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When Cars Go Driverless, What Happens To the Honking?
blastboy writes "The potential upside to getting rid of drivers: 'Today car horns are still a leading source of noise pollution in urban centers. India's honking problem is so severe that the response to it—from both activists and government officials—mirrors the response to an actual epidemic. Officials in Peru, meanwhile, began treating honking like a serious crime in 2009, threatening to confiscate the cars of people who honk when they shouldn't.'"
I imagine that driverless cars will honk quite frequently, just to be on the safe side. They will be able to communicate silently to other car 2.0s but the old style drivers and the pedestrians will need warnings that there is a car that they might not be aware of.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
1. Aways yeld to idiots and jackasses.
2. Maneuver to avoid accidents, honking does not help much.
Very seldom, if someone fell asleep at the traffick light, I give it a very short blip.
If all horns were uninstalled tomorrow we would not loose much. Now let's discuss sirens and light pollution.
the purpose of the car horn was not to express anger at other drivers but to warn of an emergency. there will still be people dangerously stepping into the street and the cars will honk to warn them that they may get hit. that's not to say it will warn them only when they will be hit but rather when the probability of being hit drastically increases. pedestrians are highly unpredictable and the cars have been programmed to act accordingly. also, if someone in a manually driven car might be in the process of causing an collision (e.g. turning into an occupied lane) the car will honk.
the real question is if people will give other people the finger in traffic.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
In my experience cows are rarely impressed by car horns.
And moose ignore them completely. You sit there till the moose decides to wander off to do whatever it is that moose do when they're not blocking traffic.
I'm not gonna ask. A moose's business is its own.
They said driverless not hornless. Those in the car are free to honk their asses off. :)
Simple solution: Put a horn meter in every car, and charge a 10 cent tax each time they honk it.
The horn is an easy to access button that makes a noise. And like the other primates, if we have an emotional response we press the only button available because it is THERE.
We give babies toys that make a noise when you press different buttons, and adults we are little different and still enjoy pressing the button that makes a noise.
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
See, this is the thoughtless sort of legislation that makes the world an awful place to live. I immediately see your tax as an incentive to hardwire the horn on. I pay at most $.1 per trip in horn tax, and still get to use it as much as I like.
But then manufacturers will offer Free Nights and Weekend Honking, and contracts for 1000 honks per month (minimum 2 yr contract). Eventually, we'll get some good prepaid honks, but they won't always be as up to date as contract horns.
When Cars Go Driverless, What Happens To the Honking?
It Will Stop.
Next?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I don't know what's wrong with the humor centers of my brain lately but I can't tell which one of you are joking. I thought Bill was but your comment falls into that category of sounding so insane that many would take it seriously. I'm so confused!
Say the people standing to make a lot of money from them (and their fanboys), yes. The problem is that reality tracking technology and heuristics are not even close to making a safe autonomous street robot. The clues are all about us in the non-critical technologies we have already, like voice recognition. It's been 20 years, and it still can't tell what someone's saying when the person has a cold, or even get it 99% correct in ideal conditions. it's slow too. Face recognition is getting slowly better, probably because of tons of government interest in the ability to auto-track everyone, but even that is easily fooled with a bit of makeup or disguise. 'Brittle' programming like this has no business at the top of the driving decision 'train', or any other critical situation.
I see it happening to trains because a fixed point to point track that dictates the physical movement of the vehicle is far simpler to predict than random events in an open terrain. Even then, I'd still want a human engineer at the console in case something happens. Computers may be faster, but humans are still much better at contextual awareness.
After 5 years, some provider will offer unlimited honking as part of their standard contract at lower than competitor's prices, but you'r car will only operate on limited access roadways and your horn will be bufered through the network with random failures to deliver horn notifications in a timely manner and occasionall complete loss of horn notifications. Subscribers will point at the low prices as evidence of better than expected service, impressively inovative and the customer service representatives will be rated higher than any of the competition.
You never know...
So, the horseless carriage was never invented, because the motor is the horse? Rather, "driver" has, in common meaning, indicated the person controlling the car; and, if you see a car coming down the street towards you without a person at the wheel, you think "holy shit, that car has no driver!" (just like someone might have thought "holy shit, that carriage has no horse!").
Mostly just hanging out with Squirrel.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Well the obvious solution here, especially given that I'm less offended by a 'beep' than a 'HOOOOONNNNNKKK", is to charge $.10 per second.
I don't read AC A human right
It's a simple matter of economics. You get the most honking for your buck. It's clearly an obvious no-brainer.
Copied from the Citroën DS - it had the regular horn for in-town use, and a wake-the-dead horn for highway use.
And yes, if you accidentally hit the highway mega-horn when a little old lady was crossing the street in front of you, it was embarrasing.... not that I'd know that myself, of course, just heard rumours.
It is a tad surprising how many swear words a 90 year old lady actually knows.
You know what's really funny? Modern IC cars are so quiet that they did a study - for most conventional vehicles, not hybrids or EVs, road noise is the dominant factor. IE tire noise on the road, gravel crunching, all that. The EVs and hybrids they tested were identical on a Db level.
As speeds increase it simply shifts to wind noise - the engine being loud enough to be a signficant factor is actually the exception and generally indicates an ill-maintained defective vehicle.
Anyways, a driverless car can probably do away with the warning sounds for the most part, it should be aware enough that it doesn't back into people.
I don't read AC A human right
In America, honking your car horn is an expression of anger. It is calling the other driver out that he is doing something unsafe or stupid. If someone doesn't move when a light turns green, you have to "bip" your horn by tapping lightly. A full-on honk might make the other driver get out and try to kick your ass.
Overseas, it's different. Honking the horn just says, "I'm here." It's an auditory announcement of where you are. This is very important, as other drivers frequently don't watch where they're going. When you pass, you need to honk the horn so the other driver doesn't suddenly decide to change lanes into your car. I ride an electric moped, and my electric piezo horn is my most important safety device other than the brakes. It announces my presence so people don't hit me. Taxis honk when they pass me - it doesn't mean they're mad, it just means "I'm here."
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
We will not have "driverless cars". Ever.
"That the automobile has practically reached the limit of its development is suggested by the fact that during the past year no improvements of a radical nature have been introduced."
--Scientific American, January 2, 1909
They exist
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'