Odd thoughts on driverless cars | Page 2 | GTAMotorcycle.com

Odd thoughts on driverless cars

Scary if someone hacks into that network. Want to kidnap somebody? Hack their car
 
The Government will probably create a system to communicate with the cars e.g. Amber alert type system.
They can send out a signal for issues to the cars and they will adjust accordingly.
Emergency vehicles will broadcast their presence and the cars will clear a path well before the emergency vehicle gets to them.

BUT
You know their will be some clowns trying to hack the system or install viruses into the system.
Human nature.
 
People always come up with "what iffs" with every new technology, often many of them preying on a totally unfounded fear of the unknown.

Thpically, they seldom ring true in the long run.

Look at all the computers already in cars. I remember when carburetors started to go away, computer throttle body injection took over, and eventually, direct injection as is the norm now. Many lost their **** in the early days of OBD1 claiming everything under the sun would befall everyone's vehicle because of "all the computers". When it gets too hot your car won't start. When it gets too cold, same thing. If water gets on the wires you're screwed. Swapping your battery wouldn't be a DIY thing anymore as you'd "destroy the computer" if you messed up.

The sky was falling for many.

To to the contrary cars are more reliable than ever today and most people wouldn't dream of going back to a carburetor, or a dial radio, or without many of the things most drivers now accept (and expect!) as normal equipment now. Hell, I think if you took the average 20-30 year old driver today and put them behind the wheel of a carbureted car on a cold day they might not even be able get it started!

"Junk!" they'd soon say.
 
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I explained it. Read my post again.

Would you agree that the major cause of fuel inefficiency today is the traffic jam? Hint: heat energy generated at the brakes, for every car, for every stop and go, everyday.

As PP pointed out, in any sub scenario you can think in traffic, there is the most optimum/efficient way of handling it. For instance in the case of a 4-way stop, we all come to a stop, even if there are no other cars in any other direction. What kind of non-sense is that for efficiency? However, in the case of a network of autonomous cars, every car's:
- Current direction of travel
- Speed
- Intended direction of travel after the intersection
- Exact ETA to intersection
- (braking distance)
- (acceleration figures)

...are known. In which case, total braking done during the intersection can be adjusted to minimum - resulting all cars are passing each other cms from one another.

There is no McDonalds trash left in the back seat that will make the fuel saved by optimizing the traffic flow tip back to not being efficient again.

And even if there was, here is a quick solution: put a camera/sensor facing the back seat. After every drop off, check:
If McDonalds bag found, charge last customer a cleaning fee.
Else, carry on =)
 
The cars should get into less accidents and be overall safer but there are still some corner cases that need to be philosophically (and legally) sorted out. For example, the car is cut off with pedestrians near by or someone runs in front of it with no margin to just stop. The car is faced with a choice of who to possibly kill. Does it run down the pedestrian(s) killing them but saving you. Does in run into oncoming traffic or a pole possibly killing you but saving the pedestrian??? Are there kids in the mix, baby carriage... It is a corner case but it opens a big can of legal and ethical worms... The car did not cause the collision, but it has to decide who to kill.

As I said, it should be safer overall BUT there are going to be cases where the car has to decide who to kill... Today, you do that. This needs to be sorted out.

Of course there are also limitations, most (all?) require the roads to be clear of snow to work, so they can see the lines on the road. Snow covered road or a road with no lane (or multiple conflicting) markings become a problem. The solution is to revert control back to the driver. Well now the driver only drives in bad conditions when said driver has no day to day driving skills to have any level of competence (this is bad).

What I expect, we will see it limited to the highways to start. This helps a lot with my first point (but it could be hit the truck or the motorcycle, who to kill???). My guess is the concept of things like HOV lanes will one day be driverless lanes only until they become majority....
 
There have been a few articles lately regarding driverless cars.

The first one, although I cannot find it now, stated that more than 70% of people stated they would not be interested in a driverless car unless it was truly driverless -- i.e. they could be drunk, or asleep, or not paying attention at all... if it requires user input, then 70% are not interested. Place me in that boat. Unless the car can legally drive me home from the bar, I am not interested.

This second one is talking about Stratford being a testing ground for driverless cars as they have been building technology into their roads and lights: http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/driverless-cars-stratford-1.3390279

This leads me to believe that future driverless cars may not rely entirely on road markings, but rather signals coming from in the road and from the lights.

As to those here that think driverless cars will lead to an eventual banning of driver cars... perhaps in the cities and on major highways where the driverless cars could be well connected, but it will be a long time before driverless cars will be able to navigate country roads covered in snow and/or otherwise without any markings, one lane cottage roads, fire roads, etc etc... this country has a lot more to it than the urban sprawl of the GTA.
 
People always come up with "what iffs" with every new technology, often many of them preying on a totally unfounded fear of the unknown.

Thpically, they seldom ring true in the long run.

