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Would You Need a License To Drive a Self-Driving Car?
agent elevator writes Not as strange a question as it seems, writes Mark Harris at IEEE Spectrum : "Self-driving cars promise a future where you can watch television, sip cocktails, or snooze all the way home. But what happens when something goes wrong? Today's drivers have not been taught how to cope with runaway acceleration, unexpected braking, or a car that wants to steer into a wall." The California DMV is considering something that would be similar to requirements for robocar test-driver training." Hallie Siegel points out this article arguing that we need to be careful about how many rules we make for self-driving cars before they become common. Governments and lawmakers across the world are debating how to best regulate autonomous cars, both for testing, and for operation. Robocar expert Brad Templeton argues that that there is a danger that regulations might be drafted long before the shape of the first commercial deployments of the technology take place.
If "yes," then it's not self-driving.
Do pilots still need licenses in the age of autopilot? Well yes because machines aren't infallible.
For a long time, an autonomous car will not be driverless. People need to get over this notion that next year a car will drive itself and you'll sit in the back with a Martini and the paper. That probably wont happen in our lifetimes.
Initially, fully autonomous modes will only be permitted on certain roads (think limited access roads like highways, freeways and autobahns). This will last years as engineers are even more conservative than law makers. The next step is likely to be special lanes on A roads. It will be a long time before autonomous cars are good enough to operate on a B road or suburban street.
Ultimately, because the law requires someone to be responsible for the operation of the machine it means a qualified operator will need to be at the controls whilst in operation. Same with a lot of other automated systems (such as long distance trains).
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
This also makes me think, will you need insurance for a self-driving car? If two self-driving cars are involved in a collision, who is responsible for the damages? You could say the manufacturer is responsible - but what if it's a collision between a self-driving car and a human-driven car? Or, will manufacturers be willing to take on the burden of providing insurance for each car they sell?
Why don't we just incorporate them?
Then they'll legally be people, and they can get their own driver's licenses!
You would need a 'driver' for a driver-less car as much as you need a horse for a horse-less carriage.
Nothing, and that is an absolutely nothing, has ever been made by man which has been perfect.
A self-driving car does not have to be perfect. It just has to be better than the alternative.
With motor vehicles already being the number one killer in the US annually, we want human intervention early and often.
Isn't the fact that motor vehicles are already the number one killer in the US annually actually an argument for automated cars?
As stated above, a half a century has not perfected "self driving" anything else.
Five centuries of work before that never perfected heavier-than-air flying machines either, until one year, presto, all the necessary preconditions were finally met and airplanes became a reality. There's nothing linear about progress.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
So you never ride drunk in a cab in case the cabbie has a heart attack? For every argument about this, substitute chauffeured car for self-driven car and run it through that filter first.
You'll find that people hold self-driven cars to a much higher standard than we have today. I think people just fear change.
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