system.
What if we could make a driver assist system tomorrow so that when you get in the car it drives itself with a highly efficient laser scanner — like the Google self driven cars that have successfully driven thousands of miles.
Privacy could be insured with a filtering system. It would be exactly like using your GPS in your car now.
“Great opportunity for cyberterrorism.”
Not a greater threat than what already exists in electrical grids, water pumping stations or a thousand other computer systems. We could build in fail-safes so no one computer controls the whole system.
With computers linked, a speciousness command could be corrected by thousands of of not effected computers.
Sort of like the check we have on Freepers. When someone says something that is wrong they are immediately corrected.
“Computers crash all the time.”
You have a PC, right? My Mac never crashes.
But, computers control jet airplanes and we have hundreds of flights and are not afraid.
We could have back up systems that could control for computer error.
Also, these would be driver assist systems so that the drive can take over if there were some kind of rare error.
Human error — not mechanical error — and drunk driving is the cause of vast majority of accidents and fatalities. This system would eliminate those hazards which far outweight technical problems that may occur.
Mac’s never crash. BS.
I seriously doubt that I can afford a car with a 747’s avionics. Planes also aren’t flying three feet apart.
Backups fail. Even on Mac’s.
Finally, this is not about safety anyway. It is about control. To control people the government needs to control their movement. This concept you like so much is perfect for sheep.
I missed this one. Joe Blow is sending a text and his car makes a sharp left into incoming traffic at 70mph. He takes over and does what? Hits the softest looking car?
Further BS.
“the siren call of the technologist is “I can do EVERYTHING for you””
So you think that driverless cars is a conspiracy for the government to take over.
Not really. This is an innovation sort of like the transition from the horse to the automobile.
It was probably hard to imagine in 1900 that the new fangled horseless carriage would one day dominate the country.
A computer integrated car system will spur freedom.
Commute time would be drastically cut, freeing people to spend more time in commerce or ascertainment or enriching activities.
Americans are innovators. We want to find a solution to the mindless hours wasted by traffic congestion.
We want a solution that permits us to keep individual cars instead of one that forces us into “high speed” trains. Mass transit is the unAmerican way.
“a natural resistance to the concept of giving over my innate right to freely transport myself,”
OK, but do you feel that way when you get on a bus or airplane that you don’t control? Don’t you freely choose to get on those system and trust that they will get you where you freely choose to go?
A driverless system could be set up so that you control and own your own robotic car. It drives itself when you choose to turn on self drive mode.
The advantage:
you get to your destination in twice the time.
Accidents are cut in half, saving the lives of people who would otherwise be killed — who live and go onto contribute to society.
Freedom is promoted since drivers gain control of more of their time. They are freed from hours of mindless waiting in traffic.
The system also provides an alternative to the government building expensive” high speed” trains as the article argues.
http://seattletheatrescene.blogspot.com/
“Believing that robotized cars can solve this is foolish nonsense”
Not at all.
Check out the videos of the Google driverless cars that have traveled hundreds of miles. It isn’t theory, it actually works.
Now if everyone had a self driving car, each car would coordinate with the others, safely increasing speed — just as metered lights on freeway on ramps do now.
This is American ingenuity at work.
http://dreamtransportation.blogspot.com/
Well, that’s one way to preempt the preppers from bugging out when the SHTF scenario unfolds. Just turn off the master control to the driverless car system and give the police time to loot everyone’s supplies before they can escape. :)
“This is actually a great idea.”
Thanks. You are the only Freeper here who sees how Driverless cars is American ingenuity at its best.
Please go back and help me refute the naysayers on this threat.
Robotic cars is a great alternative to idiotic “high speed” trains that the liberals push.
Here we preserve our individual cars and control where and where we go. Privacy could be fostered by filters that keep centralized authorities from controlling too much information.
As soon as there is driverless cars along comes a group that will fill one of those cars with explosives and end it to a destination with nobody inside.
There cannot be any argument that people won’t take advantage of transporting an empty vehicle. With a bomb inside.
Nor can you argue that all the bad/crazy/ terrorists will be removed from society, all the sharp objects and any chemicals known to make bombs outlawed.
