Japan Trials Driverless Cars In Bid To Keep Rural Elderly On the Move (reuters.com) 59
According to Reuters, Japan is starting to experiment with self-driving buses in rural communities such as Nishikata, 71 miles (115 km) north of the capital, Tokyo, where elderly residents struggle with fewer bus and taxi services as the population ages and shrinks. From the report: The swift advance of autonomous driving technology is prompting cities such as Paris and Singapore to experiment with such services, which could prove crucial in Japan, where populations are not only greying, but declining, in rural areas.Japan could launch self-driving services for remote communities by 2020, if the trials begun this month prove successful. The government plans to turn highway rest stops into hubs from which to ferry the elderly to medical, retail and banking services. In the initial trials of the firm's driverless six-seater Robot Shuttle, elderly residents of Nishikata, in Japan's Tochigi prefecture, were transferred between a service area and a municipal complex delivering healthcare services. The test also checked the vehicle's operational safety in road conditions ranging from puddles to fallen debris, and if those crossing its path would react to the warning it emits.
Which is it? (Score:2)
A car, or a bus? Sheesh...
Re: Which is it? (Score:2)
Read the summary and title. Sheesh...
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Where does the dividing line come?
Here in the US most of our roadways were designed around cars. Even in older cities, the pre-automobile streets tend to be wider than their counterparts in older, say European cities. That's what drives our mania for large cars that simply would be impractical in many countries.
Japan has a lot of ancient roadways that are extremely narrow and sometimes windy. This has prompted the evolution of motor vehicles that seem amusingly tiny [youtube.com] to American eyes, but are in fact the o
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Also, at least among the older Japanese, smaller body sizes are more common. But don't assume their larger people are any smaller than the ones you know, unless you know some professional basketball or football players. Even then...the Japanese also produce Sumo wrestlers.
But on the average older Japanese are smaller than older USians, so smaller vehicles are appropriate.
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6 passengers and we'd probably call it a van, in the US.
The headline says cars, the summary says buses. I'm not actually sure it's either.
Re:How about not sticking the elderly in nursing h (Score:5, Funny)
How about developing robots to care for the elderly so we don't have to send them to cruel nursing homes that kill them?
How about developing mecha for the elderly that allow them to walk to the shops and, if necessary, tear the roof off in order to find that brand of potato bun they like so much?
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That was the plot of an anime whose name I forget now... Some kind of robot bed for the elderly with a neural interface that naturally also transforms into a giant mech when required.
It was an interesting movie. There were elderly hackers, the guys who cut their teeth in the 80s and 90s and then got old, but still retained their skills and love of exploration and tinkering.
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If you find a title for this, please point it out. As one of "the guys who cut their teeth in the 80s and 90s and then got old", a mecha suit instead of retirement sounds wonderful.
Roujin Z (Score:4, Informative)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Thanks, I might track down a copy.
Re:How about not sticking the elderly in nursing h (Score:5, Informative)
Most of those fucking places are inhumane, where the elderly get hidden away to die, in a corner, out of sight. Fuck those places. How about developing robots to care for the elderly so we don't have to send them to cruel nursing homes that kill them? Driverless cars are fine, but let's do more.
Yeah, I'm pissed. My grandmother died in a fucking nursing home a few days ago, most likely due to them being incredibly negligent. Develop robots and put those homes out of business.
I cook in a nursing home. I can tell you that most of people who work there care deeply about the well being of the people they serve. I know I do. It is very sad indeed that there are care facility companies that take advantage of the elderly. But the same goes for the US prison system.
What I can tell you is that some good non profit care facilities that make it easy for the relatives to help in the care process have much better levels of care than the ones that charge more and essentially are just there to make money for the share holders. Then there are ones that are just plain bad and need to be reorganized or put out of business like the one that just killed seniors from heat stroke in Florida by not providing adequate emergency power and staffing to keep the residents hydrated and safe! With a working hospital right next door for Gods sake!
The problems with caring for seniors is a complex and difficult situation and the more the profit motive dictates care models the more shoddy the care will become. Same as the irresponsible patent drug companies that fleece the health care system for all they can grab. I am deeply sorry that your grandmother died in a care facility and the passing was not a good death, I have seen this and had a father who died miserably while under care. But this does not mean that there are not good people working to make a difference.
