Driverless cars promise to reduce accidents, revolutionise transport

http://www.economist.com/node/21560989

by tokenadult • 14 years ago

47 61 14 years ago

kinofcain• 14 years ago

I think the biggest problem with adoption is going to be integrating them into traffic. A car that obeys the speed limits and follows at a safe distance is going to have issues driving in someplace like Los Angeles. It will be interesting to see how that plays out. For instance, what happens when other more agressive drivers learn that they can just cut off driverless cars and the software will just happily slow down to let them pass? It's a really interesting problem set.

poblano• 14 years ago

I guess, but the saving grace is that the passengers of such cars are less likely to care, unless they're in some special rush.

I mean, if I had one, I would be reading or working or talking to someone, and might not even notice a few extra minutes transit time. It'd be like riding public transit minus the inconveniences (noise, strangers, waiting).

agumonkey• 14 years ago

The shifting in perception of cars is interesting. It's almost like auto-automobiles are giving us hours of lifetime back.

dandrews• 14 years ago

I stopped caring much about extra minutes on the road when cruise control became standard equipment - years ago. When I drive a car without cruise I tend to be competitive and aggressive, but with cruise I set it and chill out. People may pass but I no longer care.

Bring on the Google cars and I'll detach completely.

rogerbinns2• 14 years ago

The other side effect is that the driverless cars behaving like that will help reduce congestion! See the experiments and data at http://trafficwaves.org - note he does talk about "aggressive" drivers taking advantage and how effective it actually is.

And all these self driving cars have cameras and black boxes. It would be simple to prove that someone (or something) has been driving like a dick. That isn't illegal yet ...

lda• 14 years ago

The article outlines some (current) limitations in the car's judgement when evaluating the dangerosity of an object ahead. If/when this becomes mainstream, how long until pranksters and terrorists find ways to leverage limitations and cause accidents?

olalonde2• 14 years ago

That's an interesting thought. Driverless cars could also be used for targeted assassinations by provoking deadly accidents. Of course, it can be done with regular cars except that whoever causes the accident has to be willing to put his life on the line.

martindale• 14 years ago

In theory, accidents provoked by these cars would be standouts in a history of safety.

majormajor• 14 years ago

Is causing accidents in self-driving cars going to be any more a target than causing accidents in human-driven cars? Seems you could already wreak a lot of havoc with rush-hour traffic if you really wanted to. Blinding/distracting drivers, obstacles, maybe little bombs?

protomyth2• 14 years ago

Well, since self-driving cars are new and don't have the protection of an earlier history of precedents, then yes, they will be much bigger legal targets. The whole overblown spontaneous acceleration incidents would be a good pointer.

Estragon• 14 years ago

Driverless trucks with no passengers will totally be targets for vandalism and theft.

PedroBatista11• 14 years ago

They can also cut our balls once and for all and put us out of our misery.

So much is spent pursuing "safety" and squeezing that extra minute of "productivity" that everyone is forgetting to live their lives as human beings.

sanderjd• 14 years ago

I don't see the connection between driving and "living my life as a human being", or the connection between riding in an automated vehicle and "having my balls cut".

Human identity has nothing to do with driving. I can't wait until I don't have to do it anymore.

waterlesscloud• 14 years ago

I generally disagree with the GP post, but I think automated cars will almost certainly result in more closely monitored and controlled travel.

PedroBatista11• 14 years ago

By not knowing how to drive something, you are losing an important ability. Your reach will be 3 or 4 miles at most, and over time this passive "I just want to [_____], do it for me" mentality sets in.

And for what? just not to drive? to have more 20min available to check your Twitter stream?

Remember, you are choosing to be ignorant in a very important aspect of modern live, and i guess only those who at some point were deprived of it realize their importance.

mike-cardwell8• 14 years ago

I hate driving and can't wait to get my hands on such a car. I've got far more interesting things to be doing with my time than staring at a road. Don't you?

PedroBatista11• 14 years ago

You are hating a mechanism that allows you to live the life you have now ( which might be pretty good compared to 95% of the population ).

If you hate it so much, why not replacing it with electrons aka the Internet?

Bjartr• 14 years ago

What's so special about driving? It's a task that has only been available to humans for a century.

PedroBatista11• 14 years ago

And look where we are now compared to every single century...

Mvandenbergh• 14 years ago

Real men ride horses, everyone knows that!

olalonde2• 14 years ago

I wonder how those cars will perform in places like Hanoi or Nanchang. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oetF3UTIwbc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aodbmS_43M

rogerbinns2• 14 years ago

Hopefully there can be more public transport. The problem at the moment with most public transport is that it requires a human driver. That makes it relatively expensive for the transport of one or two people, or even 8 people. Some places have a partial solution (with driver) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Share_taxi

The main reason for owning transport is because it guarantees availability when you need it, especially where you are and where you want to go. You pay quite a bit extra for that, and it does get inconvenient (having to park away from where you want to be, dealing with traffic, insurance, maintenance etc).

Mobile infrastructure is very good in places like you mention (good coverage, low price) so this is solvable.

jalanco• 14 years ago

The likelihood of the Teamster's union allowing (i.e., not obstructing) driverless cargo hauling to succeed in the US would be close to zero.

Someone3• 14 years ago

I think they would be beaten by the tactic that killed Fleet Street (where newsprinters got rid of all their personnel by moving their business, but leaving outdated personnel such as typesetters behind. See http://www.mediauk.com/article/32718/the-fleet-street-revolu...): secretly buy your driverless trucks, and replace all your drivers overnight. That way, you won't have employees that can strike against the change.

maxerickson2• 14 years ago

I wouldn't be surprised if the trucking companies are able to offer them a competitive wage for acting as freight minders.

