# Google Self Driving Cars



## Nick (Feb 18, 2013)

What do you guys think of this? 

http://bgr.com/2013/02/12/google-dr...+TheBoyGeniusReport+(BGR+|+Boy+Genius+Report)

I personally think it's a fundamental shift but could have massive impact on our transportation system. 

Off the top of my head ... if this was universal ... 

> Cars could drive essentially bumper to bumper, drastically speeding up traffic in cities
> Reduction in accidents because theoeretically a computer should be able to react much faster than a person in an accident scenario
> You could buy vehicle "shares" instead of owning a car. So you drive to work in a car, it drops you off at the front door, the car picks someone else up and goes on it's way. When you leave work another "car" in the rent pool picks you up and takes you home. Less wasted vehicle space.
> Cars could park themselves ...
> More productive commuting time


----------



## ScottySkis (Feb 18, 2013)

This is what I need. Now I go to Stowe and Sugarloaf every weekend.


----------



## dmc (Feb 18, 2013)

I'd love to be able to not drive - curl up... go to sleep...  Wake up and be there...


----------



## Nick (Feb 18, 2013)

dmc said:


> I'd love to be able to not drive - curl up... go to sleep...  Wake up and be there...



Yup, imagine those early morning ski trips..... up at 4AM, who cares, crash in the car for 3 hrs.

Hell, go to sleep at 10PM and wake up in Colorado


----------



## Geoff (Feb 18, 2013)

Came for the Luddites who won't drive anything but a manual transmission car.

Left disappointed.


----------



## Geoff (Feb 18, 2013)

My dad died of Altzheimers a few years ago.   Last summer, I had to do a "rescue" of my stepfather who had gotten disoriented and driven 100+ miles the wrong way before getting pulled over the by the State Police while taking a leak at the side of the road.   I'm going to get there some day myself.  It would dramatically improve my quality of life as an old bastard if I had a self-driving car.

Think of the other benefits.   

It drives you up to the base lodge.   You unload.   The car goes and parks its self.  At the end of the day, you tell the car to come pick you up and it arrives all warmed up at the base lodge.

At happy hour, it drives you to the bar and self-parks.   10 martinis later, it drives you home perfectly legally.

Once cars are self-drive, home delivery gets dirt cheap because the labor cost goes away.   Robot cars don't need space for a driver so they can be tiny electric vehicles that cost little to operate.   Even better, you don't need to tip the Pizza or Chinese robo-car when it delivers.   I never wait in a grocery store checkout line again.   That really removes the penalty for living somewhere rural.


----------



## Nick (Feb 18, 2013)

Geoff said:


> My dad died of Altzheimers a few years ago.   Last summer, I had to do a "rescue" of my stepfather who had gotten disoriented and driven 100+ miles the wrong way before getting pulled over the by the State Police while taking a leak at the side of the road.   I'm going to get there some day myself.  It would dramatically improve my quality of life as an old bastard if I had a self-driving car.
> 
> Think of the other benefits.
> 
> ...



I hadn't even thought of those concepts. 

I wonder if in the long run cars become cheaper because safety mechanisms aren't as critical anymore. E.g. airbags; seat belts, etc. 

Although I can't see them really ever going away. It's hard to think in the future that far but I see this as very ubiquitous and viable in the next 30 years.

The DUI argument is a huge win as well.


----------



## Nick (Feb 18, 2013)

Geoff said:


> Came for the Luddites who won't drive anything but a manual transmission car.
> 
> Left disappointed.



I think I would personally miss the act of "driving" quite a bit ... and the problem of course is that you don't get near the full benefit of self-driving cars IF there are still drivers on the road driving themselves. 

Who knows. Maybe towns will all have their own private "nurburgrings" in the future where you'd have to go to experience "driving"


----------



## dmc (Feb 18, 2013)

Geoff said:


> My dad died of Altzheimers a few years ago.   Last summer, I had to do a "rescue" of my stepfather who had gotten disoriented and driven 100+ miles the wrong way before getting pulled over the by the State Police while taking a leak at the side of the road.   I'm going to get there some day myself.  It would dramatically improve my quality of life as an old bastard if I had a self-driving car.



