Total madness!

[Workingman]

Proposed updates to the Highway Code will allow users of self-driving vehicles to watch TV, read a book, but not use their phones. This, so long as they are ready to take back control. By definition doing any of those things does not allow for taking back control in a split second in an emergency.

The proposals will also lay out that users of self-driving cars will not be responsible for crashes. Instead insurance companies, not individuals, will be liable for claims in many circumstances, the DfT said.

So, you have a car that you do not have to drive and if you have a crash it's not your fault it is up to the insurance company. Why not go by bus?

I can see insurance premiums for these unnecessary vehicles being astronomical - and rightly so.

[cromwell]

I have thought for a long while that we are being pushed towards self driving vehicles.
Automatic cruise control, lane departure warning systems, the new speed limiters being introduced this year, autonomous braking etc all take control away from the driver.
I don't like it.
As for the Highway Code, that just gets dafter.

[Suff]

The mobile phone thing is because they changed the law to make it illegal instead of proving the use was dangerous, which is much harder to do.

If you were following self driving closely you would know that emergency situations kick in emergency avoidance, much faster than humans. However there are situations where self driving, today, cannot cope. In those situations, the self driving computer warns the driver and then hands back control.

I can see the situation where a driver on a phone call would want to continue the call even after taking back control. So there is some precedent for that.

As for why not take the bus? When I was driving in from Fife to Edinburgh I had to get up at 05:45 to take the bus into Glenrothes centre then wait for the 07:30 bus to Edinburgh. I arrived at work between 08:50 and 09:30.

When I took the car, I got up at 06:30 and arrived at work at 07:45 and was able to leave early enough to miss the worst of the evening traffic.

When I came back in 2016 to do a similar commute, the bus services were worse and I either drove to the park and ride or rode my bike into work. With the Bike I could arrive after 40 minutes at around 9am, with the car I took the park and ride and the tram. The tram took ~50 minutes into the city.

Current self drive is mainly pitiful. Waymo and Uber are aimed at taxi services in the city. Ford, GM and Mercedes are aiming at highway driving. Tesla is aiming at everywhere.

Then there are competency levels.

1/2 are full hands on like adaptive cruise control and lane keeping, with the exception of Tesla FSD which can fully drive the car but they skip regulatory scrutiny by insisting, in beta, that the owner remain in control.

Levell 3 and 4 are increasing levels of automation with increasing levels of ability to disengage.

Level 5 has no controls so there is no concept of Driver to take over

GM, Ford, Honda, Mercedes are all rushing to prove they can do L3 and be "better" than Tesla.

These L3 systems use high density lidar mapped routes and some, like Mercedes, are limited to 40mph. Most of the German roads mapped for Mercedes are Autobahn. If you put 40mph and Autobahn together you immediately come to rolling traffic jams. Because 40mph on a flowing Autobahn is about as dangerous as it gets.

Tesla and Nvidia are not building the. Most powerful compute arrays for fun, they are having to solve the whole real world AI problems in order to create a driving computer. Judgement of distance, objects and approach speeds, multiple relevant approach speeds, object recognition like model cars as opposed to full size cars at a distance. Pedestrians, cyclists, animals. We do not let humans drive before they have enough real world experience. Why would an AI be any different.

This is fascinating stuff and if you are looking for a lab or a robot company to produce true AI, you are looking in the wrong place. It is being solved in industry, right now, in order to replace humans for day to day drudgery.

Even then, self driving Taxi's are the holy grail for reducing traffic on the roads and the number of vehicles in general. Because a lot of people simply do not need vehicles if they can get access to very cheap and very available hired vehicles. Having a driver in the vehicle immediately sets a floor on the price of a taxi ride. Just look at the attempts to force Uber out of London, they are too cheap. It is no wonder Uber is heavily investing in self drive technology.

Stop looking at partly informed or wholly uninformed press articles and start looking at the whole world of Autonomous Driving.

It goes far, far, beyond just day to day car driving.

[cromwell]

self driving Taxi's are the holy grail for reducing traffic on the roads and the number of vehicles in general. Because a lot of people simply do not need vehicles if they can get access to very cheap and very available hired vehicles.

Well, a couple of things. This is the UK. Very cheap, I doubt it. Very available, maybe.
It comes down, again, to what the government thinks you need, and what you as an individual might want.

It is an important point. No dial up taxi will ever be as available as the car that I have parked on my drive. I can get in it and go where I want, when I want.
How long is that going to remain the case?
Once the government gain the power to control, they don't let it go. Before long they will be thinking that it is their absolute right - nay, their duty - to eliminate private car ownership.
Except for themselves, obviously. Very important people and all that.

[Workingman]

My reference to the bus was sarcasm - if you own a car: drive it. If you don't want to drive find another way of getting from A to B.

As for "Joe le (driverless) Taxi". At least if I use my phone to ring for a taxi I know that when Dilip turns up his vehicle will be clean and I can dictate to him the route I want to take. There is no guarantee of that once Jason and his mates have used it to get home from the pub once they have called in to the kebab shop.

Dilip will also help with my bags and we can talk cricket on the drive home. Joe: no chance.

As for the self-driving computer telling its passenger it is in trouble; it is already too late. "Frank, wake up, we're about to.... oops, never mind, I'll call a (driverless) ambulance".

It is another of those "We can do it so we shall" rather than is it necessary. No it is not.

And I agree with Cromwell. These things are not for our convenience - they are for control. Leeds has a project called 'Commonplace'. It is dressed up as road safety, to attain something called 'zero deaths'. It is unattainable but they will be doing it anyway. Once you get into the detail it is about taking as many cars off the road as is possible

[Suff]

It is an important point. No dial up taxi will ever be as available as the car that I have parked on my drive. I can get in it and go where I want, when I want.

