
Forget self-driving car anxiety: In the early days human drivers were the fear - samclemens
https://timeline.com/forget-self-driving-car-anxiety-in-the-early-days-human-drivers-were-the-fear-55a770262c10#.vf6ekg4kz
======
edblarney
Eventually - maybe in 20 years - humans won't be even allowed to drive.

I'll bet they even ban hobbyist driving - like those who 'still have old cars'
and want to drive on those 'old car roads'.

Statistically too dangerous. Far more dangerous than anything else we really
do - certainly more than smoking. And when it's no longer a 'necessity' ...

Do you remember those movies before the 1960's when they get in cars and they
don't even have seat-belts - and we 'gasp' ... 'OMG' ...

I think our grandchildren will gasp when we tell them we drove cars. They will
think we were crazy and uncivilized, we'll call them wimps.

You'll want to teach your grandson to drive, your daughter in law will be
upset and call you a crazy old man :)

~~~
gambiting
"Eventually - maybe in 20 years - humans won't be even allowed to drive."

I don't see that happening for a century. Unless you subsidize the cost of
purchase of a new car for everyone who has a car now, and associated costs of
owning a new vehicle.

Where I'm from(Poland) the average age of a car is 16 years. Buying a new car,
even if it's something very cheap like a Fiat Panda, is still a huge deal.

Why would you care about what purchasing power is like in Poland you ask?
Well, because at the moment I can drive my car literally around the world,
without modifying it an inch. If some countries start banning manual cars,
then suddenly you can't cross certain borders anymore - that's almost idiotic.
If the ban of manual cars is going to happen, it will need to happen almost
worldwide at the same time, and that's absolutely, definitely, completely not
happening in the next 20 years.

I actually think your example with cars without seatbelts is great, because it
illustrates what will happen with manually-driven cars - instead of banning
them, they will eventually become so rare there will be no need to ban them,
just like you can still drive your 1950 car without seat belts or airbags.

~~~
edblarney
\+ There will be EU wide standards for 'self driving' just as there will be a
'North American' one.

\+ They will make them cheap. The AI is software, it's a commodity, and the
parts (i.e. LIDAR) will be cheap by then.

\+ In 20 years you won't likely be able to drive your old car in France, and
no offence - they will probably mock the Polish for still having 'real cars'
:).

But you're right - 20 years is too soon.

20 years to 'almost everyone in driverless cars'. 30 years to banning humans.
45 years to banning them even from driving hobby cars.

Add 15 years for East Europe and Russia.

Add 30 years for poor places.

~~~
gambiting
"45 years to banning them even from driving hobby cars."

Again, I don't think this will ever happen, just like we haven't banned horses
on normal roads - there's just so few of them that it's not an issue.
Likewise, if in 50 years 99% of cars are self-driving, it won't matter an inch
if you want to drive yourself in your antique. If you find someone who will
insure you in it, fine, go ahead, don't see why they would be banned - self
driving cars will probably do a good enough job of avoiding manual cars
anyway.

~~~
yoz-y
I am quite sure that once most of the cars will be autonomous, we will start
building autonomous-only roads. With faster speed limits and so on. Manual
cars will not be allowed on those, and then progressively more and more roads
will become autonomous only. Hopefully the first to become as such would be
all roads in cities.

Just like horses which you cannot bring to a highway.

~~~
gambiting
You can't ride a horse on the motorway in the UK(speed limit 70mph) but you
can happily ride one on a dual carriageway - which also has a normal speed
limit of 70mph.

And cities autonomous only? So what about bicycles? Or tricycles? Or hand
drawn carriages(rickshaws etc)? Would those roads have high walls around them
,stopping pedestrians from entering?

And finally - where would the money for that come from? Even very rich
countries(I live in the UK) struggle to maintain their roads to a high
standard, something simple like adding new pedestrian crossings can take years
in planning and approvals, but somehow, we would modify all our roads to suit
one specific type of vehicle?

I'm really sorry if I'm being cynical, but I really do have a feeling that
this self-driving-car utopia is not going to happen.

~~~
yoz-y
I think bicycles and other lightweight vehicles are fine. My main problem is
that myself, as a pedestrian and a cyclist I am sharing the road with several-
ton metal beasts which are driven by annoyed, angry and tired people. I would
feel much safer knowing that the pilot of a car next to me is concentrated on
the one thing which it is supposed to do.

I think however that at least for several years (decades) the autonomous
vehicles must be able to work on the roads we currently have.

As a disclaimer, I would say that I am actually pro-ban of personal vehicles
in city centers today. I really do not see a point of anything that is not an
ambulance, fire truck, bus, a taxi or a delivery truck on a road. Why people
wake up soon in the morning only to then be stuck in an over than one hour
commute when a subway ride would take 20 minutes tops is really beyond me.

