Google is just catching up with cadastral surveyors who have had to put up with "self driven" local boundary "experts".
YOS
TNAI
The commentary about the accident made a remark about "the old-fashioned automobile" struck a nerve with me. I don't doubt at all that the automobile is well on its way to eventually keep company with the dinosaur. But if it's ever going to get going, we need a replacement...quick. And I seriously doubt that "Windows" driven motorcars are the answer. They will just become something else for us to cuss at in a traffic jam....except we won't be able to pound on the steering wheel with our fists.
I read an article not too long ago that was comparing the cost of merely maintaining our aging transportation infrastructure against the cost of actually building public transportation. The numbers would surprise most folks. One of the prohibitive costs of new public transportation is acquiring R/W. At least one advocate thinks as the number of cars decreases on our public highway system; lanes could be dedicated to mass transportation. I agree.
And it might just be poetically fitting that the first accident involving a Google "Smart Car" was with a city bus....
...the hand writing is on the wall.
I bet the driver was on their cellphone.
All we need is the ability to "be present" without really "being present".
We are getting closer to achieving that every day. It started with things like smoke signals, flags and drums, then advanced through the first form of telephones to the Dick Tracy-like wrist radios. Conference calls and Skype have chopped business travel tremendously. When will "virtual attendance" be fully adopted?
Several services offer virtual attendance with real-time audio and video/graphics and they seem to be getting used, although I have no measure of their growth. I participated in some a decade ago.
I found this quote from the article interesting:
"But who says a bus or lorry is less likely to slow down, than, say, a disgruntled taxi driver or a commuter in a hurry? All the clever programming in the world surely canÛªt account for the unpredictable behaviour of human drivers."
I think that if clever programming can't account for the unpredictable behaviour of human drivers then a human driver DEFINITELY can't account for the unpredictable behaviour of them either.
Besides, the fewer human drivers out there, the less unpredictable behaviour will be encountered.
I, for one, would love to see the day when the majority of the vehicles on the road are computer controlled and public transit focused.
