Driverless Car Really Insane

Would you put your 6 year old daughter/grand daughter in a driverless car going 60 mph?

Here's a follow up question: can a driverless car detect and avoid a turtle in the road?  It's turtle season up north, with thousands of turtles crossing the highway to lay their eggs.  I and hundreds of other drivers swerve and save a few turtle lives.  A few probably aim at them.  Cars have killed off entire species of turtles.

A BBC story heralds a new breakthrough with 16,000 computers together now being able to identify a cat.  Your driverless car won't have 16,000 computers.  What about a tire, a brick, - a person?

Photo: NineShift saves a turtle

Comments

[D. P. Lubic]

This is the sort of thing that means self-driving cars will have a long way to go before they are ready for commercial service.

Having said that, much of the technology is already in some cars, including antilock braking and traction control, and Cadillac has or did have a "heads-up" radar (?) display meant to improve visibility for a driver in fog and other similar conditions.

Against all this is the fact that it costs money to put it in the car, and it adds to the complexity of the car. One of the complaints about modern cars, and one of the reasons given that younger people aren't interested in cars, is that you can't fix them yourself, you can't tinker with them like before. (This was supposed to help you "bond" with the car, or some such thing.) I have to say it's true, some modern cars seem to be more computer than car.

My own comment about a self-driving car is that even if the gear all works right, you're still in a tin can with limited movement for you. You can't get up and walk around to stretch, you still have to stop to go to the bathroom on a longer trip, and you still have to stop somewhere to eat, and if you want something more than a sandwich and other finger food like chips or fries, you can't eat and ride at the same time. However, you can do all these things in a civilized manner on a train.

[smith]

A driverless car could only work in closed system where the car doesn't have to make decisions about turtles, small dogs, flying leaves, hamburger bags etc. Such a system would be very costly.

And depending on your view of human nature, the more driver assist gadgets we get the lazier we'll get and the roads will be that much more dangerous.

Someone with a stuck Toyota gas pedal didn't know enough to put the car in neutral and/or turn the darn thing off--and died because of it. Maybe even driver assist is going in the wrong direction.