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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday February 01 2018, @04:34PM   Printer-friendly
from the just-let-go dept.

A very small survey of people of different ages suggests that there are age and gender differences in the acceptance of riding in automated cars. In summary, 2,600 people in the US replied and of them 38% of the men and just 16% of women would be happy to ride in an automated vehicle. About a quarter of respondents said they would feel safe in a driverless car while around two thirds said they would not travel unless there was a driver. No mention was made about their opinions of sharing the road with these massive projectiles when driving themselves in traditional cars.

Source : Driverless cars: Men and women have very different opinions on letting go of the wheel


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  • (Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday February 01 2018, @09:13PM (7 children)

    by frojack (1554) on Thursday February 01 2018, @09:13PM (#631694) Journal

    What I see these years is probably at least one minor incident per 15 minutes

    Seems to me your evaluation of "minor incident" of dangerous driving is defined as putting the key in the ignition.

    If you were seeing that much danger every 15 minutes, you would also be seeing at least one in ten of those "dangerous driving" resulting in an accident.

    Failing that, what you see and interpret as "dangerous" is, by definition, not dangerous.

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  • (Score: 2) by Nuke on Thursday February 01 2018, @10:43PM (2 children)

    by Nuke (3162) on Thursday February 01 2018, @10:43PM (#631736)

    .. I see ... probably at least one minor incident per 15 minutes

    If you were seeing that much danger every 15 minutes, you would also be seeing at least one in ten of those "dangerous driving" resulting in an accident.

    Depends how you define a minor incident. I see minor incidents more often than every 15 minutes, by which I include : running red lights, being in wrong lane, tailgating, obstructive parking, cutting in, failing to signal, driver being on a phone, cuting the centre line - and I won't even count speeding. These are all things that a SD car would not do.

    OTOH I have little confidence in SD cars reliably coping with other than clearly and nicely laid-out roads - like th ones I see in videos demonstrating how good SD cars are supposed to be. Where I live in rural Wales there are many single track roads with no reliable side verges, and on meeting a vehicle coming the other way a kind of waving negotiation takes place as to which of you reverses perhaps 500 yards to the nearest entirely unofficial patch of rough banking or undergrowth that it is possible to get up or into in order to allow the other one to squeeze past. An SD car is never going to enter such an area. It is going to need official passing places. In other words roads are going to need modifying.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 02 2018, @03:25AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 02 2018, @03:25AM (#631850)

      While I agree with most of your post, I'm pretty sure that this part:
      > and I won't even count speeding. These are all things that a SD car would not do.

      ...is incorrect.
      SD programmers realized early on that their cars better move at the speed of surrounding traffic or they were going to get kicked off the roads pretty quickly. They might go at the slow lane speed on the freeway/motorway, but that can often be above the speed limit.

      I've been on little lanes as you describe, happened to be outside Norwich, UK. Driving around a blind corner (due to tall hedges) and coming face-2-face with a large agricultural machine[*], there was no question of negotiation, I was in reverse as quickly as possible!

      * It had pointy things sticking out all over.

    • (Score: 2) by crafoo on Friday February 02 2018, @04:09AM

      by crafoo (6639) on Friday February 02 2018, @04:09AM (#631868)

      I'll have to agree. I see about 1-2 careless and/or dangerous actions every 10 to 15 minutes on the road. In a fairly low-population area. With low traffic. Lots of drifting over the centerline on undivided highways. Drifting across the fog line and into or nearly into the dirt. Cutting across a turn lane because they just realized they needed to make a quick stop at Wendys. When you think about it, seeing someone seriously injured or gore and death - where does everyone encounter this? On the roadways. It's so common. For many this will be the one setting they will ever encounter these kinds of gruesome events.

      Automated cars will see in the dark, 360 degrees, with high resolution and will have reaction times 1000 times better than a human. They can make shitty decisions most of the time and they will still improve road safety.

  • (Score: 2) by canopic jug on Friday February 02 2018, @04:57AM (2 children)

    by canopic jug (3949) Subscriber Badge on Friday February 02 2018, @04:57AM (#631890) Journal

    If you were seeing that much danger every 15 minutes, you would also be seeing at least one in ten of those "dangerous driving" resulting in an accident.

