> Driving 95% of the way or 95% of the trips is nice
People will abuse that. They will get high/drunk/whatever and when that “5%” rolls around (quite unexpectedly mind you), they’ll run into a bus full of nuns. Always assume people will be judgement impaired because “the car can drive itself”....
> If I have to drive the last 1% myself, it's not a big deal. I suspect this is how most people feel.
Which is all well and good until you realize a few things:
1) that “last 1%” happens every trip at any time. You will always encounter an edge case the machine cannot handle. Period.
2) as a result you have to always pay attention in order to immediately take over
3) you can’t because you (the royal you) are three sheets to the wind plastered drunk.
Sorry. If I have to pay attention for that 1%, it ain’t full self driving. And anything that encourages you not to pay attention 100% of the time is unsafe and shouldn’t be allowed in the road. And if I have to pay attention 100% of the time in order to take over, what the fuck is the point?
> We live in a world where exceeding this particular "limit" by 60% is not only safe, it's common.
It's funny how there are so many road accidents caused by people with this very same attitude. Since it isn't their poor driving that's at fault, obviously, what do suggest is?
I beg to differ. The average sober human driver has 1 fatal accident in 120-300 million miles traveled, depending on where they live in North America.
Given that we are bags of meat and water, have reaction times measured in hundreds of milliseconds, were never designed to operate heavy machinery, and manage to achieve all that on a mere 100 watts, that's pretty amazing.
>Naturally I wand a car I can summon from the pub that will drive me the 20km, over country roads, to my house while I mix cocktails or have a nap.
You're kind of joking, but this is more practical/safe than it sounds.
Most people drive to eat and drink out. You know how they all get home? By driving back. That's driving after drinking however many bottles of beer and glasses of wine. Every night they go out to eat and drink.
To put it simply, everyone breaks the law any time we feel like going out. The police everywhere know this, and the only reason they don't camp out at restaurants to arrest everyone is because they themselves are also guilty of the same.
> The amount of people who currently drive cars who think to themselves, "You know what would be better? If I were sitting on some form of public transit right now..."
You're looking at it backward. I think almost everyone who sits in traffic or nearly gets in a crash by someone doing something stupid thinks, "Driving is awful." They've just been conditioned to think there's no alternative.
> A very (read “extremely”) attentive driver is never going to crash into a bus of nuns.
I don't think this is true. People sneeze or have heart attacks or are blinded by the sun as they round a corner or exit tunnels, wheels fall off, children/animals run in front of them and they swerve etc.
> They don’t care about the consequences compared to doing what they want
I also come from a rural area and I think you're missing some detail in the individual calculus. The chance of negative consequences drop so precipitously in some areas that, coupled with poor transportation options, it becomes primarily an individual risk in their eyes. They don't see a big issue with being over the limit when it's a road they drive everyday and encountering even a single vehicle on the way back is rare. It's not a lack of caring, it's just a different calculation.
I've never drove drunk (or even buzzed) and I'm not defending the practice, just trying to explain their point of view.
> The negative externality to mediocre drivers of not being able to drive on scenic routes occasionally isn't very large, but the benefit to good drivers would be huge!
This is literally 95%+ of people on those roads. It'd never happen.
People will abuse that. They will get high/drunk/whatever and when that “5%” rolls around (quite unexpectedly mind you), they’ll run into a bus full of nuns. Always assume people will be judgement impaired because “the car can drive itself”....
reply