Nissan Plans To Sell Self-Driving Cars By 2020 333
Lucas123 writes "Nissan today said it will begin demonstrating autonomous vehicle technology on its all-electric Leaf this year, and plans to begin selling multiple models of self-driving cars by 2020. Nissan said it's already building an autonomous drive proving ground in Japan. Its goal is availability across the model range within two vehicle generations. The car company, which is among several others and Google in developing autonomous driving tech, is currently working with top universities, including MIT, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, Oxford and The University of Tokyo, to develop its self-drive technology."
Good (Score:5, Insightful)
No more tailgating, left lane hogging, pulling out without indicating, running red lights, drunk driving or any of that other stuff the meat-based drivers keep on doing.
Free up the roads for people who don't see driving as a chore and make an effort to drive properly.
Re: Good (Score:5, Interesting)
Traffic jams are almost a sole function of human deficiencies through overreaction and slow reaction. And, since ICEs are bad about changing power output to meet demand, lots of fuel is wasted idling.
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Traffic jams are almost a sole function of human deficiencies through overreaction and slow reaction.
No they are not. That is a myth. Traffic jams are almost a sole function of not enough road for the number of cars. Once a road is at capacity, no amount of 'perfect' driving is going to prevent the addition of more cars from causing traffic slowdowns and eventually traffic jams.
Re: Good (Score:5, Informative)
At highway speeds, human driven cars should be over 150 feet apart to be safe. Autonomous cars can be separated by just a few feet. The capacity of our existing roads would increase immensely.
Re: Good (Score:5, Insightful)
At highway speeds, human driven cars should be over 150 feet apart to be safe. Autonomous cars can be separated by just a few feet.
Yeah, because nothing could happen so fast that computer-driven cars a few feet apart could cause a massive pileup with thousands dead.
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Once a road is at capacity, no amount of 'perfect' driving is going to prevent the addition of more cars from causing traffic slowdowns and eventually traffic jams.
What you are missing is that the "capacity" is not a constant. Self-driving cars can drive much closer together, and can react much faster to changing conditions. They will also operate with more information about traffic conditions ahead. Google has estimated that their cars can increase the capacity of a lane of highway by at least a factor of five.
Re: Good (Score:5, Interesting)
Not only is it not theoretical, but it's been tested on public roads.
One initiative that doesn't go the whole way towards fully autonomous vehicles is the road train. A human-driven lead car shuttles back and forth the length of a multi-lane highway. As a driver of a suitably equipped car, you can drive up behind it, press a button, and become part of the convoy. The lead car now controls your car - brakes, steering, acceleration. When you're approaching your destination, press the button again, the controller will adjust the distances between you and the cars in front and behind, allowing you space to resume control and leave the convoy. Then the cars that were behind you will move in to fill your space.
The neat thing about this is that because the cars behind don't need to anticipate the movements of the lead car, they can be *much* closer together. Close enough to benefit from slipstream, which has a significant effect on fuel economy.
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Once a road is at capacity, no amount of 'perfect' driving is going to prevent the addition of more cars from causing traffic slowdowns and eventually traffic jams.
True, but networked computers would also be able to coordinate their entrances onto congested roadways. Quality of Service scheduling could be applied to cars on the road just like it currently gets applied to packets on a telephone network. (assuming nobody reprograms their software to 'cheat', anyway ;))
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If a road is at capacity, why couldn't all of the cars be driving at even something slow like 25 MPH, instead of speed up then almost stop, speed up then almost stop, etc?
That's because of the human error... (and you see the "slowdown" move in the opposite direction of traffic flow, as has been shown on video).
Re: Good (Score:4, Insightful)
No, that is a myth. Traffic jams occur when the available road space is not being used efficiently. For example, it oly takes one car to enter an interaction when there is no room to exit on the other side and the entire intersection can become locked, even if the total traffic volume is low. Traffic jams occur in many different traffic situation, not just when when the volume is high.
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Traffic jams are almost a sole function of human deficiencies through overreaction and slow reaction.
No they are not. That is a myth. Traffic jams are almost a sole function of not enough road for the number of cars. Once a road is at capacity, no amount of 'perfect' driving is going to prevent the addition of more cars from causing traffic slowdowns and eventually traffic jams.
Not traffic jams as such but traffic waves [wikipedia.org] definitely are caused by over and under reaction by bad drivers.
