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If you actually replace all human drivers with all computer drivers, I'm pretty sure we'd hit the 100% safety mark. I can't even imagine the resistance to self

If you actually replace all human drivers with all computer drivers, I'm pretty sure we'd hit the 100% safety mark. I can't even imagine the resistance to self-driving cars once they're actually viable. Who even enjoys driving on city roads anymore? Or on highways? I drove on American freeways and it was mind-numbingly dull. Just acres of concrete all along the road with nothing interesting to see or do.

kbart 10y ago
"If you actually replace all human drivers with all computer drivers" I drive motorcycle (and enjoy that), I doubt autopilot will come to those anytime soon..
- kagamine 10y ago
  There are many other vehicles on the road also needing a human to drive them, tractors, heavy machinery, buses (that are not part of a regular, pre-defined route) ++. In the future though, it will always be your fault, because you are one person trying to prove an accident was not your fault against a big-money company. Good luck.
  - kbart 10y ago
    "In the future though, it will always be your fault, because you are one person trying to prove an accident was not your fault against a big-money company." That's why I always wear videoregistrator on my helmet. It paid off for itself many times already.
  - leni536 10y ago
    >tractors I would expect that it's quite easy to autopilot a tractor on the road. They already use autopilot in the field.
    - kagamine 10y ago
      It will be decades before farm machinery is replaced by modern tech. Decades. I would like HN users to very much stop dismissing any discussion on the topic of automated vehicles with glib reactions devoid of thought.
      - Animats 10y ago
        Self-driving is a common feature on modern tractors. It's been available for almost 15 years.[1] Even when there's an operator in the cab, it's common to have automatic steering to keep the rows precise. The usual setup involves a pseudolite on the farm as a local reference for GPS correction. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7xc45LyhoU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7xc45LyhoU
        kagamine 10y ago
        Perhaps on modern farm equipment, but tractors last for decades and many of the tractors in rural Europe aren't even fuel injected. It will be many years until tractors and combine harvesters and the like are swapped out for newer equipment.
        Animats 10y ago
        There are retrofits. "If it has a steering wheel, we can do it."[1] [1] https://www.precisionfarmingdealer.com/articles/2211-retrofitting-technology-creates-aftermarket-opportunities https://www.precisionfarmingdealer.com/articles/2211-retrofi...
- Ma8ee 10y ago
  I'm fine with that. Motorcycle riders kill almost exclusively themselves.
  - lostlogin 10y ago
    To add an actual data point, in New Zealand bike rider fatalities are not the motor bike riders fault about 30% of the time and in non fatal crashes the figure is about 40%. www.transport.govt.nz/assets/Uploads/Research/Documents/Motorcycles-15.pdf
    - kbart 10y ago
      "in New Zealand bike rider fatalities are not the motor bike riders fault about 30% of the time and in non fatal crashes the figure is about 40%." In Lithuania it's even worse, around 60% (2014 data).
    - Ma8ee 10y ago
      My point was not that motorcycle drivers are worse drivers than car drivers. It's probably the other way around. But with computer drivers very soon much safer than human drivers, I'm very eager to get all trucks and cars driven by computers because it significantly reduce the risk of me or someone I care about being killed in traffic. But if someone wants to continue to steer their motorcycle themselves, I'm fine with that because it is unlikely that I'll be seriously hurt in a collision between my car and a motorcycle.
- Animats 10y ago
  Anthony Levandowski, one of the key people behind Google's self-driving car effort, built a self-driving motorcycle for the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge. It's now in the Smithsonian.[1] [1] http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_1332301 http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah...
  - kbart 10y ago
    Nice, but robot-on-two-wheels is not quite the same as motorcycle autopiloting with human on top, who doesn't sit still and doesn't handle sudden movements well.
    - croon 10y ago
      Though to be fair I absolutely don't see the point in sitting on a motorcycle unless you're driving it. It's not like you can occupy your time with anything else than leaning over to hold the handlebars.
stephenr 10y ago
> Who even enjoys driving on city roads anymore? Or on highways? I drove on American freeways and it was mind-numbingly dull. Just acres of concrete all along the road with nothing interesting to see or do. Who even enjoys writing code any more? It's just line after line of characters on a screen, with nothing interesting to see or do. Yet another american claim that "I don't like something, therefore no one else must like it either", with the usual view that because something is terrible in America, it must be terrible everywhere.
- puranjay 10y ago
  I'm actually Indian. 160,000 of us died in road accidents last year. Driving has now become a choice between the dull, automated driving I did in America, or the mad, chaotic rush I see on Indian roads. Neither of these are enjoyable or even particularly safe
  - stephenr 10y ago
    Looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r..., India has 16.6 deaths per 100K inhabitants per year, which is close to what you stated. Keep in mind, you're just below the world average (17) at that value. So while Im sure Indian roads are as bad as their reputation, there are worse. I live in Thailand, on the same list (when sorted by deaths by 100K inhabitants), we're #2 (right behind Libya), with 36.2; the deaths per year for here was 24K, based on a population of just 65 million. My point is, I know what it's like to drive on dangerous roads, and I still dispute your claim that driving is either boring or dangerous. Even driving across the Eyre highway from Adelaide to Perth (~2700km), part of which is the '90 mile straight' - a section of road with 0 bends for 145km - is something I can look back and be glad I've done it. If you personally don't enjoy driving, or feel unsafe driving, you personally can take actions based on that, such as taking a bus or taxi, or car pooling etc. But don't somehow think that because your homeland has a reputation for bad roads, and America has apparently boring roads, that no one else on the planet enjoys driving.
lagadu 10y ago
Not 100% because we'd still have accidents caused by sudden mechanical failures but there's no 100% effective, reasonable way around those.

