Poll of the Day > How do you feel about SELF-DRIVING CARS?

(+) Yeah! (+)

MannerSaurus posted...

Yes sir, although I do own some automatic cars, too.

I've somehow forgotten how to drive an automatic - always stomping on a phantom clutch.

Questionmarktarius posted...

MannerSaurus posted...

Yes sir, although I do own some automatic cars, too.

I've somehow forgotten how to drive an automatic - always stomping on a phantom clutch.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. I'm so glad you said that. People think I'm crazy when I say that. When I start engine braking and close up the throttle to roll to a red light, I go in for the clutch for a downshift (getting ready to raise engine speed to match, of course), and I just hit that foot rest on the left. I'm just like, "Oh."
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Personally, I think they are good. But I don't think they be at peak performance unless everybody had them. Yet it would be a long time before that happened. That being said, I wouldn't want them to be mandatory. It just doesn't work for me and my lifestyle.
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I want them to be great, but I don't see how they can realistically work. It would probably only be possible in California or something. How does the car "see" the road, for example?

What about winter driving conditions when a human can barely see the road, or when you can see so little of the road that we ignore the real lane markers and just use the ruts?

What about when there's construction or some kind of obstruction and you have to divert from normal traffic patterns? For example, there was an emergency repair on Sarcee this year; they paved over the median and had one side of the highway drive on half the opposite side.

How does it choose a good speed? What about when you know a particular road is wet and snowy and particularly slippery? Does it know to brake early and gently? What about going face-first downhill with a big load in the back? What about an extremely steep road that's coated in a thin layer of solid ice?

etc.etc.
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GameLord113 posted...

why are you so against a technology that will save lives and prevent tragic auto accidents

You could also save those lives by outlawing cars all together and protect against an economic crisis by banning stock trading, ban sport to protect against personal injury, ban tall buildings and glass, ban keeping animals, take money from people deemed irresponsible, etc., etc., etc.

You can be awfully safe by not letting anybody have nice things, you're just unlikely to be happy.
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Sahuagin posted...

they paved over the median and had one side of the highway drive on half the opposite side.

That's called a contraflow.

Sahuagin posted...

How does it choose a good speed? What about when you know a particular road is wet and snowy and particularly slippery? Does it know to brake early and gently? What about going face-first downhill with a big load in the back? What about an extremely steep road that's coated in a thin layer of solid ice?

It knows these things, yes, common environmental factors are surprisingly easy to sense and counter with all the equipment running well. Of course if a sensor goes down then it'd be more dangerous than a personally-driven vehicle.
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I think self driving cars can work, but it's only going to work if everything on the road is self-driving and networked with every other vehicle on the road.

I'm not sure how I feel about giving up all autonomy for that though.
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Sahuagin posted...

How does it choose a good speed? What about when you know a particular road is wet and snowy and particularly slippery? Does it know to brake early and gently? What about going face-first downhill with a big load in the back? What about an extremely steep road that's coated in a thin layer of solid ice?

etc.etc.

@Sahuagin Objectively, this shouldn't be too hard. In regular non-self-driving cars, your Traction Control already detects these things like slipping tire traction and automatically closes your throttle and reduces tire speed to try to save your life in rain/snow/mud. As for down hill, I imagine a distance and tilt sensor and things like that. You would be surprised at how complicated your car already is with calculations. You have huge spreadsheets of fuel data (imagine Excel) that your computer rapidly reads to determine how much fuel to inject into your cylinders to achieve proper Air/Fuel Ratio (14.6:1 in a lab setting) for perfect combustion based on incoming data including: Outside air temperature, air pressure and flow inside your intake, throttle position, gear, and engine speed (RPM), and then this data is double checked and over written based on feedback from your O2 sensors in your exhaust (that detect how much oxygen in the the exhaust, to see if your computer "got it right" the first time) to correct slight errors in accuracy from the intake/throttle/engine speed sensors listed above. That's called running in "closed loop", and the adjustments are called fuel trim.

My point is, detecting traction changes or things like that seems very realistic to accomplish.
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MannerSaurus posted...

