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Flying cars can generate flying car crashes which seem inherently dangerous. A drone is nothing more than a flying car without a driver. If it breaks down and k
by coldcode 10y ago
Flying cars can generate flying car crashes which seem inherently dangerous. A drone is nothing more than a flying car without a driver. If it breaks down and kills the passenger (and anyone unlucky beneath) who is responsible?
- ourmandave 10y agoThat's all I can think about when I watch SF movies with flying cars (e.g. Fifth Element, Star Wars, Natl Lampoon's Vacation). Where do you park? What happens if the battery dies? Why is there so much cartoon physics?
- nine_k 10y ago1) You park in a garage or a parking lot, as you would a normal car of comparable size. 2) There's no "the battery", there are several cells, each capable of giving you enough juice for a landing if all others die. OTOH catastrophic failures are of course possible, as with cars. A parachute pushed out by a small charge can help if the altitude allows. 3) Because cartoon physics look good (and funny) on screen. I suppose the rest of Fifth Element does not look boringly realistic to you either.
- ourmandave 10y agoThe Fifth Elements dudes in the rubber masks was not a high point. But I was thinking more about Jedi jumping out of cars and not going splat on someone's windshield.
- the8472 10y agoCar traffic has to flow through a 1D cross-section (N lanes) one after another. Air traffic can flow through a 2D cross-section. Which also means that vehicles don't have don't to line up like a pearl necklace. That should reduce collision probabilities if vehicles talk to each other and are able to reserve sufficiently large safety buffers around each other.