Would you really feel safe on the road with driverless vehicles?

I want to see how well these vehicles work, when they are several years old and dirty as hell.
Every video I have seen these vehicles are super clean, and new, lets see how well they work on a early spring day on a slushy highway and covered in salt and road grime.
No thanks I think I will still want to be behind the wheel calling all the shots.

I trust robots way more than I trust Glaucoma Granny and Texting Teen.

Depending on how the driverless vehicles are programmed to respond to a person (if they give any sort of feedback or not), I might feel confused in situations where I was trying to communicate (how to wave-along a computer, or how to nod to acknowledge the computer is yielding to you?)—Otherwise yes, I would feel comfortable.

A car doesn’t get tired, or irritable, or aggressive, or distracted, or scared, etc… in that way, they are much more predictable than people.

And we’ve gotten computers pretty good at recognizing what they are seeing, so I feel pretty confident that a driverless car would keep up with any changes in the environment.

I imagine, too, that the durability would be fine. Modern cars today already have computer chips, sensors, etc., and those hold up well—some of those are cameras detecting motion in blind spots, or sensors on wheels detecting when road conditions change—so I assume any self-driving components would hold up comparably well?

For sure I trust a car to park better than me (I’m an awful parker), and I’d trust the driverless car at least as much as myself when I’m alert, definitely more so when I’m having an off day.

Going to the VCR analogy… even if people never spent the time to figure out how to set the clock, I imagine they knew how to insert VHS tapes and get them playing. It seems like it would be a similar situation with the car… people would know at least the basics. They’d know how to start the car, how to input their directions, the general requirements for maintenance, etc… maybe they never set the clock on the dash, but then, I can never remember how to set the clock on my car radio right now; I always have to pull out the directions twice a year, for spring forward and fall back. :P

Also, here’s is an entertaining read on what it’s like to ride in a google car (by the oatmeal)

depends on the manufacturer.

@SQUEEKY2 Are you thinking they would use a driver-less Caravan or Tractor trailer too?

Better than being on the roads with brainless drivers…or should that be off the road?

Yes, and self-driving cars will be extremely common in ten years.

But you won’t own a self-driving car,

They will make owning a car unnecessary for millions of people. You order a car when you want, and the car will drive itself to the next customer.

The economics are unavoidable.

They already have a self driving semi, but right now it has a ton of glitches , it won’t pass a slower vehicle, it doesn’t work on snow covered highways , plus is un believably expensive, and still requires a driver in the seat to take over at a moments notice.
I don’t think you will ever get away without having a driver behind the wheel , imagine if it broke down in the middle of nowhere with a valuable load on board?

The best question I have heard was raised by my husband: in the case of a power outage, when a police officer is directing traffic through an intersection, how will the driverless car know when to stop and when to go ahead?

I would program the car to run over the cop, naturally.

@Seek Easy, cops will have remote queues for them. This raises a larger concern about control and hacking for me though….

@Seek Glaucoma Granny and Texting Teen

Road McRage and PhoneMom

I’ve seen Google’s self-driving cars in downtown San Jose. It really kind of creeped me out to see an empty car making a left turn on a light at a major city intersection. I was on foot both times, and I wouldn’t have stepped off the curb until the thing was gone. Everybody who’s read any science fiction for the past hundred and fifty years knows that robots can run amok. And that’s without a car’s mass and momentum.

Nope, I’ll never be an early adopter of much of anything.

Actually yes.

As it would confirm for me, without any possible doubt, those that were using my roadways with absolutely no interest whatsoever in the art of driving at a glance.

I know who you hapless fucktards are. Those that would rather be piloting your living room down the motorway, checking your insipid emails. Your sad pods on wheels will make identifying you easier then ever.

To put a different way, those that would choose an autonomous car are the very people that should be using one.

@Seek when a police officer is directing traffic through an intersection, how will the driverless car know when to stop and when to go ahead

Same as you and me. Go forth and do not hit people and cars.

If that is a problem, then we can program an instruction into them – “If you are stationary and a human bangs on hood, re-evaluate and maybe move forward.”

^ But how do they program in the gut feeling, the instinct I experience that causes me to drop seamlessly from 5th to 3rd in anticipation of the sea of taillights I soon discover around a corner?

“When cars in distance are not moving, approach at reduced speed”. That’s an easy one.

I would, people are terrible drivers. lol

I, In fact, am an excellent driver.

What shall I do?

@Seek You left out ‘Whacked out Willie and Pharma Phil” Illicit and legal highs are the scourge of drivers that kill thousands every year.

I would instead suggest much greater investment in public transit, both local and long distance.

Free the roads for those of us that consider the feel and sound of performance tires mingling with the tarmac a love song.