Traction Control already detects these things like slipping tire traction and automatically closes your throttle and reduces tire speed to try to save your life in rain/snow/mud. As for down hill, I imagine a distance and tilt sensor and things like that.

So basically TC and AYC from a 20 year old japanese compact would do the actually important parts of self-driving cars.
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WhiskeyDisk posted...

I think self driving cars can work, but it's only going to work if everything on the road is self-driving and networked with every other vehicle on the road.

I'm not sure how I feel about giving up all autonomy for that though.

Yeah. Basically what I was thinking, too. But either way, there's always two sides to every coin. There are some reasons it's good, and some reasons it's not what's best for everyone.
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Kyuubi4269 posted...

Sahuagin posted...
How does it choose a good speed? What about when you know a particular road is wet and snowy and particularly slippery? Does it know to brake early and gently? What about going face-first downhill with a big load in the back? What about an extremely steep road that's coated in a thin layer of solid ice?

It knows these things, yes, common environmental factors are surprisingly easy to sense and counter with all the equipment running well. Of course if a sensor goes down then it'd be more dangerous than a personally-driven vehicle.

I don't know... the reason I mention these is because I've been in these situations. There are times when I can barely make it through a situation, and I have a very hard time believing that a computer in my car could manage it.

What about when: all that's in front of you is solid white snow, even though you know under the snow are five highway lanes, and all you can do is guess where the lane is, go slow, and all try to carefully drive in makeshift single-file order even though no one can see the road.

The steep down-hill on skating-rink conditions with a heavy load in back turned out to be nearly impossible to survive. I was going like 40 kph, and just touching the brakes lightly to slow down was enough to send my back swinging around, causing me to spin across four lanes and into the ditch on the far side of the road (luckily it was like 3am and no one else was around). I got my car out and then almost immediately had the exact same thing happen when going only ~32kph, but I didn't completely wipe out that time.

Or the steep hill covered in solid ice. This was a death trap, and I could only imagine what would happen to someone who slipped on the sidewalk, because this was like three blocks of houses at like a 30 degree incline covered in a thick layer of solid wet ice (frozen rain). Not only that but the bottom of this street goes out onto the highway for some reason and there's no other way out but to climb the hill. I think I might have skipped this street on the ice day (or walked on lawns or something), but on the worst days I had to climb that hill spinning my tires going like 1 kph.

So yeah, I don't really see auto-cars being able to handle these situations that I can barely, or can't even, handle.
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Sahuagin posted...

I was going like 40 kph, and just touching the brakes lightly to slow down was enough to send my back swinging around, causing me to spin across four lanes and into the ditch on the far side of the road (luckily it was like 3am and no one else was around). I got my car out and then almost immediately had the exact same thing happen when going only ~32kph, but I didn't completely wipe out that time.

Yeah, no offense, but I could have told you that. You don't touch the brakes going downhill in low traction. You, ideally, should never touch the brakes while going down hill in the first place...

Stay in a lower gear and engine brake. When you are going down hill, even in the summer, you have HUGE changes in weight and friction load on your brakes. Obviously, things happen out of your control all the time while driving, but you should try to plan ahead in a way that you don't have to. Uneven brake pressure or pad/rotor wear, which is a minor annoyance on level/dry road, becomes magnified and has an exponentially worse effect on the physics of your car when going downhill or in low traction conditions.
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MannerSaurus posted...

Sahuagin posted...

I was going like 40 kph, and just touching the brakes lightly to slow down was enough to send my back swinging around, causing me to spin across four lanes and into the ditch on the far side of the road (luckily it was like 3am and no one else was around). I got my car out and then almost immediately had the exact same thing happen when going only ~32kph, but I didn't completely wipe out that time.

Yeah, no offense, but I could have told you that. You don't touch the brakes going downhill in low traction. You, ideally, should never touch the brakes while going down hill in the first place...

