[Nfbk] Self-driving cars: Yes, please! Now, please!

Sun Feb 5 18:59:08 UTC 2012

Hey, in Kentucky, that is a real possibility. They gave me a license before
I knew that I was blind!

Cindy Sheets

-----Original Message-----
From: nfbk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfbk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of
Cathy
Sent: Sunday, February 05, 2012 10:52 AM
To: NFB of Kentucky Internet Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Nfbk] Self-driving cars: Yes, please! Now, please!

It is my understanding that contact has and will be made. As always we want
to make sure that what is developed is accessible for the blind. There is
enough expertise to go around. I think all of this technology is exciting.
Cindy, I am 62 and I too hope that I get a chance to apply for and receive a
drivers license.

Cathy
-----Original Message-----
From: nfbk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfbk-bounces at nfbnet.org]On Behalf Of
slerythema
Sent: Sunday, February 05, 2012 1:55 AM
To: 'NFB of Kentucky Internet Mailing List'
Subject: Re: [Nfbk] Self-driving cars: Yes, please! Now, please!

Yes, someone that thinks like me. I love the self-driving cars because
people are too distracted on the road any more. Personally, I think when we
have fully automated cars that the death rate of vehicle crashes will drop
by 50% or more. The NFB needs to push to be involved with these developments
to make sure the interfaces are usable by the blind. The driver challenge
invites others to join with us to share technology, but I think we need to
do more to join them.

Please do not interpret this as the blind driving a car versus the car
driving, it is simply a point of view that gets the other reckless drivers
taken care of. When the car is driving, feel free to text, talk on the
phone, surf the web, mediate the fighting kids in the back seat, or sleep.

Cindy Sheets. 

-----Original Message-----
From: nfbk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfbk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of
Kevin Pearl
Sent: Saturday, February 04, 2012 10:04 AM
To: NFBK
Subject: [Nfbk] Self-driving cars: Yes, please! Now, please!

This is another interesting perspective on self-driving cars written by
Molly Wood, a popular and respected technology journalist.

Self-driving
<http://news.cnet.com/8301-31322_3-57335792-256/self-driving-cars-yes-please
-now-please/> cars: Yes, please! Now, please!

I love to drive. And yet, I cannot wait for self-driving
<http://reviews.cnet.com/car-tech/> cars. Question is: who will bring them
to the masses first? And how soon? 

I hear your comments right now: "I will never let a computer drive me to
work, it's not safe!" "I'm a great driver, it's everyone else who is the
problem." "But I love my BMW/Audi/Mercedes/Hyundai Genesis/Ferrari/Jetta
Sportwagen too much to ever let the car do the driving!" 

Let's try to separate the mind from the machine, because trust me:
mainstream adoption of automated cars will help improve the environment, use
less fuel, reduce traffic to virtually zero, save billions of dollars per
year, and most importantly: save a lot of lives and limbs. 

This is the kind of argument that we in the geek community inherently
understand. Computers are better at certain things than humans are. They
don't get competitive, stressed out, angry, confused, or drunk--and they are
perfectly capable of texting while driving, unlike us. They can negotiate
merges, calculate stopping distance, maintain speed, and react more quickly
than we can. This isn't just about bad driving, although self-driving cars
could solve that problem, too. It's about human inefficiency, and safety. 

Many auto manufacturers agree, and are working hard to bring autonomous
vehicles to the road in one form or another.
<http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13746_7-20122104-48/gm-expect-self-driving-veh
icles-by-2020/> GM predicts semi-autonomous cars to be available by the
middle of the decade, and fully autonomous vehicles by 2020. Audi
<http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2398803,00.asp> announced its moves
toward semi-autonomous drive mode at  <http://ces.cnet.com/> CES this year.
BMW's i3 electric city car will include a
<http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13746_7-20099475-48/the-driver-is-this-bmws-co
-pilot/> traffic jam assistant that auto-navigates through traffic jams at
slow speeds, and both BMW and Volkswagen say they're moving toward
<http://www.technologyreview.com/business/39410/page1/> incremental rollouts
of semi-autonomous driver-assistance packages, with some features available
now. 

