Google's self-driving cars take TED attendees for a wild ride

But what about the 'fun' factor? What you're saying sounds like something out of Stalins or maybe the Borgs world plan!

We all sit in our individual vehicles being driven around automatically, and as I added earlier probably via the latest 'sponsors' shop if google has anything to do with it. Maybe I'm gettting too old but this 'efficient driving sounds like something out of Wall-E WALL-E - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (Remember all the overly large humans sitting in their little transport pod things?).

Sure automated driving will have some efficiency savings at the lights etc, but if it came to this I'd rather give up and get the bus.

 

You make many good points, in addition to improving MPG and efficiency through hybrids, batteries, and other alternative fuels, we need to improve the efficiency of driving and traffic flow itself. Traffic lights are inefficient, often making people stop and start unnecessarily, or sit and wait when the way is actually clear. Stop signs should also be unnecessary in most instances for smart (self-driven) cars that are aware of other traffic; I've never liked how the ratio of Stop to Yield signs is so much higher in America than other countries I've visited. Coming to a full stop even when it's obvious the way is clear is just a waste of efficiency. I guess this is why I see so many people make "rolling stops". Routing around congestion, driving direct to a parking space instead of circling looking for a space, and just plain not getting lost (or at least making wrong turns, or not knowing the shortest route) are other ways to improve efficiency (these are possible even without fully self-driving cars, with just improved navigation systems).

Self-driving cars might take the "fun" out of driving sometimes, but also could give people more "free" time to do other things like talk on the phone, read, rest, work, or whatever. All those "dangerous" behaviors like texting, talking on the phone, eating, applying makeup, etc. that are currently being made illegal would no longer need to be "dangerous", prohibited activities.

 

I think it would be a very long time before everything could be completely automated as discussed, automation to the point of removing traffic lights and signs, etc., could not be done while any conventional driver-operated vehicles were on the road. I don't see driver-operated vehicles disappearing for a very long time.

I imagine at first it would be quite startling to see vehicles with no driver, or a passenger not paying attention to the road.

I've visited your fine country (and maybe will again someday) (and liked your many roundabouts better than our many traffic lights and stop signs that result in more stopping and starting). Given that I'm accustomed to seeing drivers seated in the left front seat, it seemed quite strange to see a car with a dog seated in the left front seat, and a person on the right (in what would be the passenger position in an American car).

 

lol about the dog. I remember driving behind a car that was going slow and I was looking for a place to overtake them when suddenly a dog stuck its head out of what should have been the drivers window looking forward. Turned out to be a lhd car but was quite amusing after I got over my initial surprise!

And I really really don't know why one city in America doesn't give roundabouts a go. They're much better in many (but granted not all) situations and once built require minimal maintenance and no electric costs - unlike traffic lights. They keep the traffic flow running all the time - no sitting at a red light knowing there's nothing coming the other way. If the road is clear you go - simple. Also, if they're designed correctly they are much safer than traffic lights - and I'll explain why. At lights if someone jumps them you're in for a nasty accident as the jumper will usually be going at speed. On a correctly designed roundabout you are made to slow down and look to see if the way is clear (look to the right in the UK, left in lhd countries). So even if someone pulls out when they shouldn't and there is a crash, the speed is much much lower and the impact will usually be more side to side glancing blow than a heavy front to side impact at a traffic light accident.

Was posting a wiki link about them [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundabout"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundabout[/ame] and notice that there are now some in America - great

 

There is no fun factor spending an hour commuting 20 miles to work. I'm sure that when a proof of concept in real life shows the gains people will start to open their mind to the possibilities and what it offers. If automation began on highways, which frankly have no fun on them anyway (especially if crowded), then you could still have that fun factor when you get off before you get home.

Trust me: if there's a safe, reasonably economical way even for something as simple as giving a car the ability to control itself in grid lock traffic and start/stop along with the rest while you fearlessly surf the net on your phone, and legally, people will want it.

It is the future and it will be nice.

Discussed this last night with coworkers actually. The problem is simply people in NA don't know how to use them and when they are introduced we're so in shock at the concept that we suck with them. A one lane maybe but the multi-lane just become accident nightmares, at least the two large I lived around some years ago. I've seen many in practice in Europe and with people who know how to drive they are very effective, but many people in America (I don't know if people are overall worse or better at driving here, though) so awful at driving that they slow down to merge on a highway instead of speed up it's like they're just not capable of safely using a roundabout.

 

i would think that if we want automated cars, then we wouldnt own them, but would use automated taxi's and shared rides and automated buses which would also lower the cost of such rides.