Stay in a lower gear and engine brake. When you are going down hill, even in the summer, you have HUGE changes in weight and friction load on your brakes. Obviously, things happen out of your control all the time while driving, but you should try to plan ahead in a way that you don't have to. Uneven brake pressure or pad/rotor wear, which is a minor annoyance on level/dry road, becomes magnified and has an exponentially worse effect on the physics of your car when going downhill or in low traction conditions.

That's mainly for manual though, right?
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LinkPizza posted...

MannerSaurus posted...

Sahuagin posted...

I was going like 40 kph, and just touching the brakes lightly to slow down was enough to send my back swinging around, causing me to spin across four lanes and into the ditch on the far side of the road (luckily it was like 3am and no one else was around). I got my car out and then almost immediately had the exact same thing happen when going only ~32kph, but I didn't completely wipe out that time.

Yeah, no offense, but I could have told you that. You don't touch the brakes going downhill in low traction. You, ideally, should never touch the brakes while going down hill in the first place...

Stay in a lower gear and engine brake. When you are going down hill, even in the summer, you have HUGE changes in weight and friction load on your brakes. Obviously, things happen out of your control all the time while driving, but you should try to plan ahead in a way that you don't have to. Uneven brake pressure or pad/rotor wear, which is a minor annoyance on level/dry road, becomes magnified and has an exponentially worse effect on the physics of your car when going downhill or in low traction conditions.

That's mainly for manual though, right?

You have less gear control in an automatic, but you can still force a lower gear for down-hill up-hill driving. They will either have 1-2-3/D-(D), so you can force 1, 1-2, or D (which doesn't engage the 4th overdrive gear in a 4-speed, as well as effecting shift behavior in some cars), I-Incline and L-Low (the car's manual will tell you which gears those modes lock out, it varies, but is basically the same as 1, 2, and 3/D), or in more modern cars, you have a +/- semi-automatic clutchless sequential shifter mode built in and you can keep the car in a lower gear that way, depending on the grade of the hill.
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MannerSaurus posted...

Objectively, this shouldn't be too hard. In regular non-self-driving cars, your Traction Control already detects these things like slipping tire traction and automatically closes your throttle and reduces tire speed to try to save your life in rain/snow/mud.

traction control just reduces power when you spin the wheels. you have to spin the wheels first for it to detect it. (it's basically the reverse of anti-lock brakes.)

MannerSaurus posted...

You don't touch the brakes going downhill in low traction. You, ideally, should never touch the brakes while going down hill in the first place...

this wasn't like I *hit* the brakes and had this happen, I put them on extremely gently only to try to keep from gaining more speed.

the fundamental problem that I don't see a solution for is that you can't tell how slippery things are until you're slipping. there's a particular condition with slushy wet snow on a warm road that can make things *extremely* slippery, about as bad as sheer wet ice. when you're in that situation, you need to go like half-speed or less and do things like brake and steer with *insane* caution. but you can't tell you're in that situation until you've already slipped on it. I don't see how the computer can detect the road slipperiness *in advance* and go the appropriate speed and use the appropriate pressures.

also, you mention traction control, but keep in mind that things like anti-lock and traction-control, which are already a form of self-driving, are already *worse* than doing them manually. threshold braking is so much better than anti-lock, in fact anti-lock is almost dangerous in slippery enough conditions, because you end up with basically zero braking. pressing the gas lightly is also better than traction-control.
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Sahuagin posted...

MannerSaurus posted...

Objectively, this shouldn't be too hard. In regular non-self-driving cars, your Traction Control already detects these things like slipping tire traction and automatically closes your throttle and reduces tire speed to try to save your life in rain/snow/mud.

traction control just reduces power when you spin the wheels. you have to spin the wheels first for it to detect it. (it's basically the reverse of anti-lock brakes.)

MannerSaurus posted...

