Beaverstate

Is it something you look forward to as a sensible advancement, or with more than a little dread at more loss of personal control.

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Boomhauer

I go on long trips, for that it is a welcome amenity. Driving anywhere between 13-19 hours straight with just short snoozes is tiring.

scrubbedexpat091

If I can sleep and not have to watch the road, let the car drive. But if I have to stay awake but just sit there doing nothing, rather do the driving myself.

Probably be annoying though on my 3-4 mile drives, and not sure I trust a driver less car on these mountain roads, google maps can't even figure them out correctly....

Pulaski

I don't own an automatic. You can figure out my opinion. ...... That said, when I am too old and decrepit to drive I will probably be glad that cars will, by then, be able to drive themselves.

RoadWarriorFromLP

This will prove to be as successful as the flying car, which was also once the subject of media hype.

True driverless cars won't happen -- even if the technology works, the auto industry is not going to want to assume the liability for the crashes. I suspect that this will be more of an evolutionary device that won't eliminate the need for a driver than a game changer.

markonline1

I love driving, so the idea of owning a driverless car to me absolutely sucks!!

lansbury

I thought most cars in the US were already driverless most of the time. This can only improve the driving standards over here, and make it easier to eat your McD, read the the paper and trim your nose hairs.

Nutek

If we had any semblance of public transport, I wouldn't care about them at all.

As we do not, I am hoping they become mainstream in time for my (useless since I was a little kid) eyesight to finally crap out.

Oakvillian

My work is peripherally connected with this subject. Driverless (autonomous) vehicles are already in operation in several places, normally in "closed" environments where interactions with other vehicles and pedestrians can be controlled or eliminated. Several big mining operations use autonomous technology for those enormous great dump trucks that carry hundreds of tons of rocks around. In the public realm, the sensors and guidance systems are all pretty much developed and ready to go, it's just a case of waiting for legislation to catch up with the state of technological advance.

It's likely that the first significant fleet of autonomous road vehicles will be transport trucks - in particular, those used at the factory-to-distribution-centre end of the spectrum. Predetermined routes, mostly on highways, little town-centre driving, fewer interactions with pedestrians and other vehicles. Plus, while the technology is still relatively expensive, the advantages of running a fleet of delivery vehicles 24/7 whereas today the poor drivers need to sleep occasionally, means that the economics are pretty compelling. Of course, that sucks if you make a living driving trucks - long-haul trucking will quite possibly be an occupation in rapid decline within the next decade.

And while many successful demonstrations have been carried out in passenger vehicles, there are still some difficult challenges. Defined spaces (where there is an obvious traffic lane) are surmountable, even the ability to navigate through roadworks and temporary traffic lanes has been well demonstrated. Much of the current research is actually in the area pedestrian-vehicle interaction, specifically in the psychology rather than the technology. In a parking lot, or even on an unsignalled crosswalk, we're all taught to make eye contact with the driver so we know they're aware of our intention to cross the road, or occupy "shared space" (like a car park aisle). But how do you do that when there's no driver to engage?

There's a project I read about (but have no connection with other than personal interest) within Daimler Benz to research the psychology of pedestrian and cyclist interaction with cars. One possible solution, prototyped on the car they brought to the CES show earlier this year, is to use laser pointers to "paint" a vehicle's intentions on the road ahead of it. I thought the zebra crossing was a pretty neat idea, but of course it all puts the costs up.



Would I want one? Absolutely not. I enjoy driving too much (and, in reference to another thread, own and drive cars with manual transmission whenever possible). But when I'm in my dotage it would be nice to think I could summon the car (or a car, if it's a shared service sort of thing) to whisk me off to wherever I need to go, then go and park itself somewhere until I need it to take me home again.

TL;DR - it's coming. Get used to the idea...

sir_eccles

Interesting. You don't realize the subtle cues you pick up from the other driver's eyes. Take a four way stop when two cars arrive together, that little nod and wave a glance from the eyes. Obviously if all cars were autonomous they'd communicate with each other and decide who goes first in a fraction of the time.

Oakvillian

Indeed. A best-of-301 game of rock, paper, scissors, played in a total of half a second...

Nutek

Fear, mainly.

Anian

Truck drivers out of work everywhere, smoother traffic flow, shorter journey times, drop-off points at the front of malls while your car goes off to park.

It's amazing how far this technology has come already, it's not that far off.

Nutek

I figured truck drivers would still be needed, but the role would change somewhat. More along the lines of how (I imagine) an aircraft pilot would work.

Pulaski

I wear dark glasses and drive a big pickup.