Will Little Kids Use Self-Driving Cars Unaccompanied?

Mr Wigs and I are talking about self-driving cars....
and all of the pros and cons and pipe-dream discussions about their future.

He asked me to post a thread about an issue that he (and now, after looking, nor I) can find anyone is talking about.

Is there any ongoing conversation about how young a person can be, how the car would know, or what sort of ID or programming or license?

Who would make those decisions, and what if anything is the public saying?

Yes, I did an ATS search, and also a Google search -
didn't find anything.

So - he wants to know you guys' opinions about different scenarios involving minors using or being allowed to use them, and what do you guys think should or might happen?

Where do we draw the line?

a reply to: BuzzyWigs to be honest i don,t think it matters cause no matter what they do someone will always find a way to by pass it,like most cars today they say you need the key but millions of cars still get stolen everyday cause someone will always figure a work out,same will go for driverless cars .

And I quote:

"(what is in quotation marks is me merely typing what he is saying)........
There's a 16 yo who wants to borrow the self-driving car to go visit friends, or,
there's a 12 yo who wants to meet up with a buddy on a school project or hang out with friends (whatever, you know)...

or, there's an 8 yo whose birthday wish is to go to Grandma's house.

Or - (and this one he hesitates to suggest, but I, BW, think it is): what if 8-month-old Glarverene will only fall asleep if she's in a car, can Mommy make the car carry her around the block for the twenty minutes necessary?

Okay - so - that's it.
We look forward to your ideas.

One more aspect: How far would be acceptable for distance traveled .... 5, 40, 300 ......relative to each of those kids. Or duration of ride (how many minutes).....10 mins, 90 minutes, 4 hours.....

and what about how fast is it allowed to go?"

*******

Yeah - now, I am tuning out his rambling about it and adding my own opinion - I think self-driving cars are a bad idea, and honestly don't think they will be any more 'public access affordable' than jet packs are now.

It's fun to think about, and I appreciate how 4-20 friendly scientists and engineers and many of the rest of us get really creative and excited....and now we are on the cusp of actually doing it.

What do you think the regulations and pertinent issues requiring decisions like who, how far, etc. ought to be?

a reply to: sparky31

Totally agree. My car got stolen - a second attempt, after an aborted attempt a year earlier.

Now, my car has a steering wheel club AND a clutch lock that attaches to the steering wheel!!

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

I hope parent's would be responsible so we don't need a nanny state type ruling on it. It's like how some parent's leave their kids alone, but other parents don't. Some kids are smart, some are stupid. If you have a stupid kid, best not leave them on their own lol. You can't guarantee what they'll do once they reach their destination unless you have someone waiting at the destination for them, you can likely only guarantee their safety in the car. Little Timmy might be the kind of special that likes to run in the road and chase cars before grandma can even get out of the house collect him.

The more that I think about it, I guess there should be laws. The people are many and stupid.

I guess I'll throw numbers out there for the hell of it ... 11 years old to travel alone, and only when you have an adult waiting for them at the destination (who else is gonna program your car to come back to you?!). 16 to travel freely and purchase a self driving car. That's what I'd go with after considering this very heavily for about 15 seconds. If kids start going missing we can tweak it.

a reply to: BuzzyWigs and if you get the right car thief then all of that won,t stop them either i,m afraid.

Okay, but now Mr Wigs wants us to stay on topic - this is bothering him -

Can pair of siblings, say - 7 and 5 - be allowed to go visit Aunt Stephanie in Texas or Aunt Barbie in Iowa?

(I said they can't.)

What age would be acceptable? And how would you prevent them doing it on their own?

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

As the car is not controlled by the minor, it really doesn't matter, but of course there need to be a child lock of some sort, as to children not steeling parents car, but at the same time the car could be used to drive children to school and like.

There is a question about safety though, the car could have a breakdown, catch on fire, cases where a grown up is required.

If its truly a self driving car then it wouldn't care who's in the vehicle as its doing the driving, think of it a bit like a taxi and in theory if everything goes right it'll be a lot better and cheaper as the moment theres a stoppage for some reason it can re-route traffic before it becomes a mega jam.

How many accidents are down to driver error and thus if they're reduced to near zero wouldn't it make things better?

One of the main things would be the fact it could self park out of the way after you go to work and you give it a tootle just before you finish and its waiting outside for you so you don't have to search for parking spots which would help disabled/underage people to work/shop etc.