Banning all cars first and then progressively let autonomous vehicles (as part
of a fleet) in would be a win situation in my opinion.

------
sshine
Just this morning on my bicycle ride to work, I was nearly run down by a taxi
making a blind entry into a large road and doored by a 10-year-old. The fear
of cars is not "old school" but very much real. This is not to mention the
aggression that drivers go and build up in their small bubbles. I am always
prepared to get off my bike and take them up on their threatening offers. I
look forward to less aggressive, more responsive computer-controlled vehicles.

~~~
Tomte
Looks like you're just as aggressive, waiting for someone to finally "offer"
threats.

Cyclist are no angels, either. I always find it fascinating how they clamor
for at least a meter space next to them when cars are passing, but when
traffic is slow (not standing still – that's a different story), mere
centimeters to my side mirrors are enough to pass cars themselves.

I think a drastic re-education of traffic participants would be necessary: de-
emphasize small, inadvertant and temporary infractions and punish vindictive
and deliberately dangerous behaviour much more aggressively.

~~~
fao_
> Cyclist are no angels, either. I always find it fascinating how they clamor
> for at least a meter space next to them when cars are passing, but when
> traffic is slow (not standing still – that's a different story), mere
> centimeters to my side mirrors are enough to pass cars themselves.

Right, this is because a car that's moving faster than a cyclist and traveling
close can drag the cyclist off their bike. A cyclist that is moving faster
than a car cannot drag a driver out of their car.

~~~
Tomte
You're not understanding the point, which has been elaborated many times now
in this subthread: Nobody is talking about the cyclist being dangerous to the
car driver.

But if the cyclist touches the car, he can be dragged off. No matter who was
passing the other and who was faster. Only the contact matters.

~~~
TulliusCicero
I think they understand the point quite well. You're just ignoring that
there's a huge difference between causing danger to yourself vs causing danger
to others.

------
dev_throw
Human drivers are still dangerous. Every year, around a million people
worldwide are killed due to automobile accidents. [1]

Meanwhile, in the United States alone, there are around 5 million vehicle
crashes annually.[2] Although automobile safety has increased, I am curious as
to whether our accidents per-capita has stayed the same.

Also, we have to consider the interaction effects between decisions taken by
human drivers and self-driving algorithms. I have a feeling that they might be
deleterious initially, but should be able to improve after some iteration.

[1] [https://asirt.org/initiatives/informing-road-users/road-
safe...](https://asirt.org/initiatives/informing-road-users/road-safety-
facts/road-crash-statistics)

[2] pdf:
[https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/...](https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/812006)

~~~
exabrial
I was going to say, "were the fear?" Try driving a motorcycle in traffic in
the USA! People are downright homicidal.

~~~
nxc18
I'm a big fan of the 'look twice, save a life concept' but motorcyclists can
be more adequately described as suicidal than the typical driver can be
described homicidal.

I've been in a few situations where I had to work very hard to not kill/injure
someone because a motor cyclist was being completely reckless. It is super
annoying to have motorcyclist squeeze around you on both sides on a one lane
ramp merging info traffic. Or a motorcycle sitting in my blind spot without
even the decency to stay near the center of the lane.

Its not really different from any other driver, except the complete absurdity
of driving among cars at car speed with literally no safety mechanism beside
plastic wrapping your head should demand a heightened level of defensive
driving.

~~~
exabrial
There are definitely the types that seem to think the streets are a racetrack
and are very wreckless. I'm one of the 'other' types and I ride like a grandma
and try to stick to open roads.

BTW, there are good reasons why motorcyclists don't always drive in the center
of the lane. One main one is to position the bike so you are visible in the
left mirror of a driver you are passing on the left, meaning you ride in the
'right track' of the lane. Another is oil and gas tend to be spilt in the
center of the road, and most bikes don't have ABS. Riding in the left track
will help prevent a driver passing you on the left from cutting their pass
short into your braking zone. It all depends on the surroundings and riding
defensively.

~~~
nf05papsjfVbc
I'm a motorcyclist as well and I too tend to ride quite defensively. Another
reason to avoid the centre of the lane is that the arrow markings tend to be
slippery at times - especially on wet roads. The biggest factors, though, are
the ones you mention - to be visible in the mirrors and to avoid fluids that
have leaked from bigger vehicles - which usually is in the centre of the lane.

