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from the who's-gonna-drive-miss-daisy? dept.
The race to bring driverless cars to the masses is only just beginning, but already it is a fight for the ages. The competition is fierce, secretive, and elite. It pits Apple against Google against Tesla against Uber: all titans of Silicon Valley, in many ways as enigmatic as they are revered.
As these technology giants zero in on the car industry, global automakers are being forced to dramatically rethink what it means to build a vehicle for the first time in a century. Aspects of this race evoke several pivotal moments in technological history: the construction of railroads, the dawn of electric light, the birth of the automobile, the beginning of aviation. There's no precedent for what engineers are trying to build now, and no single blueprint for how to build it.
Self-driving cars promise to create a new kind of leisure, offering passengers additional time for reading books, writing email, knitting, practicing an instrument, cracking open a beer, taking a catnap, and any number of other diversions. Peope who are unable to drive themselves could experience a new kind of independence. And self-driving cars could re-contextualize land-use on massive scales. In this imagined mobility utopia, drone trucks would haul packages across the country and no human would have to circle a city block in search of a parking spot.
If self-driving vehicles deliver on their promises, they will save millions of lives over the course of a few decades, destroy and create entire industries, and fundamentally change the human relationship with space and time. All of which is why some of the planet's most valuable companies are pouring billions of dollars into the effort to build driverless cars.
After automation puts everyone out of work, will anyone need to drive anywhere anymore?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 16 2015, @07:39PM
I was in an accident years ago, a head on collision, caused by a young woman applying makeup while making a left turn. She said she didn't see us.
I was a passenger. The seat broke; I was belted in. The seat breaking allowed me and the seat to keep going at full speed, thankfully the dashboard stopped me. If I was not belted in, I would have very likely gone through the windshield. The seat tipped in flight and I was going to go headfirst out, but the seat is a bit bulky compared to a human body, and it gave me enough girth to get caught on other inside parts of the car to allow my legs to hit the dashboard at high speed.
And here it is, decades later, and yeah I have problems. She got a fine.
I cannot imagine how inattentive people are because of cell phones, I so truly wished that they did not become prevalent, but even I depend on one. But I am perhaps more crazy than most about insisting to not use it while driving. And getting belted in.
I see that it is often more important fpr people to check a facebook status update or whatever on the phone than it is to keep an eye on the road; this is no different to me than applying makeup like that young lady did.
I was bedridden for months and narrowly avoided a full body cast. Her parent's insurance probably went up, but she was no worse for wear and wasn't even bruised--I heard that because it was entirely unexpected to her, she didn't tense up and didn't reflexively tighten her muscles or grip the wheel harder. Drunk drivers often are OK in a collision when the people they hit do not; some of that has to do with their not tensing up right before impact. I can assure you, I was incredibly tense. It is hard to describe what it is like to know you are about to get hit at such a high rate of speed and being powerless to do anything about it as a passenger. I remember saying "Please don't do it"--then BANG! metal tearing sure has a high pitch...
And at the same time, I do not want my freedom reduced because of inattentive people. I'd ride my bike (and do my body some good) but the distances I have to go to work are too long to be feasible for that; and even if I did... people seem to treat motorcyclists and bicyclists as irritants, and sometimes are downright abusive. The ones not paying attention aren't even as bad as the ones that resent your being out there with them; if someone doesnt see you, and you know it, you can account for that when riding in the same direction as they are; you can let them pass.
When some idiot that hates two wheelers is out to have fun with you... it's better to just get off the road and wait.
And its a shame that those problems will only likely ever be solved by preventing them from being able to drive to begin with. It's indeed the selfish shits that will make this system worth embracing, but I wish I could be trusted to be able to not look at the unexpected ads on my phone while driving and keep my concentration where it should be.