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Exactly! and the disturbing fact is that it's a short step (for THEM) to attempt to legislate their sanitized, over-protective lifestyle into the law of the land.
last I checked the Republicans are in office not the liberals. Conservatism is alive and well and growing. Conservatism by its very nature is for limiting Government intervention and not creating bigger government. If you want to limit legislation continue to vote for conservatives.
In the longer term once vehicles are autonomous with networking and roads become smart roads relaying essential data to the vehicles, a human operating a vehicle will serve no purpose. There will be more local road courses where enthusiasts can enjoy driving.
Driving is pure fun. If you don't feel that way then maybe you need a nicer car, or possibly learn to drive a stick where you become part of the experience. In addition what is everyone planning on doing with all the other millions of cars and trucks on the road?
last I checked the Republicans are in office not the liberals. Conservatism is alive and well and growing. Conservatism by its very nature is for limiting Government intervention and not creating bigger government. If you want to limit legislation continue to vote for conservatives.
The right to own a vehicle is like the right to own a firearm, or to engage in free speech that might offend the self-appointed elite.
Admittedly, there are a small, but thoroughly offensive clique of egoists behind the wheel in some cases, but I can think of few items which embody the American credo of independence and self-reliance more than a pickup truck. Censorship and authority are the playthings-of-choice for the Politically Correct.
If people in their 60s today want to maintain their independence of travel into their 80s and 90s, they'll opt for the self-driving car.
But this returns the discussion to the point where an impressionable public is led to believe that the transition to a "self-driving" car will be far more seamless than is likely to be the case.
I had a well-educated bachelor-uncle relative who was practically a third parent to my brother and I when we were growing up. He was to live to just short of age 92, in a small town of about 2000 people - as I now do myself. Toward the end, he drove only for mail and groceries, but he was still a threat to other people.
As previously explained -- (posts #12 & #20), I tend to think that designing and marketing something smaller and limited in scope is going to be easier than the anywhere-to-anywhere concept that's being sold on the tea-time talk shows.
Until they can foolproof a computer without crashing then i will trust a car to drive itself. How long have computers existed? and they still constantly fail and have problems. A human makes mistakes and fails and so do computers. Also you will have terrorists hacking into these self driving cars causing more accidents.
Provided they can afford one while in their 80's and 90's.
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Originally Posted by 2nd trick op
But this returns the discussion to the point where an impressionable public is led to believe that the transition to a "self-driving" car will be far more seamless than is likely to be the case.
I had a well-educated bachelor-uncle relative who was practically a third parent to my brother and I when we were growing up. He was to live to just short of age 92, in a small town of about 2000 people - as I now do myself. Toward the end, he drove only for mail and groceries, but he was still a threat to other people.
As previously explained -- (posts #12 & #20), I tend to think that designing and marketing something smaller and limited in scope is going to be easier than the anywhere-to-anywhere concept that's being sold on the tea-time talk shows.
There are more things than one that will be happening over the next 20 years.
Self-driving cars will be one, but the concept of not owning a personal vehicle will also take hold. The Uber concept is not going away, but a large chunk of that will be self-driving cars.
There will be a number of different possibilities. A lot of people will enjoy having a non-owned commuter car scheduled to appear at their door at a certain time and drive them to work. A lot of people won't mind having a car take over the majority of a cross-country trip.
We had a massive forest fire in 2012 that stormed down a mountainside of National Forest, into city limits & eventually destroyed almost 400 houses. There are still large populations of displaced wildlife on city roadways on a daily basis. I can't even tell you how many times I've had seconds to avoid whole herds of startled deer bolting down sidewalks & across roads. Last month at dawn, a huge 5 point buck stampeded down a hillside & across a 6 lane street right in front of me. I've had a big black bear take his sweet time crossing a parking lot while I waited ( I swear he glared at me as if to say "don't rush me").
Avoiding these types of accidents is something these cars are going to excel at. Reaction times to obstacles in the road are measured in very small fractions of a second and they can be aware of potential dangers 360 degrees. I live in an area that has a lot of deer and usually the first glimpse you get of them is when you are running into them or almost running into them. These cars will be able to spot that movement in the woods day or night. As another example the can accelerate out of the way if it's safe to do so to avoid getting T-boned or rear ended.
The larger problem is the decision making process. There is a dog near me that likes to run down the fence line chasing cars. Something like that could cause the car to slow or stop....
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Some of our largest intersections were without power. One intersection with 2 left turn lanes all directions & 3 thru lanes, all directions was a disaster because humans have apparently lost the ability to manage a emergency 4-way stop pattern. What would a car be programed to do? It's not like I could account for which intersections were down because it was very random with some going off & on throughout the day.
They will work however the law dictates, it's a 4 way stop. This is an interesting problem because you don't have that communication with eyes/hands etc and some people don't know what the law is themselves. This isn't really a computer controlled car issue but human controlled issue. If you had four computer controlled cars all these problems go away.
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