
Nevada approves regulations for self-driving cars - dantheman
http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-02-nevada-self-driving-cars.html
======
SoftwareMaven
I'm very excited to here this because it solves the regulatory chicken and
egg. Nevada gets a bump for being first (if things go well) and other
municipalities can point to Nevada to craft their own regulations.

Kudos to Nevada on this one.

~~~
ChrisNorstrom
This makes me want to visit Las Vegas for this reason alone. I would love to
go to Vegas and for the first time in my life ride in a driverless car,
convertable, top down, and enjoy the view, take pictures, and relax no matter
what the traffic is like.

I can see this being a MASSIVE boost to tourist cities.

~~~
rorrr
I think there's only one street in the whole state that gets bad traffic.

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papa_bear
The bonus in vegas is more that you can be drunk and not have to worry about
driving than it is the traffic. Of course, you could also just take a taxi.

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bh42222
_Of course, you could also just take a taxi._

Oh it will be a taxi all right, just not driven by a human...

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vasco
This opens lots of cool possibilities such as eliminating the need for two
cars in the family for example. You go to work, the car then comes back and
drives the wife and then later in the afternoon when both parents are working
it goes to school and picks up the kids!

~~~
SoftwareMaven
The downside is that cars could be driving a lot more. Now, instead of a
roundtrips each for me and my wife, it is two for me and two for my wife
(assuming worst case).

Individually, the costs go down (one car, woot!). Societally, (assuming
anthromorphic global warming ;) the cost is much higher.

Of course, with one car, I can afford a far more green car, so maybe it
balances out again.

~~~
JeffL
Or if everyone moves towards self-driving taxi's, then the car takes you to
work, then takes someone from near there somewhere else, etc, so you're really
talking not much more extra driving, but saving tons on building fewer cars,
fewer parking lots, and economies of scales for buying gas and maintaining the
cars.

~~~
finnw
That won't help. Everyone in the area will likely be travelling to work around
the same time.

~~~
lazerwalker
A setup like this should theoretically be able to optimize carpooling so as to
minimize that. A smart automated system should be able to figure out how to
efficiently cram 3-5 people into every car by optimizing routes.

Of course, in actuality there would be plenty of people who would demand their
own private car out of principle.

~~~
saryant
Let the market sort it out, charge them more.

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unexpected
This is a beautiful example of a state, in desperate need of revenue,
supporting legislation that encourages businesses to start up without
increasing/decreasing taxes.

Now if only the US could do the same thing with stem cells.

~~~
pdx
Is the Nevads government subsidizing research into self driving cars with tax
money? If not, than I see no parallel to stem cells.

For the last 10 years or more, you're welcome to do anything you want with
stem cells. Go crazy. You just haven't been able to get tax money to fund it,
if the stem cells happened to be embryonic.

~~~
wisty
In an ideal world (according to economists), this isn't an issue. In the world
we happen to live in, basic health research is publicly funded. Maybe it
shouldn't be, and research funding should be purely commercial, or
philanthropic. But with public funding crowding out commercial and
philanthropic funding, banning public funding for some kinds of research has a
similar impact to banning it.

~~~
roel_v
How can public funding 'crowd out' other funding? There are more 'fund takers'
than there is funding available, so if there were private funding available,
it would be put to use. I don't understand your reasoning.

~~~
wisty
Research funding