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California To Join Nevada With Rules For Autonomous Cars
thecarchik writes "As of now, the only state where self-driving cars are legal on public roads is Nevada, thanks to its vast expanses of open space and lightly traveled byways. California, recognizing that autonomous cars are an inevitable progression of technology, is moving to establish its own rules for driverless vehicles. A bill proposed by California Senator Alex Padilla would set guidelines for the testing and operation of self-driving vehicles within the state. As California is home to Google, Stanford and Caltech, all of which have active autonomous vehicle programs, the state is positioned to be a leader in driverless car development. It stands to reason that self-driving cars will be allowed on California's roads, probably in the near future."
Yes, I agree. Rome may be a mad house but, I loved driving in Italy. There are far fewer rules (and often a lack of lanes) but I interpreted it as "We trust you -- just don't crash into anyone." It was a breath of fresh air to not have a million signs like in the U.S. that you simply tune out.
There are some experiments in Germany where they are getting rid of all but a couple signs and simplifying the rules to just a couple rules (like yield to the right). They (last I heard) have found it to be far more effective as people don't tune out the few signs they see.
I am wholeheartedly for the development of robot cars! I can hardly wait for the day when I can command my car to drive my drunken ass home, or tell it to go to the grocer and pick up my milk and cheese (which the grocer will load into my car for me) while I'm at work. Not to mention the possibilities for car sharing!
However, there will be system failures. The cars will have to develop "reptile brain" like functions that can make the car pull over and stop in the case of byzantine failure of the controller. Think about car-worms and viruses that command cars to crash into each other, or remote car hijacking. It is going to be *very* interesting to watch all this develop. Consider the people who will drive recklessly in their "classic cars" expecting that most other cars are autonomous, which may make the road more dangerous for those who don't have one.
That said, I'm looking forward to the robot-car only lanes on the freeway where we can have fuel-efficient car-trains and the social benefits of being able to hop out of your robot car in front of your destination and have the car valet itself.
There is no such thing as a computer system that is completely error-free.
It doesn't have to be error free. It just needs to be better than humans. That is not a high bar.
On the other hand, all autonomous cars from the same manufacturer will have the same software errors
And when one of those errors causes an accident in ONE car, it will be fixed and patched in ALL the cars. So the number of bugs, and the number of accidents will decline quickly . Autonomous cars already have millions of miles of testing, and are probably already safer than the average human driver.
Demanding absolute safety is foolish, and delaying the introduction of autonomous cars will cause many unnecessary deaths.