Slashdot Mirror
GM Claims Advanced Cruise Control By 2008
pavelvp writes "Economist is reporting that General Motors is working on the prototype of the self-driving car. From the article, "The car uses updated technology combined with several existing innovations and, according to the manufacturer, could be in production by 2008. But, while the technology takes some of the boring bits out of driving, it falls far short of an automatic taxi service and, anyway, various legal, technical and social barriers to its introduction remain.""
relinquish all control of our cars once we enter the freeway
Although your numbers are probably a joke, the actual theory merits discussion. Still, it won't happen for quite a while. People enjoy driving far too much. Movies like I, Robot and others involving "manual overrides" are actually fairly close to the truth. You think all the owners who buy sports cars, whether it's a base-model ford mustang or a top-end ferrari, are going to be satisfied "turning over all control" of their car and just reading the newspaper or watching a movie on the way to work? The only way this highway works is if every single car participates, otherwise the stupid human will be bumping into the super-fast computer-driven cars all day. Good luck getting buy-in from 100% of drivers. Not during my lifetime.
or computer only lanes/sections ala car-pooling?
they can have a much higher density, along with less braking idiocy, or the "look at that crash" which stops traffic for miles. the govt can make that an incentive to have auto-cars.
The first rule of USENET is you do not talk about USENET.
It would not be unreasonable to make it legally required to use such a system on some highways. You don't like it, take the side streets.
Nice thought experiment. In reality? Good luck getting your congressmen and senators to vote for this. First the auto-lobby will scream bloody-murder because it would require extra systems in every car, which raises their costs. They sure as heck aren't going to eat into their own profits, so that means the price increases are passed along to the consumers, who want to know why their honda accords now cost $35,000 for a feature they don't want anyhow.
This doesn't even take into consideration the ACLU who will claim this is a movement to make cars inaccessible to poor people, as well as the far right who doesn't want no stinkin' computer driving when they can do it perfectly well themselves.
In summary, you have a system that is popular with about 18% of the population. Yep, I bet that one races through the legislature.
From the article:
For example, self-steering cars are currently illegal in most European countries. Carmakers want the law changed to allow them, but they are also keen not to be held legally responsible for any accidents which result. Drafting legislation which would make it attractive for carmakers to introduce the technology, but still allow some recourse for those hurt if something goes wrong, could prove tricky.
I see, they want to build self-steering cars but take no responsibility for what they have built going wrong.
I think alerting systems are a great idea - if you think I'm shifting lanes or following too close or not noticing a braking driver in front of me, by all means help me out.
But don't take away control based on incomplete sensor input. The distance that it is safe to follow another car depends on conditions. What if you reach a sharp bend and that other car can corner a lot better than you? What if you stop paying attention to the road ahead because the car is following another, and that other car fails to notice traffic stopping too quickly ahead? That car hitting anything else probably means you're going to hit it.
The consider the whole business of automatically following lanes as the GM car does. Has no-one out there seen roads after construction is through that have remains of old lines? What happens when a car starts AUTOMATICALLY correcting your steering to follow the old lines instead of the new?
To give auto makers a free Get-Out-Of-Jail card because they have the hubris to think they can build something that really drives better than a human is madness. Let them try but they must pay for failure so they are properly diligent as to issues that may arise.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Without quoted statistics this reply is of course conjecture, as is yours.
I believe very few people enjoy the act of day to day driving, sports cars are a minute proportion of road traffic. What I and many others enjoy is the comfort and convenience of using a private car to travel. Auto-drive cars can increase these benefits by the following:
- Removing requirement for continuous, dedicated, concious control. Instead, read slashdot or watch I Robot as you travel to work.
- Removing necessity for private vehicle ownership, instead rent use of a class of vehicle - no need to find parking, drive straight to your destination, get out and the car will route/drive itself to a holding area or pickup.
- Safer my faith in computer control is greater then my faith in millions of bored, distracted humans. Provided the system is built up over time, slowly, a few features integrated to a trusted (proven) platform at each revision, as cars today are develop.
- Faster, with many vehicles coordinating with one another, it should be possible to increase thoughput and aggregate speed. As you say these will be mitigated by human and other uncooperative (incompatible) drivers. But it shouldn't be all or nothing.
Auto-drive cars won't appear overnight - enabling features will accrue over years - Sat Nav, cruise control, rangefinding sensors, lane drift alarms, drive by wire, braking assistance, ubiquitous wireless communication etc.
Thats my optimistic view, anyway.
Regards
Alex