You don't touch the brakes going downhill in low traction. You, ideally, should never touch the brakes while going down hill in the first place...

this wasn't like I *hit* the brakes and had this happen, I put them on extremely gently only to try to keep from gaining more speed.

the fundamental problem that I don't see a solution for is that you can't tell how slippery things are until you're slipping. there's a particular condition with slushy wet snow on a warm road that can make things *extremely* slippery, about as bad as sheer wet ice. when you're in that situation, you need to go like half-speed or less and do things like brake and steer with *insane* caution. but you can't tell you're in that situation until you've already slipped on it. I don't see how the computer can detect the road slipperiness *in advance* and go the appropriate speed and use the appropriate pressures.

also, you mention traction control, but keep in mind that things like anti-lock and traction-control, which are already a form of self-driving, are already *worse* than doing them manually. threshold braking is so much better than anti-lock, in fact anti-lock is almost dangerous in slippery enough conditions, because you end up with basically zero braking. pressing the gas lightly is also better than traction-control.

ABS pulses brakes a thousand times faster than any human being can dream of, but you are right... that in certain conditions, these computer safeties aren't an end-all solution and can actually be dangerous.

By the way, I'm against self-driving cars, for the most part. I'm just having an objective debate on certain ideas pertaining to it with you. At the end of the day, I'm on your side. I just don't think it's too farfetched to calculate some of these things.
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MannerSaurus posted...

Stay in a lower gear and engine brake.

that does make sense. this situation though caught me off guard because at the time I hadn't experience conditions that were that slippery. I didn't know it was physically possible to be that slippery. I've only seen it that bad like twice in my life. the other time it happened, some pedestrians (with baby cart no less) strolled onto a crosswalk in the middle of traffic without looking, and me and another guy were *barely* able to stop without hitting them. I just barely stopped because I knew how slippery it was and I saw the stupid pedestrians early. the other guy (who had more room to stop but was one lane over so probably didn't see the pedestrians in time) only managed to stop by crashing into me.
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Sahuagin posted...

MannerSaurus posted...

Stay in a lower gear and engine brake.

that does make sense. this situation though caught me off guard because at the time I hadn't experience conditions that were that slippery. I didn't know it was physically possible to be that slippery. I've only seen it that bad like twice in my life. the other time it happened, some pedestrians (with baby cart no less) strolled onto a crosswalk in the middle of traffic without looking, and me and another guy were *barely* able to stop without hitting them. I just barely stopped because I knew how slippery it was and I saw the stupid pedestrians early. the other guy (who had more room to stop but was one lane over so probably didn't see the pedestrians in time) only managed to stop by crashing into me.

Those kind of driving conditions scare the crap out of me. Not a fan at all. lol
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Sahuagin posted...

So yeah, I don't really see auto-cars being able to handle these situations that I can barely, or can't even, handle.

ABS controls your brake pressure to apply optimal amounts of pressure without locking the wheels at all times. It not only knows how much pressure to apply to sit right at the limit, it also corrects itself thousands of times a second. Self-driving cars are designed with more that hall sensors and can operate around a 3D simulated environment made from radiation your eyes can't even pick up. They also have vast databases of performance in a wide range of conditions to a degree far wider and more precise that any observing human.

Computers are immensely intelligent and can make vastly better decisions than any person can make, but that's not a valid reason to limit people's ability to excercise their will. I like clever little sensors cleaning up human error to maximise application or intent, but it does have to be acting on the driver's will, not deciding for itself.
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Questionmarktarius posted...

always stomping on a phantom clutch.

I used to do this all the time when I had a manual.

I've had an automatic diesel for two years now and whenever I drive my wife's car (or anyone else's) I turn the key on and wait 20 seconds for the glow plugs to heat up before I start it.

On topic:

I do agree that self driving cars would be a good idea for traffic and accidents but it opens up a very slippery slope of hacking/government control. Personally I'll never get one or support them unless there was some kind of mechanical disconnect between the human and the computer controls
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The road here were horrible the other day. The only reason I even drove was to get home to feed my dogs. I wasn't even sure how I was going to get home at first. Because I didn't want to go into a dip in the road(under the railroad tracks) and not be able to get back up. At the same time, it was almost a feat to get over the railroad tracks when the road was iced over. I hate icy conditions. But, unlike most people here where I am currently, I'm a little more use to it...
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MannerSaurus posted...

ABS pulses brakes a thousand times faster than any human being can dream of, but you are right... that in certain conditions, these computer safeties aren't an end-all solution and can actually be dangerous.

