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Japan Robotics Transportation

Toyota To Let People Ride In Self-Driving Prius 282

Posted by Soulskill from the we-who-are-about-to-die-salute-you dept.
fergus07 writes "Toyota is to show an autonomous Prius at Tokyo Motor Show. Dubbed the Toyota AVOS (Automatic Vehicle Operation System), the car will be available for members of the public to take 'back seat' rides at the show, demonstrating first hand how the Prius can avoid obstacles, be summoned from a parking garage and park itself."
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Toyota To Let People Ride In Self-Driving Prius More

Toyota To Let People Ride In Self-Driving Prius

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  • First self-driving crash - who to blame, or sue? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by G3ckoG33k ( 647276 ) on Monday November 21, 2011 @05:29PM (#38129022)

    First self-driving crash - who to blame, or sue?

    The developers? The owner? Toyota?

    Class action rush hour on Route 66?

    • Re:First self-driving crash - who to blame, or sue (Score:5, Funny)

      by mini me ( 132455 ) on Monday November 21, 2011 @05:35PM (#38129100)

      The driver. It is the one that made the wrong choice. Its sentence will be served by forcing it to mine for bitcoins on behalf of the victim until the sentence has been carried out.

    • Re:First self-driving crash - who to blame, or sue (Score:5, Insightful)

      by M0j0_j0j0 ( 1250800 ) on Monday November 21, 2011 @05:36PM (#38129114)
      I hate to agree with you, but i think its true, no one will tolerate a self driving car crash, even if it is just one. Even trains front crash time to time , something we think should be impossible to happen. Being benevolent, lets assume one of those car crashes , another driver fault, not a clear one, but his fault, what are the makers going to do defend themselves with system logs?

      • Re:First self-driving crash - who to blame, or sue (Score:5, Interesting)

        by bytestorm ( 1296659 ) on Monday November 21, 2011 @05:48PM (#38129312)
        More likely than not they would defend themselves with logs like a black box flight recorder. Self-driving automobiles are uniquely capable of handling the problem of determining the other party is at fault. They are loaded down with sensors including gps, proximity, video, and laser rangefinding. With appropriate data capture and logging, it should be very easy to demonstrate fault in many cases (assuming you can disprove tampering). It is a much greater issue when the automatic driver is at fault, but this could be largely mitigated if insurance companies jump on board. An automatic driver is potentially much safer than a person who can be distracted, tired, or drunk and it seems to be in the insurance company's best interest to support such things. It just has to be demonstrated that these cars are safer than human drivers.

        • Re:First self-driving crash - who to blame, or sue (Score:4, Insightful)

          by CaptSlaq ( 1491233 ) on Monday November 21, 2011 @05:57PM (#38129440)
          Assuming fail-safes are in place for malfunctioning sensors. As cheap as some things are made these days, I find the promise of sufficient redundancy highly suspect.
          • Some things are made cheaply these days, yes, but what about your air bags and anti-lock brakes? This hardware and software would have to have the same reliability as those. Malfunctioning sensors can be handled gracefully with the right software--slow down enough that other sensors will do, or just stop and request the human driver to take control. But if one of your stereo cameras dies, you can still get most of the required information from the remaining camera and your radar, for example. Or if the

            • or just stop and request the human driver to take control.

              The thing is when traveling at speed you can't "just stop", you have to maintain control and avoid obstacles for long enough to bring the car to a halt.Road vehicles are worse than airplanes in this regard. Airplanes have a lot of space arround them. Even with airplanes we require the pilots to be in the cockpit at all times and limit what non-flying activities are allowable (afaict the pilots are all).

              So if the system is going to require a human driver to take control in unexpected situations then that hum

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Calos ( 2281322 )

          I wouldn't trust in all that so much. Have you dealt with automated systems much?

          If two self-driving cars are involved in an accident, there is a clear failure in the programming or systems of sensors and driving. Depending on the hardware or software fault, it may not be at all clear from the logs where the fault was.

          Everything can appear fine from the software perspective, but there are times when the hardware is doing or not doing something the software thinks it is.