Most current cars are dual mode so you have to have a 'qualified' human behind the wheel anyway.

Theres lots of work going on but i doubt anyone born today will not need to get a license in some shape or form.

I believe these scenarios would already be covered under the current child endangerment laws. After all, you cannot leave a child in an unattended vehicle in a parking lot today without have DCS being called in to take the kids away. Can you imagine if the car is moving? For the record, I am a tech-head, always have been, always will be. However, until we reach a point where the AI is self-aware and legally considered a life-form, a person needs to accompany any minor in a vehicle of any kind.

Take, for example, a flight from point a to point B. A child can go alone, in a sense. There is always an adult present to monitor the child and keep them safe (ant others safe from them). I don;t see it as any different with self-driving cars. It is a convenience, not a replacement IMO.

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

So it used to be back in the day. You would tell your parents, "I'm going out to play". And your mom or dad would say, "Fine. Be back by sundown." And you would be home by sundown.

Somehow our culture has changed so much that it's no longer the norm. And now we are moving into another culture shift with self driving cars.

In Japan, today, parents send out their kids, some ages 6-7, alone, to run errands. There's even a Japanese tv show that shows young kids going out, while being secretly filmed, to run errands. It seems that the Japanese, much like Americans back in the day, don't/didn't have an issue with kids doing things on their own.



So with the development of self driving cars. We may see another culture shift in the future giving kids more freedom to act independently. Because if you don't have to worry about your kid being snatched off the streets going someplace. There's less of a worry allowing them to go alone or in a group.

a reply to: BelowLowAnnouncement

First of all LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I KNOW RIGHT???

You cracked us up, both of us. That's exactly it!!

......

okay going back to read the rest of your post now.

a reply to: BuzzyWigs i,m pretty sure even a driverless car you would still need to be aged in the first place and still have to have a license.

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

Eventually, yes. Little kids will be able to travel in self-driving cars.

But first we'll all have to be chipped so that the car "knows" who is in it, and also who is walking on a crosswalk in front of the car.

a reply to: BelowLowAnnouncement

I guess I'll throw numbers out there for the hell of it ... 11 years old to travel alone, and only when you have an adult waiting for them at the destination (who else is gonna program your car to come back to you?!). 16 to travel freely and purchase a self driving car. That's what I'd go with after considering this very heavily for about 15 seconds. If kids start going missing we can tweak it.

LOL!!!!!

Oh, damn, dude....that is hilarious..
I know, right???!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(I reminded Mr Wigs that as it is now, kids cannot travel without supervision at both ends or at least formal permission and organization at all stops along the way.)

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

for 5 or 7 year olds i'd doubt a multi hour journey would end well without some human to lay down the law so to speak.

Food/water/loo breaks etc will need to be factored in for a long trip and no car will be able to provide the security needed for long trips that an adult can.

I was thinking more in UK terms where driving 2 hours for a taco is not considered normal etc and this is just trips to school/friends etc.

The DOT is developing policy on automated vehicles. Mostly for how they can be safely tested but with some mention of actual usage.

Should a state nevertheless decide to permit such non-testing operation of self-driving vehicles, at a minimum the state should require that a properly licensed driver (i.e., one licensed to drive self-driving vehicles) be seated in the driver’s seat and be available at all times in order to operate the vehicle in situations in which the automated technology is not able to safely control the vehicle.

orfe.princeton.edu...

a reply to: BuzzyWigs
If the switch that puts the car into operation is within the car, that is still "controlling a moving vehicle", so a similar age of responsibility would probably apply.

At the moment, the age-limit is enforced by the under-age driver being in trouble if he gets found out (stopped by police, involved in an accident). They might just make do with that until something else could be devised.

Speaking of all that, should it be a regional/local decision?

In Eudora, a four-way-stop-sign town of about 400, it might be okay.

In Chicago, not so much.


This is what I'm thinking - the entire idea is too fraught with unaddressed potentialities to even think about releasing (he said "rolling out", with no pun intended!) even a beta-version to the public.

!!!!

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

Well... I just... Huh... That was an insightful thought. I never pondered that and never would have anticipated it in a million years.

I think the same age restriction will apply for a generation or so until we get more confident with the technology, and presumably, as the technology becomes more sophisticated, then it will probably lower. I don't know about driving the baby around the block though... That might be iffy, but who knows.