Should You Hope Your Child Never Has To Drive A Car?

Megalith

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The driverless car revolution is supposedly coming, and with it comes the possibility that people will never have to learn to drive again—which some think is cool. What’s the fun in that, I say. And how will you get around in the future when rampant AIs take over and every self-driving car is out to kill you?

You can debate the realism of putting fully autonomous cars in actual customers' hands by 2020 — that seems optimistic, considering the regulatory hurdles and technological challenges that remain — but there's another issue at hand: what about this parent's hope that his child never has to drive? The notion sparked a heated debate in the Verge newsroom. Is it reasonable? Is it realistic? Is it fair to the child?
 
If we stopped having autonomous cars, we'd pretty much not have cars either. although I'm not looking forward to this innovation. Boat pile of unintended consequences.
 
The only ones the would hope their children never have to drive are likely the shitty drivers who never should of had a license to begin with.

The autonomous car revolution is coming because we treat driving like a right instead of a privilege.
 
Yeah, those unintended consequences...like far fewer fatal accidents, no drunk driving and so on. Of course no doubt the same was said when cars started to look like the future. Ooo, but they might someday go faster than horses how dangerous (well yes, didn't stop people since cars were much more convenient than horses...and yes I've ridden horses--once had a ranch with several equines).

I see all the time how people can't drive in the snow (I learned in the snow) once they have designed self-driving cars to go in the snow better than most people it will be a nice boon in recreational areas like around where I live. Personally I'd love to have my car drive-me: give me time to read or just enjoy the scenery instead of playing dodge-cars with all the other drivers and deer.

As for the joys of learning to drive--well they didn't have my driver's-ed class obviously.
 
Should I hope to never have to pay auto insurance for a teenage driver? Because ... yeah.
 
There are times, especially in really nasty congested traffic where autonomous autos, ON A NETWORK would be a better means of managing the congestion (I used to work at TxDot, we did studies on congestion management). Imagine a network that knew where everyone wanted to be and could adjust traffic patterns to match.

But on vacation? Driving through Texas and the western US? Hell no, part of the zen is behind the wheel.
 
For what it's worth, my parents never expected me to know how to fly a plane, yet I travel by one monthly.
 
All the arguments for a 'connected car' or 'autonomous car' are stupid.

only thing they may be applicable for is a taxi.

You will never convince me otherwise.
 
I fear my son never learning to drive. I expect him to live pretty much in 2 countries -- the US & Brazil since he is a dual citizen. Most of Brazil doesn't even drive automatic transmissions and I expect them to be 50-100 years behind the US in autonomous cars. This is ONE of the reasons I bought a stick shift car -- hoping it will last 15 year so my son can learn to drive it & make it his first car.
 
The only downside to driverless cars is that you no longer have the driving experience. I know a guy who was driving his brand new truck while on the job and was run off the road, likely due to a drunk driver but the driver was never caught. His seatbelt and air bag failed and he is now a paraplegic due to no fault of his own. He is also not likely to live another year due to the injuries. All of this would have never have happened if there were driverless cars. Yea he is going to have 9 figures in settlements but he won't live long enough to enjoy it.
 
Unless driverless cars are handed out to people, I won't be getting one, the kid will be driving. Does seem like more and more kids don't care about getting their license. Friend's son didn't get his till almost 19 and he had been driving since 16 with a permit.
 
My job starts earlier than I'd like, and being able to safely catch a bit more sleep on the way would be a nice boon. It'd be moreso if I didn't live so close to work. And, it'd be a good thing if people who were drunk or otherwise unable to drive just had to punch in a destination to get there.

But, I also go hiking a lot, and that often involves going *gasp* away from populated areas and even away from places without cell phone reception. Sometimes I explore on the way, and don't go on a strict A to B path. Driverless cars would be useless in those situations.
 
My job starts earlier than I'd like, and being able to safely catch a bit more sleep on the way would be a nice boon. It'd be moreso if I didn't live so close to work. And, it'd be a good thing if people who were drunk or otherwise unable to drive just had to punch in a destination to get there.

But, I also go hiking a lot, and that often involves going *gasp* away from populated areas and even away from places without cell phone reception. Sometimes I explore on the way, and don't go on a strict A to B path. Driverless cars would be useless in those situations.

Self driving cars are going to have manual overrides and solutions to exploring.