          • What happens if a bolt breaks loose and the car thinks it's turning one direction but it's moving in another. Did the bolt break before or after the crash? You'd need third party stories, metal analysis... it feels somehow more complicated.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Calos ( 2281322 )

              Exactly, and as you pointed out, the damage from the accident makes it so much harder.

              It's easy to troubleshoot an intact system to find the fault, much harder when the relevant pieces have been crushed.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by wisty ( 1335733 )

          So, the first crash of a self-driving car will have a huge impact on the industry. If the computer screwed up, the industry will be set back a few months. (They have good PR, don't think they won't defend themselves). If they can prove it was the other car, insurance companies and legislators will be very interested.

          Public opinion will be slow to change, though. People will need to be in a computer-driven car, and see it react to a hazard before they could have. You could (relatively) safely put them in thi

      • Re:First self-driving crash - who to blame, or sue (Score:5, Interesting)

        by MaskedSlacker ( 911878 ) on Monday November 21, 2011 @10:19PM (#38131836)

        Why should the system change? Drivers are required to carry insurance--why change it? Drivers of self-driving cars have to carry insurance for any liability, same as drivers driving themselves. The insurance companies will love this (because self-driving cars will have far fewer accidents). The auto companies won't have to deal with it at all. Leave the companies liable for widespread faults, not individual accidents (exactly as it is now--you can't sue Ford just because your brakes were bad, but it 2,000 cars have bad brakes then Ford gets sued). Again, the insurance companies will be more than happy to cover the liability--which will be lower than will be lower than with driver-operated vehicles. Everybody wins.

    • Re:First self-driving crash - who to blame, or sue (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 21, 2011 @05:37PM (#38129136)

      Under current law, the person behind the wheel in the drivers seat is considered the operator, and liable for whatever the vehicle does. The owners liability (assuming they weren't driving) is dependent upon their insurance, and the fact that the vehicle is autonomous is irrelevant. The developers, assuming they had not signed an unprecedented and absolutely retarded employment contract, have no personal liability. Toyota could only be found liable if it was proven that a defect in the vehicle caused the crash.

      Simple fact is, before autonomous cars will really become commercially viable, a lot of laws have to change, mainly around liability of the manufacturer since they're taking on more responsibility. Most likely though, the operator will retain the majority of the liability, and we're unlikely to see in our lifetimes a car where you can punch in a destination and take a nap. It'll be more like an advanced cruise control. The operator still has total ability to control, is required to keep hands on the wheel and attention on the road at all times, and is responsible for intervening in the case of an emergency.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by HarrySquatter ( 1698416 )

        So according to your logic, ride in the passenger seat to avoid liability?

        • That would almost certainly be illegal in and of itself if the laws are sane. Not that they will be sane, but that will probably still be illegal all the same.

          • Re:First self-driving crash - who to blame, or sue (Score:5, Insightful)

            by jpmorgan ( 517966 ) on Monday November 21, 2011 @08:23PM (#38130860) Homepage

            There is a legal principle... I don't remember the latin, but a rough translation is 'the law is not stupid.' Legal decisions are made by judges, not bureaucrats or computers blindly following the rules. That's the essence of a common law system: the legal system is based on an understanding that reality is too complex to legislate completely, and judges have the authority to interpret how law is applied to reality as necessary. A literal interpretation is best if possible, but judges have leeway. Precedent then exists to ensure that the law, as actually applied, is consistent.

            So, I suspect that if you try just sitting in the passenger seat and get into an accident, the judge will determine that:
            1. You're still the operator.
            2. You're an idiot.

            And you'll probably get charged with dangerous driving too.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by Idbar ( 1034346 )
          That can interestingly be enforced, by disabling the car if nobody is seating on the driving seat (similarly to what it's done with airbag systems) and making it illegal to tamper the sensors.

          Hopefully, this would also place the liability on the asshat that is driving on the turnpike and decides to switch seats at 65mph.

