I think the discussion on self driving cars here is very short sighted. I think it will be the most exciting development in personal transportation over the next 20 years. I think the situation will develop like this:
Initially, the cars will just emulate humans that are good drivers. They will be polite, paying attention, following the rules, and have faster reactions than humans. They will slow down when traffic slows, they will stop at stop signs, etc. Since they are paying attention all the time, that automatically puts them in the top 50% of drivers. Their biggest challenge will be dodging the crazy humans around them. During this time, they will also have to figure out where the road is, when completely covered with snow. That's a challenge for humans sometimes. As the number of self driving cars increases, their environment will become more predictable. Eventually, there will be a back channel wireless communication system that lets the cars contact the other vehicles in the area. That is when things get really interesting. If a car doesn't answer back to inquiries, it must be human driven and the cars will leave it a larger margin of space for unpredictable actions, and follow human driving rules. If all cars are self driving, they can operate by different rules. For example: - On a green light, all cars rollout together. No need to wait for the car ahead. Each car knows when they will all roll. - Approaching a 4 way stop, the cars negotiate crossing order ahead of time and go through without stopping. - Merging from 3 lanes down to 2 can be done efficiently, without all the backups, delays and jockeying that happens now. - Cars up ahead on the road can warn following cars that a deer has been spotted. That allows them to start adjusting before their sensors detect it. I am sure this is just scratching the surface. Imagine how things could change when every car is in contact with the others, and can count on full cooperation to do as expected. Mike On April 6, 2015 12:09:33 PM MDT, Electric Blue auto convertions via EV <ev@lists.evdl.org> wrote: >The day Im forced to get into a self driving car is when I take my shot >gun and blow it away . the very thought if a SDC makes me vomit >-------------- next part -------------- >An HTML attachment was scrubbed... >URL: ><http://lists.evdl.org/private.cgi/ev-evdl.org/attachments/20150406/c4b4c2e5/attachment.htm> >_______________________________________________ >UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub >http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org >For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA >(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA) _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
