I think Autonomous Vehicles will lead us here...but I certainly hope not!

[willowstreetguzziguy]

A loss of the freedom of riding and driving our own vehicles that we take for granted everyday. HOW?  Sky high insurance rates for drivers who continue to pilot their own vehicles (cars, trucks, motorcycles) because they put other "autonomous vehicles" and their occupants, at risk and in great danger of accidents?

The autonomous vehicles will be perfected to the point of being 99.9999% accident-free, thus creating a super low insurance rate. Many less accidents on the road but... those accidents that do happen are ALL caused by human-piloted vehicles.

The yearly insurance rates will be adjusted to reflect these statistics.

The revised insurance bill of $200 will be for the autonomous vehicle & passengers vs. $20,000 if you continue to pilot your own vehicle and put others at risk!

They will eventually price the majority of drivers and riders out of existence!

It could happen. The freedom that we enjoy today will eventually become prohibitively too expensive for the common man.  Hopefully this is many years away when I'm gone.

[73eldorado]

Sounds like hell to me, I love to drive or ride. Internal combustion engines forever!! Thank god I was born and lived thru the super bike era and I discovered Moto Guzzi’s!!

[willowstreetguzziguy]

Sounds like hell to me, I love to drive or ride. Internal combustion engines forever!! Thank god I was born and lived thru the super bike era and I discovered Moto Guzzi�s!!

MY FEELINGS EXACTLY!!!

[Lannis]

We worry too much.

People have been predicting the demise of driving your own car ever since the first "guided freeway" was predicted in my grandfather's day.

The things that we're afraid will happen seldom happen.   It's the things that no one predicted that will change the world 25 years later ....

Lannis

[jas67]

It most certainly will happen eventually, but, hopefully not until after I'm gone, or at least no longer able to safely drive my own vehicle.

It will be the solution to the ever-worsening distracted driver problem.

[Pop]

My guess is that all this autonomous driving BS will be for main highways. I live in Southern NJ, yet most of the rural roads do not even have street lines.
If they count on GPS my house is 1 mile up the road, not here. They have so much to work, then the government implementation time, we will be dead and gone.




Besides, people who don't want to drive their own vehicles, should not get a license. Ahh, there in lies a whole new can of worms, will people in autotons need licenses???????
Pop

[ohiorider]

This may result in the vehicle manufacturers having to carry the bulk of the insurance load, if their software is supposed to keep us safe, but doesn't.  Of course, the cost of that type insurance would be passed on to the purchaser of the vehicle.  But we might not be purchasing personal vehicles, but simply calling for the 'next available' to show up at our residence.  I would imagine that, over time, the software will be uniform across all manufacturers' products, developed and managed under some sort of ISO Standard.

[oldbike54]

 Interestingly enough , most of us will be long gone by the time this becomes an issue . It will be up to future generations to decide what happens . Some of you don't seem to understand that motor vehicles are a blip , we did just fine for a long damn time W/O them , guessing the future will do just fine no matter what happens in regard to cars , or motorcycles .

 Dusty

[Shorty]

Look on the bright side. We could hack into the cars social media camera and see if there are any fine looking gals onboard. Then we could redirect the car to Cedar Vale, hack/jack a rum wagon, and voila, instant party.

Wanna get rich? Invent the first way for auto-cars to flip each other off.

Johnny Cab:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWgrvNHjKkY

[Lannis]

My guess is that all this autonomous driving BS will be for main highways. I live in Southern NJ, yet most of the rural roads do not even have street lines.
If they count on GPS my house is 1 mile up the road, not here. They have so much to work, then the government implementation time, we will be dead and gone.

Same here.  Some people's GPS and Google Maps don't even point to the right address yet when they enter my house number.   And until every road that you might drive on has a pair of lines painted on it, no one is going to force anyone to use an autonomous vehicle at pain of huge insurance or legal penalties.

I don't think people in most places understand just how many roads that is, or how you keep paint on a gravel road ....

Lannis

[pikipiki]

There will always be mopeds!

[Lannis]

There will always be mopeds!

Fay and I rode a moped for a week on our honeymoon in Bermuda 42 years ago.   A Motobecane, I think.   Or a Mobylette?    We were enclosed in a pink glow, I can't remember.

It was downright romantic, it was.   I'd go back to one if I had to!

Lannis

[Wayne Orwig]

They can NOT even make a car turn signal function 100% of the time. How do you expect them to make cars drive themselves that safely?

[Lannis]

They can

Can not!   

[Wayne Orwig]

Can not!   

Fixed. 