      • Re:First self-driving crash - who to blame, or sue (Score:5, Insightful)

        by DanTheStone ( 1212500 ) on Monday November 21, 2011 @05:51PM (#38129350)
        This is actually very easy to deal with. The driver is still liable. The insurers decide, based on the cars, the expected crash rate for autonomous vehicles. They don't really care about individual situations, they care about overall numbers. They can choose how much to charge if it's an automated driver, and how much if it's a physical driver, and pay out if it fails. It's really not a hard system. If autonomous vehicles are safer drivers, they will take over a lot faster due to significantly reduced insurance costs relative to physical drivers.

      • Future headline (Score:5, Insightful)

        by sco08y ( 615665 ) on Monday November 21, 2011 @08:08PM (#38130782)

        Simple fact is, before autonomous cars will really become commercially viable, a lot of laws have to change, mainly around liability of the manufacturer since they're taking on more responsibility. Most likely though, the operator will retain the majority of the liability, and we're unlikely to see in our lifetimes a car where you can punch in a destination and take a nap. It'll be more like an advanced cruise control. The operator still has total ability to control, is required to keep hands on the wheel and attention on the road at all times, and is responsible for intervening in the case of an emergency.

        Since we're doing predictions, I'm going to predict a future headline:

        "Study shows operator intervention responsible for causing or exacerbating majority of autonomous vehicle accidents."

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by uncqual ( 836337 )

        The owners liability (assuming they weren't driving) is dependent upon their insurance

        No, liability is independent of the ability to compensate victims (for the latter, insurance is sometimes a factor).

      • Re:First self-driving crash - who to blame, or sue (Score:4, Interesting)

        by suomynonAyletamitlU ( 1618513 ) on Monday November 21, 2011 @10:26PM (#38131888)

        Perhaps the manufacturers could man up and offer insurance on all of their vehicles, provided they were running autonomously at the time?

        If their self-driving concept is sound, the number of times they're at fault will be small, and they can offer that insurance without going bankrupt. If their self-driving concept is not sound, they have a vested interest in getting those cars off the road until they find a fix, so that they don't lose every cent they have paying for every incident they caused. And when it comes to maintenance, well, it's an autonomous car. I'm sure it can phone home if you haven't kept it up to date.

        Unless there is some other part of auto insurance that I don't get, it makes sense to me...

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by timeOday ( 582209 )
      I don't think this is as big a deal as people always fear. The person operating a machine normally takes responsibility for what it does under their direction. Nobody says, "that backhoe just dug a cellar," they say, "I dug a cellar" (even though 99.99% of the caloric expenditure was by the backhoe). Nobody says, "Excel just computed our monthly budget," they say, "I just worked out our monthly budget" (even if Excel did 99.99% of the calculations). Only when we're thinking into a future we don't yet un

    • Re:First self-driving crash - who to blame, or sue (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Hentes ( 2461350 ) on Monday November 21, 2011 @05:48PM (#38129316)

      If the biggest problem with this technology is who to sue, then I'm not worried about it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      You still have to sit behind the wheel ready to take over the moment you spot danger. No reading the paper.

      We have already had self-parking cars for a few years. Basically it tells you when to shift into forward or reverse and it moves very slowly so that you can slam on the breaks if some hapless pedestrian steps into the car's path. Same with cruise control that keeps you a set distance from the car in front and collision avoidance. Both these technologies have been around for a few years too.

      The liabilit

      • You still have to sit behind the wheel ready to take over the moment you spot danger. No reading the paper.

        People around here read the paper (amongst other things) while driving *current* cars. I can't see this one making things any better.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by 0123456 ( 636235 )

        You still have to sit behind the wheel ready to take over the moment you spot danger. No reading the paper.

        Meanwhile, in the real world, people will be reading the paper because their car drives itself. What's the point of a car that drives itself when you have to be continually watching for danger?

        Air France 447 is a glaring example of what happens when you tell the driver 'don't worry, the computer is driving' and then the computer can't decide what to do and suddenly drops the driver into an extremely dangerous situation where they're expected to take over.

