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Americans Still Deeply Skeptical About Driverless Cars, Says Poll (theverge.com)
A new poll was released today that basically repeats data we've seen in previous surveys: Americans still don't trust self-driving cars, and are nervous about the coming onslaught. The Verge reports: Asked how concerned they'd be to share the road with a driverless car, 31 percent said they'd be "very concerned," while 33 percent said "somewhat concerned," according to the poll which was just released by Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety. A majority (63 percent) said they would not support "mass exemptions" from federal motor vehicle safety standards for self-driving cars, and were not comfortable (75 percent) with automakers having the power to remotely disable vehicle controls, such as the steering wheel, and brake and gas pedals, when the autonomous vehicle is being operated by the computer. And people overwhelmingly support (75 percent) the U.S. Department of Transportation developing new standards related to driverless vehicles. The poll surveyed 1,005 adults between December 7-10th, 2017, with a margin of error of +/- 3.09 percent.
My main concern is not safety. I worry that driving will become cost prohibitive if driverless cars have a certain amount of adoption. Insurance companies will say "use driverless, or you pay X times more". That would relegate driving to the rich. Also, it would make current cars worthless overnight. Poorer people wouldn't be able to afford personal transportation at all any more, since there won't be enough second hand driverless cars. All in all a rather bleak future in my eyes.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
I will ride in them, when I verify they have no special liability protection! Being involved in IT and Sensors and such. I do not think the time it right! It will come in 10 -15 years. But it sure is not ready today.
;)
The only way they put these things on the road is with blanket complete liability protects from the GOV saying they are not responsible for anything bad that happens.
Just my 2 cents
Think I'm going to let Intel, Microsoft or Google drive me around at 100 km/h? HAHAHAAH
What if a gorilla walks across the road in front of you?
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
The speeds are lower, the roads and boundaries are better defined. I wouldn't ride one on a twisty mountain road in Bolivia though.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I have a friend who works for an insurance company. They've noticed over the past year that there has been an increase in accidents. Doing further research into each accident, they've discovered that people have been over relying on driver assist features.
One story he told me was about a guy who slammed his car into the rear of a late 1960s Thunderbird which was stopped at a light in his new BMW. He apparently had gotten so used to the automatic braking system that he just never bothered to hit the brake. This being the one time it just didn't work for some reason.
Call me a Luddite, I don't care. I don't trust computers and I don't trust cars driven by them, especially in this post-NSA car hacking world.
I just don't want one that's powered by software from evil companies like Google. Since internet-free, advertising-free, non-privacy-invading driverless car software will never happen, I'll pass.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
I think most people haven't shared a street with them. I spent two years in the same city with these things, as a pedestrian, driver, and cyclist. They're infinitely patient with cyclists, hyper-paranoid about pedestrians wandering in to the street, like a parent is with their toddler.
Two weeks around self driving cars and you pretty much immediately realize that humans are just sacks of meat piloting cars, is about the dumbest idea, and the pedestrian fatality statistics back that up.
If I were to describe the "personality" of a self driving car, imagine a super chilled-out Mr. Rodgers paitent type, but he's also double-dosed on adderall and hyper alert for pedestrians, got 9 hours of sleep last night, good blood sugar, and his cell phone is on silent, locked in the trunk. And he has an IQ of 175 and can see in all directions and does not blink, and has a third eye that can see through shrubs and around cars.
Compare to the sleep-deprived, over caffinated, underfed mother who is juggling three kid's schedules and probably running late to pick up johnny from swim class while answering a phone call and trying to remember if she needs to pick up groceries on the way home.
moox. for a new generation.
Seriously. How many are on the roads in NON-TESTING situations? Have you seen the testing reports? GM reports every collision they have with their autonomous vehicles in California to the state. (https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/autonomousveh_ol316+) The others?
Do you know how your state would handle a collision involving a driverless vehicle? Who, as a person or corporation, is liable for damages if the driverless vehicle broke the law in does damage to something/someone?
Step away from the hype and futurism, let the researchers research, the engineers engineer, and tell the marketers to calm down because all the non-research oriented VC is in cryptocurrency right now. Autonomous vehicles will be here eventually, but if we can't even get automatic braking, dynamic cruise control, and lane assist all modern vehicles, then we're nowhere near having 100% autonomous vehicles on the road in any significant number.
If you rear-end somebody, it is your fault 100% of the time. The only possible exception is if their brake lights are out. If you're close enough that you can't react in time to an instantaneous stop, you're too close. The problem with human drivers is that none of them believe the laws of physics apply to them. Everyone assumes their stupid driving will be fine because nobody else will do something stupid, too. Several examples:
1) I had a friend tell me a story about when he was going ~100 MPH on a motorcycle on a rural road. A semi ran a stop sign at an intersection he was approaching and he was forced to stop in an inelegant way that led to damage to himself and his motorcycle. He lamented that his speed would have been perfectly fine if the idiot semi driver hadn't run the stop sign. He didn't appreciate when I pointed out that the semi's running the stop sign would have been perfectly fine if the idiot on the motorcycle hadn't been going 100 MPH.
2) In snowy areas like mine, big 4x4 trucks zoom past at 15 MPH over the speed limit with black ice all over the road. I have known several who do this. I point out how stupid and dangerous this is. They respond it's fine because their trucks have 4-wheel drive. I point out that 4 points of contact on a friction-less surface is still just a friction-less surface and offers no additional protection from sliding.
3) Ever time I hear about someone rear-ending someone else, the offended sounds exactly like you and blames the person they rear-ended for stopping too fast. As I mentioned before, it's your own damn fault. Every time.
Yes, the software will have bugs. No, it won't be perfect. But I sure pick their defect rate over the defect rate of human drivers.
Other than takeoff, it has been ready for a long time.
https://www.wired.com/story/bo...
Planes regularly fly and land with autopilot now (even in rough conditions).
Planes are actually a simpler use case than automobiles.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
A key use case for autonomous vehicles is to allow people who can't (or shouldn't!) drive themselves to once again have mobility. Think senior citizens. Seniors vote early and often. This is going to be approved sooner then you think. I bet it starts in Florida or Arizona -- states that have large and vocal retiree populations. Once it starts, it will be very difficult to stop it from spreading to other states. No politician wants to tell grandma that she must be stuck at home.
The questions in this poll are slanted to make people feel negatively about autonomous cars. They talk about removing control and reducing safety standards, things that people are unlikely to agree with. They got their intended result.
This doesn't actually say much about overall public opinion on the cars.
Agreed. There are too many variables. Our roads aren't uniform. Some roads are unmarked full of potholes, uneven surfaces. There's no reliable way to delimit boundaries mid-lane and at road edge.
How about the vulnerabilities with respect to other vehicles on the road, weather, light distractions... it goes on.
Add to that the impossibility for software to recognize infinite variables related to image recognition and other unique and changing parameters and we have a recipe for disaster.
It blows me away that our "government" thinks this is a good idea (rtm).
I experienced this in california. If you only drive 10 mph over the speed limit people are so angry you will experience road rage all the time. Even in the far right lane people try driving very fast and weaving in and out with no following distance. Occasionally there are massive accidents involving dozens of vehicles because nobody can stop in time. They don't care. That is the culture there.
I finally figured out how to play defense against this. I would drive in the left lane, shoulder to shoulder with someone in the next lane. When the crazies appear (almost constantly) they have to go 2 lanes around both of us. This ensures nobody is cutting you off and almost taking off your front bumper doing it. It also allows you to keep a comfortable distance from the cars ahead.