A scenario I see often, Car #2 brakes because he's going faster than Car #1, Car #3 panics and hits the brakes harder. This chain continues until we reach someone who was actually watching more than the car right in front of you and left enough room to ride out the wave without braking.
Traffic waves are often confused for jams as waves often bring traffic to a halt for short periods of time.
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Think about the implications for the environment. Consistent easy acceleration saving fuel and safer roads for motorcyclists.
I don't know about "consistent easy acceleration" - to the limited extent my 2012 Infiniti is self driving, it accelerates pretty nicely up to the speed I set, though I guess it's still far from full throttle. It also still makes mistakes with motorcyclists - I don't entirely trust it to understand there's a motorcycle in front of me yet, as it's sometimes slow to react, although it's fine about motorcycles beside me (sides are radar, but front is image processing from a camera, which is harder).
Traffic jams are almost a sole function of human deficiencies through overreaction and slow reaction.
No, not at
Re: Good (Score:4, Interesting)
Consistent easy acceleration saving fuel and safer roads for motorcyclists.
Safer roads for everyone. It could be programmed for optimum acceleration, but that's not where most gas is wasted. Most gas is wasted sitting at red lights, and people are particularly stupid about that, at least here in Springfield. The light ahead is red and they race to it, but slow down if it's green. You could save a lot of fuel if the computer knew when lights were going to change.
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No more ... running red lights
No more red lights at all! http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~aim/ [utexas.edu]
Autonomous Intersection Management
(Awesome traffic intersection simulation on that page)
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No more tailgating, left lane hogging, pulling out without indicating, running red lights, drunk driving or any of that other stuff the meat-based drivers keep on doing.
At least, not until the firmware-modding community gets their hands on it... :)
Re:Good (Score:5, Funny)
Heck, lower the sidewalks to street level and when nobody is on them, use them as another place to drive!
It appears that you haven't been to Italy, have you.
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Heck, lower the sidewalks to street level and when nobody is on them, use them as another place to drive!
It appears that you haven't been to Italy, have you.
I've seen this in San Francisco, right where the 101 basically dumps you into a city street.
My prediction (Score:3)
"By 2060 it will be illegal for a human to drive a vehicle in the USA".
My prediction made in 2012.
I am a nobody so no one will notice.
Re:My prediction (Score:5, Insightful)
"By 2060 it will be illegal for a human to drive a vehicle in the USA".
My prediction made in 2012.
I am a nobody so no one will notice.
A similar prediction made a few years earlier:
"Down in his barn my uncle preserved for me an old machine
For fifty odd years to keep it as new has been his dearest dream
I strip away the old debris that hides a shining car
A brilliant red Barchetta from a better vanished time
I fire up the willing engine responding with a roar
Tires spitting gravel I commit my weekly crime"
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Free up the roads for people who don't see driving as a chore and make an effort to drive properly.
Until the insurance companies and the government conspire to make manually-driven cars illegal.
Always be careful what you wish for.
And that's a problem... why? Removing humans from the equation will just make the roads safer, and allows for all kinds of useful tricks to speed up traffic (like eliminating stop lights/signs almost entirely, except where necessary for pedestrians). Everyone likes to think they're a good driver, and it's everyone else who sucks, but the reality is humans are universally terrible drivers: slow reaction times, easily distracted, sleep-deprived, temperamental: no one is actually above all that (and the more a
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Free up the roads for people who don't see driving as a chore and make an effort to drive properly.
Until the insurance companies and the government conspire to make manually-driven cars illegal.
Always be careful what you wish for.
And that's a problem... why? Removing humans from the equation will just make the roads safer, and allows for all kinds of useful tricks to speed up traffic (like eliminating stop lights/signs almost entirely, except where necessary for pedestrians). Everyone likes to think they're a good driver, and it's everyone else who sucks, but the reality is humans are universally terrible drivers: slow reaction times, easily distracted, sleep-deprived, temperamental: no one is actually above all that (and the more a person thinks they are, the more likely susceptible they likely are). We only allow human drivers because we didn't have computers that could handle it. Now, we do, or very nearly.
Some people enjoy driving. I happen to enjoy driving a motorcycle. I am not sure I would want to ride on a computer controlled motorcycle as the way you accelerate, and how far you lean in turns and things like that often depend on your current riding position is, the current center of gravity for the bike, and even the tires that you currently have on your bike (their age, build material, tread style, etc). Would I like my bike to be able to communicate with other cars on the road and tell them that I a
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...tell me when I am potentially doing something risky.
You mean like riding a motorcycle?
