Self driving cars
Community
Have any of you guys seen the latest on these things? Personally, they scare the hell out of me!
I can see a whole new set of issues and laws being created here. Not to mention that computers are not 100% reliable. Not only will I not own one, but I'll stay as far away from them as I can on the road.
Any thoughts?
As of now, you have to be 71, be on Medicaid, have vehicle insurance, and be legally blind to purchase one.
Yeah, ain't no way in hell im letting a computer drive me anywhere, that's a job for my brain, not a machine.
Better than taking my license in old age....Drive On Baby
I’m from Michigan. We drive our own cars/trucks up here. Although the BIG 3 auto makers are heavily involved in the production of them, I don’t want anything to do with them. I hate to rely on anything/anybody else to get something done for me.
So have many of you have adaptive cruise? Lane change? Parallel parking?
My pickup almost drives itself now.....
I'm waiting to see them test one of these self-drivers on dirt/gravel roads...especially when a farmer is coming on a tractor with implements in tow.
Again (especially applying to Michigan's premier crop of pot holes), have not read about any AI that can identify and avoid pot holes. Last week, WJR road report noted two places on Detroit freeways where over 13 cars were on the side of the road due to pot hole destruction of wheels.
Can you imagine taking a sight seeing drive in one of these vehicles where you have to program your exact route since the general direction of these vehicles is not to have steering wheels? No spontaneous side trips.
And, the most obvious not discussed benefit of these vehicles is that it is just another push to remove personal freedoms. Being computer controlled, it will be easy for the government not only to monitor you, but also find ways to tax you for mileage and in worse case scenario--have you delivered to a government facility ;o)
When I was a kid they told us we would have flying cars by now, not self driving ones. A friend of mine is getting ready to buy a new truck. After telling me all the bells and whistles on one of trucks he was looking at, bells and whistles you get regardless of whether you want them or not, I'm thinking my old 2006 F150 might have a few more years in it...going to start looking for nice hardly used pickups I guess. I don't even want a truck that stops running when sitting at a stop light and then starts up again when you hit the gas. I see that as being a big maintenance issue down the road and you can bet those starters won't be cheap to replace...not to mention the PIA when the starter gives out when trying to get through the stop light...too many engineers doing things because they can, not because people really want them...Besides, I like driving. Why would I pay $50K for a truck that drives itself? For that matter, why would I pay $50K for a truck?
I cringe when I see the trucks that back your boat down the ramp for you. If you can't back your own trailer you have no business pulling one! Just my honest opinion.
"If you can't back your own trailer you have no business pulling one!"
X2!
Just like all the people that hunt or spend time in the remote areas that no longer carry or know how to use a compass and rely 100% on their cell phone. I hope they have an "app" for funeral services for when the cell phone fails.......if they ever find the body before the buzzards do.
There was a time when people said that no machine could ever replace a telephone operator or a bank teller.
Can't wait for them so I can take nap or read a book all the way to elk camp. They are coming soon. I trust the computer right now but the sensors, radar etc. they use I wouldn't trust in a snowstorm or bad weather. So a car with no steering wheel, right now, a....no........ya a guy that still reads a book while a self driving car transports him....mixed up...old but willing to embrace technology.
Computers have been making just about every industry safer and more efficient for the last 30 years and things are just getting going. Digitalization is the name of the game these days and driving and transportation won’t escape the revolution that’s underway.
Areas that are testing/using self driving vehicles have ensured that the roads are in good condition and that lane markings are fresh and clear. Where they are absent, the AI driven vehicles do not fair too well. Secondary and tertiary roads cannot be navigated by these vehicles.
Navigation systems still have a lot of problems finding places (depending on where one is looking and unit). For fun, I often compare my car's GPS with my Garmin and cell phone. Routes are often different, and sometimes one will not find a location.
At present, all this is in the future and will co$t more than most people will want to pay for the opportunity to give up their freedom of the road.
One of these is like a drone zooming in low over my place. It's trespassing and I will shoot it down.
I'm still aggravated because you can't find a new pickup with a manual transmission. ;)
There's going to be some lawyers that are going to become VERY, VERY rich!
Wait til one encounters a deer on the roadway, or a whiteout snow storm.