What will be really interesting is to see if self driving cars change the restrictions on children driving. Imagine you just tell the 12 year old to get in the car and go to soccer practice.
 
Yeah, those unintended consequences...like far fewer fatal accidents, no drunk driving and so on. Of course no doubt the same was said when cars started to look like the future. Ooo, but they might someday go faster than horses how dangerous (well yes, didn't stop people since cars were much more convenient than horses...and yes I've ridden horses--once had a ranch with several equines).

As for the joys of learning to drive--well they didn't have my driver's-ed class obviously.

I don't really enjoy driving to and from work, but otherwise I don't mind. Years of 4H and riding I can easily say I prefer driving to riding a horse 100% I moved out of my rent free parents house into an $1100 tiny house with 2 others just to get away from horses.

As to the thread title, fuck no! If I have a child I want them to know how to drive, and I will make damn sure they know how to drive a manual car. Manuals are much funner to drive, but more importantly its a skill to have in the US these days. Other countries it's expected, the US most seem to think Standard is this horrid scary contraption that is hard to learn.I'd hate for my child to be unable to figure out how to use a fucking clutch.
 
Estimated that this will save millions of lives and also reduce traffic. It will reduce the need to own a vehicle as well as reducing our carbon footprint. There is literally NOTHING but benefits...
Anyone who does not want this to happen is just being a selfish douche bag... Sorry but it's the truth.
There is a great TED Talk that will convince you if you're not a believer. I'll post it below.

Chris Urmson: How a driverless car sees the road
http://www.ted.com/talks/chris_urmson_how_a_driverless_car_sees_the_road
 
Estimated that this will save millions of lives and also reduce traffic. It will reduce the need to own a vehicle as well as reducing our carbon footprint. There is literally NOTHING but benefits...
Anyone who does not want this to happen is just being a selfish douche bag... Sorry but it's the truth.
There is a great TED Talk that will convince you if you're not a believer. I'll post it below.

Chris Urmson: How a driverless car sees the road
http://www.ted.com/talks/chris_urmson_how_a_driverless_car_sees_the_road

You must drive a very boring car
 
I would love for this to happen. BUT, Think about how hard its gonna be. There will be a SINGLE accident and EVERY new station will show it and say how its all the driverless car's fault and how we shouldn't be using them! :O
 
Estimated that this will save millions of lives and also reduce traffic. It will reduce the need to own a vehicle as well as reducing our carbon footprint. There is literally NOTHING but benefits...
Anyone who does not want this to happen is just being a selfish douche bag... Sorry but it's the truth.
There is a great TED Talk that will convince you if you're not a believer. I'll post it below.

Chris Urmson: How a driverless car sees the road
http://www.ted.com/talks/chris_urmson_how_a_driverless_car_sees_the_road

I'll happily be a selfish douche bag. I enjoy driving at times. My dune buggy is nothing but fun, my mother's solstice is a fun 5 speed roadster, perfect for summer. My truck is....well a truck. Nothing fancy, but it feels good sometimes to drop the pedal and feel the power. It's also hella useful in the foot of snow I sometimes drive through to work.
 
Estimated that this will save millions of lives and also reduce traffic. It will reduce the need to own a vehicle as well as reducing our carbon footprint. There is literally NOTHING but benefits...
Anyone who does not want this to happen is just being a selfish douche bag... Sorry but it's the truth.
There is a great TED Talk that will convince you if you're not a believer. I'll post it below.

Chris Urmson: How a driverless car sees the road
http://www.ted.com/talks/chris_urmson_how_a_driverless_car_sees_the_road


I'm calling BS on your # of lives saved and reduced carbon footprint assumptions. No doubt some lives could be saved, but you're likely 2, 3 maybe 4 orders of magnitude off. The latest year of available data listed ~1.2 million traffic-related fatalities for the entire planet of ~7,300 million people. That's approx 0.016% of the population, which could lead some to conclude that self driving cars are a waste of time and the money spent on that useless distraction could be better spent lowering death rates for some of the more trivial causes like clean water/diarrhea (1.7 million). I'd also wager that the dreaded "carbon footprint" would likely increase with self driving cars as well.
 