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No tickets? What ever will the governments do to replace that revenue?
Tax self-driving cars. Tax fueling self-driving cars. Tax by road miles. Tax for being white or non-white. Tax for being gay or non-gay. Tax for being a Baptist or Methodist, and tax for being neither. Tax, Tax, Tax,
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Tax the car, tax the street, tax the tires, tax the seat.
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Until the insurance companies and the government conspire to make manually-driven cars illegal.
Fine with me. The sooner the better.
If you want to actually control your own car, you should go to a private closed circuit track. The public roads are not the place for that.
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If you want safety, you should stay inside in your padded safe room. The world is not the place for that.
Pave the Earth! You'll be a pit slave while I drive my atomic hypercar under the light of the chromed moon.
What I don't get is (Score:5, Funny)
Interference? (Score:2)
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great so as long as no two same model cars are on the same road everything should work just fine :)
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Nissan Plans to Sell Self-Driving Cars in 6 yrs (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a better headline. To those of us over 35, we have been trained to think of 2020 as a long time from now.
Re:Nissan Plans to Sell Self-Driving Cars in 6 yrs (Score:5, Interesting)
The main obstacle isn't technological (Score:4, Informative)
The main obstacle to self-driving cars isn't technological, it's cultural. Even if they get a commercially viable product on the road in 2020, it'll be at least a generation of these things being on the roads before people become comfortable enough with the technology to trust their lives to it en mass. And that doesn't even speak to the costs involved. High end luxury cars get the tech first and it trickles down, eventually. Factor that in with the cultural issues and we're probably not going to see widespread adoption of self-driving cars until 2050 or beyond.
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The main obstacle to self-driving cars isn't technological, it's cultural. Even if they get a commercially viable product on the road in 2020, it'll be at least a generation of these things being on the roads before people become comfortable enough with the technology to trust their lives to it en mass.
That's assuming no catastrophic failures in that time period. All it will take is a couple major accidents caused by bad GPS/LIDAR/What-have-you, and back on the shelf it goes.
Hell, it wouldn't even take an actual technological failure, but merely a perceived one - remember all those incidents of "unintended acceleration" in several Toyota models? Nobody could prove that it was any sort of actual malfunction, yet Toyota sales still suffered from all the bad PR.
My issue? The potential for intentional tamperi
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That's assuming no catastrophic failures in that time period. All it will take is a couple major accidents caused by bad GPS/LIDAR/What-have-you, and back on the shelf it goes.
I disagree. The mood about this seems to be "as long as they're in fewer accidents than human drivers".
Nobody could prove that it was any sort of actual malfunction, yet Toyota sales still suffered from all the bad PR.
The same thing happened to Audi before them. It's starting to get through to people that those are fake (and the few isolated real examples haven't hurt sales much). Car companies already deal with dangerous problems that affect an entire model year today via recalls, usually with little fanfare. Most people with newer cars don't even realize how many firmware updates their dealer has done when their c
Re:The main obstacle isn't technological (Score:5, Insightful)
You're dead wrong. There'll be mass adoption as soon as people figure out you get to watch TV or go on Facebook while you're on your way to work,
Any company that has to pay drivers (taxis, buses, trucks, airport shuttles...) will also be straining at the leash waiting for this to happen. As soon as it's approved, all their drivers will be out on their asses. The companies will save so much money on wages, fuel, insurance, etc. that switching to robots will be the only way to stay competitive.
Add in the old people who can't pass the driver's medical and you're looking at a switchover measured in months for a big chunk of the population.
Sex. (Score:5, Funny)
Once people figure out that you can have sex in the car on the way to work only the lonely will still be driving.
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No, the main obstacle to self-driving cars is the law. And it's a critical issue.
Who, exactly, is at fault when a self-driving car causes an accident? The owner? The passenger? The car maker? The software programmer? No state currently has laws in place that address this issue.
And make no mistake, there WILL be accidents caused by software bugs/hardware failures.
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Anyways the question is essentially no different than saying 'cars will never go over 15 mph because they could kill somebody if something happens like a wheel falls off, and who will take the blame? The manufacturer? The garage who last serviced it? The driver?'
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Fool me once... (Score:2)
Initial Launch Market (Score:5, Insightful)
I would recommend autonomous car makers stay out of the litigious US market initially, and focus their initial launch on some place like Singapore.
It has:
1) No Snow, which is still causes difficult problem for autonomous vehicles.
2) Highly structured environment. It is a nation that essentially consists of a single, highly-organized city.
