No more driver's licenses by 2040?

Interesting. I think this liabilty thing will cause a set back of about 5-10 years as they work it out. Or a few million into the pocket of the "right politician" and that may cut the time down to a 1-3 year setback.

Originally Posted by mauk2 Evil_Legacy became one of my favorite posters with two words. "Kick Rocks." I laffed so hard. Never change, E_L!

You're talking about two different things: legal liability and insurance. In terms of insurance, I would assume initially that computer control would be handled identically to cruise control. The choice to use it is up to you, but you're still responsible for what it does from an insurance perspective. In terms of legal liability, the question for the courts will be whether there exists a reasonable expectation the computer systems will perform adequately. If they don't, manufacturers may be liable just as they are now for any other system in the car. If they do and an unpredictable failure occurs, that would probably be no different than any other such failure. If computer control accidentally runs someone over, that will probably be no different legally than if your brakes fail and you run over someone. The questions will revolve around whether you maintained them reasonably well and there were any other contributing factors.

yea except with brake failure especially the ones of the mechnical kind it' pretty simple to recreate the symptoms in a setting and or look and see. Computer they can glitch run someone over and then the proof is gone that there was a malfunction in the first place.

Originally Posted by mauk2 Evil_Legacy became one of my favorite posters with two words. "Kick Rocks." I laffed so hard. Never change, E_L!

Are you talking about the real world, or an episode of Columbo?

Insurance exists to cover liability, and the "ownership" of this liability will be decided in part by a financial battle between insurance providers and service providers. I expect the courts to find all inhabitants of a robotic vehicle to be "passengers," and the vehicle itself to be the liability... the question is whether or not the owner (who could have failed to maintain the vehicle) or the manufacturer (who could have failed to provide adequate safeguards or sufficient indication of an impending failure) to be responsible for this liability.

Historically in the US I believe the pressure of class action suits has pushed the liability on to product manufacturers, who cover this cost (self-insure) by increasing prices for the consumer. Am I really that mistaken?

Edit : Ah. I jumped ahead a few decades on you. I'm already imagining cars without steering wheels. ;p

Not sure what Columbo is.

Originally Posted by mauk2 Evil_Legacy became one of my favorite posters with two words. "Kick Rocks." I laffed so hard. Never change, E_L!

yea.

Originally Posted by mauk2 Evil_Legacy became one of my favorite posters with two words. "Kick Rocks." I laffed so hard. Never change, E_L!

Let me translate...

Either you are under 20 or you have lived under a rock for 30 years.

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

I'm over 20 and never even been under a rock before.

Originally Posted by mauk2 Evil_Legacy became one of my favorite posters with two words. "Kick Rocks." I laffed so hard. Never change, E_L!

Looks like Elmo in a trenchcoat? I'm not getting it?

Originally Posted by mauk2 Evil_Legacy became one of my favorite posters with two words. "Kick Rocks." I laffed so hard. Never change, E_L!

You do realize that many (or most) systems in the great majority of cars are mediated by the car's computers? In fact it's been that way for at least twenty years now. Even more so if the car has cruise control.
One example: Anti-lock brakes? Computer controlled.
Beyond driving vintage/antique cars there are few designs where computer glitches are not a possibility, even if they remain less likely than mechanical failures.

One of Larry Niven's short stories talks about the lunatics who drive cars manually without any sort of computer guidance. The main character is aghast at the reckless disregard for their own safety.

Computers can certainly react much faster and precisely than humans, and the newest passenger planes have been flown almost entirely automatically for years. They can even take off and land by themselves if we would let them do it. The only problem I have is that when computers mess up, they do so spectacularly, as with Toyota's computer glitches with brakes a couple years ago and the weird bug that turned Prius headlights off at night. Of course, *any* system can go tits up at any moment, but I find computers to be a bit more unreliable than mechanical doohickeys. I don't find it reassuring that it's common practice to ship cars with what amounts to beta-test-level software that they patch as they go. (Even the most expensive cars do this.) It's also a little unnerving that often the solution to a glitch your car is having can be rectified by unplugging the battery for half an hour, thus resetting the computer to the factory specs.

yep I realize that but still require driver imput to start process and drive. Now this is totally different animal where human imput is not eve needed to do anything even control.


And I wouldnt say no possibility with the glitches as I have seen many glitches in many of those systems before. Everything from the starting system, abs, transmission gear selection, safety mode, firing order, amount of fuel, etc.
and the brakes still work even if the abs system goes kaputz.

So if someone goes wrong wit ha system and the car crashes, is it the driver's fault for not staying up and paying attention ready to take control if some component fails or is it the maufactuer's fault?

More than likely the manufactuer will still add in an override feature of some sort and or auto drive being something the driver must actually "press" or engage with a warning label of still the driver must remain alert and injuries that happen due to inattention of the driver is sole responsibility of the driver. Which in a way defeats the purpose a car that drive it own self.

Originally Posted by mauk2 Evil_Legacy became one of my favorite posters with two words. "Kick Rocks." I laffed so hard. Never change, E_L!

<-----This.

Originally Posted by mauk2 Evil_Legacy became one of my favorite posters with two words. "Kick Rocks." I laffed so hard. Never change, E_L!

This for me.

I don't like driving at all and would love to take a nap or do whatever while the computer drives me to and from work/home.

P.S. I'm curious though: How did you cross 4 lanes of traffic when you're engine died on you Ironblade?

You can provided the car has enough momentum and there are the right breaks in traffic. Turn signals and emergency flashers are helpful as well.

The trick is to maintain momentum and avoid maneuvers that cost you that momentum like hitting the brakes and making abrupt turns or lane changes then spread you lane crossing out. This is all moot though if you have the space to just zip over and into the emergancy lane which then leads to....

Power steering might be a pain as well as power brakes but given a reasonable amount of space this isn't a big challenge.

The biggest danger in a situation like this are inattentive or unaware drivers followed by drivers who cannot judge speed correctly ( all drivers to some degree frankly).