This should eliminate the danger from cars !

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clackers
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Re: This should eliminate the danger from cars !

Postby clackers » Wed Aug 28, 2013 4:29 pm

Paul B wrote:
Not only will they expect it (the computers)... They will all be communicating with each other via some Bluetooth like system. Accidents will be virtually impossible.
It would be like Transponders in aircraft.

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Re: This should eliminate the danger from cars !

Postby Dimis » Wed Aug 28, 2013 4:43 pm

Paul B wrote:Guys we all know even these potential malfunctions have got to be less of a risk than the idots that make a sport out of running us off the road.
While this may be true, all we are doing by encouraging such things is de-evolving and catering to the inept, producing a more inept future for ourselves.

Take cars that parallel park themselves, I don't want to share the roads with people who are spatially NOT aware enough to park. Driving is a privilege NOT a right!

It really shouldn't be that hard to avoid killing each other on the roads surely?

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Re: This should eliminate the danger from cars !

Postby il padrone » Wed Aug 28, 2013 4:48 pm

Take cars that change gears themselves, I don't want to share the roads with people who are NOT manually co-ordinated enough to change gears. Driving is a privilege NOT a right!

:P
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Re: This should eliminate the danger from cars !

Postby Xplora » Wed Aug 28, 2013 4:52 pm

Dimis, the road toll would disagree with you on the most profound of levels.

There are roles that humans should be used for. I don't think driving is a holy grail for human freedom though. For simple commuting, I don't think we have managed to successfully deprive the machines of their role yet. Peak hour commuting in particular is a testament to human inefficiency. People lack the perception to efficiently drive taking into account a hundred cars, but a driverless system can. You notice that caterpillar effect in the queues? That's gone with driverless technology.

I have to laugh - I think you'll find an Indian or Chinese manufacturer pick up the Google tech, and proceed to eliminate the competition. They have less to lose and everything to gain.

I am guessing that the Detroit companies have recognised they are selling freedom and Google has directly undermined that. No one ever wanted to remember the deaths and injuries that human drivers were responsible for while exercising that freedom.

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Re: This should eliminate the danger from cars !

Postby Paul B » Wed Aug 28, 2013 5:05 pm

Some people just aren't very good at performing particular tasks. And for a percentage of the population that would include driving a motor vehicle. In these cases, everyone benefits by handing the process of driving over to a better equipped driving device... ie; a computer. It takes drunk and drugged drivers completely out of the equation also.
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Re: This should eliminate the danger from cars !

Postby silentbutdeadly » Wed Aug 28, 2013 5:06 pm

Paul B wrote:Accidents will be virtually impossible.
Bicycles will still hit driverless vehicles. Simply because the human element on the bicycle has not been taken completely out of the equation. It only takes one idiot to have an accident and that idiot is not always the one behind the steering wheel of a motorised vehicle...
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Re: This should eliminate the danger from cars !

Postby trailgumby » Wed Aug 28, 2013 6:44 pm

Interesting comments about this automation taking out the human factor and making things safer.

I have one question.

Who writes the code?

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Re: This should eliminate the danger from cars !

Postby Dimis » Wed Aug 28, 2013 7:02 pm

Paul B wrote:Some people just aren't very good at performing particular tasks. And for a percentage of the population that would include driving a motor vehicle. In these cases, everyone benefits by handing the process of driving over to a better equipped driving device... ie; a computer. It takes drunk and drugged drivers completely out of the equation also.
Or take public transport.
Or a taxi.
Or walk.
Or car pool with someone who can.

There are alternatives ;)

Just saying
Last edited by Dimis on Wed Aug 28, 2013 7:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: This should eliminate the danger from cars !

Postby Dimis » Wed Aug 28, 2013 7:07 pm

il padrone wrote:Take cars that change gears themselves, I don't want to share the roads with people who are NOT manually co-ordinated enough to change gears. Driving is a privilege NOT a right!

:P
You might be having a lend... But could this not have be where it all started..?
Extreme view, yes I agree but also a plausible one. No?!

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Re: This should eliminate the danger from cars !

Postby Percrime » Wed Aug 28, 2013 7:12 pm

il padrone wrote:Take cars that change gears themselves, I don't want to share the roads with people who are NOT manually co-ordinated enough to change gears. Driving is a privilege NOT a right!

