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Driverless Cars - 5/16/2016 1:37:46 AM

Greta75

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https://sg.news.yahoo.com/comment-driverless-cars-robots-are-coming-to-070222477.html

Key Points in the article that makes me ponder about things.

Singapore’s roads are crowded, and while various attempts to reduce the congestion are ongoing, the roads remain as busy as ever.

One solution that is making its way here is to reduce the number of drivers, rather than the number of cars.

Enter the driverless car.

The causes of traffic congestion are many and varied, but two reasons generally stand out. First, there are too many cars on too little road space, and second, accidents that close off lanes, forcing more cars into less space. But this is where the driverless car comes in.

Traffic jams on expressways are often caused by drivers following the car ahead too closely, and stepping on the brakes too hard, causing a ripple jam.

Driverless vehicles can drive in convoys on an expressway, which takes up less space and eliminates the human “over-reaction” that causes the jam.
Is this true or false? I highly doubt traffic jams are caused by jam brakes. I always feel traffic congestion in Singapore is caused by accidents most of the time because everybody slows down to a crawl to be busybodies on what's going on, EVEN if the accident is on the other side of the road, OR a traffic light when exiting an expressway. I guess technically, driverless cars will not slow down for accidents, BUT I am sure the human can still control the driverless car to take over at any point of time and they are still gonna slow down for accidents out of natural human curiousity.

At the moment, MIT is developing a fleet of driverless taxis for Singapore in hope to reduce congestion and provide a more convenient form of transportation.

THIS is interesting! I can't wait to sit in the first driverless taxi to see what's it's like! Uber has also express interest in getting a whole fleet of these cars to do food delivery services. So in my country, people use taxis like public transport. Many of my friends commute to work and home everyday by taxi.

< Message edited by Greta75 -- 5/16/2016 1:38:57 AM >

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RE: Driverless Cars - 5/16/2016 2:15:53 AM

PeonForHer

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I've never been able to get my head around the idea of letting go of control. I mean, really, how reliable can the tech involved actually be? Computers break down frequently, software is imperfectly written and keeps needing tweaking, satellite navigation is still unreliable .... and all this is meant to work seamlessly together, in order to avoid crashes. I'd be forever terrified that my car will drive itself into some small child.

And then there's the pollution problem. Driverless cars, assuming they become popular, will mean yet more cars on the road. Does Singapore need that? Myself, I would have thought that electric-assisted cycles would hold more promise, given the relatively small distances involved there.

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RE: Driverless Cars - 5/16/2016 2:31:51 AM

Greta75

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I always assumed driverless cars are electric cars too. I can't imagine it being petrol powered. Also in Singapore, it's so ridiculously tiny. If you can clock even 20km a day, that's driving very very very far. So electric cars poor mileage works here. I don't even drive past 10km per day.

We actually already have driverless cars running around in our tourist attraction place called gardens by the bay, which carries tourists. They are electric powered.

Saying that though, MIT that we are employing to make this happen, should be inventing a viable solar powered driverless car! We are a sunny 24/7/365 a year country. Or heat powered car, by temperature?

The electric thingy is generally still not that great when you think about how electricity are created!

< Message edited by Greta75 -- 5/16/2016 2:38:01 AM >

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RE: Driverless Cars - 5/16/2016 9:19:10 AM

QualityFirst

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quote:

ORIGINAL: PeonForHer

I've never been able to get my head around the idea of letting go of control. I mean, really, how reliable can the tech involved actually be? Computers break down frequently, software is imperfectly written and keeps needing tweaking, satellite navigation is still unreliable .... and all this is meant to work seamlessly together, in order to avoid crashes. I'd be forever terrified that my car will drive itself into some small child.

Actual prototypes of driverless cars are already extremely reliable.

Computers can be built with redundant elements, so if one element fails, another takes over. For instance, on a server with RAID, if one hard disk fails, the machine continues working. If software is developed inaccurate, there are bugs in it, but if sufficient careful testing is done, this can be avoided.

A driverless car doesn't make wrong estimates and is never tired, distracted, reckless, or agressesive. In fact, safely driving a car requires capacities many drivers don't have.

In Germany, a driverless Mercedes drove about 100 km from Pforzheim to Mannheim, crossing both very busy cities. The driver had never intervene to avoid an accident, on the contrary, he intervened only two times because the car was too prudent and didn't overtake when it was possible.

There will be a lot of legal work to do with respect to the responsibility if an accident happens.

