Thread: NYT: Google Cars Drive Themselves, in Traffic

i guess i can see how many people would like this, but i still enjoy driving my own car..

one thing that wasn't mentioned is the reliance on this technology-- while it was mentioned that it would need to be much more reliable then current computers, what happens when the car is supposed to stop/slow down, but doesn't and the human occupants are busy doing something else?

i think everyone has seen how many people rely on cell phones, is it really a good thing to transfer that same reliance to something that travels at high speeds and weighs around 2-tons?

I'm just did a 9 hour drive yesterday, so I'm kind of biased right now, but yes - It would have been nice for the car to drive itself for a while.

I do like driving, though, so I wouldn't want the car to do it all the time.

The answer to your first question is pretty obvious - people get hurt.

The second question depends on how reliable the cars and computers are. They will have to be very reliable if this is going to be more common. I'm assuming that cars will actually turn out to be better at this than humans - on my drive I saw at least two cars without their headlights on after the sun went down, and only one could be because of their DRLs. This was on a busy interstate. I think cars would be programmed to know better.

Wow!

I'm not surprised that this is now possible I'm more amazed that google reviewed the law and decided that since using an autonomous car [or a "driving aid"] wasn't explicitly illegal they'd just go ahead and use the roads to test it. now THAT'S how you get stuff done!

The point they bring up about who's fault an accident becomes is really is a great question, law tends to get written only when necessary [ie. after a problem] so this should be interesting.

Our environment is almost entirely made in ways that make it easy for US to get around, we easily recognize lines on the roads, we can climb stairs. To fully integrate such radical new technologies, like autonomous cars, we may need to begin building things that are not only usable by us but also by other technologies. A small example could be putting some sort of transmitter in all paved roads so that cars can receive information like mileage, upcoming intersections, traffic light patterns, accidents/traffic ahead, or even the closest rest room. This would also mean the car doesn't have to rely on "seeing" the lines on the road painted for humans.

I fully support a smarter world, but smarter doesn't have to mean lazier.

In the UK we've had a self driving car for years, but nobody is interested in it as it's more of an exercise than something that's going to be in mainstream automotive development.

Like with the self park features on some cars, great idea, costs a packet and nobody uses it lol.

I can imagine it coming in to use for commercial vehicles maybe but it's a long way off yet!

Reminds me of I, Robot- no thanks lol.

Most people buy cars because of it's performance and handling, and it's a common complaint in the UK that many powerful cars have an auto trans now rather than a good manual box! If you told them that their entire car is an auto I think they'd go else where lol!

There's actually a stretch of interstate in cali a couple miles long with special magnets embedded into it. One of the universities (I think it's Carnegie Mellon) uses it for testing autonomous cars. Its been around for a while now, I think late 90's.

I've seen some footage of it, it's pretty cool. they have 10-20 cars going really fast with maybe 2 or 3 inches between each car. and all the drivers are just hanging out, reading the news paper, chatting on phones, its pretty cool to see.