Comments on: Google driverless cars prompt robo safety worries

By: Matthew Randall

Matthew Randall — Wed, 09 May 2012 17:14:00 +0000

More people died falling off horses per mile traveled as compared to cars, not even close.

By: Matthew Randall

Matthew Randall — Wed, 09 May 2012 17:13:00 +0000

Tech has been putting people out of work from day one. Get used to it.

By: Matthew Randall

Matthew Randall — Wed, 09 May 2012 17:11:00 +0000

Then that would be on the driver… Cant help stupid.

By: Marcinjanik

Marcinjanik — Wed, 09 May 2012 16:46:00 +0000

There was a project in the Netherlands with self riding buses( not in the trafic, separate lanes, more like a train). Short after the project started there was a tiny accident; 2 busses hit each other at speed under 20km/h with no passengers inside. Project was shutdown because it wasn’t safe! wierd part is that each day at least one person get hurt where bus is involved in the Netherlands.

By: Jeremyjohnolson

Jeremyjohnolson — Wed, 09 May 2012 16:45:00 +0000

Here’s the problem, eveyone knows that there are stupid people out there that will leave the wheel of one of these cars to take a nap in the back seat, get something they dropped, do their make-up, get dressed, eat breakfast, work on their laptop, laydown and read a book,… whatever, so the fact that you can take over control at anytime is meaningless in these situations. I guess you could say, well, that is their own stupid fault if they crash, but just saying.

By: JohnnySmith0

JohnnySmith0 — Wed, 09 May 2012 16:32:00 +0000

LOL RROD.

By: Jeremyjohnolson

Jeremyjohnolson — Wed, 09 May 2012 16:31:00 +0000

The difference as I see it is if you crash while you are the driver you have yourself (or the other driver) to blame. If the computer crashes you, you blame the computer. So, in short, people like me will have a hard time giving up that control. Maybe it is statistically safer, but when we are in control of the car at least we have some degree of influence over how safe our ride is. How will computer driven cars effect insurace rates now that you are taking the human factor somehwat out of the equation?

By: Umar O

Umar O — Wed, 09 May 2012 16:31:00 +0000

I think it’ll be easy to protect the system, look at xbox 360. They have succeeded with their systems running any malware, all code must be signed in order to run.

By: NNNNN22a

NNNNN22a — Wed, 09 May 2012 16:24:00 +0000

I bet these cars drive better than most people do but the day that this technology starts putting real people like cab drivers out of work it should be utterly destroyed.

By: JohnnySmith0

JohnnySmith0 — Wed, 09 May 2012 16:24:00 +0000

Uh what… I’m sure that computer guided planes save more lives than human pilots.

By: Guest

Guest — Wed, 09 May 2012 16:22:00 +0000

How many years have we been building mechanical cars? Plenty… How often do you hear about safety recalls, even from the most thorough manufacturers? I don’t hate technology, I just think that autonomous cars will have one more added complexity (this time a huge one) that will not be perfected for years to come. I am not saying that we should throw this technology out the window, but it is prudent to be cautious. For instance, I am not going to doze off sitting on the driver’s seat just because the car can drive itself.

By: JohnnySmith0

JohnnySmith0 — Wed, 09 May 2012 16:22:00 +0000

Well you know, he’s kind of right. Cars are not safe.

By: Safety First!

Safety First! — Wed, 09 May 2012 16:20:00 +0000

Of course, the current generation of automobile controllers (“people”) are subject to sufficient bugs and malware that automobiles terminate the functioning (“kill”) of 30,000 automobile controllers (“people”) per year. While software security for safety-critical systems is very important, the current system is equivalent to six september eleventh attacks every year.

By: JohnnySmith0

JohnnySmith0 — Wed, 09 May 2012 16:20:00 +0000

How do you make it 100% idiot-proof… Well… there is no such thing as 100% safety… and there never will be. The only way to be safe is to not go any faster than 20km/h.

So I think that in general, people should just slow down… Sure it may take some more time, but it’s far better than causing deaths.

By: BLS

BLS — Wed, 09 May 2012 16:00:00 +0000

Anyone still wondering why we don’t yet have flying cars? We’ve become so cautious and careful that innovative tech is crushed by ignorance and fear before it can take off. Fortunately, Google is no start-up; if anyone can make this work, it’s them.

By: Dana Blankenhorn

Dana Blankenhorn — Wed, 09 May 2012 16:00:00 +0000

Experts, schmeckperts. Luddites, more like. Driverless cars are the best hope we have for extending the useful life of roads, reducing the death toll on our highways and transforming our cities. Ludds be damned.

By: Ten

Ten — Wed, 09 May 2012 15:41:00 +0000

When google is in court when there is an accident with another vehicle it will be awesome to see the car data replaying the scenario showing in high detail how it was the fault of the person in the other car.

