Self-Driving cars / autos merged threadfest

[Rough Edge racing]

 My wife could teach you guys a few things  about grass roots auto repair...
Rebuilding the engine in here 51 Willys 4x4 truck.

   

 A few weeks ago working on our 68 Chevy 4x4...

     

[canuguzzi]

Wait until the self driving cars come out and they decide it is less dangerous to the occupant to run over a motorcycle than  into a F150.

[Lannis]

Wait until the self driving cars come out and they decide it is less dangerous to the occupant to run over a motorcycle than  into a F150.

They'll be right after the flying personal jet-packs.   I read about it in a 1961 issue of Popular Science.

Lannis

[Triple Jim]

True, but at least the forests are pretty.

Yes, they sure are.  I spent a lot of time in and around Ocean City as I was growing up.  I still miss that area.

[Aaron D.]

Well, I have to apologize for not having read this whole thread (I've been occupied), but I did do some keyword searching before posting...

I think what's happening is that the average intelligence of motorcyclists is declining through time.

I'll explain my theory, and then the evidence.

Theory: In the 60's when I started riding, not much was known about motorcycle safety. Honda's campaign claiming you meet the nicest people was enough to convince many reasonable people to ride. Smart people bought motorcycles to do useful things, so they had luggage racks, sensible riding positions, room to pack a girlfriend, and adaptability for other opportunities that might come up.

As time passed two things happened. First, more information about the relative danger of motorcycling versus car driving became available and was widely distributed. Smart people began to think twice about riding. Second, the conditions under which motorcycles operate became progressively worse, with more crowding and with increasingly armored, coddled, and electronics entranced drivers not giving a rat's posterior about us. Again, smart people began to think twice.

The result, in my theory, is a decline in the average intelligence of motorcycle riders. Smart people don't do it as much, making the non-smart a predominant and growing majority.

Evidence: The evidence is the motorcycles the remaining population choose. Instead of flexible, practical designs they pick road racers or Wild One sickles in huge proportions. The first are particularly stupid choices (and a main empirical buttress of my theory), but the second are also typically inferior as motorcycles to other designs, for any given task. By their choices ye shall know them. Stupid is as stupid does.

Not all motorcyclists are stupid. You and I, for example, are smart. But the others are getting stupider and more confounding to the rest of us, on average, as time goes on. This explains everything.

Moto

P.S. Smart people have now moved more to scooters. Ironically, they're no safer. In time this will be understood and smart people will abandon them too. Then the remaining scooter riders will gravitate to Ruckuses and away from the more practical designs that now predominate. (Good theories make testable predictions.)

M.

Smart people avoiding danger-so that's why all the donut shops went out of business.

[Chuck in Indiana]

Yep, if it wasn't for Mr. N..

[oldbike54]

Yep, if it wasn't for Mr. N..

 Who ever ... oh , never mind 

  Dusty

[Moto]

Smart people avoiding danger-so that's why all the donut shops went out of business.

No... --
The theory says the average intelligence of donut shop patrons goes down as the smart ones stop coming. This makes it easier for bottom-feeders like Dunkin Donuts to take market share from the good independent bakeries. This seems to have happened in my town. But the number of shops has also declined, at least here, as you suggest!

[bad Chad]

I suspect all these differing anecdotal stories aren't really telling us much.  In a nation of  far over 300,000,000 the perspective of 20 guys who remember when you could still smoke on commercial airlines might not be particularly relevant?

[oldbike54]

I suspect all these differing anecdotal stories aren't really telling us much.  In a nation of  far over 300,000,000 the perspective of 20 guys who remember when you could still smoke on commercial airlines might not be particularly relevant?

 Or who CAN'T remember what happened yesterday 

  Dusty

[Penderic]

Openly smoking in public is a memory as well.

Not the same anymore.

[canuguzzi]

They'll be right after the flying personal jet-packs.   I read about it in a 1961 issue of Popular Science.

Lannis

And the Dick Tracy watch huh?

[Lannis]

And the Dick Tracy watch huh?

I ALWAYS believed that the Dick Tracy radio-watch (and later, the TV watch) was going to happen.  After all, it was Dick Tracy!

Lannis

[rocker59]

Well, we finally got the watch this year in the form of Apple Watch

[canuguzzi]

Well, we finally got the watch this year in the form of Apple Watch

Like most things Apple, the things were already there, polish and marketing layered by Apple tends to rewrite history. Apple watch is pretty much a flop if measured the Apple way. Its a decent start for them but the small garage and backroom designs are so much better.

Nevertheless, every kid can fly a drone, computers in your pocket, the self driving car will be here too. The groundwork to make them acceptable is going on. They'll be here soon enough.

[Lannis]

Nevertheless, every kid can fly a drone, computers in your pocket, the self driving car will be here too. The groundwork to make them acceptable is going on. They'll be here soon enough.

Maybe.   But there is a WIDE gulf between controlling flow of electrons in a small pocket-sized computer, or controlling a drone ... and controlling a device with the kinetic energy of a car in the wild world of a highway with people everywhere.