I'm all for driverless cars. My 12 year old daughter has 20/200 vision and will never be able to safely operate a motor vehicle. Someone will either need to drive her everywhere or she'll be at the mercy of public transportation. A driverless car would be a huge quality of life improvement. I'm sure safety will only increase with driverless cars as well. Drunk drivers will become rare and inattentive/stupid drivers will go away. Also, people with long commutes will get back some time. Speeding and accidents would be reduced, so traffic will improve. Cops will have to find an alternative pastime from pulling over people, and cities will have to find an alternate source of income.
 
Millions of saved lives eh? Great, just what we need, another spike in population. Going with what would the cops do, anyone think that if there are no cops pulling these things over the drug smugglers would just fill the car up and send it to a destination?
 
Estimated that this will save millions of lives and also reduce traffic. It will reduce the need to own a vehicle as well as reducing our carbon footprint. There is literally NOTHING but benefits...
Anyone who does not want this to happen is just being a selfish douche bag... Sorry but it's the truth.
There is a great TED Talk that will convince you if you're not a believer. I'll post it below.

Chris Urmson: How a driverless car sees the road
http://www.ted.com/talks/chris_urmson_how_a_driverless_car_sees_the_road

There are lots of benefits to driverless cars, there are also tons of drawbacks. There are loads of situations that a computer just can't deal with. To think otherwise makes you extremely naive. The world isn't all flat roads, accurate GPS maps and perfect weather. Computers might get there eventually, but probably not in our lifetime.
 
Millions of saved lives eh? Great, just what we need, another spike in population. Going with what would the cops do, anyone think that if there are no cops pulling these things over the drug smugglers would just fill the car up and send it to a destination?

Not to mention a terrorist.

Load a driverless car with explosives, set to arrive at designated point, wait for GPS to notify you of arrival, boom.
 
I, for one, will NEVER allow a car to drive me around.

Now get off my lawn. :mad:
 
Estimated that this will save millions of lives and also reduce traffic. It will reduce the need to own a vehicle as well as reducing our carbon footprint. There is literally NOTHING but benefits...

If I have a driverless car that I can eat breakfast, read the paper, or take a nap while it drives me to/from work, then I'd be willing to put up with a much longer commute.
Also, I can see taking much longer trips by car, as the car can travel at night, while I sleep. I'd much rather go in my own car than cram myself into an airline seat or deal with airports.

I can see that leading to more miles driven, and a larger carbon footprint.
 
It seems Carmageddon was a very real depiction of the future just before cars become outlawed. Better save up on parts now and practice your cunning stunts in detroit-based obstacle courses to get a head start on the big tournament.
 
Despite being able to practically fly themselves autonomously, there is still a reason why there are still pilots in the cockpit: you just can't rely on machines to correct problems that they were never programmed to solve (IE an error that programmers didn't program into the auto pilot to correct). So if something in the car goes wrong, or if the autonomous system goes wrong, you are literally the last line of defense.

Not learning to drive an autonomous cars is the same as having passenger planes without pilots. You better hope nothing unprecedented goes wrong, because you are screwed if it does.
 
To add: my first paragraph was referring to commercial jetliners.
 
The irony is that this is a tech site, you'd think this group of people would support something like this.

Instead, you get comment after comment from people who say, "stupid technology, they can pry my steering wheel from my cold..."

Anyway, the reality is that most of you are just afraid of the unknown, afraid of the future, and all you see is what you're losing, not what you're gaining.

You wouldn't want to go back 30 years to drive cars from 1985. They were much less safe than cars today, they burned more gas, they were less reliable, etc. You wouldn't want to go back to the computers of 30 years ago, they... well, compared to today, were terrible...

So why are you all so afraid of self-driving cars? Clearly this is the future, it will save lives, humans frankly suck at driving... (yea, yea, that isn't you, you're the exception, blah, blah... no, you're really not...)
 
The irony is that this is a tech site, you'd think this group of people would support something like this.

Instead, you get comment after comment from people who say, "stupid technology, they can pry my steering wheel from my cold..."

Anyway, the reality is that most of you are just afraid of the unknown, afraid of the future, and all you see is what you're losing, not what you're gaining.

You wouldn't want to go back 30 years to drive cars from 1985. They were much less safe than cars today, they burned more gas, they were less reliable, etc. You wouldn't want to go back to the computers of 30 years ago, they... well, compared to today, were terrible...

So why are you all so afraid of self-driving cars? Clearly this is the future, it will save lives, humans frankly suck at driving... (yea, yea, that isn't you, you're the exception, blah, blah... no, you're really not...)