I know from repeat experience that in snowy slippery conditions ABS feels like it catapults the car forward rather than helping to stop the car. it's almost funny when you do it in a controlled situation, but it sure makes me wish I could turn the damn thing off. If I recall, I got used to applying the brakes in a certain way that kept the ABS off but locked the wheels. At the speeds I was going, coming to a locked sliding stop was FAR superior than the ABS.

MannerSaurus posted...

ABS pulses brakes a thousand times faster than any human being can dream of

I think it's designed for wet conditions, and not snowy icy conditions. If you have the chance test it out on snow and ice. Try braking with ABS (so full foot on the brake letting it pulse), and then try threshold braking (so hold just above where the ABS kicks in). The ABS is *terrible* in comparison. The worst is at very slow speeds in very rough snow, where the ABS almost does nothing and you're basically just coasting to a stop. It feels like hitting the gas rather than the brakes. It's not just worse than manual braking, but it's even worse than locking the wheels.

Thinking about it, the reason it feels like hitting the gas is because when you hit the brakes you do get deceleration at first, right until the ABS kicks in. It's very noticeable that you *had* deceleration and then you lost it. In fact, I think mathematically, removal of deceleration *is* acceleration... so it kind of is like hitting the gas; just it's accelerating you from optimal braking back up to zero.
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Sahuagin posted...

I think it's designed for wet conditions, and not snowy icy conditions.

Conceptually it's for all conditions, but you're right that the current iteration isn't made for it. AI technology would be a really neat way to clean up these issues. Of course a yaw/pitch sensor would alleviate some of these issues in a very 90s way.
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Sahuagin posted...

So yeah, I don't really see auto-cars being able to handle these situations that I can barely, or can't even, handle.

It's not like they're not working on that very issue. Google has a fleet of cars in Michigan right now for that very reason. They're trying to test for the different sorts of environments that they could encounter.
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Smarkil posted...

It's not like they're not working on that very issue. Google has a fleet of cars in Michigan right now for that very reason. They're trying to test for the different sorts of environments that they could encounter.

k but... this is one of those things that's very easy to *imagine* working, like flying cars for example, but has a tendency to be *very hard* if not impossible to do in practice, or to perfect to a sufficient degree that it can be utilized everywhere.

but then again... maybe it will be like cars and airplanes. it *won't* be foolproof and in fact horrible stuff will happen all the time, but we'll all accept it because of the benefits.
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Sahuagin posted...

Smarkil posted...

It's not like they're not working on that very issue. Google has a fleet of cars in Michigan right now for that very reason. They're trying to test for the different sorts of environments that they could encounter.

k but... this is one of those things that's very easy to *imagine* working, like flying cars for example, but has a tendency to be *very hard* if not impossible to do in practice, or to perfect to a sufficient degree that it can be utilized everywhere.

but then again... maybe it will be like cars and airplanes. it *won't* be foolproof and in fact horrible stuff will happen all the time, but we'll all accept it because of the benefits.

Except, would it have as much benefit if it's failing all the time? And possibly losing money because of "the more than plan for accidents and such?"
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LinkPizza posted...

Except, would it have as much benefit if it's failing all the time? And possibly losing money because of "the more than plan for accidents and such?"

as long as the overall death-rate is significantly less than human driven cars, we'd accept it.

a quick google search says that "nearly 1.3 million people die in road crashes each year, on average 3,287 deaths a day".

whereas it seems the number of deaths in commercial airlines in 2017 was actually zero.

so, as long as self-driven cars are significantly less than ~3,300 deaths per day on average, which is pretty fucking horrible, it'd be worth it.

which means that it doesn't matter all that much how well they handle the worst situations, or even if *they crash regularly*, if there's like ~1000 deaths per day average instead, we'd take it.

which means they *won't* be perfect, and there *will* be horrible self-driven car accidents, but it will be acceptable.
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Sahuagin posted...

LinkPizza posted...