3) That single city has a government that operates as a sovereign entity, and can adapt its legal framework to accommodate the cars.
4) That sovereign entity has demonstrated itself to be business friendly (sometimes at the expense of the individual).
5) Has car owners who are accustomed to accepting extensive government regulation and oversight.
Much as I would love the idea of having a self-driving car myself, I can't see how such a thing is compatible with American Society.
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What about obstacles? (Score:2)
What if there's a squirrel, a cat, a dog or a frickin' deer on the road?
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It will stop. .. unless it's a Canyonaroe.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oG5FKsH3-F4 [youtube.com]
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A well-functioning autonomous vehicle would recognize that there was an obstacle in such a case and would immediately slow down to avoid a collision.
Although I doubt it would recognize things as small as squirrels or other tiny animals. Something the size of a deer, however, it should immediately stop for.
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Simple. If the animal is small enough to cause no damage on impact, hit it and keep going. If it is big enough to damage the vehicle, don't hit it.
If it can read road signs, it can see a deer.
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Simple. If the animal is small enough to cause no damage on impact, hit it and keep going. If it is big enough to damage the vehicle, don't hit it.
So when it sees a baby in the road, it will run over them and keep going.
Sounds good.
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Road Kill for dinner.
The amazing autonomous James Bond "Q" car will catch it, skin it, and roast it over the car engine while you drive.
When you get home, dinner will be ready to be served.
Yum, yum.
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2020? (Score:2)
The Elderly (Score:2)
It seems to me that self-driving cars would be a big deal for elderly people who are don't want to give up driving despite really being incapable of driving safely.
My First Priority (Score:2)
Having grown up in NYC and spent much of my life riding a bicycle on the streets of Manhattan, I came to the conclusion a long time ago that my first priority when riding my bicycle or driving a car is, wait for it, to not die.
Having lived and driven in many parts of the U.S. I've often been appalled at the cavalier way in which people drive. You're in a 1+ ton box of metal usually traveling at least 100km/h. Lots of ways to die in that scenario.
Perhaps others might decide that they too do not want to die
Comercial Use (Score:3)
Will autonomous vehicles have to have a driver on board? If not then delivery companies would love the idea of sacking all theirs. The public might not like having to fetch their parcels from a truck pulled up on the street outside their house, rather than have them delivered to the door, but meh.
Another thought, how long after the technology becomes commonplace before the first non-suicide truck bomb? If I can think it up, then presumably the security apparatus can also, and is right now considering this possibility; it'll be interesting to see what rules and restrictions come into force to try and prevent it.
If i could just retrofit it on (Score:2)
I'm sure it will all work out fine (Score:2)
Meanwhile, I'm glad I drive a pickup. My next one, bought in three or four years, will probably last me until I don't need to worry about driving any more.
Re:Annoying (Score:5, Insightful)
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So because the car's going to follow the law, you're upset?
The quickest way to create a traffic jam and an immense road hazard is to follow every driving law to the letter.
In the past, truck drivers have done this when they want to make a statement about a new law they don't like. All it takes is one for each lane. Each truck going exactly the truck speed limit (often lower than auto). The backup goes for miles. Even if they obey a law that prohibits trucks in the left-most lane of a more than 2 lane freeway, it still blocks traffic quite well.
If every autodriv
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If the "flow of traffic" is speeding, I don't really give a damn. I will drive at the posted limit, barring slippery road conditions that necessitate I need to drive slower.
If somebody rear-ends me, my insurance company will happily sue them while I get my car repaired at no cost to myself.
Re:Annoying (Score:4, Insightful)
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No, they're really not. In most states that's actually explicit - you can get a ticket for "impeding the flow of traffic" or somesuch if you drive at the speed limit in the left lane when the natural flow of traffic is faster. Yes, that does mean the police can give you a ticket either way, which shouldn't surprise you at this point.
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The laws mainly target multiple people driving side-by-side at the speed limit as some sort of protest, but yeah I'm sure it depends on jurisdiction.
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It probably depends on your jurisdiction... where I live, you'd *NEVER* get a ticket for "impeding flow of traffic" if you were driving the speed limit, regardless of which lane you were in.
I've never seen someone get a ticket for this in the US, even though I believe they should. I've heard from friends in Germany that they will ticket a driver impeding traffic over one who is speeding, when both violations are visible to the officer.
Re:Annoying (Score:4, Insightful)
There is no rule that says the left lane is for speeding.
