Driverless cars: are you ready for a dramatic cultural shift about to happen?

[CaptCleghorn]

I live in a very hilly city that gets a lot of snow. I have little faith that automated cars will be able to get through poor weather conditions. It's one thing to be able to tell if there are other cars or people or objects around, but when the road ices up, that's an entirely different skill set.

[Osiris-Rex]

I live in a very hilly city that gets a lot of snow. I have little faith that automated cars will be able to get through poor weather conditions. It's one thing to be able to tell if there are other cars or people or objects around, but when the road ices up, that's an entirely different skill set.

I would think a robotic driver would be more adept at navigating bad weather than a human. For example anti-lock brakes are an automated way of braking that overcomes the human tendency to just jam on the
brakes and throwing the car into a skid, when the correct procedure it to pump the brakes. Most likely by having the steering automated to there would also be less likelihood of over steering also resulting in a skid.
An automated system has faster reflexes, isn't prone to panic, and is more accurate. Skills needed when driving in bad weather.

[CaptCleghorn]

I would think a robotic driver would be more adept at navigating bad weather than a human. For example anti-lock brakes are an automated way of braking that overcomes the human tendency to just jam on the
brakes and throwing the car into a skid, when the correct procedure it to pump the brakes. Most likely by having the steering automated to there would also be less likelihood of over steering also resulting in a skid.
An automated system has faster reflexes, isn't prone to panic, and is more accurate. Skills needed when driving in bad weather.

I've been driving up and down snowy hills for nearly 40 years. Every storm is different. As textbook as your explanation is, the assumption behind driverless cars is they can handle anything automatically. My city is one of the hilliest in the US. It gets an average of 6 and a half feet of snow a year. That number is far from constahnt and it's not unheard of to get a couple of feet at a time. You don't learn to drive in Cleghorn unless you can get the car up a hill in a blizzard.

Can automation reduce stupidity when it comes to driving on a bridge when it's cold and it ices up before the roads do? Sure, a good GPS system can ID when the car is on a bridge and a driving algorithm could account for that. There's a railroad bridge over the road a few hundred yards from my house. It barely lets two cars go through at once. It's also at the bottom of a hill and traffic going under it bends so one driving needs to listen for a car coming the other way or watch for lights. And that's in the summer.

There may be multiple systems planned that will be able to tell when it's OK to go under the bridge, turn, drive up a snowy hill (probably plowed but often it's still snowing), take a 90 degree right onto my street and drive a cul de sac that probably hasn't been plowed yet as it's a low priority street. And that's just the last quarter mile of my trip home. And backing it up the incline out of the driveway into the street, that's a lesson that needs to be learned. Winter driving is far from formulaic.

[Kirby101]

Driverless cars will require corporate welfare While public transportation will continue to languish.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/featu..._medium=social

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Maybe I’m a Luddite on this issue, but I’ve never understood the appeal of driverless vehicles. I still enjoy the visceral thrill that comes with driving, besides, I just don’t trust the technology which exists at present.

[Osiris-Rex]

Maybe I’m a Luddite on this issue, but I’ve never understood the appeal of driverless vehicles. I still enjoy the visceral thrill that comes with driving, besides, I just don’t trust the technology which exists at present.

Lots of people just want to get from point A to point B and back to point A. And public transportation is a hassle, stuck with smelly, ill mannered other people, have to depend on its schedule instead of your own,
doesn't always go where you want to go. If someone is chauffeuring you, you can read a book, do work on your laptop, just enjoy the scenery, maybe even take a nap. I'm guessing at first there will still be a
manual override for days when someone actually wants to drive, or there will be a niche market for cars that can be driven. After all people still ride horses.

[SuperiorIronman]

My thoughts on the future are thus;

It'll be situational. Some areas just wont be able to do it and we will still have the necessity of going off-road places the program wont know to reach. In cities it will be in usage, but in small towns, mountains, it will likely share space. It wont overrule the need to drive someplace yourself. Plenty of options exist besides cars and self-driving vehicles. It will negate certain functionalities and even jobs, but there will always be a need to get someplace yourself or be provided the option to move yourself.

[DrNewGod]

My thoughts on the future are thus;

It'll be situational. Some areas just wont be able to do it and we will still have the necessity of going off-road places the program wont know to reach. In cities it will be in usage, but in small towns, mountains, it will likely share space. It wont overrule the need to drive someplace yourself. Plenty of options exist besides cars and self-driving vehicles. It will negate certain functionalities and even jobs, but there will always be a need to get someplace yourself or be provided the option to move yourself.

Once it starts, adoption will be logrithimic, because insurance companies will wish to believe it both lowers payouts and reduces risk variability, and because it will quickly erode manual skills as drivers fall out of practice.

[mojotastic]

Just giving my flying cars.

[dancj]

I can't wait to be done with driving.

That said, the current laws require you to pay attention while a car self-drives. To me that is the worst of both worlds. If the car is doing the driving, the person in the seat will zone out. They really need to get to the point where drivers don't need to alert.

When we get there though it'll be brilliant. Road safety will improve hugely.

[DrNewGod]

Just giving my flying cars.

Not until they're fully automated. Most of the schmucks on the road today can't be trusted to navigate two dimensions safely, we certainly don't want to see them given a third direction from which to come at us.

[mathew101281]

Not until they're fully automated. Most of the schmucks on the road today can't be trusted to navigate two dimensions safely, we certainly don't want to see them given a third direction from which to come at us.

the driver less car is the precursor to the flying car.

[Mister Mets]

It may be such a radically different society that I don't think I'd be ready for what it means in my life (no more worries about finding parking near work, no more concern about finding a designated driver if I'm drinking with friends in Long Island) and to society at large (more drinking when there are no designated drivers, a spike in unemployment when people who drive for a living can no longer do that).

[Vegan Daddy]

That's some Skynet bullshit. No thanks.

[GOLGO 13]

As a soon to be future retiree, I look forward to driving to the bars & being driven home in a drunken haze by my driverless car.

DWI will (should) be a thing of the past.