Quote:
Originally Posted by Rathji
Are you saying that is worse than the way people drive now?
If you remove the idiot driver factor from the roads, I believe that you eliminate most if not all accidents that are not attributed to mechanical failure. Even then, a car that knows enough to drive itself, might also know enough to stop driving when something has, or is about to break.
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Not necessarily, but I'm thinking if an automated car drives up to a crosswalk a thousand times, Google better hope it stops for pedestrians a thousand times. If the program fails an average of 0.1% (1 out of 1000 times) to recognize a pedestrian and runs over someone, then there's a big problem. These are just hypothetical numbers.
Obviously there will be distracted drivers that will make the same mistake, though and a certain percentage will run over someone as well. That's why I think somewhere between manual and automated is a possibility. As long as the driver still holds liability in that they must pay attention while the car is driving, then I think it would be okay (In the example above, maybe the driver brakes/swerves to avoid hitting someone if the car didn't detect a pedestrian). If the liability lies with the car manufacturer, you'll have people having a nap in the backseat while the car drives, and suing the company when they kill someone.
I do think it would be pretty cool though. If I could let the car drive itself on long boring highway drives, I totally would.