11-22-2017, 07:01 PM
(11-22-2017, 06:47 PM)ijmorlan Wrote: ...
The fact that ATO is still seen as absolutely requiring total right-of-way separation is one of the reasons why I am skeptical about self-driving cars. But on the other hand, we see things like Uber placing an order for thousands of cars intended to be modified to be self-driving. News like that feels like more than a publicity stunt. So overall, I don’t feel confident in my ability to predict where the self-driving car story is going. But it is definitely much easier to make a self-driving LRT than a self-driving car.
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ATO requirements have zero to do with technology, and everything to do with policy, disregard them entirely in terms of the technological possibilities of self driving cars.
Self driving car technology is certainly within the realm of feasibility in the next 5-10 years minimum. Uber is definitely pulling a stunt, but looking at Google's (Waymo I guess) self driving car, it is very very good, I suspect already better than human drivers.
But the actual question is where the policy for self driving cars will go. Hopefully, it will keep safety as a top priority, but given the amount of money involved (literally tens of millions of jobs in the US alone), there's a huge amount of interest in this technology, and money makes the world go round.
Which is the actual issue facing society related to self driving cars, what will millions (at least) of out of work drivers do.
That's my 2c anyway.
Maybe they can drive LRT vehicles still governed by massively out of date regulations.