Why I'm so jazzed about autonomous transportation
I am often making it a point to voice my opinion about how excited I am at the prospect of a change that would solve many of the things that are dangerous to do into things that are not at all dangerous to do.
Automobiles which are able to see, to drive themselves and to communicate with one another wirelessly and which do not at all need to use combustibles to make power is going to be a fundamental change. Huge difference. The part I like most about it, though, is that money will force it into being. It cannot be stopped.
What kind of things (on or around public roads) are so dangerous to do that everyone knows better? One of the first things my parents taught me was 'look both ways before you cross the street'. Because automobiles might be using the street, right? It's dangerous to step out onto the road, because humans piloting automobiles may not be looking at or near you for, really any amount of time, and their vehicle's momentum could maim or kill you, with no risk of harm to them at all. They could be doing something else, like adjusting their radio, or texting. Whatever. They could look away from what they need to see and avoid, and cause traumatic injury. It happens every. day.
I ride a motorcycle five or six days a week. Every time I do, every time, I see a problem. Oh, look, someone speeding. Oh, look, someone merging three lanes at a time, with nary a glance.
Drunk drivers. High drivers. Sober drivers whose bodies function suboptimally, either old age or injury or mutation, operating a dangerous object at high speed. I hate it all, it's so violent and stupid. I want the roads to be safe. Not 'safe if everyone pays attention and follows the rules all the time' safe, because then I have to trust everyone to do those things, and I don't. I mustn't. I couldn't even for a second, because it could mean my life, on a motorcycle. And I would fare much better on a motorcycle than on a bicycle. I want the roads to be safe as fuck. I want to be able to go to sleep in the middle of the street in the middle of the night, and be fine. I want any cars that should come across my path to not only detect me and avoid me safely, but to communicate that an organism approximately 80 litres in girth is in exactly such and such a spot to the other automobiles in the area, and have them adjust their speed very early on, should they need to cross my path. Ideally, they wouldn't even be making enough noise to wake me as they passed.
How fucking awesome would that be.
I'm also very interested in being extremely impaired, and summoning an automobile by pressing a button in a phone, getting inside it some minutes later, and instructing it to take me home while I sleep in the seat. Or, even more ideally, nailing someone in the back seat while we are brought safely to our destination.
Traffic! What if waiting at lights were no longer a thing? What if marked lanes were just unnecessary anymore? We wouldn't need things like pedestrian crosswalks, because people could just step wherever the fuck they wanted at any time, and not ever be in danger because no vehicles would be going fast enough to not be able to stop on a dime.
I really want to live in that world, and it honestly can't come quickly enough.
Automobiles which are able to see, to drive themselves and to communicate with one another wirelessly and which do not at all need to use combustibles to make power is going to be a fundamental change. Huge difference. The part I like most about it, though, is that money will force it into being. It cannot be stopped.
What kind of things (on or around public roads) are so dangerous to do that everyone knows better? One of the first things my parents taught me was 'look both ways before you cross the street'. Because automobiles might be using the street, right? It's dangerous to step out onto the road, because humans piloting automobiles may not be looking at or near you for, really any amount of time, and their vehicle's momentum could maim or kill you, with no risk of harm to them at all. They could be doing something else, like adjusting their radio, or texting. Whatever. They could look away from what they need to see and avoid, and cause traumatic injury. It happens every. day.
I ride a motorcycle five or six days a week. Every time I do, every time, I see a problem. Oh, look, someone speeding. Oh, look, someone merging three lanes at a time, with nary a glance.
Drunk drivers. High drivers. Sober drivers whose bodies function suboptimally, either old age or injury or mutation, operating a dangerous object at high speed. I hate it all, it's so violent and stupid. I want the roads to be safe. Not 'safe if everyone pays attention and follows the rules all the time' safe, because then I have to trust everyone to do those things, and I don't. I mustn't. I couldn't even for a second, because it could mean my life, on a motorcycle. And I would fare much better on a motorcycle than on a bicycle. I want the roads to be safe as fuck. I want to be able to go to sleep in the middle of the street in the middle of the night, and be fine. I want any cars that should come across my path to not only detect me and avoid me safely, but to communicate that an organism approximately 80 litres in girth is in exactly such and such a spot to the other automobiles in the area, and have them adjust their speed very early on, should they need to cross my path. Ideally, they wouldn't even be making enough noise to wake me as they passed.
How fucking awesome would that be.
I'm also very interested in being extremely impaired, and summoning an automobile by pressing a button in a phone, getting inside it some minutes later, and instructing it to take me home while I sleep in the seat. Or, even more ideally, nailing someone in the back seat while we are brought safely to our destination.
Traffic! What if waiting at lights were no longer a thing? What if marked lanes were just unnecessary anymore? We wouldn't need things like pedestrian crosswalks, because people could just step wherever the fuck they wanted at any time, and not ever be in danger because no vehicles would be going fast enough to not be able to stop on a dime.
I really want to live in that world, and it honestly can't come quickly enough.