[JJ]

On Dec. 11th, I took a full-time job in Chandler, AZ, my old stomping grounds...and live down here now 4 nights / 5 days per week now.  Weekends, it's back up "The Big Hill" to Vortex-Land. 

Since I have been down here, I see these autonomous, white, WAYMO vans...everywhere!!   I'm afraid to say they are already here in the Phoenix area anyway...

[Lannis]

On Dec. 11th, I took a full-time job in Chandler, AZ, my old stomping grounds...and live down here now 4 nights / 5 days per week now.  Weekends, it's back up "The Big Hill" to Vortex-Land. 

Since I have been down here, I see these autonomous, white, WAYMO vans...everywhere!!   I'm afraid to say they are already upon us...

Vehicles like that, in a specific area, where it doesn't snow, with all the proper stripes on the road, and mapping all done is a FAR cry from what the OP was discussing ... which was everyone being forced into self-driving vehicles by law or by insurance rates, everywhere, complete loss of freedom to drive your own car .... So I don't think they're really "upon us" ... and can't be unless the entire USA is prepped just like that little area ...

Lannis

[rocker59]

"Self-Driving Cars".

In large metro areas, maybe.  In most of The USA.  Probably not.

[JJ]

Vehicles like that, in a specific area, where it doesn't snow, with all the proper stripes on the road, and mapping all done is a FAR cry from what the OP was discussing ... which was everyone being forced into self-driving vehicles by law or by insurance rates, everywhere, complete loss of freedom to drive your own car .... So I don't think they're really "upon us" ... and can't be unless the entire USA is prepped just like that little area ...

Lannis

Agreed...and I'll change my wording...and indeed not for the entire USA, but Phoenix now has grown to >7M people!! ...so not a little area anymore! 

[Lannis]

So, given that all that is true .... In my lifetime (and who knows how long that could be but we'll shoot for 30 more years)

1) It will be rare for me to see an "autonomous" car, unless I go to the places prepared for them, which is seldom.

2) I will likely never actually ride in one, or even have the opportunity

3) My 30-year-old children will likely never own or operate one.

4) My grandchildren will never be "required" by law or finance to own or drive one.

That makes MUCH more sense!    Segways, backpack helicopters, and tubes through the middle of the earth ....

Lannis

[JJ]

QUOTE:  Segways, backpack helicopters, and tubes through the middle of the earth ....

OK - Now we're talking...especiall y "tubes through the middle of the earth!!"  

Like one be water-slide!! (LOL) Drop in a tube on the east coast...POP OUT somewhere in China!!

[Lannis]

QUOTE:  Segways, backpack helicopters, and tubes through the middle of the earth ....

OK - Now we're talking...especiall y "tubes through the middle of the earth!!"  

Like one be water-slide!! (LOL) Drop in a tube on the east coast...POP OUT somewhere in China!!

A quick Physics 101 calculation will show that if you were to bore a hole through the center of the earth to come out the other side (and it's hot down there so you'd have to line and insulate the tunnel really well), and then dropped a heavy lead sphere into it (heavy enough to make air resistance negligible) from 5 feet above the ground ....

It would go through the middle, pop out in China or wherever to a height of 5 feet, fall back, and continue the cycle  ... Simple Harmonic Motion, it would be. (F=kx)

So you might not have to even power the train (or whatever) very much - just enough to overcome friction; gravity would do the work ....

Lannis

[twowheeladdict]

Reminds me of the song Red Barchetta. 

I never considered the insurance cost making it unafordable to ride or drive. 

Currently motorcycle insurance is a fraction of what car insurance costs for me.  I insure all my bikes for a year for what it cost to insure my truck for 6 months.

[Lannis]

We can't even do railroad trains right.   Despite the fact that they're on RAILS that only go one place at a time, and that they have sophisticated dispatching, guidance, and sensor systems, those systems are killing people by putting TWO trains on a collision course on one track.

Dispatching and guiding hundreds of thousands of automobiles on a highway is far more complex, with far more activity.

I'll change "grandchildren" above to "great-grandchildren" in my guess above  ....

Lannis

[bad Chad]

There are systems for trains in action today through out Europe and elsewhere that work superbly, the US lags far behind, but that's do to politics, not tech.

20 years ago no one thought we would have the equivalent of a  mainframe computer in the palm of everyone's hand, but here we are.    I suspect it will be sooner rather than later.

[Lannis]

20 years ago no one thought we would have the equivalent of a  mainframe computer in the palm of everyone's hand, but here we are.   

That's my whole point.   The things that REALLY happen and change things, no one ever predicts them.   But lots of people seem to be "predicting" autonomous cars, even though there's tons of reasons it won't happen so soon, despite tons of data that's arm-waved away ...