kbart 10y ago

"If you actually replace all human drivers with all computer drivers" I drive motorcycle (and enjoy that), I doubt autopilot will come to those anytime soon..

kagamine 10y ago
There are many other vehicles on the road also needing a human to drive them, tractors, heavy machinery, buses (that are not part of a regular, pre-defined route) ++. In the future though, it will always be your fault, because you are one person trying to prove an accident was not your fault against a big-money company. Good luck.
- kbart 10y ago
  "In the future though, it will always be your fault, because you are one person trying to prove an accident was not your fault against a big-money company." That's why I always wear videoregistrator on my helmet. It paid off for itself many times already.
- leni536 10y ago
  >tractors I would expect that it's quite easy to autopilot a tractor on the road. They already use autopilot in the field.
  - kagamine 10y ago
    It will be decades before farm machinery is replaced by modern tech. Decades. I would like HN users to very much stop dismissing any discussion on the topic of automated vehicles with glib reactions devoid of thought.
    - Animats 10y ago
      Self-driving is a common feature on modern tractors. It's been available for almost 15 years.[1] Even when there's an operator in the cab, it's common to have automatic steering to keep the rows precise. The usual setup involves a pseudolite on the farm as a local reference for GPS correction. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7xc45LyhoU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7xc45LyhoU
      - kagamine 10y ago
        Perhaps on modern farm equipment, but tractors last for decades and many of the tractors in rural Europe aren't even fuel injected. It will be many years until tractors and combine harvesters and the like are swapped out for newer equipment.
        Animats 10y ago
        There are retrofits. "If it has a steering wheel, we can do it."[1] [1] https://www.precisionfarmingdealer.com/articles/2211-retrofitting-technology-creates-aftermarket-opportunities https://www.precisionfarmingdealer.com/articles/2211-retrofi...
Ma8ee 10y ago
I'm fine with that. Motorcycle riders kill almost exclusively themselves.
- lostlogin 10y ago
  To add an actual data point, in New Zealand bike rider fatalities are not the motor bike riders fault about 30% of the time and in non fatal crashes the figure is about 40%. www.transport.govt.nz/assets/Uploads/Research/Documents/Motorcycles-15.pdf
  - kbart 10y ago
    "in New Zealand bike rider fatalities are not the motor bike riders fault about 30% of the time and in non fatal crashes the figure is about 40%." In Lithuania it's even worse, around 60% (2014 data).
  - Ma8ee 10y ago
    My point was not that motorcycle drivers are worse drivers than car drivers. It's probably the other way around. But with computer drivers very soon much safer than human drivers, I'm very eager to get all trucks and cars driven by computers because it significantly reduce the risk of me or someone I care about being killed in traffic. But if someone wants to continue to steer their motorcycle themselves, I'm fine with that because it is unlikely that I'll be seriously hurt in a collision between my car and a motorcycle.
Animats 10y ago
Anthony Levandowski, one of the key people behind Google's self-driving car effort, built a self-driving motorcycle for the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge. It's now in the Smithsonian.[1] [1] http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_1332301 http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah...
- kbart 10y ago
  Nice, but robot-on-two-wheels is not quite the same as motorcycle autopiloting with human on top, who doesn't sit still and doesn't handle sudden movements well.
  - croon 10y ago
    Though to be fair I absolutely don't see the point in sitting on a motorcycle unless you're driving it. It's not like you can occupy your time with anything else than leaning over to hold the handlebars.

stephenr 10y ago

> Who even enjoys driving on city roads anymore? Or on highways? I drove on American freeways and it was mind-numbingly dull. Just acres of concrete all along the road with nothing interesting to see or do. Who even enjoys writing code any more? It's just line after line of characters on a screen, with nothing interesting to see or do. Yet another american claim that "I don't like something, therefore no one else must like it either", with the usual view that because something is terrible in America, it must be terrible everywhere.

puranjay 10y ago
I'm actually Indian. 160,000 of us died in road accidents last year. Driving has now become a choice between the dull, automated driving I did in America, or the mad, chaotic rush I see on Indian roads. Neither of these are enjoyable or even particularly safe
- stephenr 10y ago
  Looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r..., India has 16.6 deaths per 100K inhabitants per year, which is close to what you stated. Keep in mind, you're just below the world average (17) at that value. So while Im sure Indian roads are as bad as their reputation, there are worse. I live in Thailand, on the same list (when sorted by deaths by 100K inhabitants), we're #2 (right behind Libya), with 36.2; the deaths per year for here was 24K, based on a population of just 65 million. My point is, I know what it's like to drive on dangerous roads, and I still dispute your claim that driving is either boring or dangerous. Even driving across the Eyre highway from Adelaide to Perth (~2700km), part of which is the '90 mile straight' - a section of road with 0 bends for 145km - is something I can look back and be glad I've done it. If you personally don't enjoy driving, or feel unsafe driving, you personally can take actions based on that, such as taking a bus or taxi, or car pooling etc. But don't somehow think that because your homeland has a reputation for bad roads, and America has apparently boring roads, that no one else on the planet enjoys driving.

lagadu 10y ago

Not 100% because we'd still have accidents caused by sudden mechanical failures but there's no 100% effective, reasonable way around those.