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Something I Observed Last Night...
- Thread starter Zombie_61
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Lots of things Federal have already gone to retina scans & confidentiality or non disclosure agreements.
I've worked with some of those. I guess they were more like automatons.
Edward
Bartender
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It's not unthinkable. I would consider it a shame if the option of manual driving disappeared entirely, though I suspect that it could turn into a play option for the better-off if it were the case that insurance companies decided machine-driven vehicles were the more reliable option. I suspect we'll see an interim stage where the cars drive themselves but must be overseen by a competent human in case circumstances require an override. The impact on the taxi industry will be interstin,g long term - I think taxi drivers will disappear before private drivers. Will there be less demand for taxisin areas where many people have their own self-driving car? I imagnie a lot of folks who now take public transport into town and then a taxi home might take their own fully-self drive car in future. Have a few drniks, and so long as the car doesn't require a sober human to oversee it, let it drive them home.... It's gonig to be an interesting few decades.
Definitely things are suddenly advancing: for years, electric cars seemed a dream, then an expensive hobby for the well of and environmentally conscious; now Sweden have set a year in law after hich tey will permit no new fossil-fuel powered cars to be built, and the UK is talking about following suit. In Beijing, I've heard no rumour of the Chinese state gonig that way, but there is an enormous presence of two-wheel electric-drive traffic. If anything, I'd say a significant majority of powered two wheel vehicles in Beijing are now electric.
There'll always have to be a human oversight. What if the camera thinks someone was driving when they shouldn't be, but they were actually the passenger in a British car?
Uhh, no thanks.
Ha, glad it's notg only me whose mind went there....
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Judgment is the one attribute every cop ought to have. If there's a way to teach it, well, I've yet to see it. Few among us are temperamentally suited to the job. Lord knows I'm not.
Discretion and judgement. I was fortunate enough to have a good training officer. Early on I had stopped someone for speeding and after gathering all the pertinent information, I told the driver I "had" to write him a ticket.
As we were leaving from the stop my training officer said "you don't 'have' to write anyone a ticket". Always stuck with me. Discretion proved to be a powerful tool throughout my career.
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If this comes to pass, the future is going to suck.
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No, that will be thru Cybersex.
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Rarely a day goes by that I don't thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster that I have passed much of my life in the Western US during the age of the automobile, the kind you gotta drive yourself.
I anticipate little trouble in adjusting to electric cars, but the self-driving ones might throw me into an existential crisis. Still, I can see how such conveyances could make much more efficient use of infrastructure, both existing and new, and greatly improve safety for all road users.
I've read speculations that far fewer people will own a car for their exclusive personal use. I can see how a car that drives itself to your crib within a few minutes after being summoned via your smart tieclip might have a lot of appeal to a lot of urban- and suburbanites.
GHT
I'll Lock Up
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Well I have only spent the odd week or three in the US and enjoyed it very much, thank you. But I do like living here in the UK, warts and all, and for all it's faults.
The cars and commercials that I have driven in the early days had so little in the way of technology, you just had to drive them. Everything from crash gearboxes to no power steering, get on with it.
There's one thing though that the phone addicted generation will never experience and that is the satisfaction of slamming the phone down on some smug ba***rd who was going out of his way to annoy you. Hand set phones, in a cradle with a finger dial and that wonderful resilience when the hand set smashes into the cradle because of the aforementioned moron. It beats any profanity.
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^^^^^^
I once slammed down a handset with such force that it broke in two. It was one of those newfangled phones that was made in the 1980s.
I once slammed down a handset with such force that it broke in two. It was one of those newfangled phones that was made in the 1980s.
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I don't have a problem with the concept of electric cars, but their limited range makes them an impractical replacement for fuel-powered vehicles; the technology just isn't there yet. I've also read that the process of making a single battery for one of these electric cars creates more pollution than a 50s-era Chevy has throughout it's entire operational lifetime. If that's true, we're just swapping one source of pollution for another and perhaps creating more problems in the process.
I'm doubtful about the "improved safety" banner they're pushing these self-driving cars under. Again, the technology isn't there yet, and I'm not ready to hand my safety and well-being over to a technology that isn't 100% foolproof. Besides, I like driving; it occupies my time and mind on long trips.
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I like driving, too. And I suppose I would have liked horses if I had grown up with the beasts as my primary mode of transport. And I get kinda sentimental about cars and road trips. I'm a red-blooded American male born in the middle of the 20th century. I was driving well ahead of legal age for doing so. Cars have long been a central component in my daily life. I wouldn't be surprised to learn I was conceived in a car. (Hope that's not to blame for Mom's back problems.) But I try not to let all of that blind me to reality.