I agree about the Japanese and European systems.    We ride 30 million people a year in trains; Japan rides about a billion.   If people here would ride the trains, we could do the same thing.   

If by "politics" you mean that American people will not get out of their private cars in favor of mass transit, even in highly urbanized areas where it makes economic, safety, and environmental sense, I agree ....

Lannis

[Huzo]

We worry too much.

People have been predicting the demise of driving your own car ever since the first "guided freeway" was predicted in my grandfather's day.

The things that we're afraid will happen seldom happen.   It's the things that no one predicted that will change the world 25 years later ....

Lannis

In principle, the comment that "things we fear happening, seldom do", is correct but I think it's not so much that they don't happen, it's because by the time they are happening, we have been conditioned not to fear them.
So the fear level has changed, not the spectre itself.
You remember the frog in the water analogy.
If you (cruelly) toss a frog into hot water he'll jump out immediately, but if you pop him into cold water and gently heat it up, he'll stay there 'till he dies, (apparently)...
They just adjust to the new surrounds.
Examples.
You "fear" the prospect of driving your car in the city when you begin to learn, but do not once you've been trained because you have the new tools to cope.
Same thing with parenting, first solo in a/c, human "relationships"....
I think it will happen but the "new breed" will not know any different and it'll just be the new normal.
Technological change rate is exponential and we are at that point of the parabola where we can remember the past as dramatically different but can smell the bucket load of shit coming our way.
I'm glad I'll be dead.

[Lannis]

In principle, the comment that "things we fear happening, seldom do", is correct but I think it's not so much that they don't happen, it's because by the time they are happening, we have been conditioned not to fear them.
So the fear level has changed, not the spectre itself.
.....

That could very well be part of the big picture.   I sometimes look at old photos from 40 or 50 years ago and think "I forgot we used to do it that way!"

I'll have to think of a few potential examples of something that I fought and feared years ago that has soothed me into acquiescence today.   The only thing that comes to mind at the moment is the self-pay gas pump, which I scorned as a potentially scam-able innovation for lazy wimps once upon a time, but has turned out to be a huge time-saver for the motorcyclist and a favorite technology of mine, given the potential wait behind the massive number of people buying beer and cigarettes and scratching lottery tickets in front of me at the counter.

Maybe you've got some potential candidates for examples of such "frog in the water" things from days past?   Keep in mind that I'd be perfectly happy with going back to pre-internet days (regretting some lists like this but I'd live) and I'm still happy with no cell or smart phone or GPS etc ....

Lannis

[redhawk47]

A quick Physics 101 calculation will show that if you were to bore a hole through the center of the earth to come out the other side (and it's hot down there so you'd have to line and insulate the tunnel really well), and then dropped a heavy lead sphere into it (heavy enough to make air resistance negligible) from 5 feet above the ground ....

It would go through the middle, pop out in China or wherever to a height of 5 feet, fall back, and continue the cycle  ... Simple Harmonic Motion, it would be. (F=kx)

So you might not have to even power the train (or whatever) very much - just enough to overcome friction; gravity would do the work ....

Lannis

Physics 201: Part 1: I believe that the Coriolis effect would have it rubbing on the walls and slowing down.

Part 2: "(heavy enough to make air resistance negligible)" - Air resistance is a function of the square of the speed - 4 times the power is needed to go twice the speed. That is why falling objects reach "terminal velocity". PS: no such thing as a perfect vacuum.

[Huzo]

Physics 201: Part 1: I believe that the Coriolis effect would have it rubbing on the walls and slowing down.

Part 2: "(heavy enough to make air resistance negligible)" - Air resistance is a function of the square of the speed - 4 times the power is needed to go twice the speed. That is why falling objects reach "terminal velocity". PS: no such thing as a perfect vacuum.

Also the ball will begin to slow down as it approaches the core, because as it travels "down", the mass of Earth above it is increasing so the attraction "upwards" begins to take effect.
Even if the earth had no atmosphere and all this happened on a vaccuum, it would not be air resistance determining terminal velocity, there would be the gravity of the mass above providing some braking.
Whether or not the ball would make it past the core by some amount and then oscillate to and fro about the centre, is a good point of discussion.
But.
Gravitational attraction is a function of the relative masses of the two bodies, so mass between the ball and the surface is working opposite to that of the ball and the core.
Just sayin'...
Oh, and while we're on the topic..
Coriolis force would not drag the ball against the walls if you went through the North Pole to the South Pole because the Earth would be rotating around the ball and if it didn't touch the sides, no energy would be transferred into the system.
However, any other direction would cause trouble.