:P
Actually I somewhat agree with that. :D

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Re: This should eliminate the danger from cars !

Postby jpc » Wed Aug 28, 2013 7:22 pm

Personally I think that this should if implemented and implemented well (wireless communication between cars please?) and with a possible uptake of NBN-commuting why not have more shared motor-vehicle ownership? Of course this would be assuming that the car companies didn't want to feed the "everyone needs a car" mentality.
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Re: This should eliminate the danger from cars !

Postby Mulger bill » Wed Aug 28, 2013 8:05 pm

What's the betting that once inevitably released, the iCar will only be operable on roads that can be found on iMaps and has a windscreen that shatters if a passenger so much as sneezes...
...whatever the road rules, self-preservation is the absolute priority for a cyclist when mixing it with motorised traffic.
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Re: This should eliminate the danger from cars !

Postby VRE » Wed Aug 28, 2013 8:10 pm

Mulger bill wrote:What's the betting that once inevitably released, the iCar will only be operable on roads that can be found on iMaps and has a windscreen that shatters if a passenger so much as sneezes...
... and of course will be 10 times more expensive in Australia than overseas, not to mention missing some of the iFeatures found overseas.

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Re: This should eliminate the danger from cars !

Postby jpc » Wed Aug 28, 2013 8:14 pm

Mulger bill wrote:What's the betting that once inevitably released, the iCar will only be operable on roads that can be found on iMaps and has a windscreen that shatters if a passenger so much as sneezes...
Also only controllable with your iDevice and will update it's iDriveOS only when connected to a properly configured AirPort which will cost 99c/day from the iTunes store (also available: the iGarage charging/diagnostic bay)
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Re: This should eliminate the danger from cars !

Postby Mulger bill » Wed Aug 28, 2013 8:16 pm

VRE wrote:
Mulger bill wrote:What's the betting that once inevitably released, the iCar will only be operable on roads that can be found on iMaps and has a windscreen that shatters if a passenger so much as sneezes...
... and of course will be 10 times more expensive in Australia than overseas, not to mention missing some of the iFeatures found overseas.
Wait til you see the shape of the fuel inlet...
...whatever the road rules, self-preservation is the absolute priority for a cyclist when mixing it with motorised traffic.
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Re: This should eliminate the danger from cars !

Postby clackers » Wed Aug 28, 2013 8:19 pm

trailgumby wrote:Interesting comments about this automation taking out the human factor and making things safer.

I have one question.

Who writes the code?
Well, the Autopilot implementations in aircraft evolved separately, too, AFAIK.

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Re: This should eliminate the danger from cars !

Postby clackers » Wed Aug 28, 2013 8:21 pm

jpc wrote: why not have more shared motor-vehicle ownership? .
Or the hire car that comes to you. :)

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Re: This should eliminate the danger from cars !

Postby Xplora » Wed Aug 28, 2013 8:28 pm

silentbutdeadly wrote:
Paul B wrote:Accidents will be virtually impossible.
Bicycles will still hit driverless vehicles. Simply because the human element on the bicycle has not been taken completely out of the equation. It only takes one idiot to have an accident and that idiot is not always the one behind the steering wheel of a motorised vehicle...
Accidents caused by the vehicle will be impossible. I'm guessing that the software can be tweaked to prefer cyclist safety over speed. :wink:

Here is the thing though - Paul B might be talking about a utopia, but if you dial it back just a little bit, you'll see that this is an incredible improvement for the people that matter in this equation - EVERYONE WHO IS NOT IN THE CAR. Car users transfer their risk onto everyone around them and basically make other people pay for the convenience that the vehicle creates. So we have a good alternative, take the car user out of the decision making process. Sure, peds will still be hit, but the likelihood can be minimised. Humans are not the strong link in the vehicle control chain.

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Re: This should eliminate the danger from cars !

Postby clackers » Wed Aug 28, 2013 9:57 pm

Xplora wrote: Sure, peds will still be hit,
They do try to detect and account for pedestrians too .... http://news.discovery.com/autos/future- ... 111018.htm

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Re: This should eliminate the danger from cars !

Postby wombatK » Wed Aug 28, 2013 10:49 pm

trailgumby wrote:Interesting comments about this automation taking out the human factor and making things safer.

I have one question.

