separate from cars, or at least their own lanes on the interstate.

trains are having a worse safety record than aircraft.

If we can build self-driving cars and trucks, why can't we build railroads that are 100% safe?

Train rails are locked in, while trucks can respond to changes in patterns of commerce

The scariest assed Interstate on the planet.

Up to eight lanes. Over the Tejon Pass near Grapevine, CA. Chock-a-block with semi-trucks plus run-out lanes on the downhill. The semis are supposedly limited to the right lane only -- there are signs that say so -- but that somehow doesn't stop them from passing each other anyway. Plus, SoCalians are in general lunatic drivers.

Put an autonomous vehicle on that road and you'll have vehicles over cliffs in no time at all.

It's my contention that no autonomous vehicle could safely transit the Grapevine in normal, heavy traffic. Then, there's winter on the Grapevine, or Hell, even fucking flat Kansas.

Just keep your fucking autonomous vehicles off any road that I am driving on and I'll be happy and undoubtedly a helluva lot safer.

Autonomous vehicles can drive better than the average driver that I left behind in New York state this last year. At least it wouldn't try to race another robot just to see who had the bigger nuts.

Where very few roads are paved. And of course the paved roads can, at any time, be covered with black ice, like a skating rink.

As I said, Just keep your fucking autonomous vehicles off the roads I drive on.

Drive better? Balderdash!!! Try the Grapevine first. In winter! Then report back your results. That's four aces.

I promise that I won't play my trump card, Grass Lake Road. Not yet.

that I have no experience of this Grapevine you're talking about, but I did spend every working day on the Garden State Parkway during my last job, which lasted over eight years. After that, I'm not afraid to drive anywhere except NYC.

If you can acknowledge that anti-skid braking technology can do a better job than the average human driver on slippery surfaces, then maybe someday, we'll see an autonomous vehicle that can handle any black ice better than most humans. We're either at the point, or we're rapidly heading to the point where machines can sense and properly react to changing conditions far faster than even the best human drivers in many situations.

Autonomous vehicles are coming, like it or not. You'll see them being purchased by aging baby boomers like myself. I can still drive quite well at 62, but I might not be able to say that when I'm 72. It might be very tempting for me and the missus to buy an autonomous vehicle so we can at least get to doctor appointments, even if we do have Amazon deliver all of our groceries and such.

Add in the fact that there will always be people who lose a driving privilege for DUI or texting, or whatever reason, and if an autonomous vehicle is their only practical way of getting to a job, they'll jump into that market, too. This genie is almost out of the bottle, there will be no putting it back in. The best we can hope for is that proper testing and regulation accompany this leap into the future.

You'll have tractor trailers and cars over cliffs in no time.

And that's on a more-or-less gently curved, sloped interstate highway. It's the traffic volume that makes it a scary-assed drive. That, and the extremely high volume of semis. Plus, the down slopes, which are relentless. The numerous emergency run-out lanes are a bit of a hint.

It's a white knuckle transit. I would not even try it in winter. It is a transit to be avoided in even clement weather.

And keep your god damned autonomous vehicles off any road I drive on.

that there is a need for caution as we transform to these vehicles, and it might well be practical to ban them from places properly labeled as particularly dangerous, but that means that in the places that are marginally OK, the technology will improve so that they will eventually be allowed on any road a human driver would be allowed on.

As to what you yourself will be able to keep off the roads, good luck with that. I'm just glad that I don't have to drive with any more suburban assault vehicles full of kids that is being poorly piloted by a Hassidic mother or her overly pushy and aggressive husband.

Once upon a time, most humans could out-think a computer, nobody would say that today. What makes you think that the same progress cannot eventually be made with motor vehicles?

1) The Grapevine is NORTH of LA, not east. I-15 over the Cajon Pass is east of LA, North of Fontana

2) Trucks are restricted to the two right lanes, not the furthest right lane exclusively.
2a) If you were climbing a hill and came upon a pickup hauling an RV trailer doing 35, wouldn't you want to pass him? Not every truck climbs or descends a hill at the same speed. Their weights vary considerably and what happens when no passing is allowed, is a long line of trucks behind a very heavy one doing 20 MPH climbing or descending the hill.

3) The "Run-out" (or more appropriately "Run Away" ramps equal 2, and they are on the northbound side.

4) Put an autonomous vehicle or a chain of them in the right lane doing a steady speed and they would make it over just fine provided the software and guidance systems are up to the task.

5) If you think the Grapevine is "The scariest assed Interstate on the planet", you have apparently never been down Vail Pass, Cabbage Pass or across I68 from Grantsville to Cumberland, MD or any of a dozen other grades I could mention. The Grapevine is a cakewalk.

As an OTR trucker for almost 30 years (and one that has been across the Grapevine more times than I can count), I'll be dead before one of those trucks takes my job but they are coming, of that I have no doubt.

And I-5 over the Tejon Pass is scary-assed because of the high traffic and the SoCal drivers, not necessarily because of the mountain pass, however that certainly adds to its white knuckleness. I've never driven on those other roads you cited.

What are autonomous vehicles going to do in winter, on any northern or interior USA road? That's right, they are going to slip off the roadway, crash into each other, or cause other mayhem. Their sensors are not going to work in a snowstorm.

And here, on narrow, curvy, unpaved Grass Lake Road, they'd end up in the fucking lake.

Just keep them off my roads and we'll be fine.

It's a hard life, rough his health, his marriage and family. There's a lot of wage theft that stiffs drivers out of the money they had coming. He stays in it for the benefits, and he doesn't really have any marketable skills that would pay as much. All the drivers are worried about being replaced by the self-driving trucks within the next decade, and my nephew says the only trucking jobs remaining will be short hop deliveries within congested cities that will pay less.

It will be a long time before these trucks can navigate off interstates. But the huge cost savings on long hauls will cause the number of trucks to go way up. Maybe the demand for local drivers will explode. It pays less because it is a better way of life. ATMs saved so much money banks built tons more local branches, increasing the number of tellers overall.

Just because a thing can be done doesnt mean we should do it

“They would pull off the interstate to a node where a human driver would pilot them through built up areas.”