by Simon 28 Replies latest social current
So far in testing of self driving cars, there have been eleven accidents in 1.7 million miles, none due to the fault of the self driving cars. I like those odds.
1.7 million miles sounds a little suspicious to me. They would need to have tested something like 17 cars for 100,000 miles each.
I don't know. On the one hand it is cool, but on tbe other hand, I just don't see how it would work with high volume, bumper to bumper traffic like where I live in the DC, Annapolis, Chesapeake Bay Bridge area. Can the technology deal with traffic moving at 5 mph with other cars suddenly cutting in front of you, then traffic speeding up then slowing down again, then going through the bottleneck of the toll facilities, then a 4 mile bridge with traffic that stops suddenly on a swaying structure? I mean, this is a daily commute here.
Just skeptical, I guess. Remember when cruise control was invented and was supposed to be this great way to improve miles per gallon? Well, I always get better gas mileage than cruise control. And, also, it's only useful in certain circumstances where traffic is not very heavy. That's not useful where I live, either.
I guess I would just like a chance to try to "break" the ttechnology. Those mirrors that sense if a car is getting too close? Fun to drive too close on the highway and deliberately set them off! Then people ignore them just like I ignore the Seatbelt light because it goes off when I put my big old purse on the passenger seat. If technology is too sensitive and not adaptive to real life contingencies, then it gets ignored. You override the technology, in which case, why pay extra for it?
With all the texting and driving that's going on these days, there are already lots of "self driving" cars.
well. most here trusted an autonomous self driving (spirit directed) organisation and reclaimed our own autonomy.
The joy is to put a skateboard, surfboard, motorcycle, airplane through it's paces, to be one with the machine, control it at it's limit, why would I even want to relax and trust a machine to do that for me?
Hey Milner I hear there's one of those autopilot jobs in town lookin ' for you !!
Nah there's always the rebel without a cause....yeehaaa!!
Well some of us spend a fair bit of time in aeroplanes on auto-pilot and there are rail systems such as the Docklands Light Railway in London without drivers. However I can see that there are a lot more variables to control with road traffic than highly regulated air space or rail systems.
It seems to me that the question to ask is not whether there could be any accidents with self-driving cars but rather whether there would be fewer accidents than with manual systems.
At just one condition : the car should be immobilized in a parking lot.