Who writes the code?
Well, you call quotes for a code-writer, and take the cheapest offer. That'll be someone who's
agreed to do it for so little, no one else and not even them can do it properly for that price
(eg, the few dollars an hour for a half-starved semi-skilled programmer in India or China).

So they try to make a profit by failing to do work and duping the principle into believing
it was done. And for intangibles like software, and the even less tangible specifications
of requirements etc.,.. it's childs-play to get away with this.

The road and traffic environment in cities is vastly more complex than the world inhabited by
autonomous mine haulage trucks, and it would quickly become unworkably complex if you
think about how you might transition through a phase where some vehicles were autonomous
and prone to unexpected stops, and some were not.

IIRC, the insurance industry noticed a sharp rise in rear end crashes into vehicles that
were early adopters of anti-lock brake systems - so that gives a hint of the difficulty.
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Re: This should eliminate the danger from cars !

Postby Xplora » Thu Aug 29, 2013 10:04 am

WK, this is a classic "don't outsource to Asia" job. Once the code is written and parameters set, it doesn't need to be adapted - signs are recognised, obstacles navigated. This doesn't change from place to place, as much as someone wants to believe they are in some unique place... they forget that cars are the same the world over and first world countries are not trying to take on terrain that is truly death defying (like those crazy mountain roads in the Andes and Himalayas).

It's quite silly to assume that people can get away with doing half a job with this stuff, because the manufacturers who allow this stuff to be installed will be liable, and the programmers will be liable - and the drivers who don't bother to enact an override will be liable as well. We have been in the exact same situation with danger from driven cars, liability issues galore... I will still expect people to get hit and die with driverless systems, but I would expect that the hit rate will be dramatically smaller than our current death toll numbering in the thousands upon thousands over the last 100 years.

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Re: This should eliminate the danger from cars !

Postby RonK » Thu Aug 29, 2013 11:23 am

There are already offerings on sale from several manufacturers for cars that can reverse park themselves. Autonomous vehicles will be available in just a few years. Nissan plans for several autonomous vehicles to be available by 2020.
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Re: This should eliminate the danger from cars !

Postby rjk » Thu Aug 29, 2013 11:54 am

i have been reading about gps devices that fool the recievers into thinking they are somewhere else, just imagine if hackers or terrorists decided to have a go at the systems.

total total chaos
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Re: This should eliminate the danger from cars !

Postby Dimis » Thu Aug 29, 2013 12:57 pm

Xplora wrote:Dimis, the road toll would disagree with you on the most profound of levels.

There are roles that humans should be used for. I don't think driving is a holy grail for human freedom though. For simple commuting, I don't think we have managed to successfully deprive the machines of their role yet. Peak hour commuting in particular is a testament to human inefficiency. People lack the perception to efficiently drive taking into account a hundred cars, but a driverless system can. You notice that caterpillar effect in the queues? That's gone with driverless technology.

I have to laugh - I think you'll find an Indian or Chinese manufacturer pick up the Google tech, and proceed to eliminate the competition. They have less to lose and everything to gain.

I am guessing that the Detroit companies have recognised they are selling freedom and Google has directly undermined that. No one ever wanted to remember the deaths and injuries that human drivers were responsible for while exercising that freedom.
Just touching on your road toll point... Apologies I missed it.

While I agree even one death is one too many, the road toll is from memory averages a small number 300-400 people per year.
When you put it into perspective ie: comparative to other nations, the number of cars on the road, and distances traveled etc... is quite low.
That said how many of those deaths were single car incidents causing fatality?

While I agree it is tragic that anyone dies on the roads implementing these sort of devices is NOT for reducing the road toll.
That in my humble opinion is merely an argument used to tag at the emotions and condition people and the masses to agree.
I feel its more for increasing profit margins for a) auto manufactures and b) Insurance companies who might not have to pay out a small bingle here and there.

Just saying...

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Re: This should eliminate the danger from cars !

Postby clackers » Thu Aug 29, 2013 1:17 pm

RonK wrote:There are already offerings on sale from several manufacturers for cars that can reverse park themselves.
Yep, and some of the other technologies these future cars require (cruise control with distance separation and emergency braking, lane departure warning) are present on some of the luxury models from Lexus, Mercedes and even as options on some of the more humble American Fords currently.

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