They're Coming: U.S. Proposes Spending $4 Billion on Self-Driving Cars
In extraordinarily odd timing, the Obama administration is lining up support to bring self-driving cars to the road as soon as possible.
The government’s new support includes $4 billion in President Obama’s proposed budget for the next fiscal year, to fund research projects and infrastructure improvements tied to driverless cars. Mr. Foxx said that autonomous vehicles had the potential to reduce traffic accidents and significantly improve safety on America’s roads. He estimated that as many as 25,000 deaths could have been avoided last year if driverless technology had been in widespread use. Personally, I can hardly wait for the transition to humanless cars to be complete. I guess it has to start first, though. |
Coming? They've been here for a bit now and autonomous features have been options/standard on pricier makes and models for a minute.
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Can't get here soon enough IMO.
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Will driverless cars be able to go grocery shopping without me and then swing by and pick up my dry cleaning?
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Originally Posted by indyfabz
(Post 18462198)
Will driverless cars be able to go grocery shopping without me and then swing by and pick up my dry cleaning?
i am thinking whether auto the insurance rate will be the same for everybody since no one is driving. |
I wish they would put $4 billion into repairing bridges and highways first. :(
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Originally Posted by SAGit
(Post 18462480)
I don't see why not. Grocery stores have curbside pickup now.
i am thinking whether auto the insurance rate will be the same for everybody since no one is driving. |
Originally Posted by SAGit
(Post 18462480)
i am thinking whether auto the insurance rate will be the same for everybody since no one is driving.
There will still likely be modifiers based on where your car is parked at night. |
Originally Posted by bobwysiwyg
(Post 18462494)
I wish they would put $4 billion into repairing bridges and highways first. :(
I don't know how self driving cars(and all electric/hydrogen/methanol powered) will fix NYC's traffic jams though. |
Originally Posted by bobwysiwyg
(Post 18462494)
I wish they would put $4 billion into repairing bridges and highways first. :(
Spending billions on self driving cars is a stupid waste of money IMO. |
They won't release self driving cars to the public all at once. We will see all the obstacle avoidance systems added to a point where you just can't hit something. Think of this,. you won't be able to rubber neck at an accident. Your car will be hurried past the scene, avoiding all risk. The first car will hit the deer and pull to the side then all the others will come past. N
o one will be able to gridlock an intersection. |
Originally Posted by leicanthrope
(Post 18462560)
I suspect the insurance companies will leave the rates more or less untouched until it becomes the dominant technology, then they'll up the rates for the hold-outs. I would be amazed if any of them go the route of offering discounts.
There will still likely be modifiers based on where your car is parked at night. |
Originally Posted by bobwysiwyg
(Post 18462494)
I wish they would put $4 billion into repairing bridges and highways first. :(
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Originally Posted by B. Carfree
(Post 18463468)
Criminy.. Does it never end?
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Originally Posted by 1nterceptor
(Post 18462592)
Me, too.
I don't know how self driving cars(and all electric/hydrogen/methanol powered) will fix NYC's traffic jams though. Filling the highways with autonomously driven vehicles would allow more efficient utilization of the existing roads and minimize traffic jams. |
Originally Posted by B. Carfree
(Post 18463466)
The insurance industry is apparently quite concerned with what they expect to be a massive reduction in collisions with self-driving cars. I agree that they will stick it to the hold outs, but those are the people expected to be responsible for most of the collisions, so they should pay.
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1 Attachment(s)
Originally Posted by leicanthrope
(Post 18463867)
I totally agree. What I was getting at was just that I doubt the insurance companies will reward people by cutting rates. Self-driving cars will become the new baseline, regardless of the decrease in accidents, with people-driven cars paying even more.
http://cbsnews1.cbsistatic.com/hub/i...ace130b30fee66 http://paleofuture.com/storage/thumb...=1265767365152 |
Originally Posted by B. Carfree
(Post 18463466)
The insurance industry is apparently quite concerned with what they expect to be a massive reduction in collisions with self-driving cars. I agree that they will stick it to the hold outs, but those are the people expected to be responsible for most of the collisions, so they should pay.
The tunnel, with a budget of $1.4 billion and originally scheduled to be finished in November 2015, is two years behind schedule. Two Republican state senators proposed cutting off Bertha’s funding, declaring the project has failed. As part of an interactive exhibit, the Seattle Art Museum asked visitors to imagine what Bertha was thinking. Among the responses: “How in the hole did I get here!!!” and “Another billion dollars, please!” The Seattle Times editorial board tried to calm the hysteria. Bertha may be a lemon, they wrote, but the “herculean engineering work” to repair her makes it “too soon for a Plan B.” The state and the contractor, united until the bill comes due and the widely expected legal battle over the price tag starts, say they’re not abandoning ship. Bertha has become too big to fail. The report above is a bit dated... Bertha has been repaired, and has started tunneling again, only to be halted recently as sinkholes formed behind the machine and areas of the tunnel collapsed. Further, the tunnel boring is considered dangerous to an older highway viaduct for highway 99, above the tunnel route. Perhaps a better solution is to simply kill the project... Seattle should follow New Urbanist examples, such as Seoul, Milwaukee, and Portland, Ore., that replaced highways with smaller surface streets, public parks, and dedicated lanes for mass transit and biking. Instead of seeing gridlock, those places found car trips declined as people opted for other means of transport or changed their plans and didn’t travel as far. San Francisco’s Embarcadero was an oft-*cited example. Like Seattle’s viaduct, the double-*decker roadway carried more than 100,000 vehicles a day. After the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, San Francisco tore down the heavily damaged elevated road and constructed a boulevard with a streetcar and waterfront promenade. It helped revitalize the South of Market neighborhood, now beloved by tech startups, and trips on mass transit in the area increased 75 percent in a decade, according to a 2007 study. Can We Talk Rationally About the Big Dig Yet? - News and reviews - Boston.com So do we really need more roads? Or just better ways to use the roads we have now? |
Originally Posted by bobwysiwyg
(Post 18462494)
I wish they would put $4 billion into repairing bridges and highways first. :(
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It sounds like corporate welfare to me.
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Originally Posted by FBinNY
(Post 18464144)
+1 There's already good momentum toward driverless cars. It doesn't need government help. OTOH the roads do.
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Originally Posted by indyfabz
(Post 18462198)
Will driverless cars be able to go grocery shopping without me and then swing by and pick up my dry cleaning?
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Originally Posted by Chris0516
(Post 18464333)
Probably not. You would be 'along for the ride'. To take care of what the car is incapable of doing.
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Still waiting for the news reports of unfortunate passengers of autonomous vehicles being accosted by packs of roving punks who surround the car and stop it dead in it's tracks.
Not kosher. |
Originally Posted by B. Carfree
(Post 18460980)
In extraordinarily odd timing, the Obama administration is lining up support to bring self-driving cars to the road as soon as possible.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/15/bu...ving-cars.html Personally, I can hardly wait for the transition to humanless cars to be complete. I guess it has to start first, though. How do you retrofit/upgrade a non-driverless car to a driverless car? What about cyclists and pedestrians? Do you install some sort of RFID chip in bicycles? What about pedestrians? Do we implant an RFID chip in their arm? In their shoes, in their clothing? |
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