General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsLife after human operated automobiles are obsolete.
Insurance premiums for owner operated vehicles will be prohibitive.
Traffic related deaths and injuries will plummet.
City life: Uber on steroids.
Suburban life:
You'll schedule a daily commute for the week with 'RoboCar'.
To and from work.
Time spent commuting will be credited as 'work time' since you'll be able to do your job or conduct business while enroute to your job.
If you still have to physically BE at an office.
Same for kids to school if a RoboSchoolBus doesn't serve your school district.
Teaching/learning will begin as soon as your kid boards the bus or the RoboCar.
Anywhere you need to go...shopping, medical appointments, visit friends, a night out, whatever...transportation is just a phone call/text/IM/app/email away.
Bars will see a huge increase in profits. RoboCar is the Designated Driver.
Taking a flight? You'll be pre-screened by your RoboCar ride.
No TSA.
And RoboCar entered your digital boarding pass into the system.
Just walk out to your departure gate and board.
Remember how it used to be?
What will this cost?
MUCH less than you now pay for a car, insurance, maintenance, tires, etc., etc.
Feel free to add your own ideas.
These are just a few.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)As much as the traffic will bear.
longship
(40,416 posts)1. Most roads here are unpaved with no clear demarcation between road and forest, or lake or river or just some farmer's field.
2. WINTER!! Snow can be brutal even when one knows where the road goes. No robocar is going to be able to deal with winter. At least not any time soon.
MindPilot
(12,693 posts)Surveillance technology currently being developed for military drones will use radar and sonar to map the road faster and more accurately than any human ever could. It will "see" right through snow to the edges of the road and even be able to detect if the surface beneath the snow or water is safe to drive on long before you go into a sinkhole or across a washed out bridge.
We are maybe five years from that. This is going to happen.
KittyWampus
(55,894 posts)2. Girls Crash into Lake Following Bad GPS Directions
One now from the United States, this time involving two girls who ended up driving into a lake because their GPS and sat nav told them to! The three girls had hired an SUV and blamed a bad GPS for leading them into danger.
The girls in question survived the incident but divers were needed in order to help recover the Mercedes from the lake using a tow truck. You can watch the video below from the local news channel which covered this horrendous sat nav error.
3. Japanese Tourists Drive into the Pacific Ocean Because of Their GPS
Following on with the water based theme is this story concerns a group of Japanese tourists who had hired a car in Brisbane, Australia. Being in an unfamiliar country and driving on unknown roads is never the easiest of things, but surely they must have seen the Pacific Ocean approaching as they drove their hire car into the waves? Apparently not and despite Japan being the home of technology perhaps these guys needs a few refresher points on how to use their GPS sat nav?
One of the tourists was quoted as saying that the GPS told us we could drive down there. It kept saying it would navigate us to a road. We got stuck
Theres lots of mud. Quite. Watch the video below to see some hilarious footage of this classic sat nav foul-up.
4. Truck Driver Jailed Over GPS Mistake
You would think that an army veteran might have better navigational sense, but this wasnt the case with Doug Madison in the USA. This guy had to spend Christmas behind bars after driving a chemical tanker onto country roads that were only meant to have a 10 ton weight limit.
Doug Madison told the local court sentencing him that his GPS and sat nav told him to come off Interstate 79. He was eventually locked up for 10 days and told the local news TV channel that he thought the punishment was unjustified.
5. English Woman Drives Mercedes into a River Using Sat Nav
One from the UK now, where a woman drove a £96,000 Mercedes into the River Sence (perhaps she could use some sense?). This was another case of a person blindly following their sat nav directions, despite there being clear road signs saying that there was a rather large body of water right up ahead.
MindPilot
(12,693 posts)GPS is for navigation, not negotiation.
Travis_0004
(5,417 posts)Yes, GPS is not perfect. I've had my GPS tell me to go the wrong way on a one way street before. I ignored the gps, and went around the block.
Also, nobody is saying driverless cars will be perfect, they just have to be better than humans. Cars will be able to see water and even recognize one way signs and will be able to handle these situations.
longship
(40,416 posts)Here?
We don't even have cable TV or broadband Internet here yet. I live in a seriously rural area. Oh, no water or natural gas lines either. We pump our own water, treat our own waste water. And I heat by fuel oil; a big truck delivers it when I run low.
So, I hope you don't mind if I stand by my first response up thread. And you are delusional if you think self-driving cars are going to be generally available anywhere in five years, let alone where I live.
MindPilot
(12,693 posts)But see, that is the neat thing about a technology such as this, other than a place to put the tires, no infrastructure required.
Self-driving cars are a real viable technology now, so no delusion is required. It is a matter of refining the sensor technology and software to get reliable operation in less-than-optimal conditions.
