Autonomous Cars Will Save Money and Lives

cartechboy writes "Autonomous cars are coming even if tech companies have to produce them. The biggest hurdles are the technology (very expensive and often still surprisingly rudimentary) and how vehicle to vehicle (V2V) communication happens (one car anticipates or sees an accident, it should tell nearby cars). So what are the benefits to self-driving cars? They may save us thousands of lives and not a small amount of cash. A new study from the Eno Center for Transportation (PDF) suggests that if just 10 percent of vehicles on the road were autonomous, the U.S. could see 1,000 fewer highway fatalities annually and save $38 billion in lost productivity (due to congestion and other traffic problems). Right off the bat you can imagine autonomous driving easily topping your average intoxicated drivers' ability behind the wheel. At a 90 percent adoption mark those same numbers in theory would become: 21,700 lives spared, and a whopping $447 billion saved."

38 billion in productivity or

[geekoid]

30 minutes more sleeping?

Re:I like my A4 2T 6 speed

[Spy Handler]

And when you plow into a pedestrian in your Audi A4 while checking a Facebook message, better call Saul!

If cars were like computers...

[Shompol]

This is very old, but in some wierd way relevant. In fact, #10 already materialized.

If cars were like computers [york.ac.uk]
If General Motors had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:

1. 1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.
2. 2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.
3. 3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull over to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason, you would simply accept this.
4. 4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.
5. 5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive -- but would run on only five percent of the roads.
6. 6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single "General Protection Fault" warning light.
7. 7. The airbag system would ask "Are you sure?" before deploying.
8. 8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.
9. 9. Every time GM introduced a new car, car buyers would have to learn to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.
10. 10. You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off.

Re:It already exists!

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps, but then you have to sit next to people.

And some of them might be xenophobes!