They might even end up with similar pay for less total hours away from home.

jonaphin• 14 years ago

I love the idea of driverless cars; it is nevertheless important to note that hacking might replace drunk driving as the #1 cause of deaths on the road.

EliRivers3• 14 years ago

With driverless cars, the largest expense of taxis - the driver - disappears.

The driver of a taxi needs to make enough in a day to cover the periods when there are no fares, or travel from a low fare-density area back to the high fare-density areas (and in some regions with ridiculously constrained supply of taxis via "badges" or other such anti-competitive pro-monopoly legislation, to pay the ridiculous fee to just operate a cab).

With the drivers removed, you now have a fleet of taxis that can run 24 hours a day (minus maintenance etc.), cost zero to just sit and wait for a fare, and can be managed and coordinated easily to migrate across the changing fare-density regions throughout the day.

If the price and convenience goes down enough, various groups of people stop needing cars. They just use the "get me a cab" app on their smartphone (or just use the regular telephone) to get a cab when they need it. If this creates a positive feedback loop of cheaper & more convenient -> more people using it -> more taxis deploted -> cheaper & more convenient etc., then in some high-population areas, owning a car will become an unnecessary extravagance.

Operated automatically gives scope for further savings; heading from point A to point C via B, and someone in B is also going to C? You'll get offered a "share this ride for this discount" option.

All this leads, hopefully, to fewer cars needed to provide the same number of journeys, at lower cost. So, how do I go about shorting the car manufacturers? :p

pdelgallego2• 14 years ago

You forgot to mention another consequence, the return of the Luddites

EliRivers3• 14 years ago

The majority of Westeners know the following about cars; turn the wheel thing to pick a direction, push one pedal to go faster and one to go slower. Some of them also know how to operate the stick thingy. Removing this tiny scrap of knowledge is hardly returning to Ludditehood.

protomyth2• 14 years ago

The licensing medallion is the largest expense of taxis in many markets

georgemcbay3• 14 years ago

I'm fully convinced self-driving cars will be sold commercially within the next 10 years. However, it is going to be a very long time until they are allowed on the road sans human (even if they are self-driven 99% of the time, I'm positive legislation will require a human behind the wheel at all times and car makers will have to attempt to enforce this technically), which puts a serious dent in your taxi plan.

You're right long term, but self-driving cars that are allowed to drive without any human behind the wheel is more like a 50 years out thing, IMO. Part of this is just cultural and political, and part of it is due to real technical challenges (there are still going to be extraordinary driving situations in which the obvious thing to do would be clear to any reasonable human but not an autonomous car without serious general purpose AI).

EliRivers3• 14 years ago

"there are still going to be extraordinary driving situations in which the obvious thing to do would be clear to any reasonable human but not an autonomous car without serious general purpose AI"

I believe that any such situation that could not be dealt with by simply coming to a safe halt is currently very badly handled by humans. I believe that they could be better handled with the _current_ state of the art, let alone advances we see over the next few decades.

I'm not arguing that they could be perfectly handled; just that the machines can do better than the average meat-bag.

AndrusAsumets• 14 years ago

>You're right long term, but self-driving cars that are allowed to drive without any human behind the wheel is more like a 50 years out thing, IMO.

Why not just outsource the driver to, say Eastern Europe, Mexico or India? Rent out a room, buy bunch of computers, screens, tables, chairs, and then hire a bunch of "virtual drivers" with enough experience on the road to control those vehicles remotely. Furthermore, program the car to stop on the side of a road in case should it lose the wireless connectivity. I guess the ping could be a problem, but haven't most of the people driving on the roads today got slower reactions to events than 100-150ms? Later on, as the tech progresses, teach the software to direct the driving to that virtual driver on hold only when the "AI" wasn't be able to figure out the current situation.

jonlarson• 14 years ago

I'd say no more than 50 years before driving by hand becomes illegal in most places, especially large cities. The benefits will just become too obvious.

amit_m2• 14 years ago

This might become a great transition technology. But leaves many problems unsolved: 1. All the issues surrounding fuel-burning engines OR all the issues surrounding huge and expensive batteries. 2. An inherent lack of energy efficiency. The payload/car-weight ratio is typically 1/10 or worse. 3. Cars are very expensive, they take a lot of space and require roads that take even more space. 4. Cars are not safe.

Driverless cars really only solve (4) and have small advantages in terms of fuel efficiency and congestion. A network of Driverless taxis should be much cheaper than owning a car, since these cars will be utilized heavily throughout the day. An even better approach would be an automatically dispatched shared-taxi system that would group passengers that want to go to close destinations.

I wonder why there isn't more effort directed towards Personal-Rapid-Transport system. i.e.small electric carts on dedicated lanes (or lines, or rails), with low weight and no battery. Like a packet-switched version of the train system. Such systems can be highly automatic, very energy-efficient and provide convenient rides relatively cheaply. It looks like we have had all the technology required to do it for at least 30 years. It seems that the only thing stopping this type of technology from being developed is that it requires someone with a lot of capital and guts who's not afraid of dealing with a regulatory nightmare. Unfortunately there aren't that many Elon Musks out there.

Here are some specialized PRT systems in use: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_rapid_transit#Existing...

Driverless cars promise to reduce accidents, revolutionise transport

Related Stories