Lamenting the decline of the car

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by VANRIDERFAN

Where I plan to live after retirement, I'll be dead and buried long before they have autonomous vehicles roaming about the area and scaring the horses.

You guys and your fucking utopias.....

Is this you?

[MonctonRad]

Be nice.

I agree with Vanriderfan, "Utopias" are very rarely ideal societies, and are often totalitarian. Most utopias are in fact dystopias and are characterized by the tyranny of the majority, enforcement of uniformity, the suppression of individuality and the glorification of mediocrity.

[esquire]

I find it curious that some here are so attached to the act of driving cars to the point of taking umbrage at the mere thought of self-driving vehicles. Everyone realizes that they still get to control where the self-driving vehicles go, right?!?

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by esquire

Everyone realizes that they still get to control where the self-driving vehicles go, right?!?

I'm not so certain they will have this executive control function over the vehicle.

You will be able to tell the car where you want to go, but not necessarily how to get there. I also imagine any creative detours or self exploration will be greatly discouraged.

I have no problem with autonomous vehicles, just so long as it is left up to the discretion of the operator whether or not to disengage autonomous control and assume manual control over the vehicle.

[GreaterMontréal]

Originally Posted by esquire

I find it curious that some here are so attached to the act of driving cars to the point of taking umbrage at the mere thought of self-driving vehicles. Everyone realizes that they still get to control where the self-driving vehicles go, right?!?

Sitting passenger side is nowhere near as fun as driving and having the control of the steering wheel. It's as boring as taking the bus.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by VANRIDERFAN

Where I plan to live after retirement, I'll be dead and buried long before they have autonomous vehicles roaming about the area and scaring the horses.

You guys and your fucking utopias.....

Do autonomous vehicles scare horses more than regular ones? I'd have thought it would be the opposite.

True (not political) conservatives are funny people, as they are literally always wrong in the end when they want to stop progress. They similarly feared the steam trains in 1800's England would scare the horses, or cause women to miscarry. England built the steam trains anyway. They wanted cars to have someone walk ahead with a flag for safety, and that was ignored too. Now today's conservatives are scared about the end of the car, when if they were alive in 1920 they'd be the exact same people lamenting the end of horse based transportation and trying to stop the introduction of cars.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by GreaterMontréal

Sitting passenger side is nowhere near as fun as driving and having the control of the steering wheel. It's as boring as taking the bus.

Maybe that's so for a drive down the Pacific Coast Highway near Big Sur, but are you really missing that much "fun" by not having to putt along in stop and go traffic on the way to work at 7:30 on a Tuesday morning?

[GreaterMontréal]

Originally Posted by esquire

Maybe that's so for a drive down the Pacific Coast Highway near Big Sur, but are you really missing that much "fun" by not having to putt along in stop and go traffic on the way to work at 7:30 on a Tuesday morning?

I redline my car everyday going home from work.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

I'm not so certain they will have this executive control function over the vehicle.

You will be able to tell the car where you want to go, but not necessarily how to get there. I also imagine any creative detours or self exploration will be greatly discouraged.

I have no problem with autonomous vehicles, just so long as it is left up to the discretion of the operator whether or not to disengage autonomous control and assume manual control over the vehicle.

You should be less worried about the tech than the laws and the insurance sector. AVs are getting better at reducing road fatalities every year. Eventually, we will reach a point where either the government mandates autonomy in the same manner as back up cameras and seat belts, or (more likely) the insurance sector will refuse to insure any non-AV or charge a King's ransom to insure any vehicle with the ability to disable the automation.

[GreaterMontréal]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

You should be less worried about the tech than the laws and the insurance sector. AVs are getting better at reducing road fatalities every year. Eventually, we will reach a point where either the government mandates autonomy in the same manner as back up cameras and seat belts, or (more likely) the insurance company to refuse to insure anybody without an AV or charge an order of magnitude more than an AV.

We will end up in a world where only the rich people will have the money to self drive their cars. ''Poor'' people won't have the money to be ''free'', they will have to buy driverless cars because of insurance, I agree.

[drew]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

You should be less worried about the tech than the laws and the insurance sector. AVs are getting better at reducing road fatalities every year. Eventually, we will reach a point where either the government mandates autonomy in the same manner as back up cameras and seat belts, or (more likely) the insurance sector will refuse to insure any non-AV or charge an order of magnitude more than an AV.

Where? There aren't any AVs on the road where I live. And there certainly aren't enough of them around to make any kind of accurate quantitative assessment.

IMO - AV's and normal cars will not be able to coexist on the same road, or at least not without some sort of moderate separation. I.e. AV lanes or something of that sort.

Anyway - this kind of AV talk is SO far down the road, if it happens at all, we are all just throwing darts at the board IMO.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by GreaterMontréal

I redline my car everyday going home from work.

orly?

I strongly suspect that the most stalwart opponents of self-driving cars are exactly the kind of people we'd be better off not having behind the wheel. In other words, people who view driving as a real-life video game.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by esquire

I strongly suspect that the most stalwart opponents of self-driving cars are exactly the kind of people we'd be better off not having behind the wheel. In other words, people who view driving as a real-life video game.

