Posted on 01/06/2017 10:37:05 AM PST by Hostage
driverless vehicles should not be allowed on the roads.
“Open the car door, Hal....”
>>I don’t know about this. I’m sure it works and all, or will work. But I see freedom diminishing and that’s the most troubling thing I see. <<
I read an article (here?) the other day that suggested cars as we know them will disappear once they are self-driving. After all, why sit in an unnatural position when you can sleep, watch TV, basically have a man- (or woman-) cave on wheels. Why worry about your commute when you can just get in your vehicle, pull up the covers and just sleep until you get to work, then change (and shower?) in your vehicle.
The author suggested that people are going to have self-driving Winnebagos and live maybe hours from work.
But the “car” as we know it is probably going to disappear in our lifetimes.
what hurts me is that when all cars are driverless, and maybe not being allowed to drive will be passed by law in the future, there is absolutely no reason to buy one over the other. Might as well make them all black, like Ford said.
...and the car’s programming assumes the worst in most situations, such as that a pedestrian moving along a sidewalk might step out into the street at any moment.
driverless vehicles should not be allowed on the roads.
Eventually, driverless will be the safest and fastest option. It’s inevitable. The real question is regarding when will it get to that point.
I remember when someone said back in the mid-90’s that all successful salesmen would have a cell phone. I didn’t believe it. My position sounds ludicrous, now. It didn’t back then.
Like I used to say to my friends in high school (1970). when they said, “People will never accept that.” My response: “what is true is that THIS GENERATION will never accept that.”
And the world is changing so fast, along with people’s willingness to accept change, that even that is no longer true.
Personal freedom increases as population density decreases. There are fewer rules to follow when you have fewer neighbors to deal with. Self-driving cars and aircraft will enable more people to live farther away from the cities, increasing personal freedom.
But the “car” as we know it is probably going to disappear in our lifetimes.
I think movies like Minority Report, Demolition Man and I Robot have their thumb on the pulse of the future, regarding self driving cars.
Someone was told me that being autonomous is good but still required human intervention. Driverless cars should not be allowed on the road, I agree. A autonomous car that has a licensed driver in the driver’s seat - I see no reason why this cannot be allowed. This would allow for the monitoring by humans and the intervention when needed. If there is no licensed driver in the driver’s seat the car should not be moving.
These “autonomous” cars will only take you where the government says you can go.
I liken the driverless car to the war between the mobile option (laptop/tablet not smartphone) and desktop. We are always going to need the desktop but more and more people are moving towards the mobile option. There have always been, since the invention of the laptop then the tablet, articles proclaiming this will be the year the desktop dies. It’s true desktop usage is way down from its peak and that number continues to dwindle but never quite reaching the “death of the desktop”.
Like this endless war, which is not really a war since most have both mobile and desktop, the driverless car versus the driver in car will also suffer this type of fate.
Let’s face it some people still like to put their hands on the steering wheel and press that pedal to feel the exhilaration of being in control.
I agree. And it reminds me of the “Minority Report” paradigm. IN the city, everyone was a passenger in an autonomous vehicle designed specifically for those transportation surfaces. But on his trip to a house by the coast, he was driving a sporty red Infinity.
gargantuan pickups driven by assholes shouldn’t be either.
Very Interesting.
That sounds good and I hope it works like you describe.
But I would like to see a strong law allowing drivers to take control on the open road.
Given how many bad drivers, accidents and near-accidents I see on the road every day, I’ll take my chances with the driverless vehicles - they couldn’t possibly be worse.
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Agreed. It will also mean cheaper taxi service.
Sounds good to me. Many cars have cruise control now so the autonomous controls would be an extension of that but with the licensed driver always attentive and ready to take control.
One problem I see is that the autonomous controls might let a licensed driver get bored and fall asleep or lose concentration.
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