    • Given most of the self-driving systems I've seen depend on radar to keep the car away from obstacles- I'd say it's the idiot who painted his car with stealth paint that is at fault.

  • end of the truck driver (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MickyTheIdiot ( 1032226 ) on Monday November 21, 2011 @05:35PM (#38129098) Homepage Journal

    I was reading an ebook called "Race Against The Machine: How the Digital Revolution is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity, and Irreversibly Transforming Employment and the Economy" which is about the problem of technology eliminating jobs and the role of I.T. in the recession and jobless recovery and there is a section where the authors are talking about the rise of computing power and the advent of driverless vehicles and it struck me that we are probably in the last generation where truck driving is going to be a human job. With the problems in I.T. and the lack of jobs in my hometown (I can't move from here for reasons I won't go into) I was considering becoming one myself, but it is likely that it is another job that is going to exit stage left. I don't know what to feel about that, really. I am sure not many people on Slashdot care about that very much, but truckers are an American fixture and it seems like they pretty soon be another piece of roadkill on the technology highway.

    • I was reading an ebook called "Race Against The Machine: How the Digital Revolution is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity, and Irreversibly Transforming Employment and the Economy" which is about the problem of technology eliminating jobs and the role of I.T. in the recession and jobless recovery and there is a section where the authors are talking about the rise of computing power and the advent of driverless vehicles and it struck me that we are probably in the last generation where truck driving is going to be a human job. With the problems in I.T. and the lack of jobs in my hometown (I can't move from here for reasons I won't go into) I was considering becoming one myself, but it is likely that it is another job that is going to exit stage left. I don't know what to feel about that, really. I am sure not many people on Slashdot care about that very much, but truckers are an American fixture and it seems like they pretty soon be another piece of roadkill on the technology highway.

      all it will take is 1 death for auto cars to be set back big time. Let's see thing about it 1-2 years just for the courts cases to work though the system.

    • Indeed, 50 years ago all the decrease in need for labor was expected, but predicted to work differently. They origionaly expected the standard of living for the average person to stay the same, and everyone to work 3-4 hour workdays, instead of people working half the hours, we decided to opt for half the people to work and half to starve.

      • Yes, because there are more people starving today, or without heat, or other basic necessities than there were 50 years ago. Has inequality increased? Yes. But you can't ignore the fact that that the average person in the bottom 20% is better off today than in 1960.

        And that's just in the US. Around the world millions have been raised out of poverty through the productivity increases from technology in manufacturing and agriculture.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by blair1q ( 305137 )

      Truck driving may cease to be a job. But hijacking trucks, and then riding shotgun (literally), will replace it.

      I mean, seriously, would you ship anything cross-country that could be tipped into a ditch and looted?

      BTW, cowboys were an American fixture. You'll get mixed views of whether their demise is a good thing or not. "Cowboy" is a slur or a compliment, depending on the situation.

      • As per a comment above, if the future political climate is anything like today's political climate then your state police/highway police forces will switch gears and be all about preventing that sort of thing from happening.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Jeremi ( 14640 )

        I mean, seriously, would you ship anything cross-country that could be tipped into a ditch and looted?

        I'd imagine a vehicle smart enough to drive itself would also be smart enough to call the police when it gets tipped into a ditch. And even if the thieves do make it away with some loot, a self-driving truck will have oodles of video logs, GPS reports, etc etc so there will be lots of evidence pointing out who the thieves were.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by hawguy ( 1600213 )

        Truck driving may cease to be a job. But hijacking trucks, and then riding shotgun (literally), will replace it.

        I mean, seriously, would you ship anything cross-country that could be tipped into a ditch and looted?

        Aren't current trucks with drivers already subject to being forced into a ditch and looted? What about a driverless truck makes it more susceptible? Do criminals have such a strong conscience that they won't threaten a human driver?

        At least a driverless truck will have photos of whoever forced it off the road, and can call 911 before it even stops moving.

    • Re:end of the driver, end of the auto industry (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Colin Smith ( 2679 ) on Monday November 21, 2011 @05:46PM (#38129282)

      Every car will become a taxi. Every taxi can make 40+ journeys per day.

