Especially if they switch to lossy compression. (They can greatly increase efficiency during rush hour by simply accepting that they’re going to lose a few vehicles.)
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So if the car drives you off a bridge you’re a dropped packet wonderfull.
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Let all the riders vote on the speed / death trade-off. The person you vote to kill probably isn’t yourself.
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You could collect some really interesting statistics from that. Like how the speed / death trade-off varies during rush hour TO work vs FROM. Seasonal changes. Post election changes by state.
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I can’t wait for the protests against self-driving cars by the Uber drivers.
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History will show that Uber was all about self-driving cars. The human drivers with their own vehicles were used to wrest control of the taxi industry from the traditional legally/politically entrenched local companies. Replacing them with a company with central control.
Replacing the human drivers is merely step 2.
They’ll still keep human drivers, but they’ll be used for trips into city and rural areas where the communication and 3D mapping data is poor. There’ll be more business for human drivers with every fresh snowfall.
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Google is a large investor in Uber, so what’s coming shouldn’t be a surprise, but of course, it will.
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‘Your rmovie is sponsored by Jim Beam’. Wow.
What happens when the driver stirs in his sleep, stretches his right leg?
This, right here. A few times a year I have to spend four hours driving to Boston. I’d let a car drive that for me in a heartbeat.
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I hate this, too, but you’re probably right. And those of us with motion issues are going to be screwed… Boo.
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What does the location have to do with anything?
On the one hand, I’d love to use this in the city. And it makes sense that a decentralized network of self-driving cars sharing one algorithm could be not only safer, but much more efficient, with higher speeds and smaller gaps between vehicles, because the algorithm could track the environment across an arbitrary distance from each vehicle, so a deer blocking traffic could be known for miles around and traffic automatically coordinated for an optimal solution to any congestion. Instead of drivers trying to predict each others’ decisions and reactions, the algorithm will simply allocate maneuvers as part of an overall orchestrated flow.
The reductions in travel time and road maintenance requirements alone will convince most major cities to save money and boost productivity by mandating all new cars be self-driving in urban areas. It will start with self-driving-only lanes, but will end in 20 or so years with self-driving freeways and anywhere other than some residential roads. Especially as the few US cities with passable mass transit systems like the BART and the DC Metro continue to let them fall into decay.
We’ll see a lot more people getting their Class M licenses and switching to motorcycles for the simple reason that, while I’m sure its possible in principle to make a motorcycle with autopilot, it will be longer coming. I’m personally fine with all the drivers around my bike surrendering to a computer that, unlike most of them, sees me and will do everything it can to avoid making me roadkill 
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I suppose I’ll have to go barfing boldly into the future! 
But I can see how this would be an improvement for people on motorcycles. I do try to be cognizant of bikers, as I realize that hitting them is much more dangerous than me hitting another car.
Honestly, I’d much rather we go the public/mass transit route, with more/greater expansion of such things (especially different kinds of light rail in regional areas, things like bullet trains for wider areas), as opposed to having more individual cars on the road, whether driven by people or computers. I seem to do a bit better in a train than I do riding in car driven by someone else.
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Ideally we’d have an electromagnetic power transfer network with pods instead of trains, and stations where the pods could leave the track and wait in queue. But I suspect that would be no better for passengers prone to motion sickness, since my understanding is that it’s the size of the vehicle that makes it easier for them to deal with trains, big ships and big airplanes versus little boats and island hoppers. Still, I think a modular pod system may be where we’re ultimately headed. You have companies like Uber talking about people just renting self-driving cars for each trip. You have electric vehicles slowly but steadily replacing gasoline powered vehicles. You have rapid charging stations appearing in more and more places. In the next couple of decades we’ll probably see charging rails tried in some city by a company like Google or Tesla.
However, I don’t see the electric vehicles mechanically attaching to the rails. More likely they will simply have a contact boom. Mechanical attachments would only limit their mobility, which, if they’re controlled by a distributed app, would only decrease their efficiency. Robot cars just don’t need tracks. A network of power transfer roads and resilient light vehicles could potentially be much more energy and transportation efficient than a train or heavy bus based mass transit system. Ironically, America’s insistence on roads and individual cars might turn out to be the best solution in terms of efficiency, cost-effectiveness and even energy conservation, albeit while giving up the very independence that’s been the prevailing motivation behind American car culture. It will be interesting to see if people still care about owning their cars/pods when they can no longer pilot them.
Much appreciated. But it’s just not safe on a bike to assume drivers see you. Think of the act of faith you have to place in other drivers noticing you whenever you change lanes or pass through someone’s blind spot. Even if you’re a model driver and only change lanes when there’s ample space, you’re still counting on the person you’re getting in front of or behind not suddenly zooming ahead or slamming their brakes. On a bike, you have to assume drivers won’t notice you’re there at all. I’ve literally lost count of how many times drivers have pushed me between lanes, onto the shoulder, forced me to slow down or speed up, simply because they decided to try an occupy the same space as me. I’m sure most of them didn’t mean to try to kill me, but that’s not much help.
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And finally, your username, avatar, and circumstances bring me to an epiphany.
I will now cease mentally pronouncing your handle, “Chegoliz.”
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Pffft. That’s called ‘the daily commute’.
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Though I was aware of the Chicago part earlier she will be always c.h.goliz for me. And as my brain is weird it jumps to the conclusion that this is somehow connected to e.o.plauen.
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At first glance, I was positive that last panel involved flatulence.
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