Or is driving in the winter on perfectly dry roads and then encounters a part of the road where the snow has blown across, melted and then froze (the infamous "black ice" of the mountain west and northern plains), but it won't know about it until it's on it (when it's WAAAY too late to slow down) because it can't see.
And I also wonder if they are programmed for when they detect a deer cross the road (and that's assuming that it CAN tell the difference between a deer, or a pedestrian, or fallen log), they know to not look at the one that's crossed but to where that one CAME from because the one you hit will be behind the one that's already across.
This should get REALLY interesting!
When all of you are dead, we're going to be driving around safely in self-driving vehicles without the traffic or thousands of deaths that we deal with now that there are millions of morons driving around in today's status quo. It's the future. It's not really needed in rural areas, but it'll be a God-send in the cities where traffic and collisions are the daily norm. It'll be even better once you can get into a pod and get sucked to your destination at 100s of miles per hour or take a drone while a computer manages the traffic. Don't worry xenophobes, none of you old codgers will be around to see it.
And it's all based on a computer chip! What could go wrong? We're golden! ;-)
Thousands of kids aged 16-24 are killed in auto wrecks each year because they're stupid and bad drivers. I'd much rather have a computer driving my girls around than themselves. 100 years from now, people are going to scoff at all the deaths that we used to put up with to get from point A to point B just like we now scoff at the idea of our kids dying from appendicitis like they used to in droves.
I guess we'll see won't we?
"Don't worry xenophobes, none of you old codgers will be around to see it."
That is what I say to myself when almost any thread opens up on bowsite...
Annony - take a look at the darpa grand challenge results. Most of that was done on dirt (if my old codger brain remembers it correctly) and that was 10-15 years ago.
I saw that Cadillac has a highway self driver out there right now.
"And it's all based on a computer chip! What could go wrong? We're golden! ;-)"
Well, just take a look at the aviation industry - an industry that has been transformed by turning things over to a computer chip. Last year we had zero jet passenger deaths worldwide. The last death from a passenger jet crash in the United States was in 2009. Worldwide, there were only 10 fatal incidents in 2017 (involving cargo and prop planes, not passenger jets) resulting in a total of 70 deaths. Worldwide, the aviation industry transports almost 4 billion people a year. Contrast this with 1972, where the world saw almost 2,500 deaths while only transporting 300 million travelers. This safety improvement is largely a function of turning things over to computers.
I was on a flight the other day coming back from a hunt in British Columbia. After my flight from LAX to Houston touched down, the pilots got on the PA and told us that they considered rerouting the flight due to the conditions in the Houston area. Instead, they said they turned the entire landing over to the autopilot and we touched down without a hitch.
Just because your kids are too stupid to learn how to drive car I have to pay $50K for a pickup truck? You guys are crazy...8^)
Hey gator, I'm confused. Don't planes have those things called 'pilots' anymore?
Help me out.
Amoebus...yeah, familiar with that. Those vehicles were designed especially for off road and has a lot of cu$tom equipment, one-of stuff. I'm kind of a tech geek and get a lot of engineering trade mags which cover self driving vehicles.
The automakers are using a different technology in that they are relying on sensors primarily rely on lane markings. I get a number of engineering trade mags and there was a report about one of the test vehicles down in the Ann Arbor area that had big problems with our yearly crop of pot holes. The article indicated that much of the future of AI controlled vehicles would go hand in hand with road improvements...not only pot holes, but ability to sense black ice, tire debris from semis, and other random road hazards. There is an ongoing question in many articles about the future of AI in dealing with situations where an accident may not be avoided: whose life is more important--vehicle occupants or other vehicle/pedestrian?
AI Technology is interesting as there is much research directed to interconnecting AI vehicles so they can communicate...which could lessen human caused error while commuting. From my reading, the future for these vehicles are in urban environments (daily commute) and maybe interstate freeways. At present, they are being developed for more point to point travel where one has to program a specific destination. Anyone that has used GPS (especially units built into autos now), know that GPS mapping does not alway coincide with the real world mapping. There needs to be a lot of development (not only in technology, but also user friendly programming) before an AI auto can take a family on a sight seeing tour where spontaneous stops/detours occur. An AI auto could zip one past an interesting sight or yard sale without the option to slow down or stop, necessitating reprogramming to turn around and return (did you get the address to program into your unit as you drove by?).