------
M_Grey
The problem is _still_ human drivers, and it will remain so as long they're
blended imperfectly with autonomous systems. I don't know how much clearer
this issue can be, but humans _suck_ at driving. We're just no good at
maintain a constant vigil in those circumstances; we evolved to use time like
that to power down the hungry brain.

~~~
makecheck
I don’t think the main human behavioral problems are limited to cars.

The things that frustrate me most during driving are equally present when
running on a trail, waiting for a subway train or observing cyclists, for
instance. They are:

1\. Not knowing where the heck you are and what you are doing. Many people
seem utterly unaware of themselves and the effect that their actions have on
others.

2\. Refusing to either speed up or move out of the way (doesn’t really matter
which of those you do but if you refuse to do _both_ then you will become a
huge obstacle, whether it’s a sidewalk or a road).

3\. Believing you are better at multitasking than you really are.

If you’re blocking a sidewalk, you’re exhibiting poor “driving” in a walking
scenario. If you’re blocking the entrance to the doors, you’re exhibiting poor
“driving” in a train station. If you’re prioritizing your texting and
interfering with me, you’re exhibiting poor “driving” in just about any
situation (driving or walking or social for that matter).

Automation is not required to fix the biggest frustrations with driving:
rather, human beings need to start paying a lot more attention EVERYWHERE in
life and being a lot more reasonable to one another.

~~~
lsc
The real problem is people who think that being slightly inconvenienced, say,
by someone moving slower than they are on a sidewalk is somehow comparable to
a driver who takes risks with the lives of everyone else around them in order
to get to work a few minutes sooner.

~~~
dsacco
I disagree, and I identify with the parent's comment quite a bit. The parent
to your comment wrote a cogent "unifying theory" for explaining how humans are
simply poor at situational awareness in general. Whether it's parking your
shopping cart in an inconvenient place for passerby while you pick out a few
oranges or driving significantly more slowly than you're expected to in the
fast lane, the parent's narrative is compelling for connecting these
behaviors.

Now, "unifying theories" tend to be rather simplistic, and the parent did
exactly publish a replicable study, but you didn't really rebut the thrust of
the argument. Instead, you claimed the parent is the problem for expressing
the argument in the first place. Even if the behaviors are not comparable in
final effect (and I agree with you, they aren't), they are comparable in
cause. On the face of it, there do appear to be strong, outward similarities
in the frustrating obliviousness (or willful apathy) of people who
inconvenience others while walking and people who inconvenience others while
driving. One might result in death and the other might not, but that's really
just a matter of nuance. The behaviors are fully comparable, it just happens
that one takes place in an environment which is fundamentally more lethal.

As an aside, I find my reactions are comparable as well. One of the most
bloody frustrating things I frequently encounter is someone who suddenly stops
their shopping cart in such a way that it blocks traffic, then walks away from
it to roam for produce.

~~~
lsc
the problem I had is that I interpenetrated this as OP considering things that
are merely annoying as just as important (or more important) than things that
are really quite dangerous.

That could, of course, be an incorrect interpretation of what was being said;
I certainly agree that the immediate emotional response tends to more
negatively weight things that are annoying and slowing me down more than
things that are actually dangerous, which is part of why I think it's so
important to say something about this sort of thing, and to make sure you
change that weight.

Guns get a lot of press and a lot of emotion; really, a lot of emotion that I
think would be better focused against cars. If there's not a gun in your
house, you are _dramatically_ more likely to be killed in an auto accident
than by a gun. (or, if you want to put it another way, as an American, if you
remove suicides, you are a lot more likely to be killed by a car than by a
gun.)

------
upofadown
The punitive laws were a reaction to a clear and present danger. Cars were
hitting and killing people (particularly children). The eventual solution was
for pedestrians to stay off of the streets. Parents were made responsible for
keeping their children off the streets.

