Life in the future with cars.

Opti said:

Dont forget about infrastructure, plenty of cities were built long before self driving and scheduling was even considered. Its not just the cars, they have to be able to interface correctly with failed and outdated infrastructure for wide adoption to happen. Not saying it wont happen but there are still some pretty big hurdles to overcome, including the quality and price of EVs, adoption, energy infrastructure, and legal ramifications.

We are still legally trying to decide if "self driving" cars manufactures have any liability in the event of an accident, who's responsible for the decisions made by programmers and who is prioritized in the event of an accident, and if you take away my ability to drive and everything is autonomous do I have to carry insurance (when Im not making decisions why am i responsible.), to name just a few.

The benefits people talk about with autonomous cars traveling faster and closer and integrating with traffic lights etc, seem to all go out the window if there is just one human piloted machine in traffic.

Infrastructure is sadly lacking throughout America. I'll avoid the political discussion about why etc.  but the interstate highway system didn't exist before 1955. In just 15-20 years it spread from coast to coast and included all major cities. 
    To say that things aren't perfect yet is to ignore what America has  achieved. What we can achieve. It's going to be messy and then get fixed back better. 
   Are there problems that need addressing? Absolutely. But it will happen. 

In reply to frenchyd :

I didnt say it wouldnt, although im skeptical, I just said better cars isnt the only hurdle, i dont even think its the biggest one, but it seems to be the only one people think about.

I'd argue in the current state of our country and it's lack of leaders, infrastructure will not easily be improved.  We are headed towards the Roman coliseum not self driving auto utopia if that's a real thing.  
 

Frenchy is right.  We have the ability to fix all this.  We even have the resources and manpower.  What we lack is common purpose and decent leadership.  
 

IMO in large cities ,I am predicting mass transit. Buses. Too many people too many cars. One bus can hold alot of passengers and get them there on time.  But then again I'm keeping my fingers crossed for transporters.  "Computer, transport me to my place of employment." :0)

In reply to MyMiatas :

Having mass transit available and getting people to use it are two different things.

The only thing I know about the future is that how I imagine it will be incorrect.  We were supposed to have flying cars by now, well actually by 1960 if you could have believed the GM pavilion at the 1939 NY World's Fair.  Other than Tesla pioneering the electric car concept which itself is still a nascent technology, our cars haven't changed radically in several generations.  A mechanic from 1940 could understand every component of a modern Dodge Challenger save for the microprocessors and perhaps the HVAC.  The disc brakes might cause some head scratching but they'd catch on fast.  Had you placed a bet in 1972 that 50 years later people would still be able to buy  V8 Hemi powered Chargers and Challengers who would have taken it?  My guess is exactly nobody.  So if somebody could actually predict the real future, we'd probably find it preposterous and think that person to be mentally challenged.  

Edit: having thought about it, lack of a carburetor might have been a bridge too far for my 1940 example.  But you get the gist of it.  

Opti said:

In reply to frenchyd :

I didnt say it wouldnt, although im skeptical, I just said better cars isnt the only hurdle, i dont even think its the biggest one, but it seems to be the only one people think about.

The law of unintended consequences always applies.  The race to the moon developed the transistor  to replace tubes. And that led to computers.  Etc.  
   So called self driving cars are already available from GM, Ford, and Chrysler. 
    OK they each developed their own and there are no common standards - yet. 
 Nor are they really self driving. Not state your destination and go to sleep self driving.  
    Yeh, get on the freeway and let the car steer etc. 

AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to MyMiatas :

Having mass transit available and getting people to use it are two different things.

I'm 10 suburbs away from city center yet buses are pretty full when they go by.  
 But routes and actual needs differ greatly.  
For example. I can drive myself in 15 minutes to a spot that a local bus ( with transfers ) would take me 3 hours to get to.  
lite rail is even worse 

  However in England or much of Europe  it's massively better. 

AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to MyMiatas :

Having mass transit available and getting people to use it are two different things.

That could be true. But sooner or later it may become an necessity. 

And as I read a fifteen minute drive taking 3hrs in a bus would need to be worked on.....

MyMiatas said:

AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to MyMiatas :

Having mass transit available and getting people to use it are two different things.

That could be true. But sooner or later it may become an necessity. 

And as I read a fifteen minute drive taking 3hrs in a bus would need to be worked on.....

It's pretty spot on. When I lived in downtown Tulsa and worked in Jenks. It was about a 15 minute drive from my apartment to my parking lot at work. 