Well, I personally am a cautious driver, and have never been in an accident where it was considered my fault. No accidents at all for the last 20 years.

I just prefer having the right to explore and to navigate around my city, my province and my country without having to rely on some form of artificial intelligence controlling me every step of the way.

I agree that the real villains in this story in the end will be the insurance companies. I suspect that at some point in the future (20 years or so), insurance companies will refuse to cover you for any accidents incurred during manual control situations. They will be able to determine this by checking on your cars "black box" after the accident. This more than anything else will govern driving behaviour in the future. I think that while manual control options will still exist for some time, that eventually this feature will be used less and less frequently, usually only on low volume country roads, and eventually will disappear.

Thankfully I will be long since dead by this point.

[logan5]

“Hey Siri, turn left on Oak Street”. I can’t imagine it would be any harder than that.

[GreaterMontréal]

Originally Posted by esquire

orly?

I strongly suspect that the most stalwart opponents of self-driving cars are exactly the kind of people we'd be better off not having behind the wheel. In other words, people who view driving as a real-life video game.

I don't drive over the limit that much. I follow the trafic. On the A-15, 130km/h is normal and even a Smart can go that fast. The fun,it's about the acceleration and handling, and the noise. In the city I live in I see plenty of very expensive cars, fast cars and they redline their engine without being a danger to others. Cars that have a lot of HP, naturally aspirated, need to rev high to get the max power out of the engine. Tesla's are fast and some drivers are pushing their cars to the limit and they are the most advanced technologically.

[ssiguy]

Even if the technology is perfected, I would never want a self-driving car. I, like millions of others, like driving. I like being 'in the driver's seat', speeding, running yellows, doing LA stops, U-turns, and basically anything else I can get away with yet I still have a flaw-less driving record. You name me anyone who doesn't do most of those things on a regular basis and I will show you a pathological liar.

Yes, I can see it being very beneficial for very long and boring cross-country car trips, the elderly, and the disabled and that is great but for most people I think it's an option that they won't employ. We have a love-hate relationship with our cars but it is very much a relationship.

Of course the issue of insurance has yet to be tackled. Right now our insurance rates are personal...........the better you are, the less you pay. The driver is penalised when they cause an accident and not the passengers but with self-driving cars how can the driver be held as responsible when they too are now not a driver but a passenger? Does that mean, assuming you keep your car in good repair, the auto makers will be held financially responsibly for any accidents?. Good luck with that.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by GreaterMontréal

I don't drive over the limit that much. I follow the trafic. On the A-15, 130km/h is normal and even a Smart can go that fast. The fun,it's about the acceleration and handling, and the noise. In the city I live in I see plenty of very expensive cars, fast cars and they redline their engine without being a danger to others. Cars that have a lot of HP, naturally aspirated, need to rev high to get the max power out of the engine. Tesla's are fast and some drivers are pushing their cars to the limit and they are the most advanced technologically.

"Everybody else does it too!"


You're making a great case for mandating automation. At minimum in highly populated/high traffic areas.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Of course the issue of insurance has yet to be tackled. Right now our insurance rates are personal...........the better you are, the less you pay. The driver is penalised when they cause an accident and not the passengers but with self-driving cars how can the driver be held as responsible when they too are now not a driver but a passenger?

Fleets would have their own insurance.

And for personal driving it's likely to be owner pays. Which won't be a big deal because the likelihood of an AV causing an accident is lower than a human driver doing so.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Even if the technology is perfected, I would never want a self-driving car. I, like millions of others, like driving. I like being 'in the driver's seat', speeding, running yellows, doing LA stops, U-turns, and basically anything else I can get away with yet I still have a flaw-less driving record. You name me anyone who doesn't do most of those things on a regular basis and I will show you a pathological liar.

Yes, I can see it being very beneficial for very long and boring cross-country car trips, the elderly, and the disabled and that is great but for most people I think it's an option that they won't employ. We have a love-hate relationship with our cars but it is very much a relationship.

Of course the issue of insurance has yet to be tackled. Right now our insurance rates are personal...........the better you are, the less you pay. The driver is penalised when they cause an accident and not the passengers but with self-driving cars how can the driver be held as responsible when they too are now not a driver but a passenger?

If you are in a taxi do you enjoy it if the driver drives like you describe? Speaking as someone who also drives the way you do sometimes. Driving in an impatient manner may fill a desire if you are the driver, but as soon as you are a passenger it becomes annoying. And it really is not a big part of ones day to day enjoyment, it's a throwaway pleasure you won't remember 30 seconds later.

This is all going to happen so slowly, if ever in our lifetimes, there's no need to worry anyway. By the time the "right" (not a right) to drive is taken away from people, we will be so comfortable with the technology that it won't be a big deal to move to something better.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by drew

Where? There aren't any AVs on the road where I live. And there certainly aren't enough of them around to make any kind of accurate quantitative assessment.

They aren't where you live. But there are trials in various jurisdictions and there's data from companies like Tesla which show a lower rate of accidents and fatalities while under automation. They may be highly publicized failures, but the broad trend holds and the tech is getting better every year. The human driver? Not so much.