It is expected that driverless cars will first still be petrol driven cars, as it will take longer before electrical cars can compete with petrol cars.

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RE: Driverless Cars - 5/16/2016 10:49:43 AM

DesFIP

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I can't wait.

When my son was a teen I ran around daily taking him hither and yon. I would have killed for a car I could have sent to pick him up from a friend's house or drop him off.

Now I can't drive at night, which means after 4:30 in winter. A car that could drive me home from the grocery store in the dark would be wonderful.

Hell, it's a big problem for the elderly who can still live on their own but can't drive. Driverless cars could allow them to stay in their homes longer.

< Message edited by DesFIP -- 5/16/2016 10:51:15 AM >

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RE: Driverless Cars - 5/16/2016 3:03:26 PM

FelineRanger

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Maybe I'm unique, but I like driving and I am highly critical of the lack of driver's education in the U.S. that artificially makes driverless cars appear to be a necessity. [fuckyoui'mold]When I earned my license, I had more time in a car with an instructor and two sets of controls actually driving than I did in the classroom memorizing the book. The increased used of simulators that function more like oversized video games and increased classroom time at the cost of practical skill is why driver skills have deteriorated so badly. And don't even get me started on parents who say their overprivileged offspring simply must have their license at all costs. [/fuckyoui'mold]

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RE: Driverless Cars - 5/16/2016 6:36:40 PM

Greta75

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I hate driving, so that's why I like the idea of driverless cars. I can just watch a youtube video, enjoy the ride, let the car drive me to my destination!

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RE: Driverless Cars - 5/16/2016 6:39:04 PM

Greta75

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quote:

ORIGINAL: QualityFirst
It is expected that driverless cars will first still be petrol driven cars, as it will take longer before electrical cars can compete with petrol cars.

In Europe yes, as seriously. I am somebody who thinks, 20 minutes drive is considered a very very very very long drive. Like if you tell a Singaporean 20minutes drive away. We are like, WHAT????? That's so far away!!!

But in other countries. An hour drive is considered near. It's a very different feel and scale. Because we are so tiny. Everywhere in our country is just a 15minutes drive at the maximum.

So electric will work out for us.

quote:

There will be a lot of legal work to do with respect to the responsibility if an accident happens.

This part will be complicated. Are the car companies liable? It would be interesting how they handle this part of things.

< Message edited by Greta75 -- 5/16/2016 6:41:43 PM >

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RE: Driverless Cars - 5/16/2016 10:10:15 PM

littleclip

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and the driverless cars will obey the speed limits. they can be much smaller making them even more efficient

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RE: Driverless Cars - 5/16/2016 10:16:26 PM

DaddySatyr

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Fuck that "much smaller" shit. My car is already too small. I can't fit a full grown human (female who's only 130 lbs.) in the back seat, comfortably.

I drive an '05 Sentra

Michael

< Message edited by DaddySatyr -- 5/16/2016 10:34:24 PM >

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RE: Driverless Cars - 5/16/2016 10:25:31 PM

Greta75

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quote:

ORIGINAL: DaddySatyr

Fuck that "much smaller" shit. My car is already too small. I can't fit a full grown human (female whose only 130 lbs.) in the back seat, comfortably.

I drive an '05 Sentra

Michael

I googled your car!! That is NOT a small car. It's regular sized. You don't know what a small car is!

My car is only 600cc. It's as small as the smart car.

< Message edited by Greta75 -- 5/16/2016 10:28:10 PM >

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RE: Driverless Cars - 5/17/2016 3:50:42 PM

sloguy02246

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quote:

ORIGINAL: QualityFirst

There will be a lot of legal work to do with respect to the responsibility if an accident happens.

I think this is an enormous question.

When an accident does occur (and they still will), who will be held responsible?

The passenger in the car when the accident occurs?
The vehicle's owner?
The vehicle's manufacturer?
The software company?
A vehicle component manufacturer?

Today, insurance rates for liability are based primarily on who the driver(s) is(are).
If there is no longer any actual "driver" involved in a car's operation, who will bear the bulk of the responsibility for an accident?

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RE: Driverless Cars - 5/17/2016 5:24:59 PM

Greta75

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I will let you guys know when they finally get those driverless taxis over here! The insurance portion will be very interesting.

Uber have also expressed interest in owning a fleet themselves for Singapore.

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RE: Driverless Cars - 5/17/2016 6:20:04 PM

DesFIP

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Feline Ranger: private schools don't offer driver's Ed. NYC doesn't offer it.