Great. I'm all for it. Let's get moving! Unfortunately, although the
technology is getting closer, the world, it seems, is not. 

At this year's Consumer Electronics Show gathering in Las Vegas, I and a
handful of my tech news colleagues attended a dinner with several Ford
executives, including CEO Alan Mulally. It's clear that automated vehicles
are on the collective mind of the tech world. Mulally was asked about
self-driving cars several times, including by me. 

But each time, even after enduring quite a long lecture from the Wall Street
Journal's Walt Mossberg on the topic of distracted driving, the affable
Mulally said quite firmly that Ford would not be developing self-driving
cars, or even introducing self-driving mode in vehicles. 

And at a recent symposium held to discuss the issue,
<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/24/technology/googles-autonomous-vehicles-dr
aw-skepticism-at-legal-symposium.html?_r=1&hpw> concerns over regulations,
liability, insurance, and safety seemed to put the brakes on some of the
enthusiasm for the concept. And sadly, O. Kevin Vincent, chief counsel of
the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, told the collected
experts he thought the public "ought to be petrified" of the idea of cars
driving themselves at high speeds. 

So, fear and politics are likely to slow this convoy in the short term--but
I suspect not for long. There's a growing drumbeat of support from the geek
community for the obvious safety benefits of autonomous vehicles. Sebastian
Thrun, the Stanford University professor who guides Google's self-driving
car project, has been
<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/06/science/sebastian-thrun-self-driving-cars
-can-save-lives-and-parking-spaces.html> increasingly outspoken about the
safety benefits of autonomous cars, and obviously, the geek community is
rallying: Wired magazine just made autonomous cars its
<http://www.wired.com/magazine/tag/autonomous-cars/> cover story for
January. 

The revolution will come. But how quickly? As I mentioned, GM, BMW, Audi,
and others are pushing for a gradual rollout of driving assistance
technologies, with fully autonomous vehicles not due until 2020 or beyond.
Digital Trends this week
<http://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/destination-home-how-fully-autonomous-dri
ving-might-come-sooner-than-we-think/> quotes a Volvo engineer who'd like to
see a dramatic shift toward fully autonomous driving sooner than later. Ford
is obviously sitting heavily on the opposite end of the spectrum, refusing
to even have the conversation--at least publicly. And then, of course, we'll
have to fight out the legal issues--and the emotional ones. 

Fear and love of driving are major emotional barriers for people in terms of
accepting the idea of autonomous cars. So let me propose a dramatic shift
that's not a move to a fully autonomous society: equip every car with
autonomous mode by 2015. Give us all the ability to flip the car into
autonomous driving mode as needed, to answer a call or text, to get a little
work done during the morning commute, or to negotiate bad traffic. 

And here's a controversial idea: combine the technological advances with
mandatory auto-mode zones or drive times, which will help push consumer and
manufacturer adoption. The
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_%E2%80%93_Oakland_Bay_Bridge>
San Francisco Bay Bridge between 6 a.m. and 10 a.m.? Auto-mode only. Cars
don't cause traffic, people driving cars cause traffic. Let computers handle
the switch from two lanes to six and then back to two again. Forget
congestion pricing: mandate auto mode in congested areas by 2015, and you'll
definitely get the tech moving. 

Autonomous mode in all vehicles doesn't have to remove all responsibility
for driving, and I don't want it to. Technology can simply take the burden
off drivers when it will benefit them, those around them, and the community
at large. And for long, winding back-country roads, there's always manual
mode. Let's be honest: that's the only time driving is fun anymore anyway. 

About  <http://www.cnet.com/profile/mollywood/> Molly Wood 

Molly Wood is an executive editor at CNET, host of the Buzz Report, Buzz Out
Loud, and Tech Review at CNET TV, and author of the Molly Rants blog. When
she's not enraging fanboys of all stripes, she can be found offering tech
opinions on CBS and elsewhere, and offering opinions on everything else to
anyone who will listen.

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