By: Matthew Randall

Matthew Randall — Wed, 09 May 2012 15:38:00 +0000

So, people are good with passenger planes that are flown and in some of the newer cases, landed, by computer, but a car scares them? Really? I have no issue with it, if it works it works. Some fool is going to think they can get rich by stepping out in front of on of these things. But here is the deal, every point, speed, second of any accident and way before it, will be stored in the cars computer. It will not just tell information about what it was doing, and you bet it will not be speeding or running a light, or changing lanes without signalling. It will also have all data recorded of every other vehicle around it. Angles, speed, road conditions, even pedestrian locations, speed, crosswalk locations, ambient temperature, lighting conditions, etc. If anything, if you end up hitting one of these, you better hope that something went wrong with the computer, as most likely you messed up and will be paying for the thing.

By: ih8ut

ih8ut — Wed, 09 May 2012 15:37:00 +0000

Really? on top of stoned drivers, distracted soccer moms, cell phone users and uninsured undocumented motorists.

I know Ducati motorcycles that have electronic transmission lock-ups on the road, by itself.

By: Danny

Danny — Wed, 09 May 2012 15:28:00 +0000

I absolutely agree. Unfortunately, most people don’t think this way. As soon as one person dies in a wreck caused by a Google autonomous vehicle, the media will swarm and Google will get get sued back to the stone age.

By: Thomas Crum

Thomas Crum — Wed, 09 May 2012 15:28:00 +0000

I feel that too many people are hung up on the whole terminator doomsday theory. At worse Google’s cars will be just as prone to accidents as human drivers. More than likely this car will help reduce accident rates by getting more drivers off the road. Besides you can switch to manual control at any time. All you have to do is turn the wheel or hit the brakes. So if your car goes haywire for any reason you can just pull over to the side and no harm done. My only real concern is how long we will have to wait before we see an actual production model come out. More than likely we won’t be seeing GM or Ford selling these things for another ten years at least.

By: Dave

Dave — Wed, 09 May 2012 15:27:00 +0000

Don’t let users try and install crap on their cars OS and it won’t get viruses, simple.

By: Lbcentaur

Lbcentaur — Wed, 09 May 2012 15:26:00 +0000

Wow, what a truly ignorant post. The article is referring to software complexity. I guess you never heard about deaths attributable to the Therac machine. Also, how will a few thousand vehicles reduce traffic fatalities by 20%?

By: Guy

Guy — Wed, 09 May 2012 15:26:00 +0000

As a motorcycle rider myself, I can really sympathize with you about the inattentive cage drivers out there, and therefore cannot understand your first reaction about the autonomous cars.
I would be inclined to trust a computer (which has been thoroughly tested) more than the average driver. There are a lot of good drivers out there, but there are, unfortunately, a lot of very bad ones as well.

By: Jack Abts

Jack Abts — Wed, 09 May 2012 15:14:00 +0000

“Those high speeds of them there automobiles are dangerous! And, all of them there moving metal parts put together in a shop surely won’t be able to withstand the rigors of everyday use!

I’m going to stick with my horse. It’s the safe thing to do.”

-McAfee, 1902

By: Kevin Snyder

Kevin Snyder — Wed, 09 May 2012 15:12:00 +0000

As a longtime motorcycle operator who has had many close calls with inattentive car drivers, my first reaction to the concept of autonomous cars has always been hostile. I am careful out there, ride conservatively on a stock motorcycle, and see an increasing amount of distracted driving going on. I despise the fact that my safety is placed at risk so someone can take a call or text message behind the wheel.

OTOH, given that most of my near-miss encounters involve a malfunctioning driver, I have to ask how a few lines of malfunctioning code in an autonomous vehicle could be worse…

By: candide08

candide08 — Wed, 09 May 2012 15:06:00 +0000

Google driving software simply cannot be WORSE than a lot of people I see on the road.

By: Selim Targay

Selim Targay — Wed, 09 May 2012 15:05:00 +0000

I wish these “security experts” would stop putting out fear mongering blurbs just to raise business for themselves. McAfee is about as useful as the MS Office Clippy. Just don’t open files you don’t trust. Same with autonomous vehicles. Actual threats, viruses, malware will be very rare.
We have to think of the big picture. In 2011, there were 47,000 deaths due to traffic accidents in the USA. If that number can be reduced by 10-20% with the introduction of just a couple ten thousand autonomous vehicles to US roads, why wouldn’t you? Also, again thinking statistically, for every 1 malfunction or error that a Google vehicle makes, a human driver will probably make hundreds over their lifetime. Next thing you know, McAfee will probably start telling you that you need their services so that your onboard GPS, MP3 player and turn signal don’t gang up on you due to “malware”…