Back when I was still engineering vehicle control systems, a lot of our testing involved trying to anticipate all of the unpredictable things that the vehicle operator might do. Computer engineers often use the acronym PEBKAC http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_error and in the automotive sphere the steering wheel substitutes for the keyboard.
For example the biggest variable in trying to control anti-lock brakes was how hard or fast the driver applied the brake pedal. Many of us dreamed of the day when we could take the driver out of the equation.
The combination of vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications with advanced sensing and actuating systems has the potential to dramatically reduce both collisions and congestion. We're well on our way to semi and fully autonomous vehicles with increasingly affordable collision warning, lane departure, blindspot indicator and adaptive cruise control systems.
I love to drive on a twisty country or canyon road, but frankly the daily commute on the highway is just a grind and I'd just as soon let the car handle the job.
#autonomousvehicles
Embedded Link
Why Google's self-driving car may save lives
While driverless cars like Google's may sound scary, the truth is they're safer than the cars and trucks you share the road with today.
Google+: Reshared 1 times
Google+: View post on Google+
Post imported by Google+Blog. Created By Daniel Treadwell.
As a former high speed driving instructor I'm definitely a guy who likes to drive cars. But ask anyone who has to deal with traffic every day and I think we'll all take self-driving cars. No accidents, much much quicker commutes, and a lot less stress.
In the future, to drive a car you will have to go to the car track like going to the kart track today.