Autonomous Cars? How About Autonomous Bikes?

R3d M3rcury writes: So we've all heard about the brave new world of autonomous cars which will be at our beck-and-call. But how about an autonomous bike? The i-Bike (not to be confused with the iBike computer) is the winner of KPIT Sparkle 2016, the All India Science and Engineering Student Contest. It started off as a bicycle suitable for use by people with disabilities. If you could use a smartphone, you could ride a bike. But the developers realized that this could be part of a bike-sharing system. You could rent a bike at the train station, ride to work, and then have the bike automatically return to the train station for the next person. Of course, the obvious question is: Will the bike stop at stop signs?

Comments

Re:Obvious question isn't obvious.

[caino59]

This argument? Really? Yes, and every person driving an automobile stops at each and every stop light and always yields to peds...oh wait, they don't.

And guess which one kills more people every year?

Re:low hanging fruit

[SuperBanana]

I live in New England, haven't owned a car in roughly a decade and have been commuting 20 minutes each way every day for work by bike in addition to whatever other daily transportation i need, and own/use snow tires for said bicycle. I also own a nice road bike which gets ridden on weeknight group rides and weekends. I started out on a $350 hybrid I bought from REI on special, and it lasted me several years and thousands of miles, until I decided I wanted something better.

So yes, I do actually know what I'm talking about. And incidentally, Minnesota has more bike commuters per capita than many much warmer locations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

There have been dozens of studies over the years showing that riding a bicycle for transportation, even slowly, brings health benefits over people who sit in their cars for transportation: https://www.google.com/search?...

Oh, and which is it? Everyone flying along so fast they'll fatally injure pedestrians they smack into? Or people who "toddle around with their heartrate under 100bpm so slow it doesn't do them any good"? Hmm?

Please, save the "you want to put grandma on an iceberg" crap. I wasn't advocating forcing people onto bicycles. I'm saying driverless cars aren't going to fix problems with congestion and pollution.

Re:low hanging fruit

[LunaticTippy]

A bicycle costs $500

Sure. A crappy, heavy, low-quality bike, with a no-name component groupset, that you likely won't get your moneys' worth out of before something on it fails, then at that point you may as well chuck it in the recycle bin and get another one. You need to spend more like $1000 to get something of decent quality that, properly maintained, will give you your moneys' worth.

I bought the cheapest bike I could find that seemed able to support my needs - 300lbs including luggage/groceries. It was $200, and I have put over 10k miles on it. I needed to replace my rear wheel after about 5k miles and a new chain since I am bad about cleaning it. It has an aluminum frame and seems really light compared to the schwinns and huffys I grew up with. Shimano gears, but I'm confident you can find a way to make fun of that.

I've had so many bikes stolen over the years I can't bring myself to spend much on one. I find your pompous attitude that $1000 is the minimum buy-in to be a cyclist to be destructive.

Re:low hanging fruit

[LunaticTippy]

That shouldn't happen. A good wheelset should last you for years, at least 4 or 5 times that many miles.

Well, I can't be sure but I think the axle bent when I got hit by a car. There were also numerous potholes and driveway bumps and the fact that I am overloading the axle. I don't need my bike to be eternal, I treat it more like a consumable. Strangely, since I adopted this attitude it hasn't been stolen or destroyed in an accident but I've been burned enough to not get attached.

you need to buy something quality, not cheap, and you get what you pay for when you buy a bike.

Here you're just plain wrong. My bike is from Walmart, it was $200, and it has nearly 15,000 miles on it. I had the wheel replaced under warranty, if I bought a new wheel from the mfr it would have cost $50.

I ride hard, maintain poorly, and still my cheap bike held up admirably.

It is sad how many years I wasted, thinking that I didn't have what it takes to be a bike commuter, because of misguided people like you. I couldn't get over my heartbreak when I came back to my beloved Peugeot and it was beat to death by vandals in 1988. Now that I have realized cheap bikes are a good option I am a happy cyclist, putting at least 150 miles a week onto my trusty walmart bike.

I know a bunch of people with expensive bikes who are afraid to take them anywhere, and a bunch more people without a bike at all because they think they need to spend 4 digits to get something decent.