Someone offers to chauffeur you through an hour of stop and go rush hour traffic, or a ten hour marathon on a deadly dull interstate. You can read, sleep, surf the web, whatever. Are you really going to complain that he drives the 65 mph speed limit instead of 75 mph?

Yes maybe, but my point is that you let your car drive you around all the time.
Dont you think you will (more or less) lose your good skills to drive manually at some point.


Edit: sorry, I didnt notice that there was one more page!

Those are assist-tools, you are still supposed to keep your hands on the wheel. It is scaring me a little bit that there are people out there thinking of those assist-tools as "AV".
I know that some makes have sensors in the wheel so that they can prove that it is not the car causing a crash but the driver not keeping the hands on the wheel.

Yes, that is the way the human works I think. ;)

And nope, you are still supposed the be alert to take over in case of emergency ... no sleeping, browsing the web and such.

Very true! I always keep my hands loosely on the wheel,(perhaps my previous statement was not exactly accurate) allowing the car to drive. I believe Volvo requires you to have your hands on the wheel. Occasionally both of our cars will flash a warning "Steering Required" which makes me think.......is it assist or AV?

For several years recently, I rode my bicycle to work every day, and only drove maybe once a week, to shop or to take a kid to something on the weekend. I didn't lose my ability to drive, although I was the mellowest and, yes, slowest driver you'll ever see. (Now my job location doesn't allow me to ride, so I drive every day, and I'm back to being an impatient tailgater, not to mention fat).

So that's for experienced drivers. I agree that a new driver, who gets an AI car and only drives manually a few times a year, will never become an experienced driver. Does it matter? If he hardly ever drives, he's not much of a threat. Surely the 2 days a year when he's manually driving are far outweighed by the 363 days a year when the AI is driving.

Or maybe he will choose to drive manually more often, and will eventually become an experienced driver. Perhaps there will be two groups of people, those who let the AI drive and those who prefer to drive themselves. Like some people drive cars and other ride motorcycles.

Does not matter in which way you participate in the traffic. Riding a bike also requires you to stay alert.
I dont mean that people cannot drive anymore, but they will lose the ability to focus on the important things in traffic and they will lose to be alert, they will react in a wrong way in dangerous situations.
They will focus on the mobile devices.
IMHO

LOL, yeah!
Mercedes is already thinking a lot ahead.
They are already predicting that having a car with steering wheel will be "in" as having an AV will be for some time.
So the "wheel keeps turning" and we will be back to non-AV again in some years.


Personally I dont think the AV will be of a long success.
Here in Germany people scream if they cannot disable features like track control and such. There is a virtual speed limit at 250km/h here. Of course you can override this in all high end cars.

Most urban dwellers simply won't be buying cars. It won't make economic sense to own a depreciable asset that sits in a parking stall 90% of the time, when an equally convenient driverless car-sharing program is available.

This might be true for large cities.
I hate car-sharing. I want my own convenient surrounding, my own music, my own smells, my own time.

I wouldn't like it. I like to pass other cars.

Nearly unlimited product liability caused general aviation aircraft manufacturers to stop building light aircraft in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Aircraft companies essentially had unlimited liability for all accidents and for an unlimited period of time, even if they were not the negligent party. It took Congress approving the General Aviation Revitalization Act in 1994 that limited their product liability for them to restart production. Stop and think about that for a moment, the legal burden was so extreme that they actually quit building their products. Now think about that in the context of self driving cars. The auto industry is going to introduce self driving cars with similar features and at a similar price point to today's "normal" cars, so let's assume that they will make a similar profit. But they are now going to assume the entire liability that currently resides with the driver onto themselves? A liability that is the basis for today's multi-billion dollar auto insurance industry? I don't think so. If laws aren't passed to limit the liability for automakers, that liability will get amortized into the unit cost of the self driving cars. Which likely means they won't ever see widespread acceptance.

That sums it up...if you read my posts about autonomous cars going back several years here on PPOT that's the point I have mentioned many times. Without total legal immunity they will never see the widespread light of day. The only way they would get total legal immunity is revolutionary tort law reform in the USA, which will never happen. Ever. Remember most the politicians are attorneys! :D

Manufacturers won't be the only ones affected by thorny insurance dilemmas. During this transition period, liability insurance rates for self-driven vehicles might make owning one prohibitive for many. With a mix of human-driven and autonomous cars sharing the roads, accidents will still be commonplace. Even relatively minor damage to an autonomous car will be eye-wateringly expensive to repair given all the sensors, vision systems and other technology built into its "skin". I suspect this will lead to many accident-damaged vehicles simply being scrapped rather than repaired. And if a vehicle is repaired and returned to service, will the repair facility be liable if a sensor system isn't properly restored or reprogrammed it and fails, resulting in an injury or death? Will repair shop's insurance rates go thru the roof too? Or will independent shops eventually disappear altogether, with all autonomous car repairs being done only by manufacturer-owned or licensed facilities?

94% of accidents are caused by human error. Eliminate the human and we shall see what the error rate becomes. If accidents happen at the same rate, it is not feasible. But if accidents don't happen , it could work

They will be commonplace by 2030.

That requires that you pull off the bandaid immediately. How do you propose doing that? Ban humans from driving after a certain date? Because as long as the human variable is in the loop, the advantages of self driving don't happen.

Not true. If self driving cars are better at avoiding accidents caused by human driven cars, and less human driven cars are on the road, overall accidents rates will decrease.

Btw, am I in no means proposing we should be driving cars without steering wheels anytime soon. I'm referring to level 4 autonomy. It'll take some time before we are at level 5. Again, check out what the Toyota CEO has in the works.

Also, there are massive security hurdles that need to be overcome. And legislation probably won't be ready. But this technology is here and it is going to take over fast.

I agree with most already posted. I can see California being an early adopter of this on a state wide scale. Dedicated lanes for autonomous vehicles on busy highways. They "see" what's ahead and make adjustments on the fly. Notice how it only takes one exuberant tailgater to start the process of stop and go. If cars can automatically fall in line many of those problems would go away.

Myself turning 55 this year (cue Sammy H) I would hate to give up active driving because I love it so. That said, when my keys are yanked from my hands for safety, I will most definitely appreciate the autonomous vehicle options and regained mobility.

Legal issues aside, as JD says the technology is already here and improving quickly.

True in General Aviation as well. Yet as Onewhipped stated, the lawyers still found a way to blame and sue the airplane manufacturer, then and now.