    Oh, I see plenty of smashed cars or cars in the ditch even though they are usually cleaned up within hours. I just don't usually see them get smashed up. Sometimes its even a bus or a tandem trailer. Two or so years ago it was both when a tandem trailer t-boned a partially full school bus just up the road.

    In addition to nuke's list, some of which like failing to signal and failing to yield and leaving highbeams on, are merely status quo, I'd add a few more some serious some more serious: There are often kids dorking around with ATVs on undivided highways. I've seen ATV races at 60kph through residential neighborhoods. Back before the local highschool was shut down by the politicians, it was a regular occurence to see different motorcycles (not mopeds) travelling at highway speeds on pedestrian walkways. The most extreme case of that I saw slalom between sets of old people, a woman with a baby carriage and several dog walkers all while travelling about the same speed as me on the parallel highway. It's not uncommon to see people try to pass in their cars in the face of oncoming traffic on the undivided highway such that the oncoming traffic has to brake. Oncoming tandem trailers have drifted over into my lane coming with in centimeters of forcing me into the ditch. People are often engrossed in their phones, probably texting or watching a movie, not just talking though talking on the phone is common. Sometimes talkers have their good ear on the same side as their dominant hand so they are really contorted to keep one hand on the wheel. It's not uncommon to see street speeds in parking lots. In parking structures, it's not uncommon for cars and occasionally motor cycles to sprint. Getting passed on the wrong side happens occasionally. Once I got passed in a 50kph zone by a car going around 120kph, again on the right. Occasionally there are what I call rally turns, where the car hits the intersection almost at speed and turns sideways just before entering the crossing and relies on the grip of the drive wheels to pull it to the right direction and the friction of the tires going sideways to slow down its forward motion.

    I'm sure there are more examples if I were to sit down and think about it. The slalom, 120kph, and drift were not so recent happening bewtween 1 and 3 years ago. The rest are all this winter.

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    • (Score: 2) by t-3 on Friday February 02 2018, @12:14PM (1 child)

      by t-3 (4907) on Friday February 02 2018, @12:14PM (#631964)

      I thought Michigan drivers were bad, but WTF do you guys live? Aggressive driving is par for the course here, but /unsafe/ driving? I see that very rarely, and usually it's drunk people late at night, or some guy on a fast bike running from the cops or street racing.

      • (Score: 2) by canopic jug on Friday February 02 2018, @01:00PM

        by canopic jug (3949) Subscriber Badge on Friday February 02 2018, @01:00PM (#631973) Journal

        some guy on a fast bike running from the cops or street racing

        A few years ago a woman who was as high as a kite took out a road sign across the way on her way into the ditch. Supposedly she was running from the cops but they turned up long while later at a leisurely pace and then took her away. I'm curious as to how they knew where she was going. Not all accidents are due to bad driving. One old guy we knew had a fatal heart attack just up the road from us a few years ago and destroyed his car in the process. There are also minor annoyances such as the heavy equipment, such as all kinds of tractors and front loaders, commuting to and from work sites during rush hour. Farmers I don't mind because they do real work but many of these others are the result of privatizing the road maintenance and they don't have the right equipment and make do with all kinds of inappropriate earth-moving machinery to clear snow. Technically it is also illegal to burn fuel oil instead of diesel. That seems to have become a lot less frequent lately, but you still smell such a car or van every once in a while. Seeing people pass long lines on blind curves or in no-passing zones is also common.

        Last week there were two conflicting reports of whether Chinese tourists would be able to use Chinese drivers licenses here while visiting. In another country, I used to know a lot of people from Mainland China and many of them considered making the car move forward as the only consideration in driving. One neighbor I only knew by sight took out a front porch that way even though it was set back far from the street. But that was decades ago.

        Ok. Enough grumbling from me on that topic I think.

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  • (Score: 2) by TheRaven on Friday February 02 2018, @12:05PM

    by TheRaven (270) on Friday February 02 2018, @12:05PM (#631959) Journal
    I see people driving sufficiently badly that other drivers have to take evasive action pretty much at least once every trip to and from work, so one of those every 10 minutes on average (3-4 on a bad day). These are things that are not collisions because someone else actively ensures that they are not, but which would be if the other driver were distracted. Humans are really bad drivers.
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