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Reminds me of Googler Steve Lacey, killed by a road rage driver (http://www.kirklandreporter.com/news/138605969.html http://www.kirklandreporter.com/news/138605

Reminds me of Googler Steve Lacey, killed by a road rage driver (http://www.kirklandreporter.com/news/138605969.html http://www.kirklandreporter.com/news/138605969.html) When trying to find this story, I googled "employee killed by driver" and it's just a non-stop parade of stories of drunks and ragers killing people. If you cause an accident either drunk or by rage, you should go to jail, period. The Netherlands has no tolerance for this kind of bullshit. Injure someone while stoned, 3 years jail time. Kill? 6 years or more. People obsess about self driving cars killing people, and yes, there will be accidents. yes, there's going to be a case of a little girl chasing after a ball into the street who gets run over. Yes, there's going to be cases of a self driving car running over a pedestrian, or turning head on into traffic. I'm almost sure of it. But these incidents probably will be insignificant compared to 30,000+ people killed per year and even more injured by human drivers. If 100 people lose their lives to software bugs per year in cars (which will improve over time), but 10,000 people lose their lives to human bugs, it will be a vast improvement.

jimmyslim22 12y ago
This is where the troublesome nature of humans comes into play. I first want to say that as someone who works in robotics, I want the automation revolution to come as much as the next guy. As a matter of fact, you are probably going to be hard pressed to find a demographic on this site that thinks differently. However, our world is sometimes driven by the vocal minority and in this case it will be the luddites that VEHEMENTLY OPPOSE self-driving cars for short minded purposes. Growing up in Nebraska and witnessing the reaction to technological influence there was very eye opening in that you realize that the common man/women thinks very much with their emotions and not with logic. You can beat them over the head with facts like this and they will argue for their old ways. They want to be in control of the situation. They want to have the right to drive their car themselves and they certainly don't trust a machine to do it for them. (I guarantee that you will hear arguements like "it's taking away jobs" and "look at this instance where it malfunctioned") this leaves some very tricky features that engineers must work into it. Is there a manual override? Are there regulations on what kind of sensing equipment is on board or is it left to the private company? What is the acceptable error range for a car at the end of the day? I think we will move into a world dominated by self-driving cars and other tech conviences that make our life easier, but I think it will be slowed down considerably by those who are resistant to change. I think anything that cuts down on instances such as this is a good and much needed thing that cannot get here any faster.

jimmyslim22 12y ago

This is where the troublesome nature of humans comes into play. I first want to say that as someone who works in robotics, I want the automation revolution to come as much as the next guy. As a matter of fact, you are probably going to be hard pressed to find a demographic on this site that thinks differently. However, our world is sometimes driven by the vocal minority and in this case it will be the luddites that VEHEMENTLY OPPOSE self-driving cars for short minded purposes. Growing up in Nebraska and witnessing the reaction to technological influence there was very eye opening in that you realize that the common man/women thinks very much with their emotions and not with logic. You can beat them over the head with facts like this and they will argue for their old ways. They want to be in control of the situation. They want to have the right to drive their car themselves and they certainly don't trust a machine to do it for them. (I guarantee that you will hear arguements like "it's taking away jobs" and "look at this instance where it malfunctioned") this leaves some very tricky features that engineers must work into it. Is there a manual override? Are there regulations on what kind of sensing equipment is on board or is it left to the private company? What is the acceptable error range for a car at the end of the day? I think we will move into a world dominated by self-driving cars and other tech conviences that make our life easier, but I think it will be slowed down considerably by those who are resistant to change. I think anything that cuts down on instances such as this is a good and much needed thing that cannot get here any faster.