Self driving cars

Self driving cars are stupid and idiotic, period!   

Part of the vision is that a connected world will sense other cars by other means than machine learning.  The connected vehicles will all have beacons.   The problem is recognized that that will not work for a cow.

Even if I had a car with self-driving capabilities, I'd turn it off.

I'll have a self driving bike with me as the self. 

At least self-driving cars don't read mobile/cell phone text messages while driving....;p

Quoting Jafo, reply 6

At least self-driving cars don't read mobile/cell phone text messages while driving....

And they don't drive Drunk

Still no reason to go down that road.  Sure, humans make stupid mistakes when behind the wheel, but self-driving cars are created by humans and are not necessarily mistake/error free.   Say no more!

Besides, how lazy is the human race getting?  I mean, why can't people learn to drive, be tested and licensed to drive properly, or is that too much effort and concentration?

Nope, self-driving cars are like sleeping with a cow pat under your pillow   .  You're better off not doing it.

Like being better off actually paying attention behind the wheel.  That's the was I was taught to drive. But......back in the day it meant something. It was cool to have your own ride. Unfortunately the best I could pull from the rust pile was a vomit green Studebaker that took out the side of a tree first chance it got. WAM! Tree=0 Old green beard=1.

Today the tree has to giddyyup and get the hell out the way. Technologies...aren't they grand? .........NOT!

What's all the fuss. There are plenty of cars people can get to where they want without driving. 

They even have a name ---- UBER----

There is no 100% tech. After all we just lost 600 people to it. Remember those 2 airplanes that were totally safe to fly that crashed a few months ago. 

wouldn't the lidar/radar do better than human eyes in fog? or at least the radar. of course what they can do with the information is another matter...

I make a point of buying houses that have no grass....;)

And airplanes equipped with parachutes.

Here I am talking about The United States mainly but I suppose it could apply to Canada as well.

There would have to be expressways (East Coast, Midwest), freeways (West Coast) where whole lanes were devoted to self driving vehicles or the whole expressway/freeway would be for self driving vehicles. This could be managed by a computer system that linked to the vehicles. This system would control the traffic flow. I believe this would be very efficient. How you can mesh self driving vehicles with what we have already, human driven vehicles ( cars, buses, trucks, motorcycles and bikes ) is a problem.

Here is one vision: https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2017/07/will-autonomous-vehicles-lead-to-a-resurgence-of-auto-centric-infrastructure/534804/

Here is a vision for trucking: https://www.123loadboard.com/blog/driverless-highway-proposed-brings-autonomous-trucks-closer-to-reality/

I'm sure people were skeptical about robots on assembly lines at first but they are now common on assembly lines. Many technological advances are met with resistance at first. Think about John Henry "The steel driving man". People do not trust what they cannot control.

I think in the future there will be highways, expressways/freeways dedicated to self driving cars and trucks. It's inevitable. It depends on if we have a future. The world may become uninhabitable for humans sooner than we think unless something drastic is done right away about the climate.

In theory I understand what you are saying. So how does one get to these highways? I have to ride two way roads for 20 minuter till I reach one. When I'm at my Daughters it takes an hour. In most locations a major freeway or highway isn't out your front door.

Also at least here in the States it takes a month or more to fix a pot hole due to money. Of course in a 100 years or more maybe, but I can't even guess at the future that far in advance.                                                           

Infrastructre has been in decline or decades now. It'll take a lot more than just talk to get this bloated pachyderm up and off  to the races.

Exactly!  Just because we can [have self-driving cars] doesn't mean we should.

There may be places where self-driving cars could possibly be viable [freeways, highways, etc] but as Dave Bax pointed out, these are not always accessible to the average/regular motorist who is just leaving home to visit friends or relatives, to go to work or go shopping.  In these instances the self-driving car is/will be a liability.

In this current age there are no real situations a self-driving car can or will be safe.... period.

In 200 -300 years, maybe, but right now it's ludicrous to even think self-driving cars are a viable proposition.

Show me where there is a substitute for intuition and I'll show you a self driving person. 

I don't know you guys are very pessimistic. I guess for the first few years their will be bugs that need to be worked out. Lets compare a human reflex next to a machine. A computer can compute at nano seconds. Where a person would need at least 0.7 seconds to identify the problem then at least 0.7 seconds to decide. Then at least 0.7 seconds to react. Something a computer can do in 3 nanoseconds. 

Seeing through fog is a problem for a person. Where a computer doesn't need eyes. Maybe it uses eyes, maybe it doesn't. Automobiles could give off signals. Technically  everyone could give off signals. Even animals could get marked. 

Now if a car can't tell a bus is more important than a bus then it's more of a program fault. The computer should always chose people.

What about the person who can't see to drive.

Then that person should never be a motorist.  Period!

I no longer drive because health issues dictate that I am not safe behind the wheel, and I choose not to drive for the greater good, the other motorists and pedestrians using the roads, etc.  I therefore suggest most vehemently that incapacitated persons do not need self-driving cars but a taxi.... somebody capable to drive for them.

Providing of course the driver has a fair knowledge of HOW TO drive. Then I'm all for it but......reading about some instances where the driver and passengers were at odds with one another......I'll take my bike. 

I've met some of the world's most capable drivers.  The holders of a 'Super Licence' - that means Formula One [in spite of what the locals might say...it IS the pinnacle of Motorsport] and yet I can say quite unequivocally that the current World Champion [and thus in theory the best driver on the planet] is an utter dickhead.  Doing burnouts in a rental car outside the circuit in a public city street?....there are eff-wit HOONS that do that.

Provided Hamilton doesn't program the self-drive cars there's a fair to middle chance they will end up superior/safer than him....;p

Sadly, as an FIA Observer I'm required to be impartial....but I do tend to smile a wee bit when he sticks it into a barrier...;)

Self-Driving Uber Car Kills Pedestrian in Arizona, Where Robots Roam

I am in total agreement there. I commute on the interstate back and forth to work everyday. At least a 3rd are distracted with something. I have had a car totaled because of a distracted driver. She totaled 2 cars but got to drive hers home. That's not right.

At the end of the day, we have to look at the many ways the car has to get information. Visually there are simple cameras, multi-spectrum cameras, OCR technologies, etc. to help "see" what is around them. With tech like that, something like fog is irrelevant. When you add an advanced AI into the mix, you have the ability to make a car far safer than if a human was behind the wheel. The problem comes when the AI is required to make a decision that has potential impacts on the vehicles around it. It's the classic trolley problem. How do you teach AI to rationalize the potential loss of life.

Autonomous vehicles are something we won't escape, and in fact, the tech is growing rapidly. 

That there are a few cases of bad accidents with self driving cars, that's no proof of them being unsafe. In fact, when you count the number of cases, it's more of a proof of them being much safer than human drivers! And that's before figuring out whether the self driving car is actually to blame in the reported case - most I've read were just about SDCs being involved, not them causing it.

Mind you, I agree that there are still many situations human drivers can handle better than SDCs. Or I should say, could handle better, if they pay attention, and are experienced enough to react on time and in an appropriate manner. SDCs come to the rescue when the human driver doesn't pay attention or is too unexperienced to react properly and in time.

Unfortunately, when you ask a human driver, (s)he'll always only consider how good they can be at the wheel under optimal conditions, and therefore not choose to let the car drive in their stead. They won't consider the off-chance of them being unattentive at the wrong time, or not being able to handle a case they've never experienced before. It's a psychological problem, not a technical one.