I lived about 4 blocks from the downtown bus station, walk to get on the bus, two transfers, then the closest bus stop was the Walmart south of work by almost 2 miles. That would mean walking down a 2 lane service road, with no shoulder, speed limit of 55. So incredibly dangerous. So that means a 1hr 45 minute commute each way. 

The moron quotient of drivers on the roads has always been too high but I am convinced that it is even higher today (example - my wife was stopped at a red light and was rear ended by a teenage girl busy texting  (insert roll eyes emoji) - I see far more clueless drivers than ever before.

I would hope that self driving cars might eliminate some of these incompetents by letting them text away as much as they want without taking a role in directing their car except to input the destination.

You are right. But maybe not for the reason you implied. When I was born the worlds population was less than 1/2 of what it is now.  
   More people more morons.  
   But also things change.  In my youth priorities weren't on screens. Attention spans weren't fractionalized. 
  But yes. Self driving would reduce stupid accidents. 

Asphalt_Gundam said:

sounds like humans commuting will be nothing more than a 1 or a zero traveling across a circuit board.

Dude, have you seen how those 1s *move*!?

frenchyd said:

To reduce congestion on public roads trips will be scheduled by computer.   Much future work will be Work from Home. 
      Should  your presence be needed at work you'll get a text  with scheduled self driving car pick you up at 9:48.30 am and arrive at work at 10:27.40. 
 (Japan's trains keep time to the second because they are electric and computer controlled ) 

    What else will happen?

Wait.  This was written in 1966, right?

A 401 CJ said:

 

Edit: having thought about it, lack of a carburetor might have been a bridge too far for my 1940 example.  But you get the gist of it.  

Maybe not.  There was fuel injection on airplanes in WWII.

In reply to Noddaz :

Not all airplanes. The Rolls Royce Of 1940 was carbureted. ( Spitfire, Hurricane  etc.) yes German  fighters were. But that was the cutting edge. 

Traffic in the future ALL of the Time:

And no, these are not all self driving cars traveling at posted speed in a pack but bumper to bumper stop and go because self driving reacts the same as real people.

That is the craziest picture of traffic I have seen. That was photo shopped right?

It is a traffic jam in LA. I literally googled "Traffic Jam in LA".

Back in 1986 I drove from the LA area on that highway that goes to Las Vegas on Friday night.  It was bumper to bumper in both lanes of the four lane highway all of the way and there was a giant valley between mountains that was still bumper to bumper and you could watch the wave of brake lights going off that progressed down the miles of cars as everyone reacted to some glitch in the flow that caused one car to tap his brakes which caused a chain reaction of braking and by the time the wave reached back to me, cars where almost coming to a full stop.  Funny to watch 

And then there was that Indy car race at Long Beach I went to also in 1986, the one between Michael Andretti and Little Al Unser. I was walking around the track drinking beer while watching the race so that when the race ended, I only drove at the 55mph speed limit in my souped up Volvo 1800 while driving on 6 lane wide I-5 leaving the race. Everyone else in a hot car however thought otherwise and where jocking and weaving in and out of traffic racing for the lead. About 5 miles down the road there where about 50 cop cars including Camaros and Mustangs waiting and pulling over cars right and left. Fun times. Let's see AI do that.

MyMiatas said:

That is the craziest picture of traffic I have seen. That was photo shopped right?

Nope, that's just LA. 

In reply to z31maniac :

Whereabouts in LA?

In reply to Racingsnake :

Also when-abouts: that image has been around since at least April 2009.  I could totally believe there was some photoshopping involved (weird shadows, vehicles that look identical).

After some completely amateur-grade OSINT (open source intelligence): my guess is I-405 looking north, and the photo was taken from The Getty.  The same view of the same road maybe ca. 2015 is in stock pic1, pic2, pic3.  The white arch-shaped structures are very distinctive and easy to spot in images (Getty tram station).  And no, I have never been to L.A.

In reply to Oapfu :

I thought it looked like the 405 but I also don't think it has that many lanes. I noticed the repeated cars and am pretty sure it's photoshopped. LA traffic is bad but not that bad!

In reply to Oapfu :

Pretty darn good sleuthing. I recognize that white house on the right also. Good spot on the duplicated groups of cars. I had to drive once from South LA to somewhere in North LA and back during a winter rainstorm which I think I remember was about 60 miles one way and it was bumper to bumper all of the way during the middle of the day. I think that it took 3 hours one way. It felt like that photoshopped picture.