Google contracted with Roush to build prototypes of fully autonomous vehicles, in which two people sit abreast in the tiny pod-shaped car, which has a flexible windshield for safety and is topped by a spinning cone that helps navigation. The electric vehicles, unveiled in May, are limited to a maximum speed of 25 miles per hour and do away with several decades-long constants in motoring: the steering wheel, brake pedal and accelerator pedal.
http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2014/07/01/333213.htm
But here is the strangest thing... these prototypes are being built without crumple zones, because Google is not half as smart as they think they are, and figures it has designed a car that will avoid collisions.
Those of us who drive cars, and not live in a bubble, realize it's not you who causes or avoids every possible collision on the roads, it's the rest of the vehicles in your area, roughly 50 yards in every direction around you, more, the faster they or you are moving
http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2014/07/01/333213.htm
But here is the strangest thing... these prototypes are being built without crumple zones, because Google is not half as smart as they think they are, and figures it has designed a car that will avoid collisions.
Those of us who drive cars, and not live in a bubble, realize it's not you who causes or avoids every possible collision on the roads, it's the rest of the vehicles in your area, roughly 50 yards in every direction around you, more, the faster they or you are moving
I don't live in a major metro area so traffic jams are not a problem for me. I enjoy driving and do not want that pleasure taken from me.
ReplyDeleteI doubt you have anything to worry about. The facts are that there are too many possibilities that can be encountered while moving in traffic, or an empty street to ever get a robot car green lit by the US govt, the very scared of liability govt, who is the governing authority on what can and can't be manufactured for transportation on public roads. They may pull off a robot train, people mover for airports and other mass transit in controlled environments, but the freeways and city streets where anything can happen, and they can't preprogram a respnonse? Not likely to ever replace the human driver
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