      You only need 1/40th of the number of cars.

      Short Toyota, GM, Ford, Honda......

      • Interesting idea. I wonder how much demand would drop. Technically we could all be renting time on Amazon servers instead of owning our own machines, but instead the thin client never worked and we buy millions of computers.

        You can call a taxi in may small cities if you are willing to wait 10 minutes for one to show up. Would automated drivers really speed that up? People own a car so they can be independent.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by cp.tar ( 871488 )

          Interesting idea. I wonder how much demand would drop. Technically we could all be renting time on Amazon servers instead of owning our own machines, but instead the thin client never worked and we buy millions of computers.

          If we didn’t use our computers as gaming machines, thin clients might have had a fighting chance.

      • Not really, that'd only work if the journeys were perfectly distributed throughout the day. In reality most cars are used at the same time periods and are stationary the rest of the day, so the benefits of sharing aren't really there.

        Mass transportation is much more realistic.

        • Re:end of the driver, end of the auto industry (Score:4, Informative)

          by tftp ( 111690 ) on Monday November 21, 2011 @10:24PM (#38131874) Homepage

          Mass transportation is much more realistic.

          How would you like your Internet if all packets from all users are bundled into supermegapackets, each 10 Gb long, and then sent to all routers in the world, sequentially, on the odd chance that one byte out of those 10 Gb is addressed to that router? (The supermegapacket, like a bus, doesn't know where its passengers need to go.) You'd insert your packets when the supermegapacket goes by your home router; that'd be something like once per minute, or even more frequently in some special cases. Packets for you would disembark at the same time.

          Well, of course if you think that one "delivery route" for the whole world is not enough then at certain routers (very few!) the supermegapacket can be taken apart, and its components can be repackaged into other supermegapackets that go to other routes. This only takes another minute per transfer - plenty fast, if you ask me.

          Since that is also stupid, you will be reducing the size of supermegapackets more and more, and you will be increasing the number of routes until you arrive at the status quo.

          Personal cars are popular because they offer 100% availability and because they offer point to point connection, at the shortest (or fastest) route that you control. They are also pretty cheap; bus tickets can be very expensive and you are typically charged per ride, not per day. So one day of shopping can result in spending more on the bus than on the goods.

      • Re:end of the driver, end of the auto industry (Score:5, Funny)

        by russotto ( 537200 ) on Monday November 21, 2011 @09:35PM (#38131490) Journal

        Every car will become a taxi. Every taxi can make 40+ journeys per day.

        You only need 1/40th of the number of cars.

        Short Toyota, GM, Ford, Honda......

        Sorry. Autonomous taxis aren't going to work until someone figures out a foolproof way of not making them into autonomous public toilets.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tynin ( 634655 )

      I was reading an ebook called "Race Against The Machine: How the Digital Revolution is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity, and Irreversibly Transforming Employment and the Economy" which is about the problem of technology eliminating jobs and the role of I.T. in the recession and jobless recovery and there is a section where the authors are talking about the rise of computing power and the advent of driverless vehicles and it struck me that we are probably in the last generation where truck driving is going to be a human job. With the problems in I.T. and the lack of jobs in my hometown (I can't move from here for reasons I won't go into) I was considering becoming one myself, but it is likely that it is another job that is going to exit stage left. I don't know what to feel about that, really. I am sure not many people on Slashdot care about that very much, but truckers are an American fixture and it seems like they pretty soon be another piece of roadkill on the technology highway.

      As they say, the only constant in life is change. And while everyone handles it differently, should you find yourself in a job that is going the way of the buggy whip maker, it can be advantageous to take their lesson to heart. Make sure you are able to preform more than one job well enough to get by on. That way if the horse and buggy industry goes under, you can always fall back to selling BDSM gear.

    • The problem isn't so much that technology has been putting people out of jobs. People have been saying that since 1800's. The problem is that wages in the western world at not competitive with the developing world. Take a look at China and India, millions upon million of people entering the industrial work force, jobs exist. When the technology improves people find jobs elsewhere, more cars means more mechanics and sales people etc. Things have worked pretty good like that for the last 200 years. What is ha

    • it struck me that we are probably in the last generation where truck driving is going to be a human job.

