[LINK] Why you may not own, or drive your vehicle in 10 years time

[Jim Birch]

David Lochrin wrote:

GPS is out because of the risk it can be disabled, destroyed, or simply
> turned off.  If all vehicles, or even just private cars, rely on a GPS
> system, an unfriendly agency could bring road transport all over the
> country to a stop.


You could make exactly the same argument against the electricity
distribution system, or the internet.  We rely on it, and it can break.
Everything can break.  It's a cost/benefit/risk calculation.  Driverless
vehicles don't have to be perfect, they just have to be better, that is,
better at whatever they are used for.  GPS is a risk, just like the
Internet and the distributed power.  It is also a benefit.  We use it.

>Accepted safety-of-life criteria for automated-driving systems will
require far better reliability than that of "the average driver" otherwise
there would be no point in having them, or at least I'd certainly hope so!

Not so.  In terms of risk, it is the worst drivers that are the problem.
If the driverless vehicle drives like a dumb but safe driver it could save
a lot of lives, injury and loss.  However, if you check out the Google
vehicles you find they drive well and aren't a problem for other drivers.

  But there are all sorts of other reasons for having driverless vehicles,
like cost.  It seems more likely to me that cost will drive mass adoption,
as it has already driven niche adoption of driverless technology and
robotics in general.  If you have a choice of a traditional taxi trip at
$30 replete with right-wing political views and a small driverless taxi at
say $15, what would you choose?  Office building used to employ people to
open the front door. Now they use a device.  Like everything else new
driverless vehicles will be resisted by some and taken up happily by others.

Neither the government or their owners will want them on the road if they
don't work reliably.

Jim