Today's electric vehicles have sufficient range to meet 90-plus percent of my and most peoples' needs. Batteries are not without their ecological costs, but that "equal to the pollution produced by a '50s Chevy throughout its lifespan" proposition is pure bunk. And I have more faith in self-driving car technology in its current state than I do in most drivers, and the technology has much greater potential for improvement than do human operators. There are already millions of cars on the road with numerous "self-driving" technologies. Some brake themselves, some parallel park themselves. Some stop you from changing lanes into vehicles in your blind-spot (it's all blind-spot if you aren't looking). Yes, that's still quite a ways from not having to drive the thing at all, but within a decade and change, I'd bet, there will be millions of truly autonomous cars on the road. And we'll all be safer for it.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...odel-3-arrives-with-a-surprise-310-mile-range
http://www.popularmechanics.com/car...7039/tesla-battery-emissions-study-fake-news/
https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2014/04/the-road-to-self-driving-cars/index.htm
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And there would be no need for any of those devices if people would simply learn how to drive. It really isn't as difficult as a lot of people make it out to be. Oh, wait, that's right, most people are morons who would rather play with their cell phones or watch a movie than learn how to get to where they want to go safely. Silly me.
Speaking of those devices, I dread the day when I have no choice but to buy a car or truck that comes equipped with them. I know how to brake, and parallel park, and check my blind spots so that I don't play bumper cars while trying to change lanes, so I don't want a vehicle that will be constantly beeping and chirping and making whatever sounds they make that are designed to warn me about what I already know. I just hope there will be a way to turn all of that garbage off.
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And if rabbits packed six-guns dogs wouldn't mess with 'em.
I've driven something north of a million miles. My insurance premiums are (almost) affordable because I don't get tickets and I don't cause collisions.
A few months back I damn near took out a bicyclist who was in my blind spot as I changed lanes. I'm looking forward to having a car that will alert me against doing that.
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Yeah, I went off on a bit of a rant there. Sorry. But in this part of the world I daily see drivers do things that aren't just careless, but amazingly stupid. And over the years their numbers have increased. I'm convinced, in many cases, that it's because people--particularly younger people--don't want to drive, so they've done the bare minimum that would allow them to legally (or not so legally) do so. Back in the mid-70s when I, my friends, and my classmates, were all approaching the legal driving age we couldn't wait to get our drivers' licenses and our first cars. But over the last 10-20 years the majority of younger people I've spoken with not only couldn't care less about getting their licenses and cars, but discuss those notions with an attitude of severe contempt as if it's somehow offensive to them. There is definitely a generation gap at work (a couple of generations, actually), and I can't understand the mindset. Maybe this would be better served in the "You know you are getting old when:" thread.
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Traffic fatalities had been in a slow but more or less steady decline for a few decades, until the past couple years. The reasons for the decline were many -- safer cars, safer roads, less tolerance for drunken and other hazardous driving practices, etc. -- but considering that the numbers of passenger miles had been increasing throughout that period, the decline in fatalities is remarkable indeed.
To what might this small but significant recent uptick be attributed? I gotta think distracted driving is at least partly to blame, and perhaps mostly. Just about everybody has a smart phone now, and it seems many can't go more than a couple minutes without consulting the thing, no matter what else they might be doing.
Perhaps the birthrate will take a dip, too.
To what might this small but significant recent uptick be attributed? I gotta think distracted driving is at least partly to blame, and perhaps mostly. Just about everybody has a smart phone now, and it seems many can't go more than a couple minutes without consulting the thing, no matter what else they might be doing.
Perhaps the birthrate will take a dip, too.
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I haven't reviewed any of the studies that have been performed or the statistics they've yielded, so my opinions are based solely on my observations. I would agree that distracted driving is definitely a factor, largely due to cell phones (smart or otherwise). I have read that most of the "experts" agree that it doesn't matter whether the driver is holding the phone or using some form of hands-free device--it's the call or text itself that distracts them from driving. They all list various reasons for why this differs from the driver(s) participating in an in-car conversation, but the end result is that a call or text is more distracting. New laws aren't the answer--I see more people using their cell phones while driving now than before the most recent (and allegedly more stringent) laws took effect. More severe penalties might reduce the problem, but around here the lesson learned by most drivers would probably be to develop sneakier ways to use their phones while driving.
I don't "get" the fascination with cell phones myself. But then, I've always considered phones of any type to be a necessary evil. Also, being born in 1961, I grew up long before they and all of the other portable electronic gadgetry became so prevalent, so I could live without all of them without too much difficulty. And I've made this known, so anyone who calls or texts me has a valid reason for doing so--no casual "I'm bored, let's chat!" calls, no "LOL Cats" texts, and when I'm driving my cell phone is set aside and forgotten about until I've reached my destination and parked. They'll probably etch "Leave a message, and I'll get back to you when I can" on my tombstone.
I don't "get" the fascination with cell phones myself. But then, I've always considered phones of any type to be a necessary evil. Also, being born in 1961, I grew up long before they and all of the other portable electronic gadgetry became so prevalent, so I could live without all of them without too much difficulty. And I've made this known, so anyone who calls or texts me has a valid reason for doing so--no casual "I'm bored, let's chat!" calls, no "LOL Cats" texts, and when I'm driving my cell phone is set aside and forgotten about until I've reached my destination and parked. They'll probably etch "Leave a message, and I'll get back to you when I can" on my tombstone.