The left lane is NOT a speeding lane. It is not you personal driving lane. It is not their responsibility that you can't drive legally.
Suck it up and stop causing accident, you jerk.
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There is no rule that says the left lane is for speeding.
The left lane is NOT a speeding lane. It is not you personal driving lane. It is not their responsibility that you can't drive legally.
Suck it up and stop causing accident, you jerk.
Righteous indignation is stronger that the fucking "slower traffic keep right" signs and laws, I guess. BTW, the posted speed limits are always 5-10 MPH LESS than the speed that is considered safe for any road. The "cheat" is built into the system. Anyone who insists on staying under the posted limit and feels it their duty to slow down traffic behind them should seriously consider changing their meds.
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There is no rule that says the left lane is for speeding.
The left lane is NOT a speeding lane. It is not you personal driving lane. It is not their responsibility that you can't drive legally.
Suck it up and stop causing accident, you jerk.
Reading this is funny considering that for me, the left lane is the outside lane.
But your point stands. There is no designated speeding lane. Some laws dictate that you cant be in the inside lane if you're not overtaking but this varies.
Generally speaking though, on any dual carriageway (multi lane road) its just common god damn courtesy to not drive in the inside lane without a good reason (overtaking, turning, etc...). Courtesy isn't codified in law, but it's still a good bloody idea. The inside lan
It's the only way (Score:2)
If we drive slow enough to follow another car at a safe distance, throughput suffers. If we travel higher speeds, we have to reduce the distance between cars and throughput also suffers. You could add more lanes, but the costs would be enormous on average. You could try to force people to drive s
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Autonomous cars will allow tailgating and higher speeds, with much less risk, raising the effective traffic load to 3 cars per second, which is a 50% increase in throughput, without adding more lanes, going to double-decker limos for everyone, etc.
No, they won't, outside of Ideal Driverless Car Utopia.
What happens when the car at the front slams on its brakes, and your car can't stop as fast because the pads are worn and the owner hasn't bothered to keep up with regular maintenance?
Oops. You crash. Then many of the cars behind crash too.
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Won't be any worse than the same thing happening with human drivers today. But human or computer, if the guy behind you isn't stopping fast enough, and there's still room in front of you, you can brake a bit less, till all the slack is gone. I used to do that quite often when I drove a sports car, to avoid being rear-ended when traffic suddenly stopped, but a computer could get it right every time.
It's the mix of computer and human drivers that will cause problems, especially when humans start exploiting
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The answer is obvious.... Drive faster!
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Ah yes... the ancient tactic of insulting a person you disagree with to somehow discredit their position.
How quaint.
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Autonomous cars will improve traffic considerably, because they can safely tailgate other autonomous cars.
Have you considered not driving like an asshole?
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IT will be within n their tolerance to stop, unlike that human jerk behind you.
You're the problem, not them. (Score:5, Interesting)
All these cars will religiously follow the speed limit, boxing up roads and not permitting those of us who are in a rush to get around them. The road rage will cause accidents, I guarantee that.
Learn to let go, then. The problem isn't the law-abiding the drivers. It's the high strung ones.
I've driven in states where the standard is to speed heavily, and I've driven in states where the standard is to go the speed limit. In my experience, there's a lot less road rage when people are going the speed limit. There's less variation in speed when everyone is following the same standard, which means less people tailgating, less lane changes to pass, and less people cutting each other off.
For me, eliminating the "must get there quicker" mentality sharply decreased my aggression when driving. I am a *much* better driver now than I was when I was younger and treating the highway like a personal race track and getting frustrated when someone got in the way of going the speed I wanted to go. Being forced to go the speed limit taught me to chill and let go of the little irritations that are the seeds of road rage.
So, I say bring on the fleet of law-abiding autonomous vehicles. Maybe it'll teach the rest of you to cool your frigging heads. (And to get off my lawn!)
Re:You're the problem, not them. (Score:4, Informative)
What most people commenting on this don't realize is that roads will be less congested. A lot of time savings will be squeezed out of slowing and accellerating in heavier traffic as computers will avoid this dynamic process caused by lack of info in human drivers and slowness of response in human drivers.
When a big group of cars all know they are computer-controlled they can move as a unit with less worry some idiot 3 cars ahead will slam on he brakes.
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I am a *much* better driver now than I was when I was younger and treating the highway like a personal race track and getting frustrated when someone got in the way of going the speed I wanted to go.
Yes, but...