Taking the keys from my Dad - also Alzheimers - was a VERY difficult thing...  For all of us..
I never thought of this before - but yeah - great use!!!


----------



## NESnow&Golf (Feb 18, 2013)

cool


----------



## Scruffy (Feb 18, 2013)

Nick said:


> What do you guys think of this?



Just what our economy needs, put all the teamsters out of work :-o


----------



## bvibert (Feb 19, 2013)

I wouldn't want to disappoint Geoff... 

No thanks, I'll stick to driving my manual transmission car myself. Sure there's some benefits to the self driving cars, but I like driving myself.


----------



## ScottySkis (Feb 19, 2013)

Like others have said, it would help out big time for older and handicapped people so this is a great thing.


----------



## bvibert (Feb 19, 2013)

Self driving cars won't be effective unless everyone on the road is using them, which is why I'm opposed to them.


----------



## ScottySkis (Feb 19, 2013)

bvibert said:


> Self driving cars won't be effective unless everyone on the road is using them, which is why I'm opposed to them.



With about if they build roads just for this. And we pay for the road like Easy Pass.


----------



## bvibert (Feb 19, 2013)

Scotty said:


> With about if they build roads just for this. And we pay for the road like Easy Pass.



Trying to double the roads throughout the country sounds like an even worse idea to me..


----------



## Geoff (Feb 19, 2013)

bvibert said:


> Self driving cars won't be effective unless everyone on the road is using them, which is why I'm opposed to them.



I disagree.   Self-driving cars will work better than human-driven cars.   Between RADAR and visual pattern recognition from cameras that can see more light spectrum than humans, robot cars will have no problem co-existing with human-driven cars.  Unlike human-driven cars, they don't daydream, text message while driving, have Senior moments....

And yeah, it will be tough for the Teamsters.   Basically, automation is going to put pretty much destroy all repetitive task jobs.   Companies like Amazon already have robot 'pickers' in their warehouses.   You'll walk into a fast food restaurant and there will be no humans.  Machine-cooked and served food.   Machines that clean the tables and floors.   In the next 30 or 40 years, it will end up putting half the country out of work.


----------



## dmc (Feb 19, 2013)

Geoff said:


> Self-driving cars will work better than human-driven cars.   Between RADAR and visual pattern recognition from cameras that can see more light spectrum than humans, robot cars will have no problem co-existing with human-driven cars.  Unlike human-driven cars, they don't daydream, text message while driving, have Senior moments....



Agree.  Love your forward thinking!

Traffic will move so much better if all traffic was automated..
But co-existing will be important...


----------



## ctenidae (Feb 19, 2013)

bvibert said:


> Self driving cars won't be effective unless everyone on the road is using them, which is why I'm opposed to them.



I don't entirely disagree, but they'll certainly make excellent moving slalom courses


----------



## bvibert (Feb 19, 2013)

I disagree that they will have no problem coexisting with human drivers, which I feel will ultimately lead to a push to have human driven cars outlawed.  Something that I hope I never see in my lifetime, or that my kids see either.


----------



## bvibert (Feb 19, 2013)

ctenidae said:


> I don't entirely disagree, but they'll certainly make excellent moving slalom courses



They'll probably automatically alert the police to any "spirited" driving they capture with their cameras...


----------



## Geoff (Feb 19, 2013)

ctenidae said:


> I don't entirely disagree, but they'll certainly make excellent moving slalom courses



I'll bet that in 25 or 30 years, a robot car could easily win a Formula 1 race against a human.   Unlike a human, you can dial in "the perfect lap" for a robot car and drive it mistake-free every time.   Why do you think F1 bans automatic transmissions?   A computer can shift far better than a human and it would be an unfair advantage.


----------



## ctenidae (Feb 19, 2013)

Geoff said:


> I'll bet that in 25 or 30 years, a robot car could easily win a Formula 1 race against a human.   Unlike a human, you can dial in "the perfect lap" for a robot car and drive it mistake-free every time.   Why do you think F1 bans automatic transmissions?   A computer can shift far better than a human and it would be an unfair advantage.



