Posted on 09/25/2013 5:26:59 AM PDT by Red in Blue PA
I am certain that the lawyers are ready. The failures of these systems will likely be spectacular, and costly for the manufacturers. I work in the aircraft system certification business, and the auto industry isn’t nearly ready to handle the legal side of the autonomous vehicle system market.
You'll probably be safer with those than with somebody who "didn't see you".
What traffic congestion? There is no traffic congestion where I live.
In fact, I’d venture to say that the overwhelming majority of the roadway miles in the U.S. do not have traffic congestion.
Jesus, take the wheel...
When I was a kid “Knight Rider” was big but I always thought the technology of a car that drove itself was wasted in a trans am. I mean, seriously, you have to sit right there in the drivers seat anyway, you might as well drive. Now if they put it in an RV I was on board with that. “KITT, drive me to school. I’ll be in the shower.”
Officer: "Chief, so far I've got 4 drivers playing the new Grand Theft Auto, 5 drivers watching porn movies, and the three moms putting on make-up and texting, three seniors napping, and 7 drunk drivers insisting they never heard the car shouting "Mayday! Mayday! Take control!"
"Oh, and the lead car dash cam shows three deer appearing suddenly out of the blizzard.
"Sir, how do you want me to write this up?
The technology might be ready, but the question of liability will never allow it to become mainstream. When the driverless car gets into an accident, and it will, who is liable - the passenger? the owner? the manufacturer? the software company? IMHO, insurance will be impossible to get on a driverless car.
I can imagine a time when those driverless cars get linked into the local speed ordinances and frustrated drivers start hacking the system because it’s just taking too long.
And the cops will be waiting. They might even electronically lower the limit near their favorite speed traps ... I think I have a SF story to write here.
ala the movie Minority Report
That, and cyber terrorists can kill tons of folks in large cites with carefully orchestrated mass collisions.
I believe that an autonomous vehicle could be trained to do an excellent job of repetitive tasks, like commuting.
Rules included obeying all traffic regulations while negotiating with other traffic and obstacles and merging into traffic.
While the 2004 and 2005 events were more physically challenging for the vehicles, the robots operated in isolation and did not encounter other vehicles on the course, the Urban Challenge required designers to build vehicles able to obey all traffic laws while they detect and avoid other robots on the course. This is a particular challenge for vehicle software, as vehicles must make "intelligent" decisions in real time based on the actions of other vehicles.
Other than previous autonomous vehicle efforts that focused on structured situations such as highway driving with little interaction between the vehicles, this competition operated in a more cluttered urban environment and required the cars to perform sophisticated interactions with each other, such as maintaining precedence at a 4-way stop intersection.[4]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge_%282007%29
I don’t see these being practical on a large scale unless we have designated lanes or even roadways on which only driverless vehicles are allowed and on which manual operation is prohibited.
My observations of traffic congestion is that, while some is caused by human error in driving, most of it is caused by poor design leading to insufficient capacity or to road construction. Taking the driver out of the equation doesn’t do diddly if there isn’t enough road for all the vehicles who want to travel, or if the exits are saturated into the lanes because the destinations can’t process the offcoming traffic.
What could possibly go wrong?
Great news. We get ever closer to the day forecast many years ago when machines will do everything for people. Just thing of it...machines will wake you up, feed you, wash you, dress you, take you out of your abode, put you in your vehicle. They’ll not only drive your car for you, they’ll do everything else. Including thinking for you. Isn’t it wonderful!!! (snicker)
just thinK of it ...not just thing of it.
Driving = Freedom. No thank you. I would rather have the technology guide you with warnings, etc. But I have seen computers, cars and car sensors fail way too many times to trust them with my life.
Other than for limited government, commercial and special passenger needs, I don’t think this will be particularly successful.
A good analogy is the A-10 Warthog aircraft and combat drone aircraft. The reason so many A-10s survived unbelievable damage in combat was because their pilots were very skilled, and could feel where problems were and adjust for them. Remote pilots and computers just could not do it as fast or well.
But, they explained, the combat drones were “expendable”...
And being “expendable”, while it might work in a drone car, facing off against other drone cars, is not something you might want in a drone-driven passenger car, facing off against unpredictable human driven cars.
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