And I've never had a chargeable accident. Hitting deer on country roads isn't something you can be taught to avoid. Not when the first sight of it is in midair, jumping over high shrubs.

And you too will find with age that the rods and cones in your eyes no longer react quickly enough for you to see in the dark when other cars' headlights leave you blinded.

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RE: Driverless Cars - 5/17/2016 7:20:14 PM

enslaver

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Anybody buying such a car and entrusting his life to a microchip is a moron.

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RE: Driverless Cars - 5/17/2016 8:06:10 PM

Spiritedsub2

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I don't know about where you live, but in my neck of the woods drivers are so insanely stupid that a computer chip driver could only be an improvement.

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RE: Driverless Cars - 5/18/2016 2:46:57 AM

RottenJohnny

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quote:

ORIGINAL: DaddySatyr
Fuck that "much smaller" shit. My car is already too small. I can't fit a full grown human (female who's only 130 lbs.) in the back seat, comfortably.

I drive an '05 Sentra

And cars are only going to get smaller. That's why I've decided to start going backwards for the year of car I buy next. For the price of a new car you can find all kinds of restored older cars that are larger, more comfortable, cheaper to repair, cheaper to insure, and are grandfathered out of a lot of the government auto performance and safety requirements (I'll put a 1959 Cadillac ElDorado up against any new car in a head on crash test). And if you want to enhance it's safety and performance there's an entire aftermarket industry dedicated to it.

As far as driverless cars are concerned, I have no interest in trusting the same car companies that invented the Pinto or Corvair to make a car that safely drives me around town by itself. Fuck that!

< Message edited by RottenJohnny -- 5/18/2016 2:52:29 AM >

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RE: Driverless Cars - 5/18/2016 7:42:59 AM

littleclip

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driverless cars can be designed for the comfort of the passengers. im 6'3 so i dont fit in the prius. the 61 nash was small but fit 4 passengers comfortably. driverless cars can be configured differently so can better utilize the space can be taller and have seating facing each other or on the sides or even down the middle. once we get out of the way is always been done mentality there are so many more options.

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RE: Driverless Cars - 5/18/2016 9:29:48 AM

PeonForHer

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FR

Interesting convo with a man who's a manager in the engineering dept of a car manufacturing firm today. For a start, he reckons he's bought his last ever ordinary car. Driverless cars will be proliferating within ten to fifteen years. The mechanics of driverless cars are dead simple and old technology - they're not a problem. There are glitches with the computer and satellite related technology, but it seems that the industries involved are throwing *everything* at these.

Another likelihood is that owning a car will become pointless, he reckons. What would be the advantage? You don't park a driverless car and let it wait for you to come back to it. You let it sod off to pick up someone else and take him/her on a journey instead. Another driverless car, that's nearer by, will come and pick you up after you've ordered it on your smartphone. At present, cars spend most of their time sitting around, idle. It's tremendously wasteful. If cars were to be shared, we'd need far, far fewer of them.

To add to this: driverless cars aren't going to be the snazzy looking things that people covet as property. They'll be ugly. And the interiors will be entirely different: they'll have comfy seats that face inwards with a coffee table in the middle. Or TVs to watch on curtained walls ... or offices, or even beds.

So ... the entire motor industry is going to get revolutionised. It'll make a major change to human culture in lots of other ways, too ....

Sort of exciting, really. But the one time some small kid, or even a beloved dog, gets hit - I could imagine that would set back progress enormously.

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RE: Driverless Cars - 5/19/2016 8:40:48 AM

DesFIP

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People who do work with their hands will still need a truck or van of their own though. Plumbers, electricians, construction companies. Table saws and such take up a lot of space and since no one knows what they'll need when they start a job, they carry full workshops in their work trucks.

And I'd miss not having all the creature comforts in the car. I keep a first aid kit, a couple of books, a cooler full of water, folding chairs and so on. I'm not sure a shared car would have space for all the stuff plus you'd have to pack and unpack it frequently. The idea of installing car seats for kids multiple times a day terrifies me. They're really hard to install correctly, most people put the base in and then go to the police station to have it checked. Then you leave it in untouched. When my stepson was still living here with the grandchild, we would switch cars with him if we were babysitting. It was a lot easier than installing the car seat in our car and then back into his later.

But the distances we drive here are a lot further than most countries deal with. Greta's 10K makes me laugh. We do a lot more than that on the spur of the moment; to go to the bowling alley, to the walking bridge over the Hudson, to the movie theater, to the grocery store.

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