I dont see whats the point if you wont be sitting in the back, relaxing, watching tv show or something...

 

Yes, roundabouts are gradually being introduced here (I traveled through several today), to much controversy and initial confusion. In addition, they're new to our highway engineers, so some of the first were studied to death by the engineers, and in some cases still turned out to be designed poorly. The biggest faults that I'd give their first efforts is where best to place them, over-engineering them, making unique one-off designs that only lead to confusion (someday maybe they'll learn that they need to stick to consistent designs that all work exactly alike that don't lead to confusion by those coming through a particular roundabout for the first time). They've sometimes tended to choose the busiest intersections for them, leading to nearly overloaded conditions, and adding extra lanes or partial lanes partway around to compensate (resulting in a concentric mess of exit-only and no-exit lanes), leading to unfamiliar drivers, including myself, ending up in the wrong lane (I was more confused by one of these than any of the hundreds of roundabouts I've seen in my travels). I've never seen such usage of extra lanes partway around in British roundabouts. One of the very few British ones that I've seen that didn't work well was an intersection of two heavily traveled roads outside of Glasgow... I'm sure you know what happens when a roundabout gets overloaded, the first of two entrances fills to capacity, leading to a full roundabout, and nobody on the 2nd entrance has an opportunity to enter, leading to a long queue at the 2nd entrance..

In addition, I've seen other countries converting to roundabouts too. I've traveled to Germany repeatedly over the years, and was surprised to find upon returning some familiar intersections had been replaced by roundabouts.

 

One in north america I was familiar with was quite huge and the source of many accidents. Eventually they introduced traffic lights and adding lights and arrows to a roundabout just confused the ever-loving hell out of me and, I'm sure, many others who went through the thing. And there were also bypass lanes as you mention. I never had confidence with that roundabout. Not even at the age of 18 after acting like superman behind the wheel, doubling speed limits, etc. the invincible teenager. Still, didn't have confidence with that roundabout. I didn't know what the lights meant and was positive that most people using the roundabout had no idea how to use it, either. A total cluster.

 

And that's where they've gone wrong. Keep it simple. The designers should learn to walk before they run. They're biting off more they can chew etc etc.

 

Yes, exactly. Instead of introducing them first where there's relatively little traffic and people can get used to them, they start with these big projects. A single lane lightly traveled roundabout results in almost never having to stop or yield (the best kind of roundabout, from my experience). Instead they bring out their computer modeling and show that if we put an extra lane here, a bypass there, and lots and lots of signs to try to make clear which lane you need to be in at the entrance and within each segment of the roundabout to finally get to the exit you want, etc., that the roundabout will be at "only" 90% capacity, and they feel they have an ideal design. Instead, there's never-ending confusion anytime someone from outside the area happens through. And, they then interview local bus drivers, or some such who use it multiple times a day and have learned the unique quirks of their non-standard layout, and conclude it's not confusing at all.

 

In the end though the roundabout is still trying to solve the problem of how to make an incompetent human driver less so whereas automating just takes them out of the equation entirely.

 

Yes, you're partially right, although another goal should be improving efficiency. If we can reduce stops and starts and idling, that's also a good thing. I don't idle at lights anymore now that I'm driving a Prius, but the vast majority of drivers do.

I see lots of focus on reducing fuel consumption by redesigning cars, but not much about redesigning roads to reduce wasteful driving practices like too much stop and start driving and too much idling.

 

This is why automation solves literally every problem with driving or in some other way makes it better at the very least. Yes, I'm beating that dead horse but I believe in it deeply. In fact, I'm almost going to say it will be the next technological revolution or at least one of the key ones of the next couple of decades, as important as the cellphone once it's fully established, if not more so.

The problems with current transportation are so huge and numerous and offer so many opportunities to make the experience better. In fact, if there was some way to invest just in what google or others are doing in this realm directly I think I would have to.

 

Wasn't sure if I should start a new thread or add to this one. More info on the self-driving cars at:
How Google's Self-Driving Car Works and How Google's Self-Driving Car Works - IEEE Spectrum. I haven't had a chance to read the 2nd article in detail nor look at the videos yet.

There was an funny statement earlier by Eric Schmidt mentioned at http://www.autoblog.com/2011/09/29/googles-eric-schmidt-our-autonomous-cars-drive-better-than-you/ :

edit: The first video in the article (part 2 of 3) is pretty cool. Part 3 was ok. Haven't watched part 1 yet.

 

Again, not sure if I should add to this thread or another...

(Thanks to a friend of mine) This was NOT a wild ride but good PR for Google.