Unoccupied driverless trucks coming to Texas by 2025, companies say

[vinny]

I understand there are only two seasons in the northern tiers: Winter and road construction...

You are correct. We just went from +3-9 C to -40 C/F (they meet at -40) with windchill, so Bryan again makes a point with MORE winter. It's nice when she creeps down, dropping that much is a shock to the system. It took me three tries to load 3 boards into my truck box. I seriously had to stop to grab gloves, then take a break to warm up. then back out to strap em in and gone.

With time to get used to it it's nothing, but I was whining!

 

[winemaker81]

You are correct. We just went from +3-9 C to -40 C/F (they meet at -40) with windchill, so Bryan again makes a point with MORE winter. It's nice when she creeps down, dropping that much is a shock to the system. It took me three tries to load 3 boards into my truck box. I seriously had to stop to grab gloves, then take a break to warm up. then back out to strap em in and gone.

Thanks for reminding me of one of the reasons I moved to central NC ....

Until you mentioned it, I hadn't considered what self driving vehicles would do on snowy roads, not only for navigation but for keeping it on the road as well. That's a serious no-go!

 

[joeswine]

This I thought had been going on for awhile now, oh we’ll progress???
Tractor trailers that is

 

[Neb Farmer]

A lot of vehicles have been self-driving since we got cellphones.

 

[winemaker81]

A lot of vehicles have been self-driving since we got cellphones.

Sadly, this is true.

 

[jswordy]

A lot of vehicles have been self-driving since we got cellphones.

I just saw your point in action. Just got home. We are having rain, and I was sitting at an intersection in the left turn lane when a white Ford Expedition sped up alongside me at what I thought was a high rate of speed. I figured he was going to turn right where there is a little curve to do so at the traffic island. But nope! He went straight over the island, clipped off the 12' pole holding the traffic light activation device, came off the other side in the middle of the intersection, slid around to face the northbound road, did a doughnut, and took off. I was laughing in amazement the whole time. How no one got clipped at that packed intersection, I'll never know.

 

[winemaker81]

I just saw your point in action. Just got home. We are having rain, and I was sitting at an intersection in the left turn lane when a white Ford Expedition sped up alongside me at what I thought was a high rate of speed. I figured he was going to turn right where there is a little curve to do so at the traffic island. But nope! He went straight over the island, clipped off the 12' pole holding the traffic light activation device, came off the other side in the middle of the intersection, slid around to face the northbound road, did a doughnut, and took off. I was laughing in amazement the whole time. How no one got clipped at that packed intersection, I'll never know.

You can't fix stupid. Stupid is foevah!

 

[jswordy]

You can't fix stupid. Stupid is foevah!

Can't fix texting, either, lol. My favorite is how carmakers have put this big screen right there by the driver, taking up all that dash real estate. Aaaaand ... The first thing you see on it upon startup is "DON'T LOOK AT THIS SCREEN WHILE DRIVING!" or some such! Right!

 

[winemaker81]

Can't fix texting, either, lol. My favorite is how carmakers have put this big screen right there by the driver, taking up all that dash real estate. Aaaaand ... The first thing you see on it upon startup is "DON'T LOOK AT THIS SCREEN WHILE DRIVING!" or some such! Right!

When teaching my sons to drive, I explained they should consider every other driver to be a complete idiot until proven otherwise. In that vein, I'm too busy not getting hit by idiots to pay attention to the screen except in low traffic situations where I need to do something specific. "not getting in an accident" is sort of my mantra, so ignoring the screen is easy.

 

[joeswine]

Sadly, this is true.

Yes

 

[jswordy]

When teaching my sons to drive, I explained they should consider every other driver to be a complete idiot until proven otherwise. In that vein, I'm too busy not getting hit by idiots to pay attention to the screen except in low traffic situations where I need to do something specific. "not getting in an accident" is sort of my mantra, so ignoring the screen is easy.

Easy for me, too. I own 4 DD vehicles, don't have it in any of them.

 

[Raptor99]

I doubt the technology will ever be 100% ready.

Human driven vehicles are not 100% safe either. So the question is, when do we reach the point that computer driven vehicles are at least as safe as human driven ones. The way some people drive, it might not be that long.

The technology is improving rapidly, and there are limited situations in which self-driving vehicles make sense. One example that comes to mind is elderly people who can no longer drive. It would be a huge benefit to them to have a self-driving vehicle that could take them to the grocery store or the doctor's office.

Of course, one important feature of the computer driving the car is to be able to take into account the weather and the behavior of the idiots on the road. One thing that a self-driving car might do is to check the local weather, and if the roads are too icy, tell the owner that it is unsafe to travel and refuse to go anywhere. If they did that, they might be smarter than some people.

 

[winemaker81]

Human driven vehicles are not 100% safe either. So the question is, when do we reach the point that computer driven vehicles are at least as safe as human driven ones. The way some people drive, it might not be that long.

I've commented previously that one of the huge problems is that the road markings that any type of computer-driven auto-driving rely upon is NOT up to date in many situations.

If someone you care about is killed in an accident with a "self-driving" vehicle in a situation where the road markings are ambiguous, who do you hold responsible?

The local DOT is not responsible, as each driver is responsible for for understanding each situation and acting accordingly. This makes sense both logically and economically, as it's not reasonable to hold a third party responsible for the actions of an individual.