Also, a lot of the AI autos are being developed without manual steering. To me, that makes no sense when one looks at the freedom of travel cars have become to us. I could see in the future to have AI control, but be able to turn on and off at will.
I read several articles about the Cadillac system. There was a really detailed article in the Freep a couple months ago describing its use. Driver still has to keep aware of what is going on and cannot just totally rely on the system and go to sleep. Saw a small item in the paper a week or so ago, that a caddy with the system got pot holed on a freeway in Detroit...blew out tire and destroyed rim. WJR reported about 13 cars lined up on the side of the road due to those potholes!
"Just because your kids are too stupid to learn how to drive car I have to pay $50K for a pickup truck? You guys are crazy...8^)"
THIS!! ^^^^^
"Hey gator, I'm confused. Don't planes have those things called 'pilots' anymore? Help me out."
They do...but the flying is less and less dependent on them -- and we're a lot safer because of it.
They are coming, any engineering challenge, first you prove the concept by solving it under the ideal conditions, then you complicate it. It will take years longer, but just in the last few years it's come a long ways. A friend has an accura SUV that can steer itself on highways, but he has to be touching the wheel. That was new a few years ago, now caddies have hands free.
I can see liking it on long boring highway rides.
Bob, in the last year I've purchased two new cars that have that very technology - adaptive cruise control that will bring the vehicle to a complete stop if need be and lane assist which will keep the car centered and between the lines. It's obviously not completely self-driving under all road conditions and you get fussed at by the car if you keep your hands off the wheel for an extended period of time -- but under highway conditions it's damn near self-driving
I make numerous long drives a year, and often drive my truck out to hunting spots out west. They are long, tedious drives that are just begging for this type of technology. I'm waiting for these features to become more readily available before I update my truck.
I do not think that for most vehicles and purposes it will be one big leap from a vehicle driven by a person to one with no steering wheel.
What has happened and will increasingly come in is vehicles that prevent the driver from making mistakes.
I cannot imagine a vehicle that can manage the NYC traffic that I saw unless all of the vehicles have the same technology and communicate with each other.
OTOH, I can definitely see vehicles coming very soon that will be able to negotiate long stretches of open road while the driver dozes or whatever.
You think we have drunk driving problems now? These things will be a nightmare for the courts!
......but NOT the lawyers! $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$s in their future!
Pretty sure if one is involved in a wreck or gets pulled over at a sobriety checkpoint and the person responsible for the vehicle is hammered, same laws will apply as they do today regardless of whether the vehicle can drive itself and make you breakfast on the go...8^)
I just see all this new technology in most vehicles as overkill. Best case some of the technology might reduce accidents. Worse case people become so reliant on the technology they don't know what to do when the technology stops working. As it will at some point. I've been writing code for going on 40 years. I have only seen a couple of applications that never went down and those apps execute in a very controlled environment. Not the wide open dynamic space found on highways and byways...
In the mean time the cost of a typical pickup truck has almost doubled over the last 10-15 years or so and a new pickup still does exactly the same thing an old pickup does. It carries stuff in the back, has 4x4 and gets the driver where they want to go. They were already pretty expensive, but now they are approaching the cost of my first house...Costs are just out of control in my opinion...
I don't think the cost has doubled. The F250 I just ordered was $5k more than the one I bought in 2008. Both are lariats with a lot of stuff for the year on them. That's about 10% in 10 years.
Better get tort reform rolling before self driving gets rolling.
I'd rather have a vehicle that can fix itself.
Now THAT would be nice! :-)
I'd rather have the vehicle that never needs to be fixed.
LOL! That'd be about as likely to happen as politician who doesn't lie!
MT in MO, you're right, they'll be treated as typical DUI stops, but think of the arguments these lawyers will use. And I bet theyll get away with some of them.
