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Senior Citizens Will Lead the Self-Driving Revolution (theverge.com)
The Villages in Florida -- home to 125,000 residents, over 54,000 homes, 32 square miles, 750 miles of road, and three distinct downtowns -- will soon get a fleet of robot taxis. "Voyage, a startup that has been operating a handful of self-driving cars in the San Jose, California-based retirement community also called The Villages, announced today that later this year it will expand to the much-larger Villages north of Orlando," reports The Verge. "This is thanks to a successful Series A fundraising round that raked in $20 million in 2017." From the report: It's an indication that, strangely enough, many of the first people to fully experience the possibilities presented by self-driving cars will be over the age of 55. Most experts agree that robot cars will first roll out as fleets of self-driving taxis in controlled environments -- college campuses, business parks, dedicated freeway lanes, city centers, or retirement communities. Self-driving startups get to boast about providing a real service for people in need, while seniors get to lord over their grandchildren about being early adopters of a bold new technology. They're also getting something a little more valuable: Voyage is giving the owners of The Villages and the smaller San Jose development equity stakes of 0.3% and 0.2%, respectively, according to The Information. Voyage's self-driving cars aren't fully driverless. Safety drivers will remain behind the wheel just in case there's a need to intervene. And to compliment its digital mapping capabilities, the startup says it will partner with Carmera, a 3D mapmaker for autonomous vehicles. This type of partnership is necessary for what Voyage believes is "the largest deployment (by area size) of self-driving cars in the world."
It even comes with a Get-Off-My-Lawn button.
Table-ized A.I.
Just because Senior Citizens generally drive slower does not mean Senior Citizens are bad drivers
In fact, most accidents were caused by non-Senior Citizen drivers
Have some dignity, drive your own car !!
I've seen these places and as someone who is almost 65, if anyone suggested that I go live in one of those Ghetto's then I'd probably kill them.
Sorry people I'm not going to go into those places ever again. The sense that everyone is just 'Waiting for God' was over powering. As for all that beige clothing. Ugh!
There is no way that I'm done with life. Later this year, I'm going to ride a motorcycle right around Australia. My kids are with me on these places.
sorry, no. no and thrice No.
I really felt like self-driving would have been better in the foggy night recently. I had to pull over and let a lot of people by. I think SD could have done just fine. That said, I'd still rather handle the driving myself most of the time. I'll be 50 this spring.
Drugs don't seem to work 100% for her so she can't drive. The elderly & the blind (vision impaired) are all early candidates. /. , gander or snooze. Bring it on.
I like driving but even I'd prefer to
Most senior citizens don’t have copious amounts of spare cash - so this first really needs to filter down to the low end of the automotive market.
#DeleteChrome
Will seniors trust them? What about disabled young people like me? :(
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
My dad now only drives for local journeys during daylight hours. For anything else he either gets a lift or a taxi. I'm sure that if a self-driving car was cheaper than using taxis he'd sign up.
In our lovely caring environments, every once in a while, we read something about an elderly person being found dead in the apartment only because after a couple of months the stench had become unbearable and flies manifested themselves all around... I wonder how long it will take until we will read stories like "senior drives 400 miles in automated car while dead"? Do we have to pronounce this "progress"?
If a "safety driver" must be present, it's really just a taxi, with, like, gps and lanekeeping. There's no significant economic advantage until you can ditch the driver and his salary.
If all cars were electric, I wouldn't have to turn down my hearing aids due to the road noise from the highway!
--
Alexa, add "big hairy balls" to my shopping list. - Cartman
strangely enough, many of the first people...will be over the age of 55
Many elderly people have reached the stage where they know they should not be driving any more, but have to...or move from the house they've lived in for years. So this could be great for them...
I can wait, and I'm 63.
I survived an event last year that the after effects saw me selling my car, and getting a Liter motorbike again.
I put over 10K miles on it last year, in all weather.
I plan to ride until I physically can't anymore, perhaps10 years or so.
Then and only then, will I be ready to consider a self driving vehicle, maybe.
But, if I can still motivate myself on the road using 3 or 4 wheels, then all bets are off, no self driving cars for me.
But I'm certain many of my more passive friends, will welcome self driving cars.
It's ALL republican there. That's TRUMP country.
Having worked with seniors they are much more "do it myself" sort of people. They want to do things themselves, and especially don't trust automation.
Being able to drive themselves is a sense of independence they have not given up. I don't think self driving vehicles is tops on their list. They come from a generation of doing hard labor, fixing stuff themselves, and not asking for help.
