If you like driving, something to consider....

[Mudd]

I guess that autonomous cars can't arrive soon enough. As for myself and other Luddites, we'll still have track day!

The laws here won't change, although insurance rates will. I'll be driving on public streets for the rest of my life - not really a distant time horizon, that.

We had extensive driver's education in the public schools here when I was a kid - we spent a week or two in driving simulators before we ever got behind a wheel.

 

[Butters]

My first lesson was with my dad, under duress, on the back roads around the village. Sinuous country lanes mostly, and I was ridiculed for not knowing the things I hadn’t learned yet, which was everything. When we had travelled for an arbitrary distance deemed far enough I was instructed to turn around by means of a three point manoeuvre, and where better than the entrance to private drive containing a Mercedes and a Porsche? Needles to say, nerves were frayed.

The experience was enough to demonstrate that I wasn’t ready for driving lessons, and that was the main thing. Strangely, I did much better with a trained instructor.

True story.

 

[John Clark]

I didn't bother learning until I got to about 23. I wasn't initially that bothered so it was mostly triggered by the bus not turning up and being stuck in the middle of nowhere (where the office was at the time). Most of my lessons took place in the winter and we had snow and ice that year.

 

[Paul Weaver]

My first lesson was on my 17th birthday, I'd passed a few months later.

I look forward to never having to drive again, driving is functional, to get from point A to point B (or perhaps just 'go for a drive' and look at the scenery). It may take a long time before automated cars are normal where I live, but in small high desntity self contained autocratic areas, say some Chinese cities, I suspect there may well a decision in a decade or so to ban manual driving completely, and damn the deaths. This will allow an enormous amount of data to be collected, and a few years later I'd expect it to be pushed out wider.

Probably 30 years before it becomes common in europe (automatic cars only in London for example), and even longer in the US, but it will happen.

 

[Butters]

I don’t think it’s just the cities. I live semi rural and would love it if I could sneak a few beers after work and have my car come get me.

 

[Paul Weaver]

Being able to get an uber equivalent at the 50p/mile range (which once your remove the driver would be the right kind of price) would open up a world of possibilities for where to live.

 

[Gary7]

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[Mojochi]

Just one question what are these things called buses you speak off?

Where I'm from, it's an open invitation for the town's youth to spend a little close quarters time with the local lunatics & mentally challenged, who for one reason or another aren't allowed to drive

My first lesson was on my 17th birthday, I'd passed a few months later.
I look forward to never having to drive again, driving is functional, to get from point A to point B (or perhaps just 'go for a drive' and look at the scenery). It may take a long time before automated cars are normal where I live, but in small high desntity self contained autocratic areas, say some Chinese cities, I suspect there may well a decision in a decade or so to ban manual driving completely, and damn the deaths. This will allow an enormous amount of data to be collected, and a few years later I'd expect it to be pushed out wider.
Probably 30 years before it becomes common in europe (automatic cars only in London for example), and even longer in the US, but it will happen.

I wouldn't count on anyone criminalizing manual driving, in the US, without a huge shit stink, anytime in the next half century, & if they ever did let it through, they'd probably already be long down the path of full blown sheep herding, in countless other ways anyhow

I've been driving anything with an engine since I was old enough to reach the pedals. Cars, trucks, tractors, cycles, off-roaders, ATVs, RVs, snowmobiles, motorboats. Everything short of big rigs & planes, & I don't doubt that if I had the money, I could learn those too. Kind of harbor a secret desire to do so. Hell, I'm as good a driver as my brother & he is a professional class A big rig driver. Manually operating transportation has been a cornerstone of human civilization since before we had a name for this place, because that's how they got here. Best of luck

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Manually operating transportation has been a cornerstone of human civilization since before we had a name for this place, because that's how they got here.

Yes, because a better alternative hadn't been invented yet. That argument doesn't prove anything. I'm sure there were people resisting the dawn of domesticated riding animals who said "You can have my feet when you pry them from my cold dead legs!"

