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I've always had a few questions about the move toward fully automated cars (and I don't mean to raise these as luddite objections, I'm just curious how it will

I've always had a few questions about the move toward fully automated cars (and I don't mean to raise these as luddite objections, I'm just curious how it will play out, and what steps are being taken to address this) 1)How will manual cars (and motorcycles) be managed once we have non trivial percentages of cars on the road automated? Will there be automated-only highways? Automated-only lanes? Is the beginning of the end for those of us who really enjoy driving (or motorcyles?). Or will those things just be limited to non-urban/track environments? 2)How does all this automation & closer car traveling @ high speeds work when natural events intercede. The most obvious one is weather (rain or snow), which can be a huge problem for cities as is, but it seems like having cars on the road with no "bubbles" of space to buffer great exacerbates the potential for massive accidents when there is marginal traction. Secondly, in many areas of the country, wildlife on highways is a very common occurrence (even in cities there's the occasional road debris/unexpected obstacle). I wonder how well an at-capacity automated highway could react to a sudden bit of road obstruction w/o running into a massive accident (or massive traffic jam) situation. Of course, many/most human drivers don't handle adverse weather or unexpected obstacles very well either, so maybe these are just facts of driving, not arguments against automated cars as such. Still, I'm interested to see what attempts are being made to mitigate the effects of such variables.

maxerickson 14y ago
I think there are a lot of situations where automatic cars would leave more space than humans, who seem to be prone to (unnecessary) tailgating.
- error54 14y ago
  Let's not forget traffic jams caused by rubbernecking.
yk 14y ago
The first automated car needs to handle human drivers well. Therefore all later cars will just inherit the ability to share a road with humans ( and very likely there will be laws which mandate this until all cars are automated). About your second question, at least at high speeds the capacity of an break is more important for the distance needed to stop the car, than the reaction time. So the situation does not change much.
error54 14y ago
You bring up some very valid points. There will always be drivers on the road (assuming the government doesn't make it illegal) long after automated cars are fully integrated into society. Hell, I bet it will take at least 10-15 years before all the states legalize self driving cars which of course would be mandatory for any sort of highway travel. I think too many people are reaching to calculate the effect this will have on the price of gas, insurance, etc but we have to remember that full integration of automated cars is likely to take decades. All of the major industries will have plenty of time adjust and find a way to survive.

maxerickson 14y ago

I think there are a lot of situations where automatic cars would leave more space than humans, who seem to be prone to (unnecessary) tailgating.

error54 14y ago
Let's not forget traffic jams caused by rubbernecking.

yk 14y ago

The first automated car needs to handle human drivers well. Therefore all later cars will just inherit the ability to share a road with humans ( and very likely there will be laws which mandate this until all cars are automated). About your second question, at least at high speeds the capacity of an break is more important for the distance needed to stop the car, than the reaction time. So the situation does not change much.

error54 14y ago

You bring up some very valid points. There will always be drivers on the road (assuming the government doesn't make it illegal) long after automated cars are fully integrated into society. Hell, I bet it will take at least 10-15 years before all the states legalize self driving cars which of course would be mandatory for any sort of highway travel. I think too many people are reaching to calculate the effect this will have on the price of gas, insurance, etc but we have to remember that full integration of automated cars is likely to take decades. All of the major industries will have plenty of time adjust and find a way to survive.