Can not wait till automated driverless cars!

I agree! I have to tell myself that 50% of all drivers are below average. Autonomous vehicles will surely be able to improve upon this average. The bar is not very high!

 

Not me. I'd rather I drove my car than it drove me.

 

Since I got my first car as a teenager, driving has meant freedom to me. Go where I want, when I want. Get out of the house when the parents are bickering. Just get in the car and drive someplace, anyplace, and become one with the machine. This is why I currently have a VW GTI. It's the antithesis of a self-driving car. In fact I'm looking into getting a new one while they're still designed for people who like to drive the car and not vice-versa.

 

So a hacker can take control of them and cause complete chaos? No, thanks.

I'm with the others: I'd rather be in control. It helps me get away from the idiots you mention.

 

Lol. Automated car technology is in its infancy. It's neither reliable nor commonplace. It's also really, really expensive. It will be.....decades......before there's even a remote chance of that technology being commonplace.

 

I had a autonomous (at least this state of the current art) rental for three weeks while my car was in the shop. For two days I thought it was pretty cool. Made it from Kitchener to Stratford (a bit under an hour) without steering or braking. Then it kinda wore off of me, and I turned off everything but the radio.
I got my car back, sparked up that V8, put everything back in sport mode, and went out to terrorize some wildlife on the country roads. It will be a while before I embrace automated driving.

 

There is a robotics engineering facility across the street from me where driverless 18 wheeler cabs are being developed. They test it by driving it around the parking lot.

 

Well, any ROB the Robot could drive better than most people I share the street with. So I'm looking forward to that.

 

I think controlled access roadways will be the tip of the self driving spear. As you start down the on ramp auto pilot takes over. Enter your exit and relax. If you need to take a break, hit the potty break switch.
I’m no expert by any means but i don’t see a foolproof way to have automatic cars mixed with pedestrian traffic. We may wind up with tunnels or bridges to cross streets. Or maybe a smart version of the cow catcher.

 

I have noticed in recent years that drivers are getting worse in my neck of the woods. Even when left hand turn green arrows go to red, cars keep coming thru the red light. Also, people don't want to be accountable for their actions. The hit and run ratio has sky rocketed here in SoCal. That said, it will be decades for the U.S fleet to become automated. In the meantime, you have to drive very defensively.

 

And of course your computer has never ever frozen up or crashed. What could possibly go wrong with a computer controlled car hurling down narrow streets in residential neighbourhoods, or on highways?

 

This. This is what it boils down to. All the tech is cool and fascinating, but I doubt that people are ready to just get in a vehicle that is controlled by a computer and trust it to get them safely from A to B.

 

Fixed it for ya. That is, IMO, no argument. Humans driving like madmen is just as dangerous, I wager.

 

There may be a generational component to this. Young people (some, not all) see car ownership as a burden, not to mention environmentally unsound. Expensive to purchase, expensive to insure, expensive to maintain, expensive to park, etc. They don’t “get” why anyone would want to own a car. If they can hail a self-driving electric vehicle to get them from point A to point B at minimal expense and without the hassles of owning a car themselves, well that there is part of the future of cars.

 

Automated cars won't work until human-driven cars are taken off the roads. Automation can't compensate for human variance and unpredictable behavior. It's a quirk of our legal system that we won't be able to do this until automated cars are MUCH better than humans, since we seem to think that a Zero error rate is required, rather than just equaling or slightly improving on the error rate of humans. In reality, if automation were as good as humans we'd be "stunned at the carnage caused by automated vehicles on our highways."

I'm in no hurry. I enjoy driving using a manual transmission, hitting corner apexes, double-clutching downshifts occasionally and being in control of my travel. In cars with automatics, I often use the manual shifting mode and shift paddles, especially to control gearing in traffic to minimize use of brakes via engine braking.

I'm confident that we won't have automated vehicles in my lifetime.

Edit: I'm not a fan of the average driver in the US. The level of driving incompetence is impressive. At times I'm reminded of Bill Mauldin's classic WWII cartoon collection Up Front, in which he characterized WWII Italian convoys: "all they know about a truck is the general location of the accelerator pedal; they stop by crashing into each other's bumpers."

 

I think you're right about there being a generational component. But there's also, IMO, a location component. Spending on roads in the US hasn't kept up with growth, so traffic is getting worse overall and more areas are experiencing bad traffic. For people who live in those areas, it's hard to feel "free" in your car unless you make it beyond the ex-urbs.

 

You know Tesla sells self driving cars already right?
They are already way more reliable than any human driver.
Computers drive helicopters, planes and space probes daily.