Toyota To Let People Ride In Self-Driving Prius 282
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."
First self-driving crash - who to blame, or sue? (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
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)
Re:First self-driving crash - who to blame, or sue (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:First self-driving crash - who to blame, or sue (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
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)
I just did the safety recall repair on my drivers-side airbag. The notice included this paragraph:
If the driver's side airbag deploys, metal fragments could pass through the airbag cushion material, possibly causing injury or death to the vehicle occupants.
.
Yeah, I do sure hope them auto-driving pudicators are a sight more reliable than airbags...
Re:First self-driving crash - who to blame, or sue (Score:4, Informative)
No car I'm aware of has truly redundant o2 sensors.
The sensor(s) in the exhaust manifold (front o2 sensors) are for fuel trim. A failure or insane data in one or both causes the PCM to failover to preset maps and it begins basing injector duty cycle on the value in the maps that correspond to MAF/MAP, throttle angle, engine speed, etc. A failure in both sensors (assuming two banks) doesn't render the car undriveable.
It depends on vehicle manufacturer how a PCM handles a reasonbly responding sensor in one bank and a failed/insane sensor in the other. It may start using the values from the good bank to control how it fuels the failed bank OR simply go to the maps for both banks.
The rear o2 sensors ie., behind the catalytic converters, are used to determine if the catalytic converter is functioning properly. Failure or insane values from those sensors will trigger a check engine light and may (sometimes) cause the computer to go into a limp home mode. This is ostensibly to prevent some kind of engine damage, but my guess it's really a deterrent to basic tampering-gutting/removing of the catalytic converter, or to push the owner to repair a damaged/clogged converter.
Their position behind the catalytic converter renders them pretty useless in deciding fuel trim.
Re: (Score:2)
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.
Re: (Score:3)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
So according to your logic, ride in the passenger seat to avoid liability?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:First self-driving crash - who to blame, or sue (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
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)
Future headline (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
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)
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)
Re:First self-driving crash - who to blame, or sue (Score:5, Insightful)
If the biggest problem with this technology is who to sue, then I'm not worried about it.
Re: (Score:2)
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
Re: (Score:2)
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)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
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)
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 se (Score:3)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
Well I have no doubt that will happen. I think there is only one state (Nevada?) that has done any viability studies about it at all (the book I read mentions this) about what the legal framework would be like. It still looks to me like it would happen. As much as governments kowtow to corporations and as much as corporations hate to pay truckers or any other workers I could see it become a governmental priority pretty quickly.
Re:all it will take is 1 death for auto cars to be (Score:4, Insightful)
So many people die from cars being driven by people now it could hardly be worse.
Re: (Score:2)
That's the rational approach, but it's not how it'll be perceived.
Re:all it will take is 1 death for auto cars to be (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the rational approach, but it's not how it'll be perceived.
Americans have their head in the sand about driving deaths for years.
James Bond: You'll kill 60,000 people uselessly.
Auric Goldfinger: Hah. American motorists kill that many every two years.
Re: (Score:2)
all it will take is 1 death for auto cars to be set back big time
You mean like aircraft autopilots? Or sat navs telling people to drive off cliffs or under too low bridges? Or cruise control?
Re: (Score:2)
50K people a year die in car accidents; doesn't look like that stops any of us from getting in the car to drive to the office, the mall, the grocery store, etc.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
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)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
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)
...or not switch gears, in this case. :)
Re: (Score:2)
There's no money in that! Speeding tickets are lucrative and will be replaced with "riding while inattentive."
Re: (Score:2)
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)
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)
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......
Re: (Score:2)
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)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
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)
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)
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)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed....
Re: (Score:2)
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
Re: (Score:2)
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.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Given the projected ratios of earners to SSA recipients in the next 50 years, those seven extras are going to be needed to keep the SSA from collapsing.
Do remember that the SSA wasn't designed for operations with fewer recipients than workers supporting same. And that our lower-than-replacement rate growth accompa
I would buy one (Score:5, Funny)
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)
>>prius
>>racing
lolwut?
Re: (Score:2)
You joke, but you know it's coming...
Re: (Score:2)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
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)
Hell, people even organize and bet on snail races.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
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)
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)
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
Re: (Score:2)
You can actually jump further into the future if you like.
No way, if I did that then I'd be skipping the Erika Eleniak and Pamela Anderson phase!
About time! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:About time! (Score:5, Insightful)
Self-driving cars are the way of the future. Why drive when you don't have to? Once people get over the fear of trusting the software they will realize that their time is far too valuable to waste driving.
Re:About time! (Score:4, Interesting)
Some of us actually want to drive. We like it, it is an enjoyable activity to us.
What happens when the laws change to only allow automated driverless cars on the roads, where will I drive my decidely non-automatic car, where will I ride my motorcycle?
On specially closed-off tracks only during specified time slots due to noise complaints from NIMBY neighbors, maximum speed of normal walking pace to ensure my safety? Fuck that.
Give me freedom on wheels or give me death.
Re: (Score:2)
So, in other words, you should take the Bus
Sure, if the bus is going where you want to go. If not, well... hopping on the bus and telling the driver to take you to (your specified location) isn't going to get you very far.
