Are we ready for a driverless car?

I’m ready.

Short answer: no

There are a couple of big issues left and they’re significant enough that they’re not ready for public use just yet. The cars use visual sensors to detect lanes (they see the lane lines, basically), so they’re unsafe to use in snow or other conditions that can cover the lines. They also can’t sense situations in which a human is directing traffic, like construction areas.

These are issues that I’m certain can be worked through, and I’m very excited about the prospects of these things becoming mainstream.

To add to the points @Mariah brought up I always thought it’d be an issue if some cars where driverless while others are not. If for instance a car with a driver cuts off a driverless car, will the vehicle be able to react in time and such.

I do look forward to when this is perfected though. It could solve the whole DUI problem entirely.

@uberbatman It could solve the whole DUI problem entirely.

Maybe, if there is a breathalyzer for the red override button!

@uberbatman It wouldn’t solve the DUI problem if it is only for the highways.

@JLeslie I’m talking about when it’s perfected, like cars can just go everywhere on their own.

@Yetanotheruser yea, something like that. It’d be nice to just roll into the back of your car and arrive at your house :P

I like the idea, as long as it isn’t just restricted to the main hiways. If it’s based on GPS & onboard sensors that detect all the other traffic and automatically adjust, then I say “Sweet Deal”.

Just think of the drunk drivers that could then safely make thier way home from the pub!

The car you envision already exists.

The biggest problem currently is a legal one. (Since the car can “see” at least as well as and usually much better than a human driver, the problem of vision and control is mostly resolved.)

If you think about the implications, a lot of our problems of inner city parking and congestion would truly be resolved, since in most cases there would be no need to find downtown parking for a car that can drive itself. (It would be more accurate to say “could conceivably be resolved”, because it’s unlikely that these issues “will be” resolved any time soon.)

You’d just program the car to leave town and park in a vacant lot dedicated to the purpose, then call it back in time to pick you up at the end of the day, shopping trip, night out, whatever. But no one wants to see “a car that has zero human occupancy” moving along roads yet, because of the liability issues that such a scenario leaves open. (And we haven’t even discussed carjackings of driverless cars, theft by hacking, etc.)

Google’s driverless car has been successfully and flawlessly driven for thousands of miles with legally blind drivers. The tech is here now. The sociological and political issues will lag much longer than the technological ones, which are mostly already resolved.

@CWOTUS Interesting point about parking downtown. I always think of the cars as greatly reducing traffic waves and slowdowns on the highway.

I’m a tech lover, but driverless cars—NO WAY! I don’t want to be in ‘em and don’t want to be driving anywhere near ‘em.

I’m in the back seat reading a paper. Let’s go!

There will be a lot of changes to cars that are automatic. If they won’t crash they won’t need steel bodies. You can have a personal conveyance with a moped engine and an inflatable body that deflates when not in use to the size of wheeled luggage so you can take it anywhere.
The trauma system outside of the inner city may be rendered economically infeasible.
I’m ready. My daughter turns 16 in 2024 so anytime before that would be just fine.

The problem is that even though they would cause far fewer driving accidents, we still want to be able to blame someone for those that do happen.

I think you can see the Jetsons’ flying car, pre-Jetson, in the 1927 silent movie Metropolis by Fritz Lang.

I, personally, would relish a driverless car. I am not a great driver, and would love to take long road trips to see the country.

Embedded processors with sensors and internet connections are going everywhere. It’s the streets and highways even more than the cars themselves that will become smart and this will ease the burden on the car manufacturers in making this transition.

Free-flying cars are genuinely hard and will remain out of reach for longer as vertical take off and landing requires a thrust-to-weight ratio greater than one (powerful motors/flyweight body needed). Non-VTOL flying cars: where do you land them at rush hour near a city if everyone else has one? And then you have to make a flying machine a road-worthy machine too. Road worthy for reals and not something a Yugo would laugh at. (Back to VTOL flying cars, how do you make them quiet enough to keep people sane with them taking off and landing in residential neighborhoods?)

But… seamlessly merge driverless cars with hyperloop-like car-carriers for long distance travel? If that can be managed I doubt anyone will miss flying cars.