Who Decided The World Wanted Self Driving Cars?

Contrary to the microcosm on this site. Self driving cars will be a major revolution for people's lives. Yes it will be disruptive to certain industries (insurance, transport, etc.) but overall you'll see quite a few things come from it including increased mobility to the elderly and infirm, overall reduction in accidents, and increase in efficiencies of delays as things are better synchronized.

We on this site enjoy cars for their pleasure, their looks, their performance, but to the rest of the world at large, a vehicle is a utility, and there are a lot of people who are interested in optimizing that utility for people. I just hope its don't in a way that doesn't completely destroy what we love about cars, but it's still coming so be prepared.

Everything that you mentioned can be accomplished with buses. And autonomous cars cannot cure traffic jams.

Autonomous driving cars are a terrible idea driven by the software engineers and those seeking a scifi paradigm on the road.

No - the idea of a Self Driving car - is actually an old idea - and its roots are in two things - Chauffeur Driven Cars - and TAXIs. THere was a time when not everyone could afford a car - but affordable Taxi service in many urban areas helped alleviate that problem. And of course - the rich could afford to have someone to drive their cars when they chose not to - although that does not mean they did not have a car the could drive themselves.

However - the idea of a self driving car - which could be used not just in Urban areas - but even Suburban and rural areas - addresses the concern for the mobility of people who - for what ever reason (Age - eyesight - etc) cannot drive for themselves anymore. With people living FAR longer than anyone thought they would - a lot of these people are house bound if they cannot drive - and a self driving car is at least a part of the solution.

In addition - even those who enjoy normal driving must admit that driving in morning or evening RUSH traffic is not really enjoyable at all. Plus - it wastes time that could be used for other purposes. A self driving car would help in those situations too. SO in actuality - there are direct reasons why a self driving ABILITY could have uses.

THe problem remains- too many people automatically assume that their ability to drive their own car will be stopped - I do not see that to be the case at least in the near future. WHat I do see - however - is Governments see that cars can be controlled from the OUTSIDE of the car - will aid in enforcing speed limits - keeping car spacing - and eliminating that occasional idiot who jumps from lane to lane causing problems. At that point - your acceleration could be limited - certainly your speed would be limited - and you might even be limited in how "spirited" you tend to drive - and which point driving would be less desirable.

Self driving cars will improve no one's driving skills.

Republicans think we should return to horses and Buggies

@TomM: It appears the conservative right's greatest preoccupations are God, guns, stranger's genitals, who touches stranger's genitals, "clean" coal, the right to pollute, "fine" Nazis, killing food stamps and welfare., etc., etc. :-/

So resident hypocrite #1 (TheSteve) who lectures people on compassion and human behavior at its best elsewhere, turns around and high fives resident hypocrite #2 (TomM) while he intolerantly bashes people with whom he does not agree. TheSteve talks out of both sides of his mouth. In one sentence he bashes and bullies and in the next will crown himself the king of compassionate kindness.

Where do Republicans dig up this horse manure?

I attended a conference on Automotive World Safety at the NYIAS. There was a session on autonomous vehicles and the statistics presented indicated that most people do not want or have confidence in autonomous vehicles. One nationality showed the most interest and most willingness to accept autonomous cars - Italians - surprise!

The same was said about smart phones. I can promise that at some point in your life you will be using self-driving cars.

Silly discussion. One thing is motorcar driving, ie, driving for pleasure. The other thing is daily transportation and this will get automated despite whatever you may think of it. It is irreversible, albeit the occurrence of some very few unavoidable road accidents.

Lawyers! Oh and Matt is right again!