 

[Lord Garth]

I like driving... except when I'm stuck in a traffic jam, trying to get through Boston. Throw bad weather, construction, tailgating, and a confused GPS into the mix, and it makes me wish we had transporters.

Joyriding and commuting are two different things. As long as these Future Cars had the option to switch between auto driving and manual driving, I wouldn't mind. Only problem with auto driving is, one glitch at just the wrong time and you're dead.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Only problem with auto driving is, one glitch at just the wrong time and you're dead.

But the same literally applies to humans with far greater frequency.

 

[Lord Garth]

But the same literally applies to humans with far greater frequency.

I never said otherwise. Both are true. Humans are walking, talking glitches.

If people are alert enough to know when a car goes off track and cars are alert enough to know when humans go off track, then we have the ideal combination.

 

[Mudd]

Yes, because a better alternative hadn't been invented yet. That argument doesn't prove anything. I'm sure there were people resisting the dawn of domesticated riding animals who said "You can have my feet when you pry them from my cold dead legs!"

Well now, there's a reach.

Here's another: faith in progress is a religion of its own.

 

[Mojochi]

Yes, because a better alternative hadn't been invented yet. That argument doesn't prove anything. I'm sure there were people resisting the dawn of domesticated riding animals who said "You can have my feet when you pry them from my cold dead legs!"

& surprisingly... to this day, no one forced people to stop using their feet.

I can literally still sail a catamaran just like the ones used to settle the Pacific islands 600 years ago, if I chose to freely do so

 

[MacLeod]

Self-drive cars becoming main stream is still a couple of decades away however that being said it might come done to which is more efficient and saves us more time in the end. I can be sat in a queue of cars at a set of traffic lights when the lights change and I'm ready to go but can't go because the person ahead isn't. With self-drive cars every car could be instructed to move at the same time increasing efficiency. Same goes for speed no longer would other drivers driver slower than the conditions permit.

 

[scotpens]

I can be sat in a queue of cars at a set of traffic lights when the lights change and I'm ready to go but can't go because the person ahead isn't. With self-drive cars every car could be instructed to move at the same time increasing efficiency.

Whether cars are autonomous or manually driven, you still need adequate space between vehicles to allow for safe stopping distance. The only way a line of cars could all start and stop simultaneously would be if they were electronically linked together like a virtual train. In that case, what happens if the car in front has to brake suddenly for an unexpected obstacle?

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Well now, there's a reach.

Because it was a joke.

Here's another: faith in progress is a religion of its own.

I don't have unquestioned faith in technological progress (or any progress for that matter), despite hoping for the best and supporting people I think can make things better. I've laid out many of the difficulties with driverless vehicles in the thread already: hacking, human error in programming, mechanical failure, corporate malfeasance, industrial espionage/sabotage, natural disasters interfering with vehicle operations, etc. I don't think it will be a perfect system, and it will need constant improvement and refinement over time, but I do think it will be a vast improvement over human drivers.

 

[Mojochi]

With self-drive cars every car could be instructed to move at the same time increasing efficiency.

That's called a train, & it among other public forms of transport will always be the most efficient, but clearly what's most efficient isn't always what people concern themselves with

 

[Herbert]

Here's another: faith in progress is a religion of its own.

The problem with "progress" is that it's not always a leap forward.
To be fair, I can see the appeal of driveless cars for some. For me, I'd rather be in control of my own fate and while a driverless car may ultimately be safer, I trust myself. I may not be able to trust other drivers but that's the risk I take. I'm fine with it.

 

[Mudd]

The problem with "progress" is that it's not always a leap forward.

In many respects it's a phantasm. Things are always getting better for someone somewhere, generally at someone else's expense.

In the whole world, species ebb and flow. What we think of as civilization is, so far, barely a blip in the lifetime of the human race. The only thing that's pretty clear from past experience is that wherever our current culture is headed it's not where we expect or would like.