[bolder88]

"There won't be a setting to turn off to achieve an outcome whereby the car touches any other object. It just won't happen while you're driving on public roads."

Can you not see the idiotic flaw in your plan.

You're driving along. You're coming to a junction. A bike isn't looking and is going full speed and will hit into the front side of your car. You do not have time to brake. Your only option is to swerve into the next lane, which will mean you crash into a fellow car.

You have crashed into a car, but you have saved the cyclists life.

There is absolutely no way in the world you'll be able to get regulations in place to prevent making fully manually operated vehicles. You're high. It's not going to happen.

There's also no evidence to suggest that driverless cars will make roads any safer. You still have to account for cyclists, pedestrians, animals, and the billions of cars driven by people etc etc.

[pencilcheck]

Are you countering his argument or just grumbling to yourself?

What drive less car can do and the system in the whole can do is to be able to know where and when a car is driving in the vicinity where normal human cannot perceive. So the situation you describe will not happen at all if those systems are in place. Actually, you just describe a scenario where it is preferable to have a system that monitors human error that could prevent accidents like the one you describe to happen.

Also I don't know whether you have been following tech recently, and if you have seen the intro to drive less car, you would probably seen or heard about the infamous laser and radars mounted around the car as shown in the article in the link: http://www.slashgear.com/back-to-basics-how-googles-driverle...

It is virtually impossible for the car to crash into anything because the car can literally "see" everything around it. Also the algorithms is smart enough to anticipate or plan an alternative path to prevent collision with the objects. You sounded like you have never heard or been following tech especially machine learning, so I forgive you, but you should do some research first before posting comments like this...

[bolder88]

Next you'll be telling me that speech recognition works. It doesn't.

[TeMPOraL]

Pick up a goddamn Android phone and see for yourself.

[exodust]

"Can you not see the idiotic flaw in your plan."

It's not my plan. It's the inevitable path of innovation and technology. What I described should be obvious.

Eventually, all cars will be driver-less, and the "old style" of car will be rare to see on the road. Like pre-1974 cars are extremely rare to see now. Everyone will want the newer, safer, cooler, energy efficient cars that drive you home safely, even when you're high.

"You're high. It's not going to happen."

Yes, I'm high. But it will happen. The bicycle situation you describe is one where the computer could still take action to minimize injury to the cyclist, and reduce the risk of causing a major accident with other vehicles. Most drivers would panic and "swerve into the next lane" as you describe, which is not the best action to take. It's about controlled evasive action, not "holy crap... slam on brakes...over-steer... enter skid... over-compensate over-steering... enter another skid... crash."

If the cyclist collides with your car because of cyclist error, then what you have firstly is an extremely unlikely situation, as cyclists are usually focused on what they are doing. They're not adjusting the air-con, or thinking about sex while riding through traffic - they are concentrating.

"You still have to account for cyclists, pedestrians, animals...".

Come on bolder88, get real. Driver training teaches us to avoid swerving into the path of oncoming vehicles to avoid impact with wildlife. The computer would not allow you to do so, and that's how it should be. However, the computer WOULD allow you to swerve into the other lane if there was no oncoming traffic. Otherwise, the safest option is to run over the animal.

With pedestrians, it's certainly a challenging scenario for the driver-less car, but I still think that the automatic hazard avoidance systems can save the day better than manual intervention. That's because it takes great skill to control a car in an emergency situation. Most drivers don't know how to control a skid, because most drivers don't get any practice with such driving.

Perhaps then, to meet you half way, some drivers can apply for a special license that gives them full control. For the rest of us, the computer is the safer option for controlling the vehicle during an evasive maneuver.