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originally posted by: loam
a reply to: HardCorps
Here's what I don't get about this technology.
I'm assuming these are GPS guided vehicles, in order to be long range. I don't know about everyone else, but I've had GPS crap out on my phone many times. Can't imagine how this will work without significant infrastructure and redundancy.
originally posted by: grubblesnert
trailer a reply to: HardCorps
After driving a Honda Pilot pulling a trailer from Cocoa Beach to Tallahassee (5hours) then next day to Austin Texas 17 hours total, 2 hour spent crawling at 5mph on the interstate due to a semi accident somewhere in Missisippi) then back to Tallahassee Another 17 hours, another 2 hours of that crawling down I-10 (different wreck) last week.
Then driving to St Petersburg from Cocoa Beach yesterday with another slow ass crawl through I-275 downtown Tampa This time averaging 10 mph for 45 mins (Yay!) 3 hours one way, 3 hours back (repeat Tampa crawl)
The only thing I could think of was HURRY UP with the automated car thing!!
So the answer is YES. (Coffee and ritilin will only carry me so far.)
originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: HardCorps
In a word?
No.
I have absolutely no wish to be subjected to automated control of a car in which I am traveling. I am only just learning to drive a car in the normal fashion, and I am not at all prepared to hand over what control I have gained in my lessons thus far, to some glorified toaster, which will undoubtedly break down, causing me to have to shell out thousands upon thousands of pounds in order to rectify it.
But even before the advent of such madness as a robotically controlled vehicle was even posited, the main problem I had with modern cars, was two fold.
First, so complicated have modern motor cars become, that to fix one these days, one requires a diagnostic computer, because the brakes, the ignition, every electronic component you can think of, has been so over inflated in its significance, that most of the things that ruin a modern motor, are electrical faults. This makes purchasing a car made after 1995, in my opinion, a mugs game. When I buy a car, I am going to go for the oldest possible hunk of crap that I can get my hands on, something I can fix with a wrench, a hammer, and a drop or two of commons sense.
The other problem with modern cars, is that between the driver, and the road, there are several systems to isolate the driver from the physical reality of what they are doing. Who else recalls the Toyota Prius driver, who, along with several family members, hurtled to their doom because of a failure in an electronic braking system? Placing delicate computers between oneself, and the full control of the car, seems to me to be a fools errand, one which can only increase the risk of a grizzly death at the wheel.
Therefore, the idea of actually handing total control of a vehicle, containing either myself, or anyone I give two flying figs about, feels to me totally insane.