The self-driving car could be the best thing to ever happen to us

"PushToStart" (pushtostart) 05/15/2014 at 13:00 • Filed to: Autonomous Cars

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For us car enthusiasts, the thought of never driving again can be pretty traumatic. Because of this, just the thought of autonomous cars is sickening because we would all much rather steer ourselves on our favorite stretches of road than have some robot do it for us. But honestly, the self-driving car could be a gift from the heavens if just a few things went our way...

Majority of people couldn't care less about driving- it's the sad truth that we've all become too familiar with. When driving, a lot of them have roughly 12 things higher on their priority list than actually paying attention to the road. They would much rather eat, or text, or check their email, or read a book, or think about last night's episode of Downton Abbey than make sure they aren't playing a dangerous game of Pong between the dashed line on the road and the rumble strip on the shoulder. So why should they be driving in the first place? They clearly don't care, hell, I'm sure they'd welcome being driven around by a robot- and I would rather they were, too. See, if someone doesn't care about something, they have no reason to try at it. For instance, I don't like football much, therefore, I never play football, or even watch a game. It's the same way for these people who don't care for driving; they don't care about driving, therefore they aren't going to attempt to pay attention while they're behind the wheel. That's why they should be in autonomous cars. The robot has no feelings, it doesn't have friends to text, and its programmed to do one thing, and one thing only— drive. People are nervous that these robots will get "hacked" and end up crashing into everything and killing everyone that lives in a major city. To this, I say "seriously?" Let's think about this for a moment, shall we? One of the main pioneers in this "self-driving car" business is Google. When was the last time the Google homepage got hacked and killed the internet? If my memory serves me right, that's never happened. Google has amazing resources, and I can close to guarantee that any product they release for mass consumption will be totally bug-free and safe for everyone to use. This means that these "scary robots" driving the cars will probably be a hell of a lot safer than that lady on your morning commute swerving back and forth as she puts on lipstick, drinks Starbucks, changes the song on her iPod, and catches up on the "celebrity buzz."

But how is this a good thing for us? We're the good guys, the ones who like driving. Well, how much does a bad driver piss you off? Probably a lot, correct? Now imagine a place where there are no bad drivers to be found. Pretty cool, right? Well, that could be the future with the autonomous cars. This is a big jump, but imagine if the whole licensing and license testing system was completely redone. Imagine it like this- there's two options for a student to choose from. A student could either choose to enroll in a class teaching them how to program/ set a destination for a self-driving car (as well as some basic safety practices) OR enroll in a driving school to learn to drive a real car. With this plan, of course, the driving school would be much more in-depth than it is currently, so the kids coming out from these programs would actually be educated and competent on the roads, instead of how it is today. Also, it would eliminate the whole "I don't care, therefore I won't try" thought process that I explained earlier.

Would it take a lot of time and effort to make this happen? Yes, it would. Is it doable? I'd like to believe so. I think that instead of dreading the almost inevitable introduction of the autonomous car to our roads, we should embrace it, and see if we can make it benefit us, the "dying breed" of people who enjoy driving ourselves.

Photo credit: !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!

JR1 > PushToStart 05/15/2014 at 13:25

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What happens when drivers are considered "unsafe" and "endangering the lives of others" it is bound to happen and when it we are screwed

PatBateman > JR1 05/15/2014 at 13:36

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When this happens...

REVOLUTION!!

Shankems > JR1 05/15/2014 at 13:56

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I agree with your foresight. If autonomous cars become the most prevalent mode of vehicular transport, actual drivers are going to be insured right off the road. The poor and those unable to afford vehicles will be left without a means of transport.

I like that this will make things much safer for people. Soon people won't ever have to interact with the surrounding world, and there is something sad about that.

JR1 > Shankems 05/15/2014 at 14:00

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Drivers or passengers will lose the ability to freely traverse the country without the government or a robot dictating where the passenger goes.

PushToStart > JR1 05/15/2014 at 14:06

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Wait, how would a robot dictate where they go? The passenger chooses the destination and the autonomous car takes them there. When you hail a cab, do you only go where the driver wants you to go? No, he/she takes you where you want to go.

Think of autonomous cars as less-insane taxi drivers.

PushToStart > JR1 05/15/2014 at 14:10

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When actual drivers are considered unsafe?

1. They already are. Taking the unsafe drivers who don't wish to drive themselves in the first place off the roads will only make it safer.

2. The people who choose to drive themselves won't be unsafe, because the idea is that with improved driver education and training, (which is needed anyway) the fewer amount of people driving real cars will be safe drivers who are driving by choice, not because it's really their only option.

JR1 > PushToStart 05/15/2014 at 14:10

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Essentially the driver choices I guess but from there on the robot does all the work via sat nav and radars is what I meant. It has benefits don't get me wrong but it has a lot of probable issues as well.

PushToStart > Shankems 05/15/2014 at 14:12

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"The poor and those unable to afford vehicles will be left without a means of transport"

Forgive me, is that not how it is currently? If they can't afford a vehicle, how do they have one now? And even then, public transport won't necessarily be entirely phased out. Busses could very easily still exist, either driven autonomously OR by a human.

EDIT: and also, city governments could very easily buy autonomous vehicles to be used as taxis, where people could call a cab from their phone, etc and have it arrive to pick them up, similar to how it is today.

JR1 > PushToStart 05/15/2014 at 14:14

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I agree with you. The issue however is I don't think insurance companies or the government will agree with you. They might perceive it at a chance to take advantage of drivers and raise their insurance, tax them, or make it illegal to drive at certain times without robotic assistance. Obviously these problems are way down the road but it wouldn't surprise me if they occurred.

PushToStart > JR1 05/15/2014 at 14:17

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Sure, I suppose there could be probable issues. My point is that although there could be a few potential issues, they would likely be significantly less severe or threatening than the state of our roads today. (distracted drivers, people under the influence, etc)

Shankems > PushToStart 05/15/2014 at 14:27

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I didn't want to have my post get too lengthy so I omitted some of my thoughts. I think that autonomous vehicles will be more expensive at the outset. This would raise the bar of vehicle ownership even higher than it is now. It will be the poor outside of cities who would be left in the lurch.

I only expect mass transit and city travel to become 10000x better with autonomous vehicles.