But time will tell.   I suspect it'll be LOTS of time and we'll be discussing it via our ear trumpets if at all ....

Lannis

[rocker59]

I really think the "self driving car" thing is a long way off.  I know people are working on the idea, but I'm not sure why.  Techies are just geeky like that, I guess.  They have lots of variables to work out and program for, plus liability has to be worked out.

In the 1960s, Star Trek's "communicators" and "Tricorders" seemed like way-out devices.  Having wireless access to phone networks and computer networks!  Now, everyone has a "tricorder" on their hip, in the form of a smart phone.

I don't doubt that smart highways and self driving cars are part of the future.  I just think it will be sometime after I've hung up my car keys for the last time.

[Lannis]

I really think the "self driving car" thing is a long way off.  I know people are working on the idea, but I'm not sure why.  Techies are just geeky like that, I guess.  They have lots of variables to work out and program for, plus liability has to be worked out.

In the 1960s, Star Trek's "communicators" and "Tricorders" seemed like way-out devices.  Having wireless access to phone networks and computer networks!  Now, everyone has a "tricorder" on their hip, in the form of a smart phone.

I don't doubt that smart highways and self driving cars are part of the future.  I just think it will be sometime after I've hung up my car keys for the last time.

The amazing advances in technology that actually happen are almost NEVER the ones that are predicted by people.

Tiny pocket-sized computers that have more power than a building-sized mainframe computer of the 60's, that can communicate with satellites, locate you precisely, steer a tractor across a field and make perfect rows,  allow you to speak "Who's that cute Indian actress that was in Slumdog Millionaires?" and within 5 seconds display her picture and biography .... NONE of that was predicted by anyone until it happened.   

Science fiction-writers of the 60s and 70s predicted a cash free world, where you just waved a credit chip at a terminal and all your stuff was paid for, but there were no specific targets set by the tech mags.

Nope, they were too busy predicting (by year 2000) backyard fusion generators, shuttle flights to the Mars colonies, personal helicopters and jet backpacks, self-driving cars and trucks, cars that turned into airplanes, long-range electric cars, manned exploration flights to Jupiter on near-light-speed ion reaction drives, huge undersea cities, direct supersonic tunnel subways from London to Tokyo.... I've got a pretty good sized collection of Popular Science, Scientific American, etc from those days, I know what people were discussing.

We should be able to learn something about what to predict in the future by looking back at our experience, but we tend not to do that ....

Lannis

[vstevens]

Kev M is dead on here. My daughter's friends are entirely uninterested in motor sports. They do like their adrenalin thrills but get them skiing, rock climbing, kayaking, mountain biking. Their at-home time is absorbed in music, video and social media rather than tinkering in the garage.

In our adolescence, competence with tools and mastery of horsepower were part of the passage to manhood. Maybe it's just my neck of the woods, but the culture seems to have outgrown that obsession. It may have something to do with the change in dating rituals. Kids travel and party in packs rather than doing the the pair-dating thing. They can hang out via handhelds instead of downtown. There may be more casual sex, earlier, because that seems to be part of the larger culture, but it's hard to prove and the impression may come from the openness about it. I think that if I'd been getting laid regularly at 17 I might not have felt quite so compelled to find my thrills on motorbikes.

that is exactly what I see in my adult children... all twenty somethings.  Endless ambition of the 80s and 90s seems to have been replaced with a desire to just live their lives... rock climbing and other extreme sport, getting out with friends, social ntera tions online and in person.  My girls are all college graduates but are totally uninterested n any sort of careerism.  Yet they work hard, become archery coaches, yoga intructors beer brewers, dancers, oriental medicine practicioners, acupuncterists, urban planners, etc, etc. 

[rocker59]

Tiny pocket-sized computers that have more power than a building-sized mainframe computer of the 60's, that can communicate with satellites, locate you precisely, steer a tractor across a field and make perfect rows,  allow you to speak "Who's that cute Indian actress that was in Slumdog Millionaires?" and within 5 seconds display her picture and biography .... NONE of that was predicted by anyone until it happened.   
 

Gene Roddenberry predicted these things on Star Trek.

[Triple Jim]

...flights to Jupiter on near-light-speed ion reaction drives, huge undersea cities...

I first read about ion engines in the SRA "reading lab" in my 5th grade public school class.  It must have been important to me, because that's the only specific thing I remember reading in that set.

[Murray]

Wait until the self driving cars come out and they decide it is less dangerous to the occupant to run over a motorcycle than  into a F150.

I seriously doubt a vehicle that will always be paying attention to the road and will always without fail follow at correct stopping distances for the conditions will ever get itself into that situation. Certainly far less likely than been run over by bubba in his 150 after he's had a brew or six.

[Moto]

I seriously doubt a vehicle that will always be paying attention to the road and will always without fail follow at correct stopping distances for the conditions will ever get itself into that situation. Certainly far less likely than been run over by bubba in his 150 after he's had a brew or six.