This is a technology until it is very proven won’t get me excited about it.
Like I said I want to see it’s durability , like after many miles and the vehicle VERY VERY dirty and I want to see how well it stands up then.
One thing though it will probably make being a truck driver more money in the long run, not only will we have to be drivers, lawyers ,labourers,mechanics, we will also have to be computer programmers as well.

I agree with everyone else that it is too soon to tell, and there’s a lot to learn about how these will work in real life.

That said, I can certainly see a point when I trust a driverless vehicle more than I trust the 18 year old who is slithering through traffic, or the woman driving and putting on mascara at the same time.

or for that matter, the truck driver typing on his computer while on the highway,

^ The risks involved with impaired, incompetent or inexperienced motorists is a small price to pay for my driving independence.

MY ability to chose gear ratios, throttle angles and the like is priority one.

I wouldn’t.

@secondhand

I don’t think we’ll see the end of human-driven cars in your lifetime, or mine. But I would love to never have to drive again. So much.

^Hating driving is proof you’ve chosen the wrong hardware.

A good car inspires in all situations.

Hating driving is proof you’ve chosen the wrong hardware.

I don’t hate driving.

But I much prefer reading a book or newspaper while I ride, instead of driving.

^ Point taken.

Refer to my comment above regarding public transit.

As much as I adore the activity of driving I would gladly commute (mostly) by train.

It makes the driving experience even more special, even more of an occasion.

It would be nice for it to be a simple option when getting behind the wheel. Been drinking? let the car auto drive. Wanna feel what the vehicle can do? Put it in manual.

^That creates it’s own problems:

Systems that guide a car on it’s own add performance robbing mass.

There are certain measures of compromise available right now. Mercedes-Benz especially has taken computer control to the highest available level.

Far beyond intelligent braking, high end models will take over steering to avoid near misses.

I still have no desire do drive MB’s S class sports limousine. It is astoundingly heavy and even the world’s oldest car manufacturer can only do so much to keep it nimble in the hands of it’s human operator.

It’s coming. Uber is licking their chops. It will arrive. And even the inevitable fkups won’t amount to the carnage out there now.

It may astound you to learn that not all of us find a thrill in piloting a half ton death machine powered by flammable materials at the same time as a million other people who think Facebook is more important than the other death machines hurtling toward them.

I’m late to the question, so I’ll just answer:
I can’t wait for driverless vehicles! Especially so I can go wherever I want in unfamiliar cities and towns.
No more hesitating about being out late after dark, and yes, I can have the Jumbo margarita!

@Seek a sign for the flammable death machines

@Seek my death machine weighs in at 63,500kgs and I still want to be in charge of it, or at least until this technology has truly proven it self.

No. Never.

I’d feel safer. AI can’t drink & drive or text while driving, they won’t change 3 lanes without signaling or do other random dangerous and reckless shit like I see on a daily basis. Humans are terrible drivers, and driving is the kind of problem a computer is good at solving.

As long as the systems are well tested, I’d welcome the change.

Bring on the driverless cars. Given the idiocy I’ve seen human drivers committing, I’m going to feel much safer with a computer in charge.

Can these cars drag race? Title for title?

@Cruiser They wouldn’t even have to race, they could just crunch the numbers in a millisecond to find out who’s faster and do a title-transfer over the web.

Damn it @gorillapaws There goes all the fun in the world….

@Cruiser On the bright side there wouldn’t be a need for designated drivers, so alcohol consumption would probably go up, and also probably pregnancy rates, so people would be having more fun, at least until the crushing reality of raising children sets in…

@gorillapaws At least you wouldn’t have to worry about the cab driver adjusting the rear view mirror on the ride home.

Insurance rates would go down.
Who are you going to have to blame it on?
“My vehicle- it has a program of it’s own!”

Who are you going to have to blame it on?

That is a very interesting question. We see stories almost every day about people suing others for negligence.

Hmmm- must be a manufacturer’s glitch. I wasn’t doing the driving.
The car was.
Not my Negligence!

Chill jaytkay , good grief!

Anyway,
I won’t be in there. I’ll wait for a vehicle that flies, not one to drive on crappy roads and takes forever.

@msh: GA to you. My thoughts exactly. The owner of the vehicle is liable but just as an owner, not as the driver.

Right now these types of vehicles still require someone behind the wheel to take over in a moments notice,so for now you’re not going to get laid,hammered,or take a nap,and if it is in an accident the cops are going to blame whoever is behind the wheel.

Ideally there would be a city built that only allows autonomous vehicles. Like Venice but instead of canals lanes built specifically for driver-less cars. If you could eliminate humans and all roads were built to a specification with little variance it is well within reason there would be zero accidents.