Now that you are older, aren't you going to die in the nearer term future than younger persons? I would think that would cause you to want to speed up, since you don't have that much time left, and every minute wasted on the road is another minute you aren't going to be spending with family and friends.
Whenever I see an old person going 60 MPH in the left lane in a 65MPH zone, I ask myself "Don't they realize they don't have that much time left?".
Whenever I see someone younger doing the same thi
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Now that you are older, aren't you going to die in the nearer term future than younger persons? I would think that would cause you to want to speed up, since you don't have that much time left, and every minute wasted on the road is another minute you aren't going to be spending with family and friends.
Pfft, no. See, I used to make what's about a 75 minute drive at the speed limit every weekend to see my family. The difference between driving at the speed limit or driving 10-15 MPH over was only about 10 minutes or so. The difference in how long it takes me to get home from work or vice versa at those speeds is at most The risk of injury or tickets isn't worth that. Those minutes can be taken out of other things that don't cost my safety, and I think my loved ones would appreciate me still being ar
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Re: You're the problem, not them. (Score:4, Informative)
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HAHAHAHA! I can't believe you're being modded up with this delusional advice. If they don't have insurance, and it's a fender bender as you say, they will try to drive away. I have seen it happen before.
Thanks for the fairy tale version of events though.
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Re: You're the problem, not them. (Score:5, Insightful)
If I go the speed limit in my area, I'll get rear ended. The speed limts in my area's highway are set 10mph lower than average people actually go, seemingly put in as a way for cops to rake in cash.
The highway speeds in my state are pretty much the same as the rest of the country as far as I've seen when driving across it: 65-70 MPH on long interstates between cities, 55 MPH on interstates in urban areas, and 45 MPH on "highways" that actually have businesses along the side of them. I've been in 23 states, and I haven't really seen any that deviate much from that -- except mountainous areas and parts of Utah (where it's 80 MPH). The difference isn't the posted numbers; the difference is the enforcement and the driving culture.
Where I live, no one is going to actually hit your car for driving the speed limit. They'll just get on your tail and ride you. As long as you stay out of the left lane, that's probably all you'll ever see. If you don't, you may get flashing headlights or people zipping around you and cutting you off on the way back into the lane. After all, they don't really want to get into an accident either, much less one where they're at fault; they just want to express their displeasure in a passive-aggressive way.
So, I think your fears are a bit overblown there. Stop giving into peer pressure. Or at least, minimize the amount you do give in. I do about 5 over in the right lane, and I only get tailgated maybe about 2-3 times a day. I'm on cruise control, so I just ignore them and get on with my life, and they usually pass eventually.
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All these cars will religiously follow the speed limit, boxing up roads and not permitting those of us who are in a rush to get around them. The road rage will cause accidents, I guarantee that.
These accidents will likely be mostly minor fender-benders that result in the road-ragers losing their licenses (unless, of course, they get a self-driving car.) Or, That, and you'd also probably see road-ragers driving themselves off the road and into fixed objects. The automatic cars'll generally do a pretty good job of avoiding serious collisions--far better than even a reasonably skillled human driver could.
If a person is so lacking in maturity and self-control that they'd start ramming automated cars f
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Re:Annoying (Score:4, Insightful)
You are causing the accidents. YOU are rushing. YOU are driving unsafe. YOU are risking other behind you.
It's not everyone else fault you can't get to work on time. If you cant control it, then you should have your license revoked until you have attended anger management classes.
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You're a pretty good example for future laws mandating certain "drivers" only being in autonomous cars. If you can't handle the rules of driving because you're in a hurry, you should not be behind the wheel.
Re: Annoying (Score:5, Insightful)
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Next, if they are bumper on bumper, there is actually no speed difference. Even if the first car brakes a little bit harder than the following car, there will be no damage at all; the second car would just be pushing the first one a little bit.
You be surprised how easily you can lose control with a very slight tap or push from the rear, especially as you begin heavy braking. You can compensate somewhat by designing the car around the need to do this, but it's a hard problem. Even a fairly weak pull or push from the rear has a magnified effect in making the care more or less stable in braking and cornering.
Re:Taxi Drivers and Truckers (Score:5, Insightful)
Freight hauling would be a great use-case for these ... no mandatory rest periods which means much more effective use of time getting from location to location. If larger roads had dedicated freight lanes where the effective speed limit could be lower, then the extra "drive time" could be used to conserve fuel and road damage by operating freight vehicles at something a bit lower than typical highway speed.
Re: (Score:3)