Thread: Autonomous Vehicles

Originally Posted by bee utey

Easy as. The dimwit defence of "waaah, ah need mah licence for work" will no longer be warranted when adequate AV's are around. Lose your licence for bad driving and you're still able to get about. The average driving skill on the roads has then gone up. Good drivers can remain on the road until they're no longer good. AV's will get better, and much faster than eevo thinks too, but longer than scarry jokingly suggests.

Except for the fact that a very high percentage of people who get done for DUI/points accumulation/drug driving, etc, come from the lower socio-economic groups within society. The very people who cannot afford to take up new technology in an automotive sense.

This is the same flaw in the stupid idea of "make older cars unaffordable to own, and everyone will buy new, green vehicles." What a crock that idea is.

Originally Posted by V8Ian

Satellite signal is iffy at best, add meteorological and geographical impairment and it becomes totally unreliable.
Better than metre accuracy is required for AVs to miss each other.

There are two different debates going on at the same time here. One is that all vehicles can or can't be tracked with adequate accuracy for the purpose of revenue raising or general avoidance by AV's. The other is that AV's do or don't manage to drive themselves without constant high level internet access.

My opinion is that the first case is definitely possible with current or near future tech. The second case is that AV's have already demonstrated sensors capable of identifying obstructions, and that won't get worse with improving tech. You don't need a metre accurate map of the entire Birdsville Track, you need sensors capable of spotting a pothole.

Originally Posted by bee utey

Easy as. The dimwit defence of "waaah, ah need mah licence for work" will no longer be warranted when adequate AV's are around. Lose your licence for bad driving and you're still able to get about. The average driving skill on the roads has then gone up. Good drivers can remain on the road until they're no longer good. AV's will get better, and much faster than eevo thinks too, but longer than scarry jokingly suggests.

The days of totally driverless cars with no controls that you don't need a licence to use for travel anywhere in Australia are decades off. I'd even suggest centuries off. All the easy work has been done. It's the really hard refinements to bring the product to market expectations that will take a really long time.
We'll have to continue to keep our licences for decades yet.

I think that just about sums it up! While I agree that we will be eventually seeing driverless cars as a normal part of society, I think these are at least decades away, even for very restricted operation. Increasing driver assistance will become more and more available, but whether this will actually improve safety is, in my view, very much an open question.

I think before total driverless cars they will lose the wheels and go up, there is a lot of layers under a 1000 foot.
cheers
blaze

Originally Posted by bblaze

I think before total driverless cars they will lose the wheels and go up, there is a lot of layers under a 1000 foot.
cheers
blaze

I can't see that happening for 100 years after autonomous cars to be honest, without going into detail, forget the technical aspects of doing this, the cost of both the vehicle, maintenance and running costs immediatly put this to bed - unless you believe that cheap, physics defying anti grav systems like whats on 'The 5th Element' are possible (which they aren't)...

Originally Posted by bblaze

I think before total driverless cars they will lose the wheels and go up, there is a lot of layers under a 1000 foot.
cheers
blaze

Crikey! Lots of people can't stay between two white lines now! What's it going to be like with another dimension thrown in?

Getting high and driving ?