I agree. Google's self-driving cars (with human passenger/supervisors, I think) have been circulating the streets of California for some time. Google reported that all of their very few accidents had been the fault of other drivers, often when the Google car did something unexpected but prescribed by law, like stopping at a stop sign.

I drive like a Google car when I drive my car. Wish everyone did.

[Lannis]

I agree. Google's self-driving cars (with human passenger/supervisors, I think) .....

That "supervisor" thing ....

I remember back in the 80s (when 4 of us young engineering types were working in a trailer on a job site), one of the guys had just bought a new Honda Prelude of which he was very proud, especially of the fact that it had "cruise control".

I asked if the 4 cylinder engine handled the cruise control OK, and he said "Well, you have to give it a little extra throttle to get up a long hill ... "

The other three of us were in mental tune somehow, and we started in with "Oh, THAT kind of cruise control!   Yes, I've got that on my '66 AMC Rebel."   and "Oh, yes, I've had cruise control for years, I make sure it's on every car I've had.   Yep, just push on the gas to make it hold its speed, yep, I've got that too" and we guyed him till he was livid (you know how guys do once they get started).

Supervised "driving" on designated California streets .... yep, I've got that .....

Lannis

[canuguzzi]

I really think the "self driving car" thing is a long way off.  I know people are working on the idea, but I'm not sure why.  Techies are just geeky like that, I guess.  They have lots of variables to work out and program for, plus liability has to be worked out.

In the 1960s, Star Trek's "communicators" and "Tricorders" seemed like way-out devices.  Having wireless access to phone networks and computer networks!  Now, everyone has a "tricorder" on their hip, in the form of a smart phone.

I don't doubt that smart highways and self driving cars are part of the future.  I just think it will be sometime after I've hung up my car keys for the last time.

Good points. I wonder though, we've managed to jump ahead of liability tissues and many laws and even public morality with lots of tech things and still they happened. Look at privacy issues and the Internet, freedom of speech and Facebook/Twitter and so on.

Few of us expected the rapid advances we now all accept.

Rocker, you've brought up such an interesting (to me at least) branch in that post. We can embrace certain new technologies because they don't overtly challenge our control yet for something like a car where we'd basically become a passenger the idea that it might come pretty soon seems unlikely.

The self driving car affects far more than just the driving, there is the rest of the experience of using a car, from fueling it to tuning and accessorizing it that  would be affected. With all the sensors you probably couldn't use any tires except those prescribed and authorized much less add a side window wind deflector. The self driving car removes our control from.something so many see as such a personal thing, their car and makes it not much more than an iPhone where everyone whonhas one has the same thing. Welcome to 1984 and groupthink.

I do see problems with the self driving car but none that can stop it from getting here sooner than later. They companies developing them are amassing huge amounts of data to prove they are safer than cars with human drivers. The data will also prove that they can save lots of money, reduce congestion and improve productivity of the general economy and that right there is enough for many to look then other way because figuring out liability generally happens after the accident, not before. There are already active collision avoidance systems in some cars.

If you are riding one one side of a car and some fool on the opposite lane crowds the car in the middle, what does the system do? You own the car, you own the liability and beyond that, court time.

[Chuck in Indiana]

I agree. Google's self-driving cars (with human passenger/supervisors, I think) have been circulating the streets of California for some time. Google reported that all of their very few accidents had been the fault of other drivers, often when the Google car did something unexpected but prescribed by law, like stopping at a stop sign.

I drive like a Google car when I drive my car. Wish everyone did.

I'm going to bet that self driving cars will be here sooner than many think. You wouldn't need to own/maintain it. Just get on your comm device..whatever that is.. and a car shows up at your doorstep. Get in, tell it where to go, pop open a beer, and surf WG on the way.
The technology is here, now.

[Penderic]

Well.... it is difficult to look cool hip on those new bikes with a huge helmet covering your face!

Cant ride properly without mah foxtail!

[canuguzzi]

I'm going to bet that self driving cars will be here sooner than many think. You wouldn't need to own/maintain it. Just get on your comm device..whatever that is.. and a car shows up at your doorstep. Get in, tell it where to go, pop open a beer, and surf WG on the way.
The technology is here, now.

Imagine the hacking opportunities. Tell all the self driving cars to avoid all the roads we like to ride on and problem solved. Imagine being able to head out on that great sweeper roads that goes for mikes and miles without worrying about some sled driver drifting over then line because they believe all those TV commercials about the ultimate driving machine.

[oldbike54]

Imagine the hacking opportunities. Tell all the self driving cars to avoid all the roads we like to ride on and problem solved. Imagine being able to head out on that great sweeper roads that goes for mikes and miles without worrying about some sled driver drifting over then line because they believe all those TV commercials about the ultimate driving machine.

 A friend jokingly tried to run for state rep based on a platform similar to that idea . No vehicles with more than 3 wheels allowed on secondary roads on weekends and holidays . Unfortunately , the concept met with very limited acceptance . Dang , my emos aren't working again .

  Dusty

[Rough Edge racing]

 Self driving cars? Geez, most of you have new vehicles with so many driver intervention features it's almost self driving..