It is interesting to note that at least one of these laws seems to be
returning. Reducing residential speed limits to 30 km/h is a trend now and is
done to increase pedestrian safty. Driverless cars will of course also be so
restricted. If it turns out that driverless cars are actually safer for
pedestrians then pedestrians will return to the streets. Then "The motor-car
is not to be made as useful as it should be.." will be an issue again.

~~~
sandworm101
>> If it turns out that driverless cars are actually safer for pedestrians
then pedestrians will return to the streets.

To the tiny residential streets, maybe, but they never really left those. I
walk my dog on the street in my neighborhood (no sidewalks). The bane of our
walks are the stealthy electric things. With those around you are much safer
at night when you can see their lights around corners. We will never see
pedestrians taking back the main roads. The separation of pedestrians and cars
is more efficient for both. Our cities would grind to a halt if every truck
and ambulance was suddenly stuck to a walking pace due to pedestrians out for
a stroll.

Motorcycles and bicycles also aren't going anywhere, not for decades. Telling
those groups to give roads back to pedestrians, to put away their favorite
two-wheeled toys and stick to a walking pace ... Bring a helmet when you tell
them it's all over.

------
cperciva
_now we 're worried about people driving with the aid of a second (artificial)
intelligence_

To the contrary, I haven't heard anyone complain about collision-avoidance
systems; the paranoia comes in when the possibility of cars being driven by a
_single_ (artificial) intelligence is discussed.

------
gens
I know a little bit about AI and the things it needs to drive, and i know
horses well.

There is no comparison, a horse is _much_ smarter then any AI i seen [0].

Look at the traffic closely and observe all the edge cases and all the details
that an AI couldn't handle properly. Like potholes, paint, animals and people
coming from beyond cars parked on the street, works on the road, a dust cloud,
a gravel road with big puddles, and idk what else. On top of that the thing is
that going over 40kmh is not driving, it's ballistics.

So far i have seen that a car can be driven by an AI from A to B in good
conditions, but i have not seen it drive in more difficult conditions (some
are common in my city).

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6kIPi11sl8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6kIPi11sl8)

~~~
edblarney
I suggest in many ways you are right.

BUT - cars will eventually be better than horses.

Why?

Because they have a) the tech is very specifically geared to do things related
to driving and driving only b) it's not inclined to 'emotions' or 'spooking'
and finally c) it has tech the horse cannot have - it will be able to see
further out, communicate with other cars 'real time', it will be able to make
crazy probabilistic calculations in real-time with respect to 'what best to do
in a negative scenario'.

I think it will take a long, long time to get through those corner cases, and
probably a few disasters between now and then, but in 20 years maybe it will
be crazy safe.

------
Tiktaalik
Human drivers are still a fear for me. It seems that it's every other day that
I read about people being killed in the streets by cars. Just this weekend a
driver mowed down six cyclists. One is dead.
[http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/richmond-
cycl...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/richmond-cyclists-
accident-1.3839054)

I think the concerns of these 19th century legislators were warranted and we
made a massive mistake in promoting cars as the default form of transportation
for everyone. We've unnecessarily exposed ourselves to an incredible amount of
danger when there has always been other safer transportation solutions
possible.

It's not too late to reign things in. Autonomous cars will help, but solutions
exist today and there's no reason to not start working on making the streets
safer right now. Cities need to limit speeds to 25 mph like NYC has so that
crashes, when they do occur, are less likely to be fatal. Cities also need to
provide more transportation alternatives such as public transit and protected
bike lanes so that city staff can create smaller and safer roads without
affecting people's ability to travel.

------
jlgaddis
I put thousands of miles a year on a big, loud, Harley-Davidson motorcycle.

I've been in two wrecks. The last one left me with several broken bones and
the inability to walk for a few months, although I did gain the amazing
ability to set off metal detectors everywhere!

Human drivers are my worst fear.

~~~
jdavis703
Your big loud bike can actually be pretty hard to hear when the windows are up
and music is playing. It's gotten to the point where I keep my windows rolled
down and my music low when traffic is heavy enough for lots of bikes to be
lane splitting, because otherwise it's almost impossible to know they're
coming.

~~~
jlgaddis
Lane splitting is just crazy, in my opinion. It's not legal where I live
(midwest US) but I see people doing it every time I'm in California. I don't
think I'd do it even if it were legal.

~~~
ollie87
It's actually a lot safer in places that are more congested and have a lot of
stop-start traffic. For example, here in the UK, if you sit at the back of a
queue of traffic on a motorcycle a truck might not see you and rear-end you.
Getting rear-ended by a truck isn't great on a car, but on a bike? Not good.

Instead if you filter and split lanes and get to the front of the queue of
traffic you're not only safer but also out of the way of that wave of traffic,
since you're on two wheels and can accelerate away much faster than the rest
of the traffic. This then allows you to have a buffer behind you.

------
mlinksva
[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236825193_Street_Ri...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236825193_Street_Rivals_Jaywalking_and_the_Invention_of_the_Motor_Age_Street)
is a good telling of struggle between human drivers (and driving clubs, and
car dealers) and other humans for the streets, or
[http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/episode-76-the-
modern-...](http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/episode-76-the-modern-
moloch/) covers the same material.

To ensure computer drivers behave better than human drivers, re-legalize
walking in the street. Also, ban human drivers.