So ... since there is no driver, is the manufacturer of the vehicle or the programmer of the self-driving system responsible? Or is no one?

Pro-auto-driving pundits make things sound very impersonal, but for those who are involved? The results are very personal.

 

[Raptor99]

I've commented previously that one of the huge problems is that the road markings that any type of computer-driven auto-driving rely upon is NOT up to date in many situations.

If someone you care about is killed in an accident with a "self-driving" vehicle in a situation where the road markings are ambiguous, who do you hold responsible?

The local DOT is not responsible, as each driver is responsible for for understanding each situation and acting accordingly. This makes sense both logically and economically, as it's not reasonable to hold a third party responsible for the actions of an individual.

So ... since there is no driver, is the manufacturer of the vehicle or the programmer of the self-driving system responsible? Or is no one?

Pro-auto-driving pundits make things sound very impersonal, but for those who are involved? The results are very personal.

The question of legal liability is an important one, and is something that would need to be solved before widespread use. Does the liability rest with the owner or the manufacturer (hardware and software)? How would insurance handle this? Even with a human driver, if the road markings are misleading and determined to be a partial cause of the accident, then DOT is probably partly responsible.

Self-driving vehicles rely on far more than road signs and marking. They will get better over time. They already do well with ambiguous or incorrect road markings.

In the near future, computer-assisted driving will be a lot easier to role out than driver-less cars. With a driver in the car, you can push a button to have the computer take over the task of driving, but still watch the road and take over if necessary. I suspect that if you have taken hundreds of trips that way without a problem caused by the computer, you might be more open to driver-less vehicles.

If someone you love is killed in an auto accident, it is very personal regardless of who or what is doing the driving. How many people lose a loved one each year due to drunk driving? What if the person who was drunk could rely on the car to drive him/her home?

I'm not trying to be a proponent of driver-less cars, but most of the discussion here has been on only one side, and I felt that there were some valid points that could be made for the "pro" position.

 

[jswordy]

The question of legal liability is an important one, and is something that would need to be solved before widespread use. Does the liability rest with the owner or the manufacturer (hardware and software)? How would insurance handle this? Even with a human driver, if the road markings are misleading and determined to be a partial cause of the accident, then DOT is probably partly responsible.

Self-driving vehicles rely on far more than road signs and marking. They will get better over time. They already do well with ambiguous or incorrect road markings.

In the near future, computer-assisted driving will be a lot easier to role out than driver-less cars. With a driver in the car, you can push a button to have the computer take over the task of driving, but still watch the road and take over if necessary. I suspect that if you have taken hundreds of trips that way without a problem caused by the computer, you might be more open to driver-less vehicles.

If someone you love is killed in an auto accident, it is very personal regardless of who or what is doing the driving. How many people lose a loved one each year due to drunk driving? What if the person who was drunk could rely on the car to drive him/her home?

I'm not trying to be a proponent of driver-less cars, but most of the discussion here has been on only one side, and I felt that there were some valid points that could be made for the "pro" position.

In my view, you have touched on the most important aspect of this whole thing. When one of these 80,000-pound tractor-trailer behemoths goes berserk and people are killed or property is badly damaged, who is liable? Here's a picture of a Cruise self-driving taxi in San Francisco, buried in freshly poured concrete. What if that instead had been a mother and child in that spot? Oh, BTW, the California Dept. of Motor Vehicles has since suspended the operating permits of GM-owned Cruise to operate driverless taxis in the city.

To me, it's not about who makes more mistakes, humans or computers. It's about why we even need this technology, when we are unable and/or unwilling to install the roadbed technologies to support it. There's a super-safe way to do this that has been known since the early 1960s: Embed sensors in the roadway that the vehicles follow and from which they gather information about conditions to set speed and distance from other vehicles. Strange, no one EVER talks about that.

 

[jswordy]

This was just the funniest thing ever about these self-driving cars. I laughed and laughed.

https://slate.com/business/2023/07/...ic-cones-san-francisco-cruise-waymo-cpuc.html

 

[bstnh1]

Computers, robots and other programmed machines will never be as clever as human beings in perceiving what is going on in the environment surrounding them and what an appropriate reaction should be. Sure, these machines and software are capable of driving a car(steerine), reacting to road signs and road markings and obeying traffic signals. But they will never compete successfully with human judgement.

 

[jswordy]

Computers, robots and other programmed machines will never be as clever as human beings in perceiving what is going on in the environment surrounding them and what an appropriate reaction should be. Sure, these machines and software are capable of driving a car(steerine), reacting to road signs and road markings and obeying traffic signals. But they will never compete successfully with human judgement.

That's what I basically think, too, Brian. Unless we as a society are willing to foot the bill for a sensor-laden highway, there are definite limits to the tech.

 

[winemaker81]

Strange, no one EVER talks about that.

The cost of updating all roads, or even a representative sample, to meet the needs of self-driving cars is astronomical, and that's just installation. After that, maintenance is not cheap either, and it never ends. Then new technology is developed and eventually all roads are not equal, and older roads need updating ...

Taxes towards road construction and maintenance would need to increase by a lot. Plus as Brian said and you agreed, humans are better adapted to handling bizarre situations.

 

[ibglowin]

Unless they are on their phones not paying attention to the road.........

Plus as Brian said and you agreed, humans are better adapted to handling bizarre situations.