Will self driving cars actually work? Really?

The discussion about driverless cars is overfocusing on only the car's driver being replaced. That is not the way it will come about. There will be wireless communication between cars. There will be sensors in the road. There will be cameras observing the road looking for anything out of place (human or animal or rolling rock). This prevent a huge number of accidents most everyone is thinking must be handled entirely by the "driver". Cameras are so cheap you could have enough to cover every 10o feet of every road with today's technology.

It may not be unlikely that every big animal in a given area might be tagged and monitored 5o years from now for both the protection of the animal and humans. Right now most humans have "tagged" themselves.

It may be very likely that a central control station will coordinate all intersections in a region.

What may be a huge advantage is not fetching the missing beer, but the terrific advantage of the car taking us right to the door of the stadium, school, or arena....and then it goes off and parks itself till called for pickup.

 

Geriatrics, extending the age of future car drivers.

Bob Wilson

 

You are asserting this again why? Google has a car they think is capable of operating on their roads. Why do you think they are unaware of your roads. They do have access to Google maps after all.

Exactly what decision do you think a computer is incapable of making?

Have you actually watched the videos of Google's car?

 

Because that is what *actually exists* right now.

 

Going by the Air Disasters program on the Smithsonian channel, the air paths are far from empty. A plane landing every 5 minutes might not seem congested to a highway, but it is at far faster speeds with no option to just pull over and stop.

 

Atlanta airport has "120 airplanes per hour flying in and out of" there. Yikes.

 

Communications standards developed by the IEEE have been in place since 2010, and quite a bit of development has already been done on WAVE systems (Wireless Access in Vehicular Environments):

Vehicular communication systems - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Just a few of the features quoted there:

Providing safety is the primary objective of vehicular communication networks. Vehicles who discover an imminent danger such as an obstacle inform others. Electronic sensors in each car can detect abrupt changes in path or speed and send an appropriate message to neighbors. Vehicles can notify close vehicles of the direction they are taking so the drivers can make better decisions; a more advanced version of turn signals. In more advanced systems, at intersections the system can decide which vehicle has the right to pass first and alert all the drivers. Some of the immediate applications are:
Warnings on entering intersections.
Warnings on departing the highways
Obstacle discovery
Sudden halts warnings
Reporting accidents
Lane change warnings​

Lots more details at the link.

 

Ask for a tour of your local NATS TRACON, say, Swanwick, and report back on the state of "emptiness."

 

The intellectual debate over the logistics, economics and ethics will play itself out in history. Though far from perfected, most of the technology does exist, but I still predict these vehicles will have restricted use and limited ownership within any of our lifetimes...well mine at least.

 

It's only a matter of time before it happens. Obviously, one Google Car vs everyone else non-interconnected-cars would be stuck. But when a certain percentage of vehicles able to talk to each other is reached, the negotiated right-of-way will make it possible.

 

Repeat the same assertion does not make it more reasonable. What do you think the resolution of a radar guidance system is, that makes a narrower road impossible? Radar guided missiles can hit planes traveling at the speed of sound and actively evading.

Every new invention has been laughed at (the ones that fail and the ones that succeed), what makes you think *your* personal incredulity is more prophetic than any of the old ones? People love to think they are special, unique, and talented. Every experiment shows this not to be true. Sorry to have to break that to you.

 

Autonomous vehicle / automated vehicle / guideway projects have been around since the 1950s "Star Car" and will be projects of the future for the next twenty years. Even vehicle manufacturers agree. Google isn't meaningful in this debate.

 

I'm sure our Grand-kids will love their "Johnny Cars". Hell, they might even have an affordable Jetson's car for the masses by then. All things are possible in time, even probable if there's a profit in it, however knowing the demographics here, "most of us" will likely never own a totally autonomous car. Then again...I am could be wrong.

 

My god, I don't want to drive in some of the roads that exist in Europe. Google cars can't handle it yet.

They are good enough to get a blind man to taco bell and back in the southwest US but I wouldn't get in one in the congested Northeast beltway and I sure don't want to be in one in any nation that thinks a roundabout with multiple lanes and honking cars is a good idea.

This one lane roundabout looks nice http://www2.apwa.net/images/Publications/Reporter/06%20Glick%20Avery.JPG

This multilane roundabout looks like a nightmare http://makeitmissoula.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/roundabout4.jpg

I fully believe self driving cars will be come more common. I also believe there will be areas of the country and world where they will be nearly useless.

Just like we now have gas, deisel, electric and truck, SUV, sedan that all have different use cases we'll have to think of roads/traffic in terms that are fully friendly, partially friendly, and openly hostile to automated drivers.

 

If they can get a self driving car to successfully serve as a taxi in a place like Naples?
-and-
If they can do it at a price point that would make it affordable for a blue collar worker such as myself?
-and-
If the self driving "feature" is legally user-defeatable.
-and-
Presuming some jackwagon in the government doesn't make them mandatory???
---I might.

Perhaps I'm a Luddite, but I still prefer the freedom of doing some of the stick and rudder work for myself!
I can still operate a vehicle with a real manually activated clutch, thank you very much!!
Even though I prefer to live in places where it's not necessary I can also manage to successfully parallel park my own car all by myself.
That's just how I roll.
I like some of the techie stuff that they're doing with collision avoidance, and it would be REALLY cool to take a power nap during a loooooooooooong road trip.
However (comma!!!)
Anytime my beloved government strips a little bit (more) freedom from me to protect me from myself????

I start wondering when I'm going to start having to protect myself from my beloved government.

I'll be fertilizing the lawn of some cemetery before they get all of the bugs worked out anyway!