jorbill2or wrote: ...
The head of google wants to make transport more safe and eliminate traffic congestion ... These cars can drive a foot apart from ea other at high speed. No drivers to Gawk at things and cause slow down accidents.
Till a deer runs out in front of the first car. Instead of a one or 2 car incident, you now have a 20 car pile up.
There is a certain sect of our society that falls notion to this utopian type of society, all the under the guise of improving some aspect of our lives. The problem is that with it comes conformity and universalism. As we submit to it, we loose our individuality, and the ability to think for ones self. We are already seeing this in the first this in the youngest generations, where there is a large portion of our society that has never learned to think for themselves, figure things out on their own, to take complete responsibility for taking care of themselves. The concept from Google fits this mindset completely, we don't have to think about where something is, and figure out how to get there. My GPS has already turned me into a complete idiot. I drive places and have no idea how I got there or how to get home. That removal of the perception of time and space has stolen some of the enjoyment of being away.
BTW: To the OP, I realize you were just pointing out the cool technology and some cool implications it has. My post is not really intended to be a bad reflection on your intent.
Dave
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Something to think about...the house down the block from us on the corner had a Google Engineer living in it for a while.
He had one of those Google Cars with the roof mounted cameras/imaging system and a satellite navigation system that was doing Google Maps surveys of the Disneyland Anaheim Resort area. All he had to do is drive pre-set areas and the car would take pictures and videos of all the businesses, homes and streets.
One night the fire trucks came down the street to the corner house.
The Google Earth car had erupted into fire and burned to the ground...singed the house pretty good and some palm trees too!
Hope that's not going to happen to the prototype "self driving car"!
If you haven't seen one in person, this is what it looked like.
My posts shouldn't be taken for factual data. They are purely fictional, for entertainment purposes and should not be constituted as actually related to scientific, technical, engineering, legal, spiritual or practical advice. Amen.
jorbill2or wrote: ...
The head of google wants to make transport more safe and eliminate traffic congestion ... These cars can drive a foot apart from ea other at high speed. No drivers to Gawk at things and cause slow down accidents.
Till a deer runs out in front of the first car. Instead of a one or 2 car incident, you now have a 20 car pile up.
There is a certain sect of our society that falls notion to this utopian type of society, all the under the guise of improving some aspect of our lives. The problem is that with it comes conformity and universalism. As we submit to it, we loose our individuality, and the ability to think for ones self. We are already seeing this in the first this in the youngest generations, where there is a large portion of our society that has never learned to think for themselves, figure things out on their own, to take complete responsibility for taking care of themselves. The concept from Google fits this mindset completely, we don't have to think about where something is, and figure out how to get there. My GPS has already turned me into a complete idiot. I drive places and have no idea how I got there or how to get home. That removal of the perception of time and space has stolen some of the enjoyment of being away.
BTW: To the OP, I realize you were just pointing out the cool technology and some cool implications it has. My post is not really intended to be a bad reflection on your intent.
Did not take as bad, but as to your deer senario, don't you agree that a computer can react alot quicker than a human. I think this technology would make the highways safer with less death's do to collisions.
I travel the long island expressway every day and there are at least two to three rear end collisions each way in the one hour that I drive. Most due to texting probably. On this same hwy had a deer jump right out in front of me, had no time to react never saw it. Luckily it hit the car next to me again he had no time to react. A computer driven car with cameras looking in all directions would have seen the deer long before it wound up in front of me.
I first read of the concept back in the 60's and it was at least 10 years old then.
Let's see I worked for the state 25 years, the first 14 were in Detroit, then a couple years in Northville, then back to Detroit, the new office in Detroit was shared with Michigan Intellegent Traffic Systems.
These are the folks who are workign with researcxhers at U of M to design such a system.
Back in the 60's the idea was to have a telephone dial pad in the car, you dial the phone number you wish to go to (This was before cell phones) and the car takes you there.
Things have improved since (or not depending on your POV)
Many science fiction writers have written about self-driving cars and trucks as well.
Nothin adds excitment like something that is none of your business
Kenwood TS-2000 housed in a 2005 Damon Intruder 377
How intuitive will the car have to be to avoid a deer, or a barrel of oil falling from a truck in front of you, or what about the occasional scofflaw dropping a large rock from a highway overpass? I can assure you NO technology can be programmed to anticipate errant cargo falling from a truck until it was already on the roadway, and if it could how would it react to a plastic bag or other trash blowing across a roadway...,.
What about a pothole, or a downed power line? A radar would need to operate on a very high frequency to discover a downed power line. And if you use cameras how do you get them to see through a bug splatter? What would rain or snow do to that system?
Out here in the boondocks many people can't afford to keep adequate tires on their cars. I wonder how they will afford this technology?
I see this as falling under the jurisdiction of the law of diminishing returns. If the ultimate goal is to reduce accidents, how much is too much to keep us safe? How much should we spend?
wa8yxm wrote: I first read of the concept back in the 60's and it was at least 10 years old then.
Let's see I worked for the state 25 years, the first 14 were in Detroit, then a couple years in Northville, then back to Detroit, the new office in Detroit was shared with Michigan Intellegent Traffic Systems.
These are the folks who are workign with researcxhers at U of M to design such a system.
Back in the 60's the idea was to have a telephone dial pad in the car, you dial the phone number you wish to go to (This was before cell phones) and the car takes you there.
Things have improved since (or not depending on your POV)
Many science fiction writers have written about self-driving cars and trucks as well.
Whats your point, you don't believe these cars exsist. Seems to me GPS is making all this possible, not around in the 60's. I don't think it has anything to do with POV, it's fact and happening as we speak.
Actually I was watching a TV show about 2 years ago where there was a challenge to get a vehicle of any kind to follow a road of several different types, and be able to stay on the road, not get confused, and get from point A to point B. They were using a combination of cameras, GPS and other sensors to determine the road. Out of 20 entrants, every single one failed. At the time of the show, it was an annual event, designed to encourage the development of the technology. It was rather interesting show to watch, as well as learn what types of things confused the navigation. I have to admit I am skeptical of how forgiving these systems would be. I tried to do a google search to learn about this system, but didn't find much. I'd be curious to know how wide of a range of terrain/road surfaces these have been tried on.
On a positive note, I find using a GPS zoomed in all the way, very advantages when driving the motorhome on unfamiliar country roads. It allows you to be more gentle around corners, because you can see ahead of time how sharp the corner is. My brother has a story once of driving in a blizzard. Hit a complete white out on the freeway, in the middle of a long sweeping bend. He said he held the wheel turned and watched the GPS. When the GPS showed the corner ending, he straightened the wheel. When the white out cleared, he was still in the correct lane. Truly I think these systems are going to be much better at driver assist, rather than taking over.
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