Japan has much greater respect for the elderly than we do and we can learn a great deal from what they do as the average age of the population increases. Robots and robotic mobility is one possible adjunct to future care but without help from relatives, responsible institutions (in the best sense of the word) and professional care givers who truly care all the devices in the world will not make a difference.
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Re: How about not sticking the elderly in nursing (Score:2)
At least in prison, inmates have done something wrong to get them there. The only thing people in nursing homes have done is live long enough to lose the ability to care for themselves.
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Re: How about not sticking the elderly in nursing (Score:2)
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You know what, it *IS* a step up.
My wife was in a "nursing home" for a couple of weeks before she died, and I'm rather sure that they were using cut rate medicines that were counterfeit, and totally certain that they didn't verify that she took the medicine. (When she was out of her head, they'd just leave the medicine there for her. Sometimes I was able to get her to take them, but I couldn't be there 24 hours a day.)
She was doing reasonably well in the hospital, so they transferred her to a "nursing hom
wrong problem... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:wrong problem... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is really about urbanization, not population changes, and it's not limited to Japan.
The issue is that young people leave rural areas - for school, higher education, jobs - and don't return. Cities grow while rural areas shrink, and eventually the population becomes too small and too sparse to support a good range of public services. Similar things are happening in Europe and in north America as well.
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Japan does have a specific problem with people not having children though. It's basically too expensive, and even though they strengthened maternity rights at work women still feel unable to balance children and a career. There are also more and more men who have little interest in children, or even women at all, instead preferring otaku (nerd) culture. Note that they are not like western incels though, they don't hate women.
Japanese culture is particularly bad for this stuff. There is a culture of being se
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I agree low birthrates is a problem (although the reasons are principally economical rather than social). I live in Japan and see this first hand.
Low birth rates is not the cause of the rural depopulation, though. That has been an ongoing trend since long before the population stopped growing; and it's a trend in countries whose populations are stable or still growing at present.
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Actually, the Japanese *do* dislike "foreigners" living there. So do most countries (or Trump would never have been elected) but the Japanese are a bit extreme...possibly because they have long been an island, and have repelled repeated invasions. But native Japanese of Korean ancestry who have lived there from multiple generations are still strongly discriminated against, even though *I*, as a Caucasian teenager, was not able to tell the difference by looking. (OTOH, I believe that those in the US with
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Japanese culture tries hard to avoid embarrassment, and dealing with foreigners can often lead to it. However, once you indicate that you understand this people are generally quite nice and helpful.
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And don't tell a Japanese that his precious islands where colonized via Korea :D
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Japan does have a specific problem with people not having children though. It's basically too expensive, and even though they strengthened maternity rights at work women still feel unable to balance children and a career. There are also more and more men who have little interest in children, or even women at all, instead preferring otaku (nerd) culture. Note that they are not like western incels though, they don't hate women.
The after Fukushima government issued warnings not to have children in the danger z
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and eventually the population becomes too small and too sparse to support a good range of public services. ...
In the US, where public service is a communist thing
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I think their approach is excellent. Driverless and driver-assisted cars could give freedom of movement to a lot of people who otherwise wouldn't qualify for driving. That includes a lot of people who are already/still on the road. Heck, imagine being able to drink and drive again!
Sloppy writing or geographical cluelessness? (Score:2)
cities such as Paris and Singapore to experiment with such services, which could prove crucial in Japan
Decide for yourself.
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Great (Score:2)
My impression is that right now driverless cars are extremely safe (i.e. much safer than a human) in most circumstances. But in certain circumstances, like rain or snow or sunset, they are still quite unsafe.
So you can set up a driverless car service now, and only allow it to run when it's safe (which is probably more than 90% of the time).
90% availability is unacceptable for the average consumer. But for elderly people who would otherwise not be able to move at all (and tend to have flexible schedules, bei
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To Keep Rural Elderly On the Move (Score:1)
Dunno why, but I got a mental image of these cars lurking behind trees and chasing old people to make sure they got plenty of exercise.
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I had a similar image, only it was the car lurching forward a few feet each time the elderly got close...
Autonomous car/bus in my future (Score:2)
I'm getting older and I'm hoping that autonomous vehicles will improve rapidly enough so that I can still get around as my faculties deteriorate. (Although my mom is 93 and still drives so there is hope.)