Mcity Is A Fake Town For Testing Self-Driving Cars

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The University of Michigan just opened the world's first controlled environment specifically designed to test driverless cars.

"We believe that this transformation to connected and automated mobility will be a game changer for safety, for efficiency, for energy, and for accessibility," said Peter Sweatman, director of the U-M Mobility Transformation Center. "Our cities will be much better to live in, our suburbs will be much better to live in. These technologies truly open the door to 21st century mobility."
 
But... But... Who are you going to yell at when you get into a wreck with a driverless car? :eek:
 
ir0nw0lf said:
But... But... Who are you going to yell at when you get into a wreck with a driverless car? :eek:
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Not only that, but who is to blame when two driver less cars collide....

Good one for the insurance companies to fight over:D
 
They should add some zombies at least...
 
Stanza33 said:
Not only that, but who is to blame when two driver less cars collide....

Good one for the insurance companies to fight over:D
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The majority of accidents occur because of distracted drivers or drivers not following prescribed safety measures (speeding, violating traffic rules, following too closely, etc) ... unless there is some exotic bug they miss in testing the driverless cars will do none of those things ... I would suspect that most (if any) driverless car accidents will result because of some sort of system failure (and if they have good monitors and diagnostics those should be minimal in occurrence and easy to assess the root cause by checking the car system logs)
 
kbrickley said:
The majority of accidents occur because of distracted drivers or drivers not following prescribed safety measures (speeding, violating traffic rules, following too closely, etc) ...
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And although these are the same circumstances that most accidents are caused by, is the percentage of accidents involving driver-less cars higher and is this because other drivers often can pick up on the danger and avoid it.

For me, I like driving, I love driving my Challenger. I sure don't want to trade it in for an electronic chauffeur and a Rayovac on wheels.

This is just another shining example of the eutopia crowd pushing their perfect world, their world with no danger, no misfortune, no choice. There will be fewer Darwin winners on our roads and the gene pool will get another shade of muddier.
 
Sgraffite said:
They could just use Detroit :p
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At least we wouldn't have to wait to see all the ways someone could figure out how to strand you.

Surround the vehicle with 4 do not enter signs. Jam the gps. Mud on the cameras. Detour signs into a nice secluded location. All the while the occupants are sleeping or texting and oblivious that they are not in Kansas anymore. Not that they were to begin with but there are degrees to not being in Kansas.
 
kbrickley said:
The majority of accidents occur because of distracted drivers or drivers not following prescribed safety measures (speeding, violating traffic rules, following too closely, etc) ... unless there is some exotic bug they miss in testing the driverless cars will do none of those things ... I would suspect that most (if any) driverless car accidents will result because of some sort of system failure (and if they have good monitors and diagnostics those should be minimal in occurrence and easy to assess the root cause by checking the car system logs)
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Road at rush hour aren't long enough to hold everyone if they all drove the minimum safe distance from each other, let alone not speeding. Considering the barriers to adding new lanes in most states. Good luck dealing with that.
 
I love driving. Love it..when it's for fun.

But I would give it up in a heartbeat when you think of the massive scale of improvement if this was implemented country-wide. Traffic, massively improved. CO2 emissions and gas consumption way down as well due to more efficient driving. Loss of life way down.
 
Having just made the road trip from Gulf Shores back to Houston on Sunday.. yeah, I would be happy to give up driving. Especially with all the construction on I-10 and having to detour through no-where MS and LA. We already plug everything into a GPS when driving and follow the directions.. letting the car do the driving is the next logical step. Besides, while some people say they enjoy driving a Charger/Mustang/etc. I don't think I've ever heard anyone say they enjoy just getting on the road and driving a Honda Odyssey with kids ;)

Personally, for me road trips are about getting from point A to point B as the destination is the ultimate goal. If I want to see something along the way (like a plantation tour on our way back from Gulf Shores), that is factored in a stop to the itinerary (being married to an engineer even our rest stops tend to be partially planned by distance, of which both the LA and MS stops threw our plans out the window since they were under construction heading East).
 