Reading these comments, it seems nobody has actually been to the Villages in Florida.
The summary is right, it's huge -- it goes on and on and on. What it leaves out, though, is that the entire place is meant to be navigable on foot but mostly via golf cart. Everybody there has a customized golf cart, and you can go anywhere in the Villages via golf cart and everyone does. There's almost no automobile traffic.
The place is split up into "towns" with each one having a little town square and often its own recreational features (pools, community centers, golf courses, etc). They're all open to all Villages residents, too, and the little squares have businesses that are unique.
It's also pretty affluent -- the newer parts of the Villages are pretty luxurious and I think they get a lot of money for the homes/townhouses. The older parts are more similar to small prefab houses, but I think the whole place is in demand and while parts are cheaper, none are cheap. (Side fact: very high STD incidence in the Villages).
Anyway, it seems like a reasonable place to test self-driving cars due to the limited traffic. The downside is you'll never pull these people out of their golf carts. I'd wager that there are people who can't drive a car but still drive their golf cart. Plus, most of the residents are still in a pretty mobile/independent stage of living. If you already can't drive at all, you probably have other problems that make living in your own home a challenge, limiting the audience for self-driving cars.
Can we please leave speculative journalism behind with the passing of 2018? Self-driving cars will develop piece by piece, there will not be a day when, BAM!, suddenly the streets are filled with them. It is nascent, evolutionary technology that is hardly ready for prime time, and won't be for some time (perhaps not in your lifetime). 'Seniors' won't be inclined to take foolish risks anymore than anyone else. They are not brainless pets in need of deliverance, that notion is just more youthful arrogance and ignorance on display, and that is something silicon valley needs to divorce itself from if it expects to ever be truly innovative again (hint: currently, and for the past decade at least, it has not been).
that will lead the Self-Driving Revolution.
I get the article and it give a good insight. But when I think it been 20 years that I remind my mother that she don't need to double-click a link on her facebook, I'm pretty sure the elderly won't be too thrilled about automomus car.
On the other hand I look at myself. I got a car with a manual transmission and, once, I told a techie friend that I'm not gonna buy a self-driving car because I love to drive. But then he told me that not only and I could play with my phone or look at the TV but also that I could start my work shift in my car and nullify most of the time lost while driving to work (I can work at home so my employer would allow it).
I wonder about motion sickness though...
Elok
The Villages are famous for a couple of interesting problems. High rates of STDs is one but not the important one here. There is a huge theft problem with their customized golf carts the olds drive around there. A chop shop ring was recently busted run by some of the residents. They steal the cars, chop them & sell the parts. Could be interesting to see how long self driving cars can make it there.
Hopefully the poor bastards in Russia will still provide enough youtube entertainment.
Or just another socially clueless aspie? Can't you spot metaphor and hyperbole when its so bloody obvious?
So this is the car equivalent of the Jitterbug phone where its functions are dumbed down for the elderly. I kid...I kid...
One of the biggest markets for self driving cars is providing car service for people that can no longer drive themselves safely. No longer will a senior citizen who has lost their license (or has just become to afraid to drive) be dependent on their friends/neighbors/children to get them to the doctor's office on time or down to the corner grocery store to pick up some bananas and prunes.
Let'em hit me. I'm older and better insured!
Also, driving with her was a white knuckle experience if there ever was one....
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and some Seniors will like jail / prison if say that are poorer and then get found at fault in a cash after the EULA levees them holding bag and they don't have 50K+ to defend them selfs.
Millennials are the ones not purchasing cars or bothering to learn to drive or get licenses. They'll be the ones pushing for the robotic driver revolution.
I'm 70 and have a Tesla. The car gets regular software updates to improve it's Autopilot and safe driving capabilities.
I'm hoping that the car will improve at least as fast as my abilities decline so it can take over as I become feeble.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Senior citizens can barely use a TV remote. This will be the slowest revolution ever.
Hopefully twats looking at facebook are a close second...
Will it leave the turn signal on as it drives down the road?
They can take my LifeAlert pendant when they pry it from my cold dead fingers.
I'm perfectly okay with the elderly being associated with so-called 'self driving cars' -- because then the younger generations will think "Eww, self-driving cars are for OLD PEOPLE" and not want to have anything to do with them. Good recipe for failure -- which is exactly what I want: SDCs to fail completely in the marketplace, like the dead-end technology it is.
You UID is too high to make that joke. Please make an appropriate 2008ish reference, whippersnapper.
In other news, AI researchers were startled to discover that self-driving AI's trained on Florida streets now leave their left blinkers on all the time.