In 2006 I paid 28,500 for a XLT 4x4 F150 crew cab with 6.5 ft bed. Same truck today with current applicable rebates is $45,000+. I just did one of those online pricing deals that Ford has on the internet. So, not doubled, just a 3rd more, but still approaching the cost of my first house...it has a smaller engine though is supposed to be more powerful, uses cheaper than steel aluminum throughout to save on weight so that little motor doesn't have to work so hard, and I bet maintenance costs are more too...regardless, it has a boatload of stuff that I really don't want...and if I upgrade to a Lariat, well I may as well buy a F250 then, but it won't fit in the garage...8^)
I may end up buying a new one at some point. Only go around once and all that...but I really don't see why everyone wants all this self driving stuff and all these bells and whistles that drives up the costs...I doubt very much that they will have a self driving car that will allow you to take nap while flying down the interstate at 80 miles per hour. They don't even let the pilots on airplanes sleep when they are on auto pilot, and there is a heck of a lot less traffic at 30,000 ft than 1,000ft...8^)
And.....it has a 10 speed transmission. :-)
Ok.....been thinking about weighing in on this. I am a designer and builder of high speed automation. So, things like fiber optic sensors, prox switches, other sensors, servo motors, LVDT's, robots, all those things I use in my job. And everyone of those things fail. I've watched robots "lose" their mind and just start going thru random motions, till it hits the guards and faulting out. $1,000 laser position sensors failing allowing $50,000 worth of tooling to become a pile of junk. Servos deciding to ignore position limits resulting in machine crashes. Is it frequent? No. But enough to give me pause about all the latest self driving features in cars.
Recently my wife's Mazda Tribute was totaled in a snow storm. We looked at different vehicles, on of which was a Mazda CX5. All the bells, HUD, adaptive cruise, lane assist and warning. Wifey was not impressed. Also, that sh!t fails, needs replaced for inspection. I'll wait a few more years.
Oh yeah...forgot about that...10 speed transmission to help out that little motor...8^)
"10 speed transmission to help out that little motor"
Hook up your Ranger to one and take it out for a spin. "At some point" may come sooner than you expected.
As bad as the idea sounds to me.....the very worst one built would still probably drive better than over 50% of the idiots currently on the road. One of the reasons I quit riding my motorcycle years ago.
SB, are you waiting for a self-driving motorcycle :-)
Hey MTMO. Here is a brand new 2018 XLT 4WD, 6.5ft bd. you can buy today for $31k.
I damn near bought a truck from these guys but I was able to beat them by $500 at a local dealership.
http://vernonfordsales.com/Wichita-Falls-Tx/For-Sale/New/Ford/F-150/2018-XLT-Black-Truck/54472900/
If it was a crew cab......................................................
:-)
Nahh. MT don't want a crew cab........I'm questioning that little v6 engine for him though.
I'm in no hurry. Just got the house paid off so I am in no hurry to go back in debt...probably won't go with an XLT anyway. I was just using it as a talking point. May need an 8ft bed though and I am not sold on the those turbo charged 6's either...
Besides the old truck is running just fine and it doesn't talk back to me or anything. Even if I do happen to cross the line while avoiding a deer or a road kill or anything else...8^)
My hunting and wood hauler is now 20 years old Chevy and 260,000. If I tried to sell it would just give it away, sure is nice to put the ATV in the back and close the tailgate. Just try and find a standard cab 8 ft. bed now that is not beat to h---. One guy said he would rebuild the 350 for $2000 if I took it out and took it to his shop, sounds like the thing to do.
Just an FYI,for what its worth.....we are using the ecoboost engines in our fleet trucks. 4wd and standard. We pull 20’ trailers loaded with heavy equipment regularly. No issues reported and the mechanics all give thumbs up.
Joey, how old are those trucks? Just curious as I have heard mixed feelings on the ecoboost.
15s- 18s.
The 18s we’ve had to warn drivers that they shutdown at extended stops. Almost appears they’ve stopped running but they aren’t. Just part of the fuel savings thing.
We just got an 18 2wd in our dept. I’ve towed some light stuff and limited driving so far but dang..... it is NICE. The aluminum body is strange. But it’s a nice crew cab.
I’m close to paying my house off and won’t wait too long to jump back into an auto loan. :-)
Part of the joy of driving a car is driving the car.
I can see having one if I'm too old to safely drive my own car to the local grocery store.
But beyond that, NO!
I for one have no fear of self-driving cars on the road and would be willing to ride in one when they are developed to the point where they are on the roads.
The future for these is not rural areas while it's raining. The future of self-driving cars is urban areas where traffic is a huge problem and where a computer could move everyone along and take the human element out of traffic, which is, ultimately the cause of it all. No one's going to force this on your farm/ranch because it doesn't make any sense to take the human element out of that when there's nothing to be gained. In the cities, this could save billions of dollars and thousands of lives.