Having more cars on the road driving in a programmed predictable manner would make it much more fun for the rest of us, that's for sure.


----------



## ScottySkis (Feb 19, 2013)

Geoff said:


> I disagree.   Self-driving cars will work better than human-driven cars.   Between RADAR and visual pattern recognition from cameras that can see more light spectrum than humans, robot cars will have no problem co-existing with human-driven cars.  Unlike human-driven cars, they don't daydream, text message while driving, have Senior moments....
> 
> And yeah, it will be tough for the Teamsters.   Basically, automation is going to put pretty much destroy all repetitive task jobs.   Companies like Amazon already have robot 'pickers' in their warehouses.   You'll walk into a fast food restaurant and there will be no humans.  Machine-cooked and served food.   Machines that clean the tables and floors.   In the next 30 or 40 years, it will end up putting half the country out of work.


So fast food places will not have urine and what ever else teenagers might put in the food, I can live with that.


----------



## Glenn (Feb 19, 2013)

The toughest part of this will be implementing it. If we were to flip a switch, perfect. But for a number of years, you'll have a mix of traffic; automated, non automated, semi automated. 

I love to drive....I generally enjoy it. But driving north last weekend...I didn't. Most of the population doesn't get it. They can't judge speed or distance, they make poor choices and for the love of God...left lane use people!  I could see this working on highways first; cars heading towards a similar desination caravan and the operator could remove their hands from the controls. We have the tech now with GPS, adaptive cruise. 

Another school of thought. If you remove the operator, you remove a lot of risk. You could, in theory remove a lot of the mandated safety stuff, thus reducing weight and fuel economy.


----------



## Geoff (Feb 19, 2013)

Glenn said:


> Another school of thought. If you remove the operator, you remove a lot of risk. You could, in theory remove a lot of the mandated safety stuff, thus reducing weight and fuel economy.



Not when you have bvibert out there endangering everybody because he thinks he's a bad-ass driver.   

Even if all cars were automated, there will still be cases where cars crash.   A rock slide.   Mechanical failure.   I don't think it makes sense to go backwards with 'safety stuff'.   Car bumpers, maybe.   I still want a nice thick hunk of steel in my door and air bags.


----------



## bvibert (Feb 19, 2013)

Geoff said:


> Not when you have bvibert out there endangering everybody because he thinks he's a bad-ass driver.



You got it backwards - everyone else is endangering ME!

Seriously.. never said I was a bad ass driver.. I just like to drive..

I'd be more apt to support self driving cars if they were flying cars that left the roadways clear for those of us that enjoy driving...


----------



## Cornhead (Feb 19, 2013)

Scotty said:


> So fast food places will not have urine and what ever else teenagers might put in the food, I can live with that.


Woah, glad I wasn't eating lunch when I read this.:wink:

I can see pluses and minuses to self driven cars, it'll probably start with interstates, who would really miss long boring, stressful drives on highways? I saw a show where they hacked the computer of a car that takes commands from your cell phone, to start the car and such, they were able to apply the brakes with the phone, kinda scary. I think traffic deaths and injuries would become almost nonexistent if humans were taken out of the equation. Hey, get your speed jollies on the hill, or country roads, there the ones that are fun to drive on anyway. 

I would have welcomed a self driven car on my trip home from Cannon, shit there may have been a few times you could have argued my car _was _self-driven close to the end of my trip. If I weren't so close to home, I'd have pulled over for a nap, not a good situation, if I had to respond to anything quickly, deer running across the highway, etc, I'd've been screwed.


----------



## ctenidae (Feb 19, 2013)

Having the option to caravan up on highways makes sense to me. Being required to do it, not so much. That is, it makes sense, but I don't like it.


----------



## dmc (Feb 19, 2013)

I could see a lane for automatic cars and lanes for manual driven...


----------



## Geoff (Feb 19, 2013)

dmc said:


> I could see a lane for automatic cars and lanes for manual driven...



In a traffic jam, that would give good incentive for people to upgrade.   The automatic lane would zoom by with no morons hitting their brakes causing all the stop & go mess.   The cars would be networked together so they'd know if a car a mile ahead needed to brake for something.  On August 29, it gains self-awareness and can't be deactivated.   It launches nuclear missiles at Russia and...


