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When this starts scaling, there is definitely going to be a culture clash between these autonomous vehicles which follow the exact letter of the law, and the hu

When this starts scaling, there is definitely going to be a culture clash between these autonomous vehicles which follow the exact letter of the law, and the human drivers who routinely don't. When you get stuck in the line of cars behind one of these things in the fast lane, and it's not going 3-8 mph over the posted speed limit like everyone else... I'd bet that they are going to have dedicated lanes.

whatshisface 8y ago
The letter of the law in many states says that if you are not passing you must use the rightmost lane. So, these cars should pool up in that lane while human drivers zip by to the left of them. There are humans that go the speed limit today, and this is usually what happens.
- treerock 8y ago
  In my experience, the cars in the slow lane are often going well below the speed limit. So you could easily have self-driving cars, driving at the speed limit, in the passing lane. I'm curious if they would be programmed to 'move in' to allow a faster (exceeding speed limit) car to pass.
metalliqaz 8y ago
This is always the first thing I think of when I picture a future with wide adoption of autonomous vehicles. Not only is there road-rage potential, think about the municipal revenue from traffic enforcement. The public purse will remain thirsty for the funds, but autonomous cars will be very difficult to fine (either because they don't break the law or because every ticket gets disputed with hard data from companies that can afford to defend themselves). So what will happen? People driving older cars will start to become "over fished". As time goes on, it will only be poor people getting tickets (even more so than today) and therefore disproportionately minorities, and the social unrest between those people and an antagonistic police force will worsen. The way laws are made is an interesting and complicated topic. Most people have an innate understanding as to what is "correct", when when the laws don't match up then there are problems. They keep the speed limits a little below that number because then the police can pull over cars they don't like at will, and because of the ticket revenue. Honestly, I think once autonomous vehicles pass the 50% mark, they will have to increase the speed limits just to keep everyone safe.
dsfyu404ed 8y ago
Right now the law does reflects neither the way people act nor the way the infrastructure was designed (see 90th percentile rule vs politically determined speed limits). People want to go what is a safe and reasonable speed for the conditions (55mph is safe but not reasonable for an interstate highway in most non-traffic jam conditions), the driver-less car operators want to be able to get people and things from A to B just as quickly and the highway engineers know that having two groups of traffic following different rules on the same infrastructure is a recipe for disaster. The law will be what change because changing the law doesn't require millions of dollars like creating separate infrastructure does. As a bonus the people who follow the law without considering their surroundings (e.g. people going the speed limit in the left lane) will be less annoying to the majority of the population when the letter of the law becomes aligned to how the majority of the population acts.
tonyedgecombe 8y ago
I'd bet that they are going to have dedicated lanes. I suspect this is the only way we are going to completely solve the technical problems. Something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Byk8LcPovOQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Byk8LcPovOQ

whatshisface 8y ago

The letter of the law in many states says that if you are not passing you must use the rightmost lane. So, these cars should pool up in that lane while human drivers zip by to the left of them. There are humans that go the speed limit today, and this is usually what happens.

treerock 8y ago
In my experience, the cars in the slow lane are often going well below the speed limit. So you could easily have self-driving cars, driving at the speed limit, in the passing lane. I'm curious if they would be programmed to 'move in' to allow a faster (exceeding speed limit) car to pass.

metalliqaz 8y ago

This is always the first thing I think of when I picture a future with wide adoption of autonomous vehicles. Not only is there road-rage potential, think about the municipal revenue from traffic enforcement. The public purse will remain thirsty for the funds, but autonomous cars will be very difficult to fine (either because they don't break the law or because every ticket gets disputed with hard data from companies that can afford to defend themselves). So what will happen? People driving older cars will start to become "over fished". As time goes on, it will only be poor people getting tickets (even more so than today) and therefore disproportionately minorities, and the social unrest between those people and an antagonistic police force will worsen. The way laws are made is an interesting and complicated topic. Most people have an innate understanding as to what is "correct", when when the laws don't match up then there are problems. They keep the speed limits a little below that number because then the police can pull over cars they don't like at will, and because of the ticket revenue. Honestly, I think once autonomous vehicles pass the 50% mark, they will have to increase the speed limits just to keep everyone safe.

dsfyu404ed 8y ago

Right now the law does reflects neither the way people act nor the way the infrastructure was designed (see 90th percentile rule vs politically determined speed limits). People want to go what is a safe and reasonable speed for the conditions (55mph is safe but not reasonable for an interstate highway in most non-traffic jam conditions), the driver-less car operators want to be able to get people and things from A to B just as quickly and the highway engineers know that having two groups of traffic following different rules on the same infrastructure is a recipe for disaster. The law will be what change because changing the law doesn't require millions of dollars like creating separate infrastructure does. As a bonus the people who follow the law without considering their surroundings (e.g. people going the speed limit in the left lane) will be less annoying to the majority of the population when the letter of the law becomes aligned to how the majority of the population acts.

tonyedgecombe 8y ago

I'd bet that they are going to have dedicated lanes. I suspect this is the only way we are going to completely solve the technical problems. Something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Byk8LcPovOQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Byk8LcPovOQ