[vaksel]

It's probably a bit misleading.

The car is pretty eye catching: http://www.vibe.com/sites/vibe.com/files/styles/main_image/p...

So it gets attention...and most accidents happen when people don't pay attention.

Once these become more common, it won't be a huge deal, so people will stop noticing them and accident rates will go up. Probably not by much, since you'd eliminate most of the driver caused accidents

[uncoder0]

You are suggesting human's will run into it more often right? I sincerely doubt we will see too many autonomous-car-at-fault crashes. The blacked out Lexus SUV's I saw at a Google event a few weeks ago were very discrete minus the velodyne sensor. If it adds an credibility I was on a team at the Victorville final in 2007. :)

As an aside, I've been waiting to buy my Google car for 5 long years. During this time I've become so disenfranchised with day to day driving that I avoid it at all costs. Commuting via roads in a car is such a mundane task that is, in my opinion, a solved problem. Bring on the autonomous cars!

[apaitch]

Commuting does kind of suck if you're trying to roll in during rush hour. But without super-heavy traffic I find driving to be rather enjoyable in itself. Even more so if you're riding a motorcycle :) Perhaps the problem is not commuting, but the fact that many companies want their employees at work at 9:00 and out of work at 5:00?

[Goronmon]

The problem for me isn't commuting, it's having to invest so much money into a huge pile of metal and plastic that someone distracted by someone or something in their own pile of metal and plastic can destroy in an instance, possibly killing me and anyone with me. Or maybe I get distracted and the result is similar.

I just don't see the few cases where it's enjoyable to be worth the other costs. I'd consider it similar to smoking in that regard.

[nitrogen]

Feel free to refrain from driving, in that case; just don't get in the way (in a legal sense) of those who still want to.

Smoking is a much greater nuisance than driving, because a nearby smoker will foul the air for a fairly large radius through no choice of the people around them. Driving only affects other people who choose to be on the road.

[clarky07]

Comparing to smoking seems to be a huge stretch to me. One thing virtually guarantees cancer and an eventual unpleasant death while providing no measurable benefits at all, and the other allows you to easily travel all over the place cheaply with a relatively small chance of a major accident.

[icebraining]

virtually guarantees cancer

That's not true at all, the incidence rate of lung cancer in smokers is less than 20%. That's still much higher than for non-smokers (0.4% - 2%), but hardly a "virtual guarantee".

[ams6110]

Will you be OK with google tracking everywhere you go and serving you ads for every shop you pass?

[ceejayoz]

My wife sees a neurosurgeon who's an eight hour round trip away. I've driven her there and back at least six times this year.

With a Google car, I'd a) be able to send her by herself and b) even if I had to come, I could work on the way, meaning I'd have more than a week's worth of vacation/sick time restored.

Yes, I'd happily accept ads.

[tedunangst]

You could also hire a limo. I suppose in the future you'll be able to rent a google car for a day, but you don't have to wait for self-driving cars. They're here today, the self just happens to be a human.

[ericd]

That's not really reasonably cost effective for most people.

[ams6110]

Having a full-time driver on retainer 24x7 is not cost effective, but using one a few times a year might well be.

[sp332]

Neither is a Google car, though. Adding self-driving requires five figures, probably even in production.

[uncoder0]

Hopefully I'll be wearing my google glass too! So, I guess so.

True privacy is very hard. You could set up a camera to read plates at some choice points and know the whereabouts of most of the people in your city. If you want to do something privately you have to act deliberately in this day and age.

[icebraining]

Setting up those cameras would be illegal where I live.

[roel_v]

Whereabouts is that? I hear many people make those claims, but almost as many turn out to be wrong when investigating more closely.

[icebraining]

Portugal.

To set up such cameras, you'd need permission from our National Data Protection Commission and if you were to store footage with car plates you'd fall under the Personal Data Protection Law which requires you to either get explicit consent or fall under one of the few exceptions in the law (and no, tracking random people isn't one of them).

And even if you qualify, you can only use that data for the specific purpose you said you needed it for and it needs to be well protected (for example, a governmental CCTV installation was suspended because the recording weren't being well encrypted).

[swalsh]

If you have an android phone, Google already has the capability to do this.

[ceejayoz]

I believe they do, as well. IIRC that's how the realtime traffic data comes in.

[krenoten]

I'll take that over feeling like I'm about to die while a careless driver is at the wheel any day.

[stove]

Yes. I'll be asleep.

[sp332]

You don't really need ads for the shops you're already passing.

[daenz]

Good evening, John Anderton. Routing you to the pre-crime facility for detainment.

[swalsh]

I see you're on your way to the drug deal you briefly discussed over gmail, i've taken the liberty to ensure the local human authorities are aware.

[sp332]

Better: robot authorities. Who can be bought off with a few bitcoins :)

[hyperbovine]

On the other hand, staring at something is a great way to hit it. It's one of the first things they teach you in a motorcycle safety course.