Pratt on Self Driving Cars

after an 18 billion dollar fine, who can blame them?

but i get tired of the talking heads. the government is being way more progressive on this than automakers, except tesla

 

There are many other factors - but if 1.3+million deaths on the roads per year worldwide isn't a sufficient carrot, what will be.

Bear in mind that the statistics are taken simply by number killed - with UK & Australia less than 10% of that in some worse countries. What it doesn't take into account is 1) the age of the vehicle fleet; 2) types of vehicles (ie number of wheels); 3) driver training (if any) etc etc.

With those things in mind, human-driven cars could be made much safer. In India, at least one car which seats 5 has only one airbag, and at least one TOYOTA sold with only 2 airbags, and the Camry with only 3 airbags.

But there are many other great incentives for autonomous cars - here are 2;
- you may not need to park it outside your venue, but let it go home or to some other place, and summon it when you need it;
- when the Doctor says "sorry you can't drive anymore" - it'll be a "so what, Samantha can drive herself".

Poor driving is going to be the biggest incentive for autonomy. I drive on the motorway often, many drive in the wrong lane, blocking traffic. And many drivers allow great gaps to appear, rather than closing the gap - probably because they're set their C/C to drive at 87 and they're too lazy to over-ride it. Our motorways could carry much higher traffic, in a much more orderly fashion if poor drivers were removed from the equation.

 

half the problem is sensational media stories every time there is an accident, with no regard to human caused accidents