Posted on 10/28/2011 1:20:29 PM PDT by Red Badger
Interestingly, I don't see the "self-driving car" as the panacea that many people in my industry believe it is. In fact, I've gone out on a limb and suggested that the two most effective measures any government can take to improve motor vehicle safety are:
1. Make it more difficult to get a driver's license.
2. Outlaw the automatic transmission.
The first measure will help get all the idiots off the road. The second measure will make it pretty much impossible for people to do all of those things that we lament as "distractions" for a driver.
Just some food for thought here.
In 100 years - I think a self driving car - all of them - will be so much more efficient, and a more efficient use of time - that self driving will be on backroads only. Highway on autodriver.
Imagine a stream of cars all efficiently going 100 mph in the fast lane with cars merging effortlessly with mechanical precision.
Then there was the lady in the red sports car I saw not check her blind spot and ‘merge’ with a semi - the trailer of which went up at about a 45 degree angle.
The way I see it, the biggest challenge in introducing that sort of thing is that it can’t be done in stages. It seems to me that there can never be a mix of “self-driving” and “non-self-driving” cars on the road at the same time.
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