Additionally, getting into a tube and getting sucked from one metropolis to another in minutes without the cost or risk associated with the long drive, is the future, whether that's something you'd benefit from or not.
I agree completely with that post Ike. Cost-benefit just isn't there in the rural areas... perhaps on the interstate system in rural areas at some point in the future. Even in the urban areas it is still some way off. I recently sat through a short presentation on a tollway project that was recently completed in Chicagoland. It was asked whether infrastructure was put in place for upcoming autonomous vehicle use. The answer was no, but if/when the technology gets realistic there would be space to add it as needed.
“Part of the joy of driving a car is driving the car.“
While I don’t necessarily disagree, Kyle, there are some drives that are anything but joyous. Long, monotonous interstate drives, sitting in stop and go traffic, etc take the joy out of driving and just beg for a computer to take over!
Its starting sooner than I anticipated!
The link isn't working. Story was about a self driving Uber car that has killed a pedestrian.
Well, there you go ^^^
Makes me wish I was a Lawyer in Phoenix...
A test on the trolley problem.
I could say I told you so....but I won't...... ;-)
Man think about having hands free driving on a date back in High School? Every vehicle has a computer starting back in the 70s. My sons car gives a heads up display in fog of what’s in front of it even though you can’t see. We have winter fog in the Central Valley in the winter that is some of the worst you’ll ever drive in. I lived across the street from the High School. The fog would be so bad that I couldn’t see across the street which was a narrow two lane street. I would listen then run. Driving with his car you see what’s ahead in that thick fog. It will automatically brake if something happens several cars ahead. If you drive on a road that has a chuck hole every so often it will automatically adjust the suspension if you ever drive down that same road prior to going over the chuck hole. Pickups that back up trailers on a boat ramp. Too bad everyone doesn’t have one.
But apparently it doesn't have an "app" for people on bikes. I wonder if they'll try it in court for vehicular manslaughter?
But unlike firearms, driver less cars actually DO kill people! And the term "car violence" is FAR more accurate a term for this than "gun" violence. A gun won't harm anyone unless a human being controls it. Not so with a "smart" car.
Since when do jay walkers have the right-of-way?
I wonder if you can drink and ride?
Do all of you also stop and look both ways before crossing a railroad track, or do you trust the computer that controls the gates?
They don't let airline pilots sleep or drink while on autopilot, why does anyone think they will allow the operator to sleep or drink while riding in a car on autopilot? Like I said before lots less traffic at 30,000 feet than 1,000 feet. People who think the self driving car is going to allow them to take a nap while driving across Kansas are the same people who thought they would be driving flying cars about now...Ain't gonna happen...But you can keep on daydreaming...that's harmless...8^)
"Do all of you also stop and look both ways before crossing a railroad track, or do you trust the computer that controls the gates?"
Does not really matter if anyone does or not. Those lights/gates do one thing in a relatively controlled environment unlike what a self-driven car would encounter. Also, trusting the operation of something for 10 seconds of your life is nothing like trusting it for hours. Just not a real good comparison. There is also the point that I can choose to take the risk or not; I'm still in control, which may or may not wind up being the case for cars.
Reports indicate that the car was going 40 in a 35 zone. Probably lots of different configurations in these cars, but does the human driver control the speed and the car control the steering/stopping? Or, is it more like existing cruise control where the car will do whatever speed the driver sets it to?
Tempe police chief says it probably isn't Uber's fault.
"It's very clear it would have been difficult to avoid this collision in any kind of mode [autonomous or human-driven] based on how she came from the shadows right into the roadway," Moir said. Police previously said Herzberg was not using a crosswalk.
I sometimes want to take a nap while driving across Kansas in my non self driving car.....I have considered putting hot sauce in my eyes before.
Drive barefoot. You can also put it in cruise and then alternate holding a leg out straight like you're doing isometrics......or just get a good night's sleep.
And then there's the nipple clamps...........or so I've heard! ;-)
So the video is out of this woman getting hit by the Uber car.
The car should have stopped, slowed down, or swerved to avoid the pedestrian. It did none of these, just kept on going full speed ahead.
From what I've read either the radar or Lidar sensors should have (and most probably did) see the pedestrian. But the car didn't react. The Uber 'driver' ? (monitor?) sure freaked out when he saw the pedestrian though.