~~~
jdavis703
I think human drivers would do just fine if the streets didn't separate out
pedestrians, bikes and cars. The problem is they fall into certain modes of
thinking where they're only focused on the other cars. The only times I've
been hit (and it's been three times), has been a driver making a left or right
turn, seeing no cars coming from the relevant direction(s) and jamming down on
the accelerator only to realize there was a pedestrian in their way.

~~~
laurieg
Many small streets in Japan mix pedestrians, bicycles and motor vehicles [1].
They may have a white line to indicate the difference between
pavement(sidewalk) and road but it's really just a suggestion in practice.
Cars on these roads tend to be more cautious and aware of all over road users.
Pedestrians are also more aware of there surroundings because there is no
illusion of safety that curbs can sometimes give.

[1]
[http://nomano.shiwaza.com/tnoma/blog/archives/20060601/m/dsc...](http://nomano.shiwaza.com/tnoma/blog/archives/20060601/m/dsc00913.jpg)

~~~
glandium
The picture you linked is by no means a "small street" by Japanese standards.
Small streets in Japan don't have a line in the middle, and most of them
aren't large enough to have two cars crossing each other without effort.

------
cooper12
Time and time again history has shown that you can't just retrofit old laws to
stuff that's "similar enough". Because the new technology is never the exact
same. Computers are not telegraphs. Email is not postal mail. Cars are not
horse-drawn carriages... Law reuse is harmful because it loses nuanced
differences in how these technologies operate and are used. I really think a
lot of problems are linked to that, such as with drug laws. I would say we
need a reform but that would require changing the DNA of the judicial systems,
and like this article notes, ingrained prejudices.

~~~
fossuser
I think our legal system does change over time with case law and
interpretations of existing laws in new mediums.

Though this does have the unfortunate consequence of lagging behind which can
sometimes be severe.

~~~
cooper12
The problem is that often this case law is created looking at similar cases as
precedent. Instead we should be creating new laws from scratch or else like
you said we'll always be playing catchup while areas with more
reasonable/reactive laws prosper. However that's antithetical to how current
American law works though so it would require changing the whole DNA of the
system.

------
ayanray
What I worry about is how can we define accountability. At least you could sue
a person if you got into a car accident and got injured (happened to several
people I know). Suing a huge corporation and getting bullied around, settling
for less, etc. sounds possible, but can happen too with people vs people. How
do you even make a case when you likely don't understand what actually
happened or could even prove what happened (crypto, copyright laws)? I'm all
for reducing risk, but machines will make mistakes and I don't know what
happens next.

~~~
revelation
History seems to have shown the opposite, in transport.

Trains are engineered to absurdly high safety standards and every time there
is a crash, it's widely publicized and an in-depth investigation is required
along with suggestions for systemic changes to prevent repeat events, and the
companies are required to pay large settlements:

[http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
way/2016/10/27/499592760/...](http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
way/2016/10/27/499592760/amtrak-reaches-265-million-settlement-over-deadly-
philadelphia-crash)

At the same time, trains are vastly safer than personal cars. Yet when a
driver kills someone, police can barely be bothered to attend the scene and
rush to excuse the driver and let traffic flow again.

The safety standards on vehicles are such that billions are spent on engine
development yet we tell people to watch out for the "blind spot" in that
trucks mirror contraption. We're soon going to have autonomous driving AI yet
trucks are roaming city streets that are unsafe by design and regularly
claiming lifes. I don't see Volvo and MAN settling with anyone over that.

~~~
userbinator
_At the same time, trains are vastly safer than personal cars._

Most likely because trains essentially only travel in one dimension almost all
the time, along a very well-defined path.

~~~
revelation
That's the point. For their base (and empirical) level of risk, there are huge
binders of safety regulations for trains. Yet cars, which pose a vastly higher
risk, are basically unregulated and safety is commonly ignored for what are
peripheral concerns.

------
overcast
In the current days, human drivers are the fear.

------
beautifulfreak
He really should have credited the Reddit photo colorizer whose image he uses.
He credits Getty for the others.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1ex763/auto_wreck_in_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1ex763/auto_wreck_in_washington_dc_1921_colorized_by_me/)

~~~
jessaustin
I struggle to imagine what sort of wreck would result in the rear (chained)
tire ending up under the front of the car like that? This wouldn't be the only
staged aspect of this picture: why is some random dude sitting in the driver's
seat?

------
bottled_poe
Not everyone drives equally safely. For many drivers, switching from manual to
a self-driving car will increase their probability of a collision. Maybe in
the future this will not be the case, but until self driving cars are proven
safer than the most cautionary drivers, some people will increase their risk
by switching.

------
supercoder
How can a computer ever be as intelligent as my alcohol soaked brain

------
jackarbitrage
I started getting scared of autonomous cars when that guy accidentally got
sent to the libertarian island on Silicon Valley