I am just saying what a wonderful idea it would be to call my car at home to come pick me up, or it could be an emergency transport say if my other means of transportation broke down, who needs a cab then?
With advancement come the mis-use of advancements.
I still say we should be like Israel. The liberal states can hide behind their barriers, bomb sniffers and use their laser drones to kill anyone openly carrying sporks.
Bad example -- at least around here, that is, as they've moved the traffic jam from the freeway to the surface streets waiting to get ON the freeway, thanks to the metered lights. I hate the stupid things and wish they'd all be scrapped.
When I freely choose to travel by bus, train, air, or boat, I'm still making a free choice about my mode of travel, and destination. In many cases, I can also choose which carrier I like best, because they're operating in a free market system for my dollars.
A system such as you describe, takes all that choice away from me. In your Brave New World, I will lose the last vestiges of freedom that I have to personally transport myself, unless you include walking by foot.
What's next? A government run, automated feeding system?
A driverless system could be set up so that you control and own your own robotic car. It drives itself when you choose to turn on self drive mode.
Such a system can (and will) be designed so that government operators can seize control of your vehicle at any time, whether you want them to, or not. If you're driving within a stream of cars that are operating on the 'system', you're not going to be allowed to break ranks and upset the careful planning of the central computer.
Such a system will also keep a record of everywhere your vehicle has traveled, and the identities of the drivers and passengers who travel in it. At the current pace of systems integration, it will also record hundreds of other parameters and data points that by all rights, should be private and personal.
None of this is consistent with the tenets and ideals this nation was founded upon, and neither does such a concept align with the stated ideals of this website.
I'm afraid you're promoting a patently Socialistic concept here.
If you think Big Brother's going to let some private company control all the cars on HIS roads, you've got another think coming.
If they build this, the government will come, and they will own it.
Perhaps I misinterpreted what you said. What did you really mean?
This is the part I don't like about your presentation. You're insisting that EVERYONE switch over to your robotic car system. It's a push, just like every other nanny state, Socialist control scheme.
First you make it an option, then later, it becomes mandatory. In ten years time, no one will even know how to self-pilot an automobile.
Presto Chango! Government capture of Americans' freedom of movement - never to be regained, but through brute force of revolution.
I’ll reserve the driverless cars for when we have the tech to live on other planets.
Nobody can predict the speed of new technology, but anyone can ignore it, thats freedom of choice.
Perfect utopia my backside, its just a dream.
Let places like SF ban all redneck junkers so they can have their nannymobile, gives new meaning to “My mother the car”
Its advanced socialistic day dreaming. Socialism isn’t for me, I wish to NOT be part of a perfect hive society. The reasons are because whatever meager good points of socialism are dwarfed by the tyrants who control it.
“Such a system will also keep a record of everywhere your vehicle has traveled, and the identities of the drivers and passengers who travel in it. At the current pace of systems integration, it will also record hundreds of other parameters “
How is this different than what you are typing now? It is recorded by a database somewhere so that they know every page you visit and every comment you make.
This doesn’t bother me too much because it is a private company that has the data and I use filters to keep most data private.
Same would be true should you buy a driverless car.
You get in, set it for the destination and it takes you there. You choose when and where to go. Your privacy data can be erased or filtered by choice.
Sort of like using a GPS. The supplier of the GPS stream could know where you are, but this doesn’t bother most people who use this useful technology.
Driverless cars does fit with the philosophy of FreeRepublic since it is an alternative to the mass transit “high speed” trains that liberal push.
A system of robotic cars preserve individual ownerships and free travel that automobiles provide. It is a supped up version of cars now able to park themselves or use curse control now.
The idea of robotic cars is a fine example of American ingenuity solving the serious problems of traffic fatalities and the colossal waste of time and energy caused by traffic jams.
Exactly. I can't even believe that someone who calls themselves a conservative is even attracted to a scheme like this. It's a perfect Orwellian control mechanism which lends itself to complete domination of a (nominally) free people.
Sure, let's just invite more government control and surveillance into our lives. Why not. Geeez.....
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