----------



## ScottySkis (Feb 19, 2013)

[QUOTE=Geoff;760622 launches nuclear missiles at Russia and...[/QUOTE
I love this movie from the 1989s.


----------



## Cornhead (Feb 19, 2013)

Terminator 2, right? It is an awesome movie, it's one of those movies I always watch if I see it flipping through the channels. Then there's,  "Open the pod bay doors HAL." Here's a little trivia for you, no Googling, why did Arthur C Clarke name the computer in 2001 HAL?


----------



## dmc (Feb 19, 2013)

Geoff said:


> In a traffic jam, that would give good incentive for people to upgrade.   The automatic lane would zoom by with no morons hitting their brakes causing all the stop & go mess.   The cars would be networked together so they'd know if a car a mile ahead needed to brake for something.  On August 29, it gains self-awareness and can't be deactivated.   It launches nuclear missiles at Russia and...



You know... You and i probably read the same Popular Science magazines back in the 60's and 70s...  haha...


----------



## ScottySkis (Feb 19, 2013)

Cornhead said:


> Terminator 2, right? It is an awesome movie, it's one of those movies I always watch if I see it flipping through the channels. Then there's,  "Open the pod bay doors HAL." Here's a little trivia for you, no Googling, why did Arthur C Clarke name the computer in 2001 HAL?



War games is the one I was thinking about, the computer has to play chess and has to beat it self and finally figures out it can't win and stops it self from creating a uS - Russian war.

He like Halloween a lot?


----------



## dmc (Feb 19, 2013)

Cornhead said:


> Here's a little trivia for you, no Googling, why did Arthur C Clarke name the computer in 2001 HAL?



I'm almost embarrassed to answer that.

IBM -one letter off...


----------



## Geoff (Feb 19, 2013)

Cornhead said:


> Terminator 2, right? It is an awesome movie, it's one of those movies I always watch if I see it flipping through the channels. Then there's,  "Open the pod bay doors HAL." Here's a little trivia for you, no Googling, why did Arthur C Clarke name the computer in 2001 HAL?



"Arconyms for $1000, Alex"

What is because it's one position down in the alphabet from IBM?

I have my "The Terminator" Blu Ray on the plasma right now.


----------



## Cornhead (Feb 19, 2013)

dmc said:


> I'm almost embarrassed to answer that.
> 
> IBM -one letter off...



Yes, you are correct. Arthur C Clarke was quite the visionary, he came up with the idea of geocentric orbiting sattelites, their orbit is  called the "Clarke Belt". Not too shabby for a science fiction writer.

War Games was good too Scotty, "Shall we play a game?"


----------



## ScottySkis (Feb 19, 2013)

Cornhead said:


> Yes, you are correct. Arthur C Clarke was quite the visionary, he came up with the idea of geocentric orbiting sattelites, their orbit is  called the "Clarke Belt". Not too shabby for a science fiction writer.
> 
> War Games was good too Scotty, "Shall we play a game?"



Sorry both movies are classics.


----------



## bvibert (Feb 20, 2013)

ctenidae said:


> Having the option to caravan up on highways makes sense to me. Being required to do it, not so much. That is, it makes sense, but I don't like it.



Exactly how I feel.


----------



## Nick (Feb 20, 2013)

I love driving as well but I have a hard time making the case for driving vs. automated transportation. The benefits are so great if it can truly be implemented in a good way. Driving might become a "hobby" at a track or similar. This is probably not in our lifetime, but maybe my future grandkids or something.


----------



## bvibert (Feb 20, 2013)

Nick said:


> I love driving as well but I have a hard time making the case for driving vs. automated transportation...



I hear what you're saying, but that doesn't mean I have to like it..


----------



## dmc (Feb 20, 2013)

Nick said:


> I love driving as well but I have a hard time making the case for driving vs. automated transportation. The benefits are so great if it can truly be implemented in a good way. Driving might become a "hobby" at a track or similar. This is probably not in our lifetime, but maybe my future grandkids or something.



Lots of people didn't want to see the horse and buggy go away either..

I'm a future guy..


----------