All the love for driverless cars aside, it'll be a long, long time (maybe never) before I took one on a road like Highway 1 in California.
 
ir0nw0lf said:
But... But... Who are you going to yell at when you get into a wreck with a driverless car? :eek:
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It's Michigan, even the cars will have guns that shoot at each other over disputes. :p One of the worst states for road rage.
 
lcpiper said:
And although these are the same circumstances that most accidents are caused by, is the percentage of accidents involving driver-less cars higher and is this because other drivers often can pick up on the danger and avoid it.

For me, I like driving, I love driving my Challenger. I sure don't want to trade it in for an electronic chauffeur and a Rayovac on wheels.

This is just another shining example of the eutopia crowd pushing their perfect world, their world with no danger, no misfortune, no choice. There will be fewer Darwin winners on our roads and the gene pool will get another shade of muddier.
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I suspect that once driverless cars are released they will be an option and there will be roads where both kinds of cars operate ... although if the latest data continues they will segregate the two cars from each other since the driver cars are causing all the accidents

I do a lot of highway driving (150-500 miles a week) so it would be nice to have the car capable of driving itself and allow me to concentrate on meetings or read/respond to emails ... I have missed exits before because I was talking on the phone (using bluetooth so I wasn't being unsafe) but I was concentrating on the call and didn't notice my turn ... with a driverless car this wouldn't be an issue

I suspect that driverless cars when they finally are released will either be a city vehicle (where they can operate in high traffic situations) or a highway vehicle (where people are traveling long distances on well maintained Interstate Highways ... at least initially ... certainly off-road or back road vehicles are going to favor cars with a driver mode
 
jpm100 said:
At least we wouldn't have to wait to see all the ways someone could figure out how to strand you.

Surround the vehicle with 4 do not enter signs. Jam the gps. Mud on the cameras. Detour signs into a nice secluded location. All the while the occupants are sleeping or texting and oblivious that they are not in Kansas anymore. Not that they were to begin with but there are degrees to not being in Kansas.
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haha, that's funny... because it'll probably work. Hell just stand in front of the car.
 
Why did Michigan need to build a city for this. I thought they already had a deserted city to use, what else are they going to do with Detroit?
 
jpm100 said:
Road at rush hour aren't long enough to hold everyone if they all drove the minimum safe distance from each other, let alone not speeding. Considering the barriers to adding new lanes in most states. Good luck dealing with that.
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But they could adjust speed if traffic requires close proximity ... I drive in start and stop highway traffic periodically when I am traveling West out of El Paso ... I have come close to slamming into other cars as traffic stops for no seaming reason (and I have seen lots of other cars turning into the median to avoid hitting another car as they all brake suddenly) ... there would be more logic to driverless vehicles ... although they might not be perfect they should be much more consistent in high density or start and stop traffic ... it is still a new technology but I think it will ultimately solve many more problems than it will create.
 
TwistedAegis said:
I love driving. Love it..when it's for fun.

But I would give it up in a heartbeat when you think of the massive scale of improvement if this was implemented country-wide. Traffic, massively improved. CO2 emissions and gas consumption way down as well due to more efficient driving. Loss of life way down.
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Not me.

Traffic is just the pain people have to deal with in order to live in cluster fucked giant cities. All you have to do to re leave that pain is move to a saner part of the country. It's the pain that let's you know you are doing something wrong.

CO2 emissions and gas consumption way down, and more efficient driving, only if the machines who are managed by people are somehow not subject to human error, right. This is a guess, a hope, I see unbelievable snarls of machine driven cars that can't figure out how to get out of their mess and people who no longer know how to do it either. Won't take much of that to erase all pretense of saving anything.

Loss of live, people have to die. people are going to die no matter what you do to try and make it unavoidable. Actually, I think you could make their lives so perfectly safe that they would off themselves to escape the inertia of a pointless existence.

Utopia can't exist.
 
lcpiper said:
For me, I like driving, I love driving my Challenger. I sure don't want to trade it in for an electronic chauffeur and a Rayovac on wheels.
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I like driving a good car. I drive a Chevy Traverse for now. It's not 'fun', but it's not a chore. I want to pick up a nice car that is fun to drive. I'm middle aged soon, so I get a mid-life crisis and get to pick out a nice little car. :D
 
Not claiming it will be utopia or a perfect system. But the majority of accidents are caused by distracted drivers; removing that removes a majority of accidents. As does bad drivers accelerating/braking randomly snarling traffic and ruining MPG; further, automated, networked cars would be able to adjust to traffic conditions for miles around and self-adjust to smooth traffic.