Look at all the computers already in cars. I remember when carburetors started to go away, computer throttle body injection took over, and eventually, direct injection as is the norm now. Many lost their **** in the early days of OBD1 claiming everything under the sun would befall everyone's vehicle because of "all the computers". When it gets too hot your car won't start. When it gets too cold, same thing. If water gets on the wires you're screwed. Swapping your battery wouldn't be a DIY thing anymore as you'd "destroy the computer" if you messed up.

The sky was falling for many.

To to the contrary cars are more reliable than ever today and most people wouldn't dream of going back to a carburetor, or a dial radio, or without many of the things most drivers now accept (and expect!) as normal equipment now. Hell, I think if you took the average 20-30 year old driver today and put them behind the wheel of a carbureted car on a cold day they might not even be able get it started!

"Junk!" they'd soon say.

Gonna be a lot of truck drivers out of work. They are supposed to go automaticbefore cars.
 
Exactly. These cars won't be operating completely oblivious of each other...quite to the contrary actually, they'll almost certainly be well connected to other vehicles around them, knowing what the other vehicles computer is planning to do before its even executed, and easily solving "issues" like a 4 way stop, if you want to try to make an issue out of that.

As for the laws related to liability and fault etc etc, I'm sure that'll come with time, the same as how all things adapt to technological advances.

So then we can eliminate all the stop signs and traffic lights. If there isn't any cross traffic why wait at a red light?
 
Gonna be a lot of truck drivers out of work. They are supposed to go automaticbefore cars.

I hear that all the time.

Ain't gonna happen for anyone except perhaps straight run long haul. Theres no computer in the world that can do most of what a short/mid haul or city drivers do on a daily basis. It's a common misconception that all we do is sit and seat and steer/shift.

I'm not worried.
 
So then we can eliminate all the stop signs and traffic lights. If there isn't any cross traffic why wait at a red light?

Perfect world situation, eventually, absolutely. More time and fuel saved.

In some regards this is happening already with traffic lights that sense vehicles and only change when necessary – if another level of communication could could be added over and above that so the traffic lights know you were coming before you even reach the intersection, they could be green before you even arrive, and instead of the slow traditional one way or the other system in place now it could be a rapid fire system where the light might be green in one direction for only a few seconds before switching to accommodate traffic coming from another direction without making it stop. This would even work for cars still under manual control meshing with ones being driven by a computer.

Gotta think outside the box.
 
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And the future starts now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaOB-ErYq6Y

I didn't expect they'd get to this stage so quickly, it's pretty surprising. I didn't know any laws allowed self-driving cars with no human monitor yet. Still a long way to go before any of us can just download an app and hail a driverless car but I might have to revise my 15 year estimate down after this.

This is a pretty accurate picture of what the next step will look like from Bob Lutz. http://www.autonews.com/article/20171105/INDUSTRY_REDESIGNED/171109944/industry-redesigned-bob-lutz

He makes it sound like a black death but to my eyes it's a mostly positive vision of the future.
 
The cars should get into less accidents and be overall safer but there are still some corner cases that need to be philosophically (and legally) sorted out.

It's called the Trolly Problem. Mercedes, and a few other manufacturers have come out and stated that their cars' priority will be the driver/passengers, citing that it's the one (probable) non fatal outcome they have the most consistent control over.

http://fortune.com/2016/10/15/mercedes-self-driving-car-ethics/
 
What happens when the brakes fail?
Does the car run you off a bridge, killing you, or running over enough people to slow you down?
 
What happens when the brakes fail?

Cars have e-brakes for a reason. It's a reasonably safe assumption autonomous cars will be able to utilize them in an emergency.
 
Cars have e-brakes for a reason. It's a reasonably safe assumption autonomous cars will be able to utilize them in an emergency.

and e brakes never fail? My odd thought is about the ethics that needs to be embedded in driverless cars. Does the car swerve to avoid cats and dogs? Children? Adults? Motorcycles? If it swerves to miss someone and there's more people, does it swerve back and run over the one?
 
And the future starts now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaOB-ErYq6Y

I didn't expect they'd get to this stage so quickly, it's pretty surprising. I didn't know any laws allowed self-driving cars with no human monitor yet. Still a long way to go before any of us can just download an app and hail a driverless car but I might have to revise my 15 year estimate down after this.

This is a pretty accurate picture of what the next step will look like from Bob Lutz. http://www.autonews.com/article/20171105/INDUSTRY_REDESIGNED/171109944/industry-redesigned-bob-lutz

He makes it sound like a black death but to my eyes it's a mostly positive vision of the future.

I drove back from Whitby to Kingston in my new CRV a couple of weeks ago and hardly touched the wheel once. It was a very very odd feelling having the car speed up and slow down and steer to follow traffic in front and keep within lanes. Odd but extremely entertaining. Technology is awesome.
 
It's called the Trolly Problem. Mercedes, and a few other manufacturers have come out and stated that their cars' priority will be the driver/passengers, citing that it's the one (probable) non fatal outcome they have the most consistent control over.

http://fortune.com/2016/10/15/mercedes-self-driving-car-ethics/

That's only because that's what the customers want.

Well for their own car anyways. Everyone else's cars should prioritize them instead of the passengers within.
 

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