Re: (Score:2)
Self-driving electric cars that you can request on demand via mobile phone > bus driven by person that has to stick to a route
Re: (Score:3)
That, or a better public transportation system.
Let's see. For that to be possible, I would have to be picked up from where I am to go directly to where I want to go at any time of my choosing, with plenty of luggage space and with only the people I want to travel with.
Oh, rather like a self-driving car.
Can I do this? (Score:4, Funny)
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?
Re:Can I do this? (Score:5, Funny)
5. Bring a date?
LOL! good one!
Didn't they already do this? (Score:4, Funny)
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)
Re:35,000 Deaths from car accidents every year in (Score:4, Informative)
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)
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)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
. One stat has deaths from a war zone with people actively trying to kill them...
...and the other stat is from the middle east!
*rimshot*
Re: (Score:2)
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)
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
Re: (Score:2)
The point is, these deaths easily be avoided.
No they can't, or we would have avoided them already.
Re:35,000 Deaths from car accidents every year in (Score:4, Insightful)
This seems like a pretty narrow concept of freedom. I'm kind of uncomfortable with self-driving cars myself, I have the control-freak instinct, I currently drive a stick-shift mostly for that reason. But it really is pretty hard to argue against either safety or practicality of self-driving cars.. I'm assuming that the self-driving car really is more like a taxi than a bus, in that if I decide half-way to my destination that I want a different destination, I can just make it so, and that will be that, and furthermore that if I want to take the scenic route down along the creek instead of the freeway, I can get that too.
So, I can still pick my time of departure, my route, and my destination, and change my mind in mid-drive, only my freedom to operate the vehicle has been removed. Yeah, it bugs me a bit, but I don't know if I'm ready to die for it.
And where's the line? In my city, it's hopelessly impractical (and maybe illegal) for me to ride a horse to and from work. Is that an unacceptable infringement on freedom of movement? Should I die for that one too?
Oh Look (Score:4, Funny)
Can it Bluetooth with your Garage? (Score:2)
Party like it's 1999! (Score:2)
+1 if you'd rather they called it the LAVOS. ;)
Doesn't sound good in Russian (Score:2)
Avos' in Russian means "blind trust in sheer luck; counting on a miracle".
In Soviet Japan (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
I don't find our transport energy intensive at all, we're just stupid how we get our energy since the earth has abundant cheap energy we don't use. The trains and buses don't go where I need to be.
Re: (Score:2)
It's a lot more energy intensive than mass transport, still. You are of course right about our yield from renewable energy sources - but can improve that quickly enough to meet demand?
Not every journey is going to be catered for by public transport, end to end. But surely the vast majority of everyone's daily mileage could be fulfilled with it.
Kudos to Toyota, though. As an automotive development this is a great thing.
Are fuel efficient cars really more energy intensive than mass transit when you're outside of dense urban areas? For example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_efficiency_in_transportation#Buses [wikipedia.org]
A diesel bus commuter service in Santa Barbara, California, USA, found average diesel bus efficiency of 6.0 mpg-US (39 L/100 km; 7.2 mpg-imp) (using MCI 102DL3 buses). With all 55 seats filled this equates to 330 passenger-mpg, with 70% filled the efficiency would be 231 passenger-mpg.[40] At the typical average passenger load of 9 people, the efficiency is only 54 passenger-mpg and could be half of this figure when many stops are made in urban routes.
So a Prius has about the same efficiency as some bus systems. Put 2 passengers in the Prius and it's twice as energy efficient as the bus.
Re: (Score:2)
As cool as self-driving tech is, am I the only who is struck by the absurd decadence of continuing to plough resources into energy-intensive individual transport?
Yes.
Public transport sucks and will always suck unless it's so pervasive that it's using vastly more fuel than individual cars. When I lived in the UK I'd regularly see buses that only carried one person (i.e. the driver) and trains that were dragging a dozen carriages behind them with perhaps one person in each.
To not suck, public transport has to run numerous routes every few minutes, and inevitably most of those vehicles will be empty. Hence it will either suck or be insanely inefficient. Plus you'll pro
Re: (Score:2)
There will also be a compulsory random speed variation so you can get a speeding ticket every year or so.
Re:I'd love one of these... no need to park (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
Just have it turn right around a building repeatedly, perhaps go around a block that has a lot of lights, so the vehicle is at idle most of the time, saving fuel and battery until I came back to it.
In an electric car sitting at a light will save fuel, but sitting at a light in an internal combustion vehicle wastes a LOT of fuel. You're getting zero miles per gallon idling.
I have a mileage calculator built into my car, which gives you your current mileage and average since you cleared the counter. Yesterday
Re: (Score:2)
You will be charged for not paying attention to the road and anything else they can tack on to it (like DUI, Hit and Run, and many other laws that go with it).
Re: (Score:3)
what's your point? that this situation has ever happened? or that people somehow would make the "right" decision?
I've seen many drivers swerve to avoid a dog or other small animal and end up in a wreck. I figure if we keep those people from making any snap decision, the computer can't do any worse. and there are far worse drivers.
of course, your problem is you seem to think a computer's processing power is somehow limited or that it couldn't be programmed with that type of judgement. worse, you seem to t