Except, would it have as much benefit if it's failing all the time? And possibly losing money because of "the more than plan for accidents and such?"

as long as the overall death-rate is significantly less than human driven cars, we'd accept it.

a quick google search says that "nearly 1.3 million people die in road crashes each year, on average 3,287 deaths a day".

whereas it seems the number of deaths in commercial airlines in 2017 was actually zero.

so, as long as self-driven cars are significantly less than ~3,300 deaths per day on average, which is pretty fucking horrible, it'd be worth it.

which means that it doesn't matter all that much how well they handle the worst situations, or even if *they crash regularly*, if there's like ~1000 deaths per day average instead, we'd take it.

which means they *won't* be perfect, and there *will* be horrible self-driven car accidents, but it will be acceptable.

I guess a good number of people would accept it...
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I think it's a bad idea made with good intentions.
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MannerSaurus posted...

I can speak only for myself, of course... but I just horrifically lost my wife in a car accident (including partial use of the left side of my body; we're hoping that's temporary), and I still love driving and racing. I don't like rain as much (someone lost control in the rain and hit us head on in a Truck vs our little Fiesta, you can see the result in the other topic if you want), but general driving is still a hobby of mine. Both for speed/pleasure/cruising, or just the meditative experience of connecting man/machine with the wind in your hair. That, and if the same thing happens (something completely out of my control causes me to be in a serious accident), I'll be with my wife. So I don't really care either way. I don't want anyone else to get hurt, though. I'm super careful in the rain, especially since I'm RWD.

I'm sorry. :(
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Sahuagin posted...

whereas it seems the number of deaths in commercial airlines in 2017 was actually zero.

Yeah, but all take off and landing is done manually by a trained pilot, and all auto-pilot settings are set and monitored by a trained pilot. I don't mean they click an airport and it does the rest, I mean they set altitude, airspeed (adjusted for altitude change), heading, vertical speed limits for altitude change, etc.

And not only that, airplanes are half a mile or higher in the sky. You have a lot of room to screw up. A lot of time for computers to make corrections, for pilots to make corrections, and to recover from danger or make adjustments necessary for safe heading or landing. Part of qualifying for a pilot's license involves taking a plane really high in the air and intentionally stalling her out to prove you can safely recover control of the aircraft.

At 50MPH ON THE GROUND where you are surrounded by metal and ground and trees and people and other cars and concrete etc. you have a matter of half a second before you die for some mistakes. It is much different from an airplane that is surrounded by 10's of thousands of feed of air in every single 3 dimensional direction from the plane.
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Sahuagin posted...

which means that it doesn't matter all that much how well they handle the worst situations, or even if *they crash regularly*, if there's like ~1000 deaths per day average instead, we'd take it.

If you took all of the US off the road you'd save a whole 100 lives a day. The places that can use them don't need them.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year
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MannerSaurus posted...

Yeah, but all take off and landing is done manually by a trained pilot, and all auto-pilot settings are set and monitored by a trained pilot. I don't mean they click an airport and it does the rest, I mean they set altitude, airspeed (adjusted for altitude change), heading, vertical speed limits for altitude change, etc.

They actually need thousands of hours of experience to fly an airliner and even then they have a crew phone in to help them park. It's hardly surprising that a highly regimented fleet would be reliable.
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Kyuubi4269 posted...

Sahuagin posted...

which means that it doesn't matter all that much how well they handle the worst situations, or even if *they crash regularly*, if there's like ~1000 deaths per day average instead, we'd take it.

If you took all of the US off the road you'd save a whole 100 lives a day. The places that can use them don't need them.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year

k I guess what I posted was the world stat not the US stat, but w/e, the number doesn't matter as long as it's high. 100 deaths per day is one every fifteen minutes. if they can make a sizable dent in that number it would be worth it.
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Kyuubi4269 posted...

MannerSaurus posted...

Yeah, but all take off and landing is done manually by a trained pilot, and all auto-pilot settings are set and monitored by a trained pilot. I don't mean they click an airport and it does the rest, I mean they set altitude, airspeed (adjusted for altitude change), heading, vertical speed limits for altitude change, etc.

