General Discussion

Egnever

(21,506 posts) Thu Sep 1, 2016, 01:25 AM Sep 2016

Think driverless cars wont be here anytime soon?

They are already on the roads.

Though these large-scale changes have yet to take place, self-driving cars aren’t a “technology of the future” anymore; they’re present and active in several parts of the world. Google’s self-driving cars have been on the streets in Mountain View, California for a few years. In France, Navya shuttles pick up passengers and run at a cautiously slow speed to drop them off. In Singapore, self-driving taxis by nuTonomy run along a fixed route. Just last month, Uber announced they would offer the first self-driven rides in Pittsburgh (with humans at the wheel as a back-up). Uber recently purchased an American company called Otto, whose goal is to automate trucks and allow them to drive unmanned cross-country.

They are coming much faster than many of us realize.

10 replies

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Think driverless cars wont be here anytime soon? (Original Post) Egnever Sep 2016 OP

This is clear streets & light traffic. I see what our San Francisco bus drivers have to put up with. NBachers Sep 2016 #1

Certainly not Egnever Sep 2016 #2

I expect legal issues around liability will delay it quite a while Lee-Lee Sep 2016 #3

Yeah, I bet they'll do great in Boston and Rome struggle4progress Sep 2016 #4

Very excited about this technology. NCTraveler Sep 2016 #5

Who is liable if it hurts someone? lame54 Sep 2016 #6

Who wanted them? Are people that lazy? anamandujano Sep 2016 #7

I hope they are. I bet a lot of chronologically gifted people do. When a person gets to the raccoon Sep 2016 #8

As long as I'm not forced to buy one Blue_Tires Sep 2016 #9

The sooner this technology is in wide and available use, the better. (nt) Paladin Sep 2016 #10

NBachers

(17,142 posts)

1. This is clear streets & light traffic. I see what our San Francisco bus drivers have to put up with.

Reply to Egnever (Original post)

Thu Sep 1, 2016, 03:26 AM

Sep 2016

Obstructions, cars that think the bus lane is their own personal parking lot. Wandering street maniacs are a routine feature of city driving, right in the middle of the roads. Stoplights, street construction, abusive and fighting passengers. Throw in rain, sleet, hail, snow, ice, and floods in other parts of the nation. It's fine for lab-type conditions, but real life traffic and human goofball behavior throw a lot of unexpected factors out there. It's not all nice and predictable and the same thing on every circuit.

Egnever

(21,506 posts)

2. Certainly not

Reply to NBachers (Reply #1)

Thu Sep 1, 2016, 04:05 AM

Sep 2016

not claiming it will be everywhere in a year but it will be a lot more places in a year and a lot more the year after.

That said Pittsburgh is not exactly a picnic.

One of the first self-driving Ubers is hitting the streets within the next few weeks, and it’s doing it in an unexpected place: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The ride-sharing company is deploying a self-driving Ford Fusion, a test car from its Advanced technologies Center, in the city. The vehicle is loaded with sensors and will be mapping the areas it drives through while simultaneously testing the car’s self-driving capabilities. Don’t worry, the car won’t be alone. In the driver’s seat will be a trained employee that will be monitoring how the car performs, and will be there to grab the wheel if anything happens.

Sure it is just testing and it has a driver but as they said in the excerpt above these things are already on the road in places outside the US. They are proving themselves every day.

Lee-Lee

(6,324 posts)

3. I expect legal issues around liability will delay it quite a while

Reply to Egnever (Original post)

Thu Sep 1, 2016, 06:32 AM

Sep 2016

Wait until the first driverless car is involved in a fatal accident it causes.

Who is liable?

The owner? They didn't cause it.

The manufacturer who designed it?

The programmer who wrote the specific lines of code that caused the car to crash?

Driving in traffic and weather can yield so many variables and complex scenarios that making foolproof software for it will be impossible. That will lead to accidents, that will lead to the above.

If courts start holding coders making control software for these accountable in the same way drivers are now you might suddenly have a hard time hiring anyone for that job...