In a few years the guy who shows up with your fuel oil, may be there just to do the pumping. The truck got there on its own.
Hey, it's almost October 21st, 2015; even the hover cars in Back to the Future still needed drivers.
longship
(40,416 posts)Everybody knows that hovercraft are always full of eels.
I stand by my posts here.
My best to you.
lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)There will still be TSA, they'll just be in front of computer monitors, watching where you go, how long you stay and what you google while in the "driver's" seat.
And insurance for driver operated cars may be more expensive than those of google cars, but once all the shitty drivers are away from the wheel I don't see why insurance rates should go up.
Travis_0004
(5,417 posts)Drop me off at the door of my office, then park a mile or two away (in the city).
A lot of parking lots downtown wont be needed, since the car can drive a bit further to park(and even double park if the cars can talk to each other)
I think one car families will be a bit more common.
My car could drop me off at work and my wife could call it home if needed. It wouldnt make sense for everyday use if the commute was long but it would be nice for emergencies.
Also I hate going to the mechanic. It would be awesome to send my car there and it will come back on it own.
I could also see cars driving to pick up items. Order groceries online, your car pulls up and they load them up and send your car back home without you leaving the house. Some businesses will probably deliver more thangs as delivery cost gets cheaper.
trof
(54,255 posts)It will be cheaper not to.
Travis_0004
(5,417 posts)Even if its cheaper, its still a nice luxury. If I want to leave its nice to leave now, not wait for a car to arrive.
trof
(54,255 posts)Not for pre-arranged trips.
Spur-of-the-moment may take a bit longer.
Throd
(7,208 posts)Spur-of-the-moment might include taking my daughter to the hospital.
MADem
(135,425 posts)and STOP AND SHOP stores already has online grocery delivery.
You go to the web page, you pick out the stuff you need, they pack it up, they deliver it, they charge you a ten buck delivery fee.
It's called PEAPOD.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)trof
(54,255 posts)Carports will be 'covered patios'.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)This is already standard practice in SF, though not strictly legal.
Throd
(7,208 posts)Your vision of RoboCars sounds somewhat creepy.
trof
(54,255 posts)I'd love not to have the responsibility/expense of owning 2 cars.
Throd
(7,208 posts)I have 7 cars and can think of a few more I would like to own.
trof
(54,255 posts)Not just the cost of the cars and maintenance.
Insurance costs will skyrocket,
You will be part of a very small pool.
Throd
(7,208 posts)Why would my insurance rates skyrocket?
I have been driving since 1983 with no accidents or moving violations.
Skittles
(152,967 posts)Skittles
(152,967 posts)don't you know they ALWAYS find a way to stiff you
I doubt the robocar service will be cheap
trof
(54,255 posts)It's coming.
Seriously.
Skittles
(152,967 posts)and we'd use less paper because of computers
MindPilot
(12,693 posts)So I'm not really going with the cheaper argument, but better, absolutely.
Skittles
(152,967 posts)so I do find the idea of robocars a bit enticing
trof
(54,255 posts)Bought a house in NH in the early 70s.
It was all electric, including heat.
Radiant heat.
I asked if this wasn't pretty expensive in a NH winter.
"Oh, no," the realtor said.
"The Seabrook Nuclear Plant is coming online next year. Electricity will be too cheap to meter. You'll just get a bill for 10 or 15 dollars a month."
Yeah, right.
Seabrook ran millions of dollars over contract.
We went from wood heat, to coal heat, and finally to oil heat.
But I really think this is different.
Life changing.
MindPilot
(12,693 posts)I see autonomous clusters of self driving cars moving along the freeway at well into triple digit speeds.
trof
(54,255 posts)You could be right.
Shandris
(3,447 posts)If that's 'life' after cars, I think I'll take up horse breeding and the Amish lifestyle.
Okay, Mennonite. I need my foreign television.
hunter
(38,264 posts)Sigh.
We could remodel our cities to be very nice places, a network of actual small interconnected communities where neighbors know one another, places where automobiles, self driving or not, are largely unnecessary.
trof
(54,255 posts)Small villages with at least one of everything.
A restaurant/bar, druggist, hardware, grocery, etc.
All within walking distance of your front door.
Eutopia, I know.
hunter
(38,264 posts)Not so wonderful as a kid stirring up trouble in class one day, and then your teacher has a chat with your dad after work at the pub... Or worse, as a couple of my nieces and nephews have experienced, your mom or dad IS the teacher.
On the other hand, with a slightly larger city, one with fairly decent public transportation, it's less likely your parents and your teachers will hang out in the same establishments.
My wife and I met in Los Angeles, both freeway commuters. By some planning and greater good fortune we've managed to avoid the automobile commuter lifestyle since the mid 'eighties.
olddots
(10,237 posts)and do the Peppermint Twist again .