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Maybe they can dent the number of fatalities from human error. There is a hurdle in overcoming public perception. People say they wouldn't want to put their life in control of some automated computer, yet they put their life in the hands of thousands of other drivers every single day they drive.

In the US we accept 10000 fatalities annually from drunk drivers alone. Vietnam killed nearly 60000 and wounded countless others over the course of 20 years. In just the last 20 we've accepted more than 200,000 alcohol related deaths just getting from point A to point B.

So when people are afraid of a glitch in the system causing a pile up it is worth remembering such tragedies are possible, but it would still be something that could be corrected.

No matter how closely together the cars can drive, as long as you have an engine and a crash-resistant shell around each passenger, it will never be as space-efficient was the 35' Gillig Advantage I am sitting in right now.

IMO the best application of self-driving cars in an urban landscape is last-mile demand for people who live outside the city, where it's not economical to run buses or trains. But inside a city proper, or even on a busy freeway, having one car per passenger takes up a lot of space that could be better used elsewhere, both while moving and while parked.

(Also, self-driving technology could be applied to buses and streetcars to reduce operating costs and expand frequency and range of service.)

Just imaging self-driving minibuses.

Public transport minibuses might actually be a good place to exercise self driving vehicles.

Minibuses don't need the same versatility as consumer cars have. They "only" need to be able to handle anything they can encounter on a predefined route. The route itself could even be optimized for them (eg pedestrian barriers).

Preface: my primary modes of transportation (in my city) are walking, biking, and subway.

God, I cannot wait for either hyper loop or self driving cars (I'm sure we'll see the latter first). I live in Northern California and have family in Southern California. We're starting to flip the holidays this year (wife's family for thanksgiving, mine for Xmas). Just went down to LA for a friends wedding and the drive was horrendous.

A lot of factors come into play:

1, as much as I've hated them in the past, a big suv (especially with a kid) is the way to go. We have a VW Passat (wife's) and it was so crammed it was ridiculous. Very uncomfortable and it's not even a compact. 2, I'm over 40 now and it just physically hurts to drive for 7 hours. I was totally sore the next day. Frickin sucked. 3, Directions. I totally need navigation now. Even with the turn by turn on my phone, I still made wrong turns. 4, I hate driving. Hate it. I see it as such a waste of time. I can't imagine needing to drive to make a living. In my late teens and early 20's when I lived in Southern California, I hade to do just that. After I moved to the city I vowed I never would again. 5, Other drivers. I was pretty appalled by some of the drivers on the road. I kept thinking, I can't wait for computers to handle this so that guy driving down the emergency lane wouldn't be able to.

If I could just hop in a driverless car for that drive, it would be great. I could nap, read, compute, converse, etc. Things I can't do now. I'm sure there's going to be some resistance at first by those with a 'god given right' to drive. But after a while, I see common sense prevailing.

I listened to a great talk at The Long Now Foundation by Tim O'Reilly. He was talking about driverless cars and how the DARPA car challenge when it started could only do around 7 miles. It wasn't the algorithms that got that much better (although I'm sure they did) for the Google cars, it was the data set. Google Maps was a huge advantage and the 'killer app' for the latest generation of their cars.

So a lot to look forward to in this arena. I think my kid will grow up with the internal combustion car for him being like the 8-track for me.

Though a rarely brought up fact when discussing self-driving vehicles, planes have been on the right track for the last few decades with autopilot. The automotive industry should take some lessons learned from the government regulatory structure, and avionic makers, and build a system capable of high capacity traffic with extremely low fatality rates.

Issues that we deal with when driving an automobile are amplified 100x when in the cockpit of an aircraft. Traffic is nearly impossible to spot during the day time without someone like an air traffic controller (ATC) telling you about it. Managing a plane in inclement weather is an effort in bravery and extraordinary situational decision making. Crashes, though statistically unlikely to be fatal, can have extreme consequences for both passengers an innocent by-standers. All-in-all, the experience of flying is just plain difficult. There are dozens of controls to handle at any given moment, and even the distractions are amplified (ever tried writing something down while driving? It happens in planes all the time)

So how did we overcome these issues? Regulations and technology. Just looking at the traffic issue, there are rules for which alititude to fly at for which direction and type of flight you are, rules for entering high traffic areas by verifying you have communicated intentions first, rules for what equipment your plane has to have before entering specific high traffic areas, and strict expectations that pilots will be able to control their aircraft to the best of their ability. There is plenty of redundancy in the system as well.

I would venture to say that landing a plane is much more demanding than driving a car, even in the most severe driving conditions, yet we trust autopilots to set the plane down in even the most severe 0 visibility scenarios (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BUA3EwKpVM). The technology in vehicles is beginning to make sense to implement in the same way we have it present in airplanes right now, but I would love to see the regulatory structure begin to step up and build a reasonable, redundant, and safe system for driving an driver-less car. Then I can see the world you are describing.

I agree.

And:

- On a long journey, you can read, watch a film, surf the net or sleep. Overnighters become an option.

- Too drunk to drive yourself home? No problem. Too young? Likewise.

- No driver's licence? No problem. A driver's licence may eventually become a niche thing to have, like a pilot's licence.

This. Between this and delivery drones, is our nearby future of transportation.

I honestly don't think delivery drones are going to be a widespread thing. Too many problems that you can encounter that lose you an expensive drone that wouldn't lose you a simple high school age delivery driver.

Drones are not expensive at all (you can buy one for $300), and will only get cheaper.

It would be awesome to call a random car any time you want, but I hate to think of the mess some people would leave in it once they were done with it.

You can never avoid this, but take an approach like ZipCar: http://www.zipcar.com/how/faqs/how-are-cars-cleaned

In almost two years of being a ZipCar client, I've never had any issues. Yes, the occasional coke can or candy wrapper left behind, but never a mess that I thought to be unreasonable.

If it turns out to be a bigger problem, install a camera that takes a shot when you take possession of the car, and when you relinquish it. Charge the renters credit card for messiness.

> install a camera that takes a shot when you take possession of the car, and when you relinquish it.

Such a system would be good to have anyway as part of a dashcam. One facing forward, and a fish-eye facing the rear window and also capturing the interior of the car. I am hoping that car insurance companies will start offering discounts for cars with installed dashcams.

A tangent of a tangent now, this would be great (though creepy) for public restrooms. Given that there's a physical method, like positioning on the door, that prohibits it from seeing anything while the stall door is closed or locked, I think it would cut down on the seriously depraved messes people leave behind when they know they can get away with it.

I use zip cars a lot and never had a problem as well.

Yeah. They would probably have to be cleaned pretty regularly.

It's terrible to think that people invent cars, then make them driverless, then make them come pick you up from anywhere when you whistle (or press a button on your phone) but the bottleneck that we can't solve is inconsiderate assholes leaving fish and chip rubbish in the back seat.

Solvable with a combination of:

- reputation systems

- computer vision / cameras / contract law

- price discrimination based on the required state of the vehicle (i.e., premium pricing for a guarantee that a vehicle has been cleaned)

or a premium price for leaving a vehicle in a sorry state

Yeah I was implying that with my second point, sorry for not being clear.

OK, we are in agreement then. For some reason I thought you meant charging more for wanting a clean vehicle. I'd rather charge more for people who leave the car in a messy state (because they are in a hurry or something)

Yes, the third point was about charging more for clean vehicles, the second point about charging people for not leaving their vehicles behind clean.

But yeah, I do think we agree :)

> Maybe autoautos can handle 200km speeds.

You can do more with normal cars today, already. (In fact, I've done so.) The economics of those speeds just don't add up for cars.