The Antiplanner was looking forward to seeing Volkswagen run a driverless Audi up the windy Pikes Peak Road at racing speeds last month. Unfortunately, this test was postponed by a crash — not of the driverless car but of a helicopter that was aiming to photograph the test. (Maybe someone should develop a pilotless helicopter.)
Meanwhile, Google has been test driving a driverless Prius in California. The car obeys all traffic laws and avoids collisions with other cars and pedestrians. (The one accident was when it was stopped at a light and rear-ended by another vehicle.)
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According to the New York Times, Google engineers “speak in terms of lives saved and injuries avoided. . . . The engineers say the technology could double the capacity of roads by allowing cars to drive more safely while closer together. Because the robot cars would eventually be less likely to crash, they could be built lighter, reducing fuel consumption.” Google’s cars were designed by the same Stanford research lab that designed Volkswagen’s winning entry in the 2005 DARPA challenge (and second-place entry in the 2007 DARPA urban challenge).
The main obstacle to driverless cars is the law. But Google thinks that driverless cars are legal in California so long as a human driver can override any error. Ultimately, we will want driverless cars that won’t need such human overrides. That will require technological improvements, but more important it will require updates of the law, including liability law.
I share your optimism – in the not too distant future, it will be possible to be driven around in a private automobile – by the automobile. Though having a working network of GPS satellites becomes absolutely essential once such cars start to hit the roads.
Wonder what a car with true driverless control systems would cost at a dealer showroom?
The tricky part will be the transition period between older cars with no system and new cars with a system. Once all cars are driverless, I’d be willing to get into one of those
coffinssmart cars. Imagine the amount of gas that could be saved by autopilot and lighter cars!“(Maybe someone should develop a pilotless helicopter.)”
Already in progress.
I hope I get to see the future, not only of driverless cars, but driverless cars that are “built lighter,” smaller and more efficient. As long as there are the giants out there, sensible/light/efficient cars will be a scary proposition.
I am skeptical. I can see perhaps a time 30 years or more in the future where HOV-like lanes are driverless in some congested areas, but I don’t see a majority of the cars going driverless in a lifetime. I don’t doubt the technology — I doubt the social acceptance.
It looks a lot like overkill. There is no benefit in a driverless car in town, where the main limiting factor is the junctions, and there are numerous unexpected events – difficult for a computer to deal with. It’s main use would be on the freeways, where it can generate additional capacity by driving the cars closer together.
There are numerous benefits for city driving.
Ever sit at the back of a long line of cars waiting for a light to turn green? Finally, it does, but people aren’t paying attention, and cars are slow to get through the light. You’ve been ready to go the whole time, waiting to hit the gas, and when you get up to the light, it changes and you have to stop and idle some more. Think of the time and gas savings of driverless cars in this situation; they could be tuned to the traffic lights so they could all simultaneously accelerate, ensuring the maximum amount of cars cross the intersection per cycle.
Also consider the safety factor with a person’s ability to run a red light considerably constrained.
In some European countries, the red light flashes before it turns green, giving drivers some advance warning that it will be turning green. That is a lot cheaper and lower-tech than driverless car technology.
I am a rational optimist, but I worry about whether driverless technology will be caught by an asymptote that is too far from 100% safety to be viable. I understand speech recognition technology has been permanently stalled at 80% (?) recognition rates for twenty years, and no amount of research has been able to get much beyond this. I hope the same thing doesn’t happen to driverless tech.
The Airlines are on auto pilot most of the time. The Navy is using auto pilot landings on air craft carriers.
Airports and aircraft carriers can control snow, mud, vandals, bad maintenance, other air traffic, etc. A few high cost, high demand roads could too. But the 99.88% of the other roads will have huge problems.
Also, with airplanes there is always a trained pilot watching everything very closely and able to take control in a second. Once cars are driverless, the people will be watching TV, sleeping, or maybe not even in the drivers seat.
The technology might be there soon. But that is a looooong way from making it work in the real world and with real people.
What happened to the carless crash with the headless driver?
New technology for Muslim suicidal terrorists.
No clarification need to type extremist. Nothing false there. The ladies on The View hear what they think with their tiny brains.
“I am skeptical. I can see perhaps a time 30 years or more in the future where HOV-like lanes are driverless in some congested areas, but I don’t see a majority of the cars going driverless in a lifetime. I don’t doubt the technology — I doubt the social acceptance.” -Borealis
I’ll 2nd that. That’s going to take some time.
I still find it funny that “libertarians” want their cars driven by Big Brother!
Highman, there was no mention of gov operating the controls.
And regardless of the entity in charge of navigation, there was nothing about ideology either.
Regardless of that, the person in the car inputs directions anyway.
You must be mixed up with your dream on the gov controlling behaviors.
Your practice on making comments is not improving you content or lack of.
Nonsense every time.
You should really practice comprehension & communication.