They actually need thousands of hours of experience to fly an airliner and even then they have a crew phone in to help them park. It's hardly surprising that a highly regimented fleet would be reliable.

That, and a lot of commercial pilots are retired military pilots, who know how to land something 4 times the speed of sound on a moving carrier. Not all of them, mind you. But many of them are.
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Sahuagin posted...

Kyuubi4269 posted...

Sahuagin posted...

which means that it doesn't matter all that much how well they handle the worst situations, or even if *they crash regularly*, if there's like ~1000 deaths per day average instead, we'd take it.

If you took all of the US off the road you'd save a whole 100 lives a day. The places that can use them don't need them.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year

k I guess what I posted was the world stat not the US stat, but w/e, the number doesn't matter as long as it's high. 100 deaths per day is one every fifteen minutes. if they can make a sizable dent in that number it would be worth it.

There are 222 million drivers in the US, you are suggesting robbing and restricting 69% of the population to save 0.0001% who died on the road.
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Kyuubi4269 posted...

There are 222 million drivers in the US, you are suggesting robbing and restricting 69% of the population to save 0.0001% who died on the road.

yeah you're right that getting americans to care is a challenge all by itself
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Sahuagin posted...

Kyuubi4269 posted...

There are 222 million drivers in the US, you are suggesting robbing and restricting 69% of the population to save 0.0001% who died on the road.

yeah you're right that getting americans to care is a challenge all by itself

I'd also like to point out that making social media illegal would save child abuse victims to the same sort of rate, perhaps you'd like to enforce that too?
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Kyuubi4269 posted...

I'd also like to point out that making social media illegal would save child abuse victims to the same sort of rate, perhaps you'd like to enforce that too?

it's not as if there aren't already things of that nature that are restricted, off the top of my head say raw milk and home brewed alcohol. if you're for or against that kind of thing I'm not really inclined to agree or disagree. it's similar to gun control I suppose. "let us do what we want and let the casualties be damned." if that's how you like it, fine.
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Sahuagin posted...

Kyuubi4269 posted...

I'd also like to point out that making social media illegal would save child abuse victims to the same sort of rate, perhaps you'd like to enforce that too?

it's not as if there aren't already things of that nature that are restricted, off the top of my head say raw milk and home brewed alcohol. if you're for or against that kind of thing I'm not really inclined to agree or disagree. it's similar to gun control I suppose. "let us do what we want and let the casualties be damned." if that's how you like it, fine.

How about "let us do relatively harmless and deeply enjoyable things, killjoys be fucked." Everything has an underlying level of danger, more people are injured on the fucking toilet for fuck's sake.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet-related_injuries_and_deaths
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Kyuubi4269 posted...

more people are injured on the fucking toilet for fuck's sake

that's *injuries* on toilets versus fatalities with cars. and that doesn't imply that we shouldn't improve toilet safety if possible, either. for cars, that's 1 death every 15 minutes, which means about 4 people have already been killed since you posted the 100 per day statistic, and almost 150 people have been killed since this thread started. (just in the US; more like 35x that amount world-wide.)

also, note that I don't think I've said anything in the first place about making normal driving illegal, I don't know where you got that. I'm saying if *introducing* self-driving cars lowers fatalities, then it's worth it even if self-driving cars have problems. in other words, maybe they don't have to be perfect to still be used, if they're dangerous but nevertheless safer. because I was originally saying that I can't imagine how they'd be safe. the answer being, maybe they don't have to be as long as they're safe-er.
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Sahuagin posted...

that's *injuries* on toilets versus fatalities with cars.

And a toilet is a fucking shitting chair, it having injuries marks a base line for people hurting themselves with anything.

Sahuagin posted...

that doesn't imply that we shouldn't improve toilet safety if possible, either.

How about a seatbelt?

Sahuagin posted...

for cars, that's 1 death every 15 minutes, which means about 4 people have already been killed since you posted the 100 per day statistic.

And a kid in Africa dies every time I snap my fingers, I don't see you mandating Africa stop murdering senselessly.

