The Coming Zombie Robot Driving Apocalypse of You

michaels

Every feature is designed with safety in mind. For example, statistically, most accidents at junctions happen within the first two seconds of the light changing, so Google Chauffeur holds back for 1.5 seconds before moving off.

In all of their trials - and they have clocked up nearly a million miles - there has only been one accident, when a car was rear-ended

Hmm.......

Generali

michaels wrote: »

Hmm.......

I reckon there'll be a hella cost saving on the insurance. And most of the time saved from being the very first on the accelerator at the lights, overtaking on the roundabout etc. is illusory.

cells

Generali wrote: »

I reckon there'll be a hella cost saving on the insurance. And most of the time saved from being the very first on the accelerator at the lights, overtaking on the roundabout etc. is illusory.

There will simply be fewer cars. Imagine the current fleet of 35million cars in the UK is reduced to 10 million human cars and 10 million robo taxis. Traffic and accidents would reduce greatly just simply for the fact of less cars on the road at any one time and 15 million less cars sitting idle on roadsides


also a big part of insurance claims, perhaps the biggest parts are fake claims and the cost of the insurance companies themselves. These cars will reduce both drastically. So even if these cars were just as good as humans and no better the cost of insurance might still be 80% lower

Generali

cells wrote: »

There will simply be fewer cars. Imagine the current fleet of 35million cars in the UK is reduced to 10 million human cars and 10 million robo taxis. Traffic and accidents would reduce greatly just simply for the fact of less cars on the road at any one time and 15 million less cars sitting idle on roadsides


also a big part of insurance claims, perhaps the biggest parts are fake claims and the cost of the insurance companies themselves. These cars will reduce both drastically. So even if these cars were just as good as humans and no better the cost of insurance might still be 80% lower

And consider how the capacity of a motorway rises when your thinking time when braking is reduced from 0.7 seconds to 0.007 seconds.

michaels

cells wrote: »

There will simply be fewer cars. Imagine the current fleet of 35million cars in the UK is reduced to 10 million human cars and 10 million robo taxis. Traffic and accidents would reduce greatly just simply for the fact of less cars on the road at any one time and 15 million less cars sitting idle on roadsides

Why would there be fewer cars on the roads, I would have thought there might be more car journeys rather than fewer as journeys currently done by public transport would switch to automated taxis and I don't see how currently unused cars sitting in driveways or parking bays impacts on congestion?

michaels

Generali wrote: »

I reckon there'll be a hella cost saving on the insurance. And most of the time saved from being the very first on the accelerator at the lights, overtaking on the roundabout etc. is illusory.

Sure once all cars are automatic there won't be the very common accidnet where the car in front hesitates unnecessarily at a junction and the car behind anticipating the car in front to move and looking at the traffic elsewhere rear-ends the one in front. However in the transition period, hesitating in an unusual manner at a juntion may cause an accident risk.

CLAPTON

cells wrote: »

To add to my point above. Robo cars make goods and service provision in rural areas cheaper and hence available.

Eg it probably isn't viable to have a small store cater for a village of 50 homes. The store plus its staff couldn't make a living selling to just 50 homes.

but imagine a robo van with high volume consumer goods and food. It goes to village A and sits there for one hour. Say 8am to 9am. The villages know this and go buy their milk and bread and whatever else is high volume goods. The van then drives to the next village and sits there an hour. Say from 10.30 -11.30. The villagers know this and go get whateber it is they need. Then it moves onto the next village. It does this for maybe 10 villages before goinf back to depo and restocking really for tomorrows run which will be a separate 10 villages. and then it returns to the original village.

that is 20 villages that have a small store every other day now whereby they didn't before.


20 village stores with 20 staff in 20 expensive buildings isn't vianle so small villages dont have a village shop. But a self drive robo shop utilised between 20 villages probably would be viable amd more productive than said villagers driving to the nearest town (it would reduce the need to do that but not get rid of it)

Also this van can do deliveries from specific orders be it ebay or amazon or tesco

this of course could be done to day with a van with a human driver

any cost saving isn't between 20 shops with staff but a human driver and a robot.

purch

Generali wrote: »

And consider how the capacity of a motorway rises when your thinking time when braking is reduced from 0.7 seconds to 0.007 seconds.

I drove for 8 hours on motorways on Saturday & Sunday and from what I saw most peoples thinking time is upwards of 2 minutes :eek:

antrobus

CLAPTON wrote: »

this of course could be done to day with a van with a human driver

any cost saving isn't between 20 shops with staff but a human driver and a robot.

Plus, of course, a human driver can get out of the van, ring the door bell, confirm that the customer is in, and then carry the customer's shopping (and only their shopping) into their home, and even take action in response to simple requests like 'I'm sorry but salad cream is not an acceptable substitute for mayonnaise, can you please take it back'.

I remain unconvinced that a simple driverless van can accomplish all these tasks. You would be limited to providing some kind of vending machine on wheels, and thus the range of goods you could offer would be extremely limited unless you had something the size of a HGV.

I'm sorry, but I shan't be investing in your company. I'm out.

cells

michaels wrote: »

Why would there be fewer cars on the roads, I would have thought there might ise more car journeys rather than fewer as journeys currently done by public transport would switch to automated taxis and I don't see how currently unused cars sitting in driveways or parking bays impacts on congestion?

For a few reasons

one is that people will know the actual cost of a trip. The car will tell you to do your 30 mile trip will cost £5 thre ad £5 back. Currently the average driver has no idea how much a trip costs them they just fill up the tank. So fewer unnecessary trips

another is that auto cars will know all roads and can use underutilised roads that humans drivers dont know about in large numbers

another is that I think lots of people will be happy to share taxis and so going from 1 person per car to 3 people will cut number of cars on roads

another is lower accidents equals much less traffic

another is that auto delivery could be done away from the one-two peak hours whereas you can't really enforce that now


they will indeed take market share from trains but the type that takes from that narket will be high occupancy vehicles. So a person who currently does london to birmingham via train may opt for a self drive people carrier which holds 8 persons (each with their own door and seperated from the others) so although it adds 8 people onto the roads it only adds 1 vehicle



also I think a long way dowb the road if the population continues to increase we will see the train lines converted to motorways as people abandon crap costly trains for robo taxis.