Think for a minute. Workers, going to work in south England, drive to the train station and pay a small fortune to park for the day whilst they take the train into the city. Park and ride is fine but they're all on the edge of large cities. Many people keep two cars because one is sitting in the parking lot at the train/bus station. And by Many, I mean millions of them.

Most of the cheap "robo" taxi's will remove the need for second and even third vehicles. You still keep your primary vehicle, but you use these flexible services for the other travel you need. Back in the 90's a colleague of mine said "it's all very well telling me to take the bus, but the bus stop is half a mile from my door. I'll use the bus when it picks me up at my front door and drops me back at my door. Robo Taxi's create the ability to do this at bus prices.

Also the development work is currently going on for a fully integrated driverless transport service. Where your "taxi" can drop you at a more central point where a "bus" with dedicated space for you will pick you up within 2-3 minutes. This "bus" will be more like an 8 seat taxi and also won't have a driver. So the configuration will be more bus like and have more space than a traditional taxi.

Consider driverless transport vehicles for personal transport to be like 1/4 up to 10/20 people. Driving routes which you need. The local hop to your door will be available because you'll switch vehicle to a larger vehicle for longer routes. Leaving the smaller vehicles for the local hop.

Have a look at the current solutions in development. Also the vehicles in development for different types of shopping and access. The options are endless and the opportunities are also endless. Current transport is extremely limited due to the need to have a very expensive human driver in it.

Back in 2003, working for GSK, I was talking to the bus driver who was driving us from the car park to the office building. 500m. I was bemoaning the ridiculous rates for a contract IT architect in Glasgow. $24,000 a year. "I'm not trying to be funny", says the driver, "but I make more than that".

Once you remove the human from the wheel, opportunities become endless. Cars, vans, Taxi's, busses, freight, Trains, the list goes on.

Our world is changing. In 2012 Elon Musk was told he was crazy, nobody wanted an electric car so why was he intending to produce 100,000 of them a year. In December 2021, Tesla sold more than 100,000 electric vehicles globally.

Times change.

It is not the government who wants you in a driverless car. For them it is a nightmare and a headache all in one to legislate for with almost no winning. The people who want to give you a choice as to who drives your vehicle are not the government. They are people who want to make a rather large fortune out of it.

[Suff]

As for "Joe le (driverless) Taxi". At least if I use my phone to ring for a taxi I know that when Dilip turns up his vehicle will be clean and I can dictate to him the route I want to take. There is no guarantee of that once Jason and his mates have used it to get home from the pub once they have called in to the kebab shop.

Dilip will also help with my bags and we can talk cricket on the drive home. Joe: no chance.

As for the self-driving computer telling its passenger it is in trouble; it is already too late. "Frank, wake up, we're about to.... oops, never mind, I'll call a (driverless) ambulance".

It is another of those "We can do it so we shall" rather than is it necessary. No it is not.

And I agree with Cromwell. These things are not for our convenience - they are for control. Leeds has a project called 'Commonplace'. It is dressed up as road safety, to attain something called 'zero deaths'. It is unattainable but they will be doing it anyway. Once you get into the detail it is about taking as many cars off the road as is possible

Jason and his mates will stop doing that when they get the fines, written in fine print in the terms of service you accepted without looking at them when you installed the app.

Help with bags is an issue. It won't be too much of an issue, you will have a choice of a cheap driverless vehicle or a bloody expensive one with a human porter in it. Note, the one with the human in it will also have the human in the passenger seat, with plenty of attention to talk to you...

The "wake up" is not "wake up". It is a rather annoying buzzing. If you don't take over the vehicle will, safely, move to the side of the road, put on the hazard warning lights, stop and sit there till you do take over. If you still don't take over it will assume you are ill and call the (perhaps driverless), ambulance. You need to actually read about the technology and what it does. You don't see the stories of "smart" vehicles saving their drivers by calling the emergency services because the MSM don't want you to know about it.

We all know that current traffic is unsustainable. Councils? Yes they think screwing you for money is the way to go and pocketing as much of that money as they can. At least this driverless tech is about giving you an option and a cheaper option at that.

Do some research, learn what they are trying to do, understand why it is important and why the MSM are trying to stop it. The EU are, particularly, trying to stop and stall it because their own software solutions suck and they'll wind up having to buy them from Asia or the US. It is analogous to the space industry where ESA and others are screwing their customers $120m per launch for 8 Tonnes whereas SpaceX are punting 13Tonnes up there for $50m a shot and very quickly indeed. What is the upshot of that one? SpaceX want to make 13T look like kids stuff and current launch cadence of two to four a month look like wading through treacle. What is the industry and regulators response? Hold SpaceX up. Compete? Nah, why bother we can just screw them.`

There is a whole story around self driving and the demons of the story are not the companies trying to get this tech off the ground and into use. They are the one's trying to slow it down, feed us with a platinum plated jewel encrusted coffee spoon and make sure they extract every possible ounce of value from every micron of progress.

The whole subject is fascinating and endless. Only one thing is sure. It will happen eventually. The question is, who do you want deciding what you get?

[Workingman]

The question is, who do you want deciding what you get?

Me!

[Suff]

Well given that it won't be you.... Who is next on the list???

Because there are a whole load of things you don't get to decide in the technology world. And let us not forget, vehicles are technology even if it were only mechanical technology.

You do get to decide which shoes to buy and wear though. Those pre-date the technology of vehicles.

[Workingman]

In the Autumn of my life yes it will be ME! It will be a 'dumb' ICE job circa '28 or '29 and one that I can "drive" - manual, five speed box, aircon and fold-in mirrors when parked.

Just been on BBC HYS and there is a thread with 1299 comments and only about 3% are on your side, and some of them have caveats to their lukewarm support. It will happen, but it will only be for the few.