Traffic exists for significant parts of the country, suburbs as well as cities; not all of us can live in a rural area where traffic isn't a thing.
 
Like I said, "the pain of traffic is a sign that your doing something wrong" :D

Re-evaluate because you are headed right for, self-driving cars and an entire future of 'removing humans from the equation. Get those humans far enough removed and what do you have left to live for?
 
lcpiper said:
Like I said, "the pain of traffic is a sign that your doing something wrong" :D

Re-evaluate because you are headed right for, self-driving cars and an entire future of 'removing humans from the equation. Get those humans far enough removed and what do you have left to live for?
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See WALL·E.
 
lcpiper said:
Like I said, "the pain of traffic is a sign that your doing something wrong" :D

Re-evaluate because you are headed right for, self-driving cars and an entire future of 'removing humans from the equation. Get those humans far enough removed and what do you have left to live for?
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So not needing to drive a car, I have nothing left to live for? :confused:
 
WTF? Each of the clips of the van and car driving showed the drivers having their hands on the wheel... :confused:
 
TwistedAegis said:
Traffic exists for significant parts of the country, suburbs as well as cities; not all of us can live in a rural area where traffic isn't a thing.
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When I work in Woodinville (outside of Seattle), I'm going the opposite way of traffic (leaving Seattle/Redmond/Bellevue area) and then after work, I'm getting no traffic either as most people are headed out of the city and I'm headed towards it. :) I lucked out there.

When I used to work in downtown Portland, it wasn't bad going in. Coming back? Traffic daily. Worse in summer. Hated it. Listened to some good music, though.

Now, I'm mostly rural (with a quarterly trip to Seattle area). Worst traffic I've had here is when farm equipment is going down the road. We did have a cow truck tip over and there were cows running all over. :D Our nearest big town has a few slow downs, but nothing major (Tri-cities).

I don't mind traffic. I like it. I just don't like a dead stand still on the highway. 10 miles in 2 hours kind of stuff. Rare, but it happened. I saw more wrecks there due to people getting impatient and trying to go fast and then sudden stops. Rear ending the guy in front of them (it's Portland, they enjoy that).
 
I guess I'm saying, not needing to drive or do tasks that can be automated in such a way removes ones humanity? I couldn't then have more time to read, write, hike, play video games, etc etc etc?
 
If a microwave does all your cooking for you, what else do we have to live for, CUG?! See you at the cliff's edge.
 
TwistedAegis said:
If a microwave does all your cooking for you, what else do we have to live for, CUG?! See you at the cliff's edge.
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Egads, you're right! It's all over for us now! Mayans, robots, zombies, giant roaches, and lawyers everywhere! The apocalypse is nigh upon us and it's all Siri's fault!
 
Eh if we get an all driverless lane then we can just have cars only a few inches from each other doing 120mph.

The real hell will be initial "max 55mph with 5 car lengths in front" that will be preprogrammed in for highway travel. Get a few of them going and it will be a rolling roadblock.
 
celeron300 said:
Safety.... yeah when they take your ability to drive away and, coming soon your ability to buy with cash.
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Cash is an artificial creation anyway (unless you are living in Atlantis and using gold for all your transactions) ... using physical money (given its arbitrary nature and the ubiquitous presence of electronic devices) is probably just adding extra cost ... we should probably have a system of electronic money (credits or dollars or Euros or whatever) that is debited or added as we conduct transactions

As to vehicles I don't see them being totally converted but automobile deaths and injuries are an enormous cost, and in the USA alone are 20,000 or so deaths and 2,000,000 injuries ... the numbers worldwide are even higher ... driverless vehicles certainly could impact road safety as well as providing new transportation options (driverless taxis) ... driverless vehicles will never replace off road vehicles or primitive road vehicles but they could solve many problems in large metropolitan areas and highway driving
 
I would like to fast-forward to the time when automated cars just work and are the norm, and not have to deal with them being shit and having accidents and generally be of dubious value.
 
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