      In those parts of the world where there are actual borders between countries, differing throughput ability at border control and customs posts and various regulations as to when lorries are actually allowed to drive, there will be human lorry drivers for the foreseeable future. Example: I do not see machines being able to bribe a Russian border official to get past the 20 km queue faster.

  • I would buy one (Score:5, Funny)

    by Leebert ( 1694 ) * on Monday November 21, 2011 @05:37PM (#38129126)

    If I could shout into my watch: "KITT I NEED YOU BUDDY!" and have the Prius come racing to pick me up (bonus if it does a bootleg turn and pops the door open), I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by HarrySquatter ( 1698416 )

      >>prius
      >>racing

      lolwut?

      • You joke, but you know it's coming...

        • Not without a fuckton of mods. A 15 year old GMC Safari (a huge fucking van) has a better 0 to 60 and quarter mile time than a 2012 prius.

          • Yeah, but it doesn't prevent people from racing minivans and other [exelement.co.uk] vehicles [monroenews.com] that you'd likely not see in a race. Heck, look at Nascar truck racing... or even Nascar itself for heavily modified racing.

            • Ok. The joke is that the prius is so slow it could hardly be called racing. Wow I can't believe I had to explain it.

              • Yep, and my joke was that people will race anything today... (Segway racing!) It doesn't have to be fast, good at cornering, or be considered for racing (School buses.) People will find entertainment in racing them.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by ThorGod ( 456163 )

            Not without a fuckton of mods. A 15 year old GMC Safari (a huge fucking van) has a better 0 to 60 and quarter mile time than a 2012 prius.

            You probably wont care about what speed you're going at (within reason) once sitting in a car becomes kin to sitting in front of the tv. Sit down, tune out, and wait until you arrive where you're going.

            Of course, there will be a lag. There might even be three generations of people who insist the 'new fangled' driving system sucks. But, when drunk driving and vehicle related deaths sharply decrease and you *don't* have to fear the winter roads for the first time...I bet you and others will put up with it.

            I k

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by vlm ( 69642 )

            Not without a fuckton of mods. A 15 year old GMC Safari (a huge fucking van) has a better 0 to 60 and quarter mile time than a 2012 prius.

            I have many hours behind the wheel of my wife's Prius, and I agree almost anything on the road beats it 0 to 60, but I would hazard a guess that there is nothing on 4 wheels in normal civilian hands that is faster 0 to 25 than a prius. Something to do with electric motors outputting peak torque at low RPM vs gas motors outputting minimum torque at idle. If it were not for traction control I think it would be nearly impossible to drive. Its got the acceleration curve of an unloaded electric forklift, at l

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by antdude ( 79039 )

      I would too since I am disabled and can't drive. However, it has to be bugless too. I don't want a buggy KITT. Wait, I would call mine KARR. :P

  • About time! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by purpledinoz ( 573045 ) on Monday November 21, 2011 @05:38PM (#38129158)
    With the state of technology now, self-driving cars are possible. I can't wait until self-driving cars become the mainstream. It would be awesome if a car could drive me to work, while I read the news, or do some work. For a long drive, I could even take a nap... And I bet there would be a lot fewer accidents, and less road congestion. I really think this is the future of public transportation. A huge network of self-driving cars could make public transportation a lot more efficient than it is now.

  • Can I do this? (Score:4, Funny)

    by blair1q ( 305137 ) on Monday November 21, 2011 @05:41PM (#38129208) Journal

    1. Let my neighbor's kids run around the parking garage while I stand outside waiting for it after I've "summoned" it?

    2. Fiddle the transmission knob while it's auto-mobiling?

    3. Tell it to run through the sand at the beach?

    4. Sit in the back instead of the front? Just to freak out everyone else on the freeway.

    5. Bring a date?

  • Didn't they already do this? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Lightborn ( 7556 ) on Monday November 21, 2011 @05:43PM (#38129232)

    Now it's a feature that the car accelerates on its own?