I'm not afraid of them, I think they have a place. I simply don't want to hope my child never had to drive as I think there are essential things you learn by learning how to drive a car. I'm all for self driving cars so long as they never become mandatory. I readily admit the overwhelming majority of people are shitty drivers who have no business driving. That group will be among the first to give up their driving privilege most likely anyhow.
 
Estimated that this will save millions of lives and also reduce traffic. It will reduce the need to own a vehicle as well as reducing our carbon footprint. There is literally NOTHING but benefits...

Anyone who does not want this to happen is just being a selfish douche bag... Sorry but it's the truth.

That depends how you interpret "nothing but benefits". As a whole I thinks we do too much to "save the lives" of people that do stupid shit. Drink 12 beers and crash your car into a tree? Well, maybe you should just die instead of everyone else rushing to rescue you. The dumb shit that makes poor choices doesn't grow up to have kids of their own. As a species we no longer let individuals reap the punishments of their stupidity, I don't consider that a benefit.

If looking out for the human species by not wanting our gene pool weakened is greedy, then I'm as greedy as they come.
 
I'm not afraid of them, I think they have a place. I simply don't want to hope my child never had to drive as I think there are essential things you learn by learning how to drive a car. I'm all for self driving cars so long as they never become mandatory. I readily admit the overwhelming majority of people are shitty drivers who have no business driving. That group will be among the first to give up their driving privilege most likely anyhow.

I agree with you sir. I really think that the next vehicle we get will be a manual. I want all of my kids to at least know how to drive a manual proficiently. Because shit - you never know.
 
I would like to see a driver less car, tow my boat to the boat launch, get stuck in the mud, navigate a block party, dodge a deer. This would be great for old people and taxi's like Johnny Cab.
 
We're removing all evolutionary pressure for humans to be capable of . . . well . . . anything. I especially want to weep when I see what's becoming of young men these days. They can play a mean video game and have quick-texting thumbs (sans proper grammar), and that's about it. They're soft and all-around hapless.
 
That depends how you interpret "nothing but benefits". As a whole I thinks we do too much to "save the lives" of people that do stupid shit. Drink 12 beers and crash your car into a tree? Well, maybe you should just die instead of everyone else rushing to rescue you. The dumb shit that makes poor choices doesn't grow up to have kids of their own. As a species we no longer let individuals reap the punishments of their stupidity, I don't consider that a benefit.

If looking out for the human species by not wanting our gene pool weakened is greedy, then I'm as greedy as they come.
So if a drunk driver runs a red light and kills your entire family, you are ok with that? Because that's what you are saying. The problem with cars is that you can be killed by people who make bad decisions when you are doing everything right. If driverless cars were mandatory, that couldn't happen.

I wouldn't have a problem with still allowing a few people to drive, but you would have to pass a very difficult driving test on a regular basis (both written and practical) to prove that you deserve to be allowed to drive. The driving test nowadays is not hard to pass and honestly doesn't prove that you are a good driver and you never need to retake it.
 
[21CW]killerofall;1041840368 said:
So if a drunk driver runs a red light and kills your entire family, you are ok with that? Because that's what you are saying. The problem with cars is that you can be killed by people who make bad decisions when you are doing everything right. If driverless cars were mandatory, that couldn't happen.

I wouldn't have a problem with still allowing a few people to drive, but you would have to pass a very difficult driving test on a regular basis (both written and practical) to prove that you deserve to be allowed to drive. The driving test nowadays is not hard to pass and honestly doesn't prove that you are a good driver and you never need to retake it.

I disagree entirely with your first statement as a justification for mandatory driverless cars. I firmly believe that with freedom comes responsibility. Sometimes accepting that responsibility means bad things happen to innocent people. I will never support any argument on any topic that favors the loss of freedom for removal of responsibility and the illusion of some safety.

That aside, I agree entirely with your second statement. I would have no problems at all with far stiffer requirements for a drivers license. For that matter I would be in support of it now, although I'm aware that won't happen. I've said it many times over the years, Driving is a Privilege that should be earned, not a right given. We as americans at least (I can't speak for anywhere I haven't been), treat driving like some inherit right and our joke of a drivers test reflects that. Very very few of the drivers on the road are actually qualified to drive properly.
 
Once the infrastructure is in place and driverless cars are the norm, the next thing of course will be to make actually driving a car against the law.
 
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