Imagine all the cars were networked and when a car needs to apply the brakes the car behind knows a few milliseconds later that the one in front will slow and it will know by exactly how much it would slow. Stop and go freeway traffic would be a thing of the past. Right now you have one idiot on the freeway slow and it ripples for miles.

Requiring driverless cars to have a manual over-ride appears to temporary as the technology develops.
Personally, having a manual over-ride sounds more dangerous to me than a completely autonomous car. Like the passenger of a car trying to wrest control from the driver…nothing good is going to come of that.

Google appears to be all in, and their plans to test on a closed, private course make sense.

As for not having to own a self driving car, just call and one will show up and take you where you want to go type thing, that is great for city dwellers, but what about those in rural areas?

@SQUEEKY2

Just like every other product and service availability will be different in cities and rural areas.

However, driverless cars will reach areas much less dense than car-sharing and Uber and taxis serve today.

Plenty of people will want to own a car, and in the sticks I imagine having one will be more desirable.

Yeah, those of us without affordable taxis now will still have to own cars in the future.

This isn’t an argument against those cars. In fact, it’d be lovely to be able to sit back and read for my 20 minute trip to anywhere than have to drive.

Does the need and want for such vehicles prove as a society we are being dumbed down?
Hell no need to work on our driving skills just get a driver less car.
No need to retain the information just call it up on our wonderful smart phone.
With all this I am kinda glad I am on the down hill side of my life ,I should be long gone before we are completely stupid.

Blah blah, old people have always complained about the world going downhill due to those damned youngsters

There was piece on NPR about how driverless vehicles should revolutionize transportation as we now know it, especially in urban areas.

As a small example (I’m not sure this was even included in the story), why wouldn’t a condo association maintain a small fleet of cars, paid for out of the fees? Easily offset by reducing the need for seldom used, high dollar parking places.

Elevators still make me nervous, @Seek! ~~

Easily offset by reducing the need for seldom used, high dollar parking places.

Lots of condos in high rises (and sometimes smaller buildings) include parking spaces. It’s a separate parcel on the deed, with its own little property tax bill (I look at lots of tax bills).

The question is what to do with the empty spaces. I’ve seen one construction project recently that looks like they’re converting a four-story garage to something else (the adjoining hospital closed).

I think you’re right, a condo building with 100s of units could easily support a little fleet

And if the cars were leased, @jaytkay, there’d be minimal upkeep beyond janitorial.

Neighborhood associations would have similar benefits. Any place with high property values and high population density.

Retirement high-rises/communities.

Combined with improved mass transit, autonomous cars could slowly make individual car ownership the exception, rather than the norm.
Imagine future emerging markets starting with the technology.

Maybe we can clean up the Earth.

I don’t think I would like it, personally. I don’t even have an automatic transmission and I don’t use my cruise control. I like to drive and I don’t want to have the car do it for me. As for other people driving them… I’m not sure about that. If the technology is good they might be safer that leaving it up to fallible, sometimes even idiotic humans to drive.

The lesson of living in this city is that the point has already been reached that the economics involved with owning and maintaining a motor vehicle are prohibitive, and the town itself relentlessly promotes the ramping up of this reality. And this isn’t just about yuppies in Porsches. The pressure on Commercial and working vehicles has resulted in growing protests from business enterprises with difficulty locating companies willing to deliver goods and services during normal business hours.

@DancingMind provided a link near the top of this thread which answers to some of the concerns expressed here. The writer witnessed the car waiting for a pedestrian to make up his mind about whether to cross the street, and also detected a cyclist hidden from view by hedges. It seems the cars are able to interpret quite a bit of information about their surroundings beyond simply other motor traffic.
Myself, I am in favor of work on such transportation continuing, and marketed. While I think there would always be a mix, or at least for a very long time of driverless and piloted cars, I believe the benefits are many and worthy.

FYI:

The first Google car has already been pulled over by a police officer.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/13/us/google-self-driving-car-pulled-over/

I anticipate that there will be driverless cars in my driving lifetime. I think I will become accustomed to their erratic behavior inside of a week.

The bottom line is that we’re going to be on the road with driverless vehicles whether we feel safe or not. And damned soon at that.

@SecondHandStoke , the cop was suspicious because the car was moving so slow. It hadn’t broken any laws, and no ticket was written. I suspect the cop pulled it over out of curiosity more than anything else.

AS I said this technology will have to prove it self in the long run, and I do suspect it will no matter how well it advances will still have to have a manual over ride so the person behind the wheel can take over when and if the need arrives, such as a sensor screws up, or the driving computers crashes.
My 2013 Western Star Tractor has had far more problems with computer sensors and other electronic parts than anything mechanical and it has almost 400,000miles on it.