Sahuagin posted...

also, note that I don't think I've said anything in the first place about making normal driving illegal, I don't know where you got that. I'm saying if *introducing* self-driving cars lowers fatalities, then it's worth it even if self-driving cars have problems. in other words, maybe they don't have to be perfect to still be used, if they're dangerous but nevertheless safer. because I was originally saying that I can't imagine how they'd be safe. the answer being, maybe they don't have to be as long as they're safe-er.

I don't remember anybody saying just *introducing* self-driving cars was an issue so I have no idea what your fucking point is. Obviously self-driving cars are safer.
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They're really creepy and I wouldn't ever want to put a life in the hands of a machine. No matter how good they get machines can not be programmed for every situation and react accordingly.

Plus these things are practically mobile computers now; meaning they're prone to glitches and hackers so these things would constantly need updating and one small glitch updated to hundreds/thousands/millions of these robotic vehicles could make for a seriously devastating disaster.
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Pharaoh posted...

They're really creepy and I wouldn't ever want to put a life in the hands of a machine

Then you should also be terrified of regular cars.

Do you refuse to ride on an escalator too?
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Kyuubi4269 posted...

And a toilet is a fucking shitting chair, it having injuries marks a base line for people hurting themselves with anything.

How about a seatbelt?

And a kid in Africa dies every time I snap my fingers, I don't see you mandating Africa stop murdering senselessly.

sigh...

- toilets aren't as trivial as you imply just because they're toilets
- comparing toilet *injuries* to car accident *fatalities* is absurd
- even if people will injure themselves with anything doesn't imply that we shouldn't make some particular thing safer if we can, especially with a high rate of fatalities
- I don't have to mandate against all dangerous activities in the world to discuss a single dangerous activity
- some other place is more dangerous does not imply that we shouldn't make *here* more safe if we can
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Pharaoh posted...

No matter how good they get machines can not be programmed for every situation and react accordingly.

We're organic machines with shitty means of sensing the outside world when riding in a car yet we do a decent job.
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Mead posted...

Pharaoh posted...

They're really creepy and I wouldn't ever want to put a life in the hands of a machine

Then you should also be terrified of regular cars.

Do you refuse to ride on an escalator too?

I'm in control when driving my regular car, thank you.
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Pharaoh posted...

Mead posted...

Pharaoh posted...

They're really creepy and I wouldn't ever want to put a life in the hands of a machine

Then you should also be terrified of regular cars.

Do you refuse to ride on an escalator too?

I'm in control when driving my regular car, thank you.

You're not in control of the escalator though.
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Mead posted...

Pharaoh posted...

They're really creepy and I wouldn't ever want to put a life in the hands of a machine

Then you should also be terrified of regular cars.

Do you refuse to ride on an escalator too?

Not a valid comparison, IMO. I wouldn't feel safe or have the feeling of security in a self driving car, either. It's like how some people are terrified of flying, but I'm totally fine and love it. There will probably be a lot of people who won't trust self-driving cars.
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Sahuagin posted...

Smarkil posted...

It's not like they're not working on that very issue. Google has a fleet of cars in Michigan right now for that very reason. They're trying to test for the different sorts of environments that they could encounter.

k but... this is one of those things that's very easy to *imagine* working, like flying cars for example, but has a tendency to be *very hard* if not impossible to do in practice, or to perfect to a sufficient degree that it can be utilized everywhere.

but then again... maybe it will be like cars and airplanes. it *won't* be foolproof and in fact horrible stuff will happen all the time, but we'll all accept it because of the benefits.

It certainly won't be as 'safe' as driving under ideal weather conditions, but again it should be more safe than a human drivers. The second a drop of water or a snowflake hits the ground around here people flip their shit and there's accidents every 10 feet. I would wager that there's far more accidents in inclement weather from overcorrection than there are of people not being able to deal with the weather.

As long as a car is moving with a constant speed and not making dramatic movements with the wheel, it's pretty easy to keep on the road. And as already stated, these cars are already pretty well versed at understanding traction.

The only real risk is whether their sensors are being obscured. However, I understand they've put a lot of work into making their lidar detection be able to understand the difference between physical objects and snowflakes/rain.
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