I said “I dunno maybe” because there’s no reason not to once it’s well established technology, except I don’t like to ride in cars now unless I’m driving. So I wouldn’t be rushing to do it.
I work with computers. 'nuff said.
I love driving. It’s probably one of my favorite things to do. I don’t know why, I just enjoy it immensely.
However, I don’t particularly enjoy driving in heavy, stop-and-go rush hour traffic or driving for hours at night across the barren plains of Kansas, two things which I find myself doing more often than I’d like. If I could buy a fun car (a BMW or Porsche, say) that could drive itself when needed but was still just as fun when I wanted to drive “manually”, I’d be all over that.
I would not use it for my regular commute and not for having fun in the mountains. But if I stuck on a 5-lane freeway creeping along at 5 mph, or navigating through the mall parking lot 3 days before Christmas? Sure, let the computer handle that.
By the same token, I love flying, but I am perfectly happy to turn on the autopilot and have the computer worry about keeping things straight and level.
Once it’s been well tested, sure.
I’d have to be satisfied that it’s been very thoroughly tested and there’s plenty of redundancy and other safeguards in the system, plus ability for a human to override if needed. I’m very familiar with computer crashes, and those are bad enough when the biggest consequence is that I lose a bit of typing. I’d rather not have my car lose its wits at freeway speeds or in heavy traffic and not be able to do anything about it.
In an closed-off empty testing track, sure. On a road with real traffic? No way.
This, pretty much.
I’d also be OK with riding in a self-driven car, on a stretch of road that DOESN’T allow humans to drive unless they push an “emergency override” button. This button would send out a signal to the local authorities that there’s a problem, as well as allow the human to drive.
Right now, too many human drivers don’t have their attention on their driving.
I can’t articulate why, but my intuition tells me that this sort of thing could really only be feasible if all cars participated and were connected to some kind of a network. I should think that a few rogue cars being driven by fickle people, making unpredictable moves, would throw a monkey wrench into the works.
Also, one person’s “fun in the mountains” would be another’s daily commute that they’d rather spend playing with their smartphone. If these cars ever became mainstream, I think what you want would become irrelevant - these mountain commuters value their safety more than your fun.
This thread makes me sad…
I am looking forward to this. I hate driving. And I suck at driving. Never having to handle a steering wheel again? That is my kind of utopia.
Sign me up.
The Google driverless car system has logged over 300,000 autonomous miles, and in that time there have been two accidents- one was being driven manually at the time, and the other was rear-ended by another car. Human drivers, by way of comparison, average around 165,000 miles per accident.
They’re *already *safer than the average driver.
I am on the fence. I wonder what the blend would be between privately-owned cars that meet the correct standard, vs. these types of cars effectively being part of a modular, unitized public transportation system?
The ability to hive-mind manage a vast pool of self-driving car units has a lot of appeal from convenience and efficiency standpoints. But it also centralizes management - and one glitch, computer attack or other disruption could lead to disasters and problems we can’t even imagine at this point.
I was reading in one overview how self-driving cars, once the “system was tested and widespread” could be far more fuel efficient - they wouldn’t have to have all of the stuff needed for human-driving and could be built more lightly because driving would be managed and crash-avoidance would be reduced (not a direct quote and the bolding is mine). Yeah, not ready for that.
I’d love to. And I can’t wait until this is way more common. I’d say most drivers on the road suck, and the worst are the ones who are convinced they don’t suck as they rack up speeding tickets and accidents.
I think we should endeavor to switch entirely to this in my lifetime. It would solve car accidents and drunken driving and crazy people on the road! I love driving and would give it up, even if only part of the time, to have this…maybe you could set it, like a cruise control, once you got on the highway.
I’m somewhat conflicted with these gadgets. I make a living from people wrecking their cars, if cars start getting better at avoiding accidents than people then I’m screwed, and so are a lot of lawyers & chiropracters. On the other hand it’s a pretty neat idea. I’d probably roll with it if the technology becomes standard, but I’d be very put out if my old fashioned meat-guided ride were banned from public roadways.
In a heartbeat. Driving is so stressful for me. It would be nice to let a machine handle it… probably do a better job than me. Of course it would take some getting used to, not having any control would probably make me nervous at first. But I’d do it.
I used to say I’d never own an answering machine or buy a computer. So I can imagine a day when I would seem like a Luddite for not getting into one, and all the children point and laugh.
I don’t really know. Every computer system has bugs, no matter how well tested or well tuned. Not a big deal for most things, but when that system is hurtling down a highway at high speed with me in it I’m a bit more iffy about the idea. It’s the kind of thing I probably wouldn’t think twice about once it’s common, but right now and for the near future I probably wouldn’t. Besides they’ll probably be stupid pricey for a long while.
Yep - either end of the spectrum kinda concerns me.
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On one end, it is very centrally controlled - which means it could have a central glitch or be subject to a disruptive event or attack and lead to huge complications and potential for deaths, delays and disorder.
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At the other end of the spectrum, it would be implemented in a more decentralized way - you buy a driverless car and “snap it into the grid” - so many elements of the chain would be managed with varying degrees of independence and quality - plenty of potential for more localized crime, disruption and accidents and injuries.
Really, asking if someone would support driverless cars is similar to asking about their views of the Internet, except with more physical ramifications. How much control would you give up control in exchange for efficiency, convenience - and the increased risk for news kind of individual and systemic problems we can’t quite yet foresee?
As it stands now and in comparison to the Internet, the progression to driverless cars seems inevitable. I think we typically put convenience first and manage the consequences when they arise.
Every time I read about putting electronics in control of a car / handgun / human body / whatever, I ask myself, “What would happen if it got the Blue Screen of Death?”
I’d say yes.
The closest I’ve been to one, though, was the radar cruise-control in my car. It would accelerate and brake by itself, relative to traffic, and was pretty interesting. It took a while to become comfortable with forfeiting control to the vehicle like that, but it worked very well, and before long, I loved it.
Would I ***buy ***a completely self-driven car? Probably not. When it’s not in traffic, I actually enjoy driving, and my daily commute isn’t long enough to really warrant one.
Sure, I’d ride in one now.
The only question I have is to what degree the cars have been tested with other drivers who are TOTALLY FUCKING INSANE. As in, how well does the car take evasive maneuvers if another car fails to stop at a red light and is going to T-bone you at a high rate of speed? My guess is that someday computers will handle these things much, much better than the average driver, I just don’t know to what extent the cars have been tested with these in extremis scenarios.