Originally Posted by
B. Carfree
I nearly had a melt-down when I saw a headline the other day about a Google Car getting in a wreck, fleeing the scene and hitting another vehicle. Thankfully, it was just one of their overseas streetview cars operated by a carbon-based unit with defective firmware and not one of their autonomous vehicles.
Do the self-driving cars really hit the road in just five years? I'm reminded of John Kerry's comment on Viet Nam and I wonder who will be the last person killed by a human-operated car.
Nissan claims that by 2020 they will have a full release of their autonomous car for the everyday consumer. But they are expected to be in use to some limited extent in 5 years. There are currently autonomous cars in use for beta testing.
In all honesty, I can't wait. It will put to rest all this arguing about bad drivers, bicyclists will truly have to take responsibility for their own welfare, it will lead to major shifts in the current infrastructure and it will happen faster than we think. The automobile came onto the scene in roughly it's present form (internal combustion/mass produced) around 1907, 20 years later horse and buggies were practically a thing of the past. Technology evolves even faster now- think of the changes in computer and cell phone technology in the past 20 years.
We should save these threads for our kids and grandkids. Remember when
people used to have to drive their cars and a million people a year died in accidents! "Oh, and how we used to complain about bad drivers! In my day we used to have to turn a key to start the car and steer it by hand!"