  • 35,000 Deaths from car accidents every year in US (Score:5, Insightful)

    by danparker276 ( 1604251 ) on Monday November 21, 2011 @05:44PM (#38129250)
    Yet no one seems to care. 500 US troops die a year in the middle east and it's a huge deal. These are 35,000 deaths that can easily be avoided. And that's only in the United States Yeah there'll be a few deaths, but probably 99% of the 35,000 will be avoided. Everyone should be forced to own one of these considering how many pedestrians are run over. People have to get over their own greed to drive a car fast though.

    • Re:35,000 Deaths from car accidents every year in (Score:4, Informative)

      by HarrySquatter ( 1698416 ) on Monday November 21, 2011 @05:55PM (#38129416)

      That's because 500 military personnel deaths would be a death rate of ~1:3000 (~1.5 million active personnel) while the driving deaths are ~1:7000 (about 240 million licensed drivers). So since one rate is more than double the other it's not surprising one gets more outrage.

      • Re:35,000 Deaths from car accidents every year in (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 21, 2011 @07:29PM (#38130496)

        Right. I was surprised to learn that driving a car is half as deadly as being in the armed forces at a time when the US is involved in two wars. I had no idea.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sco08y ( 615665 )

        That's because 500 military personnel deaths would be a death rate of ~1:3000 (~1.5 million active personnel) while the driving deaths are ~1:7000 (about 240 million licensed drivers). So since one rate is more than double the other it's not surprising one gets more outrage.

        I think 1.5 million is counting all the reserves... there are more like 600,000 active duty, and of those, only about 60 to 100 thousand are actually combat personnel, and they take the brunt of the casualties, naturally. So the death rate for ground pounders would be more like ~1:200.

    • Yet no one seems to care. 500 US troops die a year in the middle east and it's a huge deal. These are 35,000 deaths that can easily be avoided. And that's only in the United States Yeah there'll be a few deaths, but probably 99% of the 35,000 will be avoided.

      For the record, 35,000 fatal crashes out of 230,000,000 cars on the road = .014 percent fatality rate. Eating pork has a higher fatality rate; thus, your argument is non-existent.

      Everyone should be forced to own one of these considering how many pedestrians are run over. People have to get over their own greed to drive a car fast though.

      Lemme guess; cyclist, right?

      Get over yourself, Lance Armstrong.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by hawguy ( 1600213 )

        Yet no one seems to care. 500 US troops die a year in the middle east and it's a huge deal. These are 35,000 deaths that can easily be avoided. And that's only in the United States Yeah there'll be a few deaths, but probably 99% of the 35,000 will be avoided.

        For the record, 35,000 fatal crashes out of 230,000,000 cars on the road = .014 percent fatality rate. Eating pork has a higher fatality rate; thus, your argument is non-existent.

        I got .015% when I did the math.

        But in any case do you have a reference for this? If half the USA eats pork in a year (150M people), and there's a 0015% fatality rate, then there should be over 20,000 pork related deaths in a year.

        I don't know anyone that's been killed from eating pork, but a number of acquaintances and relatives have been killed in car accidents. I do know one person that was injured by a pig, but he was drunk (the guy, not the pig) so I don't think that counts.

        Everyone should be forced to own one of these considering how many pedestrians are run over. People have to get over their own greed to drive a car fast though.

        Lemme guess; cyclist, right?

        Does it matter? Cars hit pe

  • Oh Look (Score:4, Funny)

    by Kamel Jockey ( 409856 ) on Monday November 21, 2011 @05:58PM (#38129456) Homepage
    It's a Johnny Cab!
  • "Open the pod bay doors, Asimo."

  • +1 if you'd rather they called it the LAVOS. ;)

  • Avos' in Russian means "blind trust in sheer luck; counting on a miracle".

  • In Soviet Japan (Score:4, Funny)

    by seven of five ( 578993 ) on Monday November 21, 2011 @07:49PM (#38130638)
    Car Drives You!

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