73 Percent of Americans Are ‘Scared’ to Use Driverless Cars

[Swordsmyth]

73 Percent of Americans Are ‘Scared’ to Use Driverless Cars

[h=2]73 percent of American drivers, up 10 percent from last year, are “scared” to use driverless vehicles, according to a survey from the American Automobile Association.[/h] “The millennial demographic has been the most affected, according to the survey of more than 1,000 drivers. From that age group, 64 percent said they’re too afraid to ride in an autonomous vehicle, up from 49 percent — making it the biggest increase of any age group surveyed,” Mashable reported, adding, “This data follows similar trends showing increased fear about self-driving vehicles following the deadly March crashes in the Bay Area and Arizona.”

More at: http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/...-americans-are-scared-to-use-driverless-cars/

 

[Raginfridus]

They'll come around after some friendly coercion from Big Bro and the automakers.

 

[oyarde]

I am not scared and have zero intention of using one .

 

[phill4paul]

I am not scared and have zero intention of using one .

Ever.

 

[Anti Globalist]

I wasn't planning on using one anyway.

 

[kahless]

I know where this is headed. The media will begin regularly reporting cars hitting pedestrians and that someone must do something. After outrage after outrage some cities, like NYC will begin ban driving your car into the city in favor of driverless cars. The media will continue to hype every incident for this end result to make it a political issue at the federal level and of course Presidential politics.

 

[oyarde]

Ever.

Correct .

 

[phill4paul]

I know where this is headed. The media will begin regularly reporting cars hitting pedestrians and that someone must do something. After outrage after outrage some cities, like NYC will begin ban driving your car into the city in favor of driverless cars. The media will continue to hype every incident for this end result to make it a political issue at the federal level and of course Presidential politics.

History repeats. Once upon a time citizens and media decried the evil automobile and it's carnage that it caused to pedestrians and horse carriages. Some towns even banning them. Then enough money passed hands and.....

 

[kahless]

History repeats. Once upon a time citizens and media decried the evil automobile and it's carnage that it caused to pedestrians and horse carriages. Some towns even banning them. Then enough money passed hands and.....

The difference being it will be the other way around. The cars hitting pedestrians I was speaking of are self driving cars. The driverless innovation will be welcomed and mandated, while self driving your car will be banned.

 

[Swordsmyth]

Things have gone from bad to worse for Tesla and its autopilot feature, after the police results from a recent Salt Lake City crash were released, indicating that not only was the car was in Autopilot mode when it crashed into a stopped firetruck, but also that it sped up seconds before the moment of impact.

The police report was detailed as follows:

A Tesla Model S that crashed into a parked firetruck on a Utah highway this month while in its Autopilot mode sped up prior to the accident, a police report says.
Data retrieved from the sedan shows that it picked up speed for 3.5 seconds shortly before the collision in South Jordan, according to the Associated Press. The acceleration from 55 mph to 60 mph suggests that the Tesla had been following a slower car that then moved out of the way, allowing the Tesla to resume the higher speed that the Autopilot system had been set at.
​

Furthermore, the car did not warn the driver ahead of the collision, even as the driver may have been taking a cue from Elon's Model 3 reveal, where he told people they could "sleep" in their car: to wit, the driver had her hands off the wheel for 80 seconds and was admittedly looking at her cell phone at the moment of the crash:

The driver, Heather Lommatzsch, told police that she had been looking at her phone and claimed the Tesla did not provide any warnings that it was about to crash. The car’s log said that her hands had been off of the steering wheel for 80 seconds leading up to the impact, and that she applied the brakes less than a second before hitting the firetruck, which was blocking the lane to protect the scene of a previous accident.
​

Lommatzsch said she had owned the car for two years and used the semi-autonomous Autopilot feature on all sorts of roadways, including on the Utah highway where she crashed, according to the report. She said the car did not provide any audio or visual warnings before the crash. A witness told police she did not see signs the car illuminated its brake lights or swerved to avoid the truck ahead of it. Meanwhile, the NTSB said it is investigating the May 11 crash.

More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-05-25/tesla-autopilot-accelerated-slamming-parked-firetruck

 

[NorthCarolinaLiberty]

I'm waiting for the new "driverless" motorcycle. It's going to be awesome.

 

[kahless]

I'm waiting for the new "driverless" motorcycle. It's going to be awesome.

No doubt with a properly dressed dummy to boot and controlled by ones smartphone. Instead of online video games there will be packs of these all controlled from the comfort of ones home while the players communicate through teamspeak.

 

[Zippyjuan]

Flashback:

https://timeline.com/forget-self-dr...days-human-drivers-were-the-fear-55a770262c10

Forget self-driving car anxiety: In the early days human drivers were the fear

With all the anxiety around driverless cars lately, it’s worth remembering there was a time people worried about cars exactly because they had human drivers. In fact, it was the removal of the horses—the horseless carriage—that gave some people fits.

In the 1890s, the prospect of a person driving without the aid of a second intelligence was a real concern. A horse, or team of horses, acted as a crude form of cruise control and collision aversion.

In 1896 Alfred Sennett warned, “We should not overlook the fact that the driving of a horseless carriage calls for a larger amount of attention for he has not the advantage of the intelligence of the horse in shaping his path, and it is consequently incumbent upon him to be ever watchful of the course his vehicle is taking.”

Distracted driving is the number one cause of accidents today, so maybe it wasn’t a bad point. Although he was forgetting automobiles actually had brakes, unlike a horse and cart—and they didn’t scare.

But speed was the biggest concern. A horse-drawn cart traveled between 10 and 15 miles per hour. With the advent of automobiles, people could suddenly move much faster. Such speeds meant more danger, but early limits were more prohibitive than preventative.

In England an old law dubbed the Red Flag Act required self-propelled vehicles to be led at walking pace by someone waving a red flag. In 1895, The New York Times very aptly pointed out that it served to “destroy the usefulness of a horseless carriage.” The law was written before automobiles, specifically for steam-powered locomotives (below left), but it was so broad it applied to horseless carriages when they emerged .

You didn’t need a horse anymore, but now you not only needed someone to wave a flag, but also two mechanics to boot, or you would be violating the law. The act also limited automobiles to 2MPH in the city and 4MPH in the countryside, meaning you could travel faster by bicycle.

It was an old law applied to a new technology in a way that removed the benefits it offered. In England, it served to kill the market for horseless carriages for a time. A chairman of a UK meeting on the subject was quoted in The New York Times saying, “So long as the present state of the law existed no man would invest his capital in the manufacture of horseless carriages or run the risk of being brought before a police court.”

There was a concerted effort to repeal the Red Flag Act. A man named John Henry Knight fought the law, in some cases through civil disobedience. In 1895 he built a vehicle specifically to garner police attention and in turn raise public awareness of the old law. A year later, in 1896, it was repealed and replaced with the Locomotives on Highways Act 1896, which allowed vehicles to travel between 12 and 14 miles per hour, depending on what local governments allowed. There was an “emancipation rally,” where crowds gathered and a well-known politician tore up a red flag. It is still celebrated today.

More at link.

 

[Warrior_of_Freedom]

you will have to pay triple liability insurance if you don't drive a driverless car just watch

 

[Swordsmyth]

Yet another Tesla on Autopilot has slammed into an inanimate object.
One of the biggest controversies surrounding Tesla right now is the company's Autopilot feature that it is included with vehicles and sold to the public as a feature that provides autonomous driving. Critics of the company have been quick to point out that at the Model 3 handover event, Elon Musk basically said that people could "sleep" while in their cars with Autopilot engaged - and as the toll of accidents involving Autopilot continues to accelerate, it is becoming more and more obvious that this isn’t even close to being the case.

The latest incident was this morning, where it was reported on Twitter by Laguna Beach police that a Model S sedan traveling with the Autopilot function on slammed into a parked Laguna Beach police car. The Laguna Beach police department tweeted the news along with photographs:

This morning a Tesla sedan driving outbound Laguna Canyon Road in “autopilot” collides with a parked @LagunaBeachPD unit. Officer was not in the unit at the time of the crash and minor injuries were sustained to the Tesla driver. #lagunabeach #police #tesla pic.twitter.com/7sAs8VgVQ3
— Laguna Beach PD PIO (@LBPD_PIO_45) May 29, 2018​

As The LA Times reported, Laguna police Sgt. Jim Cota said, "thankfully there was not an officer at the time in the police car," adding that "the police car is totaled."
However, Cota said that a year ago in the same area there was another collision involving a Tesla running into a semi-truck.

"Why do these vehicles keep doing that?" Cota said.
"We're just lucky that people aren't getting injured."
​

Critics continue to point to Elon Musk's statements during the Model 3 handover event, where he basically told a crowd that Tesla vehicles are capable of driving themselves, allowing operators to "watch movies, talk to friends [and] go to sleep" while at the wheel.

"In the future, really - the future being now - the cars will be increasingly autonomous. So, you won't really need to look at an instrument panel all that often, you'll be able to do whatever you want. You'll be able to watch movies, talk to friends, go to sleep. Every Tesla being produced now, the Model 3, the Model S, the Model X, has all the hardware necessary for full autonomy."
​

How could this keep happening? Yesterday, video was posted showing what is allegedly a Tesla in Autopilot mode having a bout of "confusion" when the road being traveled changes from a straight road past a section on a highway that offers an exit by the road dividing. The video appears to show the car unable to determine which lane to stay in and nearly hitting the center median that divides the roadway from the exit.

The Tesla autopilot crashing bug (literally). In lane split, gets confused and dives at the divider. pic.twitter.com/oMw3teGnL4
— Manish Vij (@manish_vij) May 27, 2018​

Today's incident comes after a report we put out just yesterday noting that a driver's Model 3 European tour had been cut short because the driver claimed that the vehicle veered into the median while driving in Greece.
The accident involves driver You You Xue, who in early 2018 famously toured his Model 3 across North America after he bought it in order to show other reservation holders what it looked like. That road trip was documented in all of its glory on electrek and was presented as a feel-good story. You You felt so good that he decided to repeat the trip across Europe to continue to garner free publicity for the Model 3. This trip was less of a resounding success, and ended with the car driving itself into a median in Greece.

On You You's Facebook page, he tells the story of the crash:

The road trip is over. I'm sorry.
Vehicle was engaged on Autopilot at 120 km/h. Car suddenly veered right without warning and crashed into the centre median (edit: divider at the exit fork). Both wheels (edit: one wheel) completely shattered, my door wouldn't even open correctly. I'm unharmed.
​

The driver also posted photos of the fork in the road where the accident took place.

More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018...autopilot-crashes-parked-laguna-beach-cop-car

 

[Swordsmyth]

Another day, another mysterious Tesla vehicle crash...

Bloomberg reports that a Tesla vehicle crashed into five parked cars in the Brussels borough of Saint-Gilles Tuesday, with the driver reportedly having said he was outside the car, with the engine running, as it drove away.
Police said it received a call for an incident involving a Tesla and other cars in the early evening of May 29, but did not intervene as the owners decided to handle the case through their insurance companies, Kathleen Calie, a spokeswoman for Brussels South police, said by phone.
As Le Soir reports, according to the police, the owner of the vehicle was outside the car, busy closing the gate of his agency while the engine was running. The Tesla then set off on its own, crashing into other cars parked nearby before finishing off at a Dacia Logan across the street.
Tesla has denied the driver's version of events...

“We have investigated the facts of the incident and we can confirm that the customer was driving and operating his car himself, without using Autopilot, which is a level 2 driving assistance system that doesn’t make a Tesla a self-driving car,” a Tesla spokesperson said in an emailed response to questions.
​

But still, Tesla stock is sliding - not helped by the Softbank snub...

More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-05-31/tesla-model-s-crashes-parked-cars-after-starting-its-own

 

[Swordsmyth]

The NTSB has released its report analyzing the March 23 Tesla Model X crash in Mountain View, which ended in the tragic death of a 38 year old Apple engineer and took place while Autopilot was engaged - and while the driver had their hands off of the steering wheel. While many of the details were known previously, the most surprising revelation was that the vehicle actually sped up seconds before the crash.
As Bloomberg reports, the Model X that crashed in California while being guided by its semi-autonomous driving system, accelerated to 71 miles an hour in the seconds before the vehicle slammed into a highway barrier, according to the NTSB investigators. In the preliminary report on the March 23 crash, investigators report that the driver’s hands were detected on the steering wheel only 34 seconds during the last minute before impact.
The investigation is the latest to shine a spotlight into potential flaws in emerging autonomous driving technology.

More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018...-slamming-highway-barrier-killing-driver-ntsb

 

[Firestarter]

James Corbett – Welcome to your driverless future

 

[fisharmor]

Two thoughts.

First, we've had the ability to remove the human element from train operation for at least 70 years, which is a much, much smaller engineering problem, and it has never happened. If we are ever coerced to give up control of our cars, I'd seriously consider organizing a lawsuit to get at least subways to remove drivers.

Second, I've always known the hyperloop is complete bullshit, but now we know exactly how safe it's going to be... considering it's an engineering problem which is much, much more complicated than autonomous cars.

 

[pcosmar]

Not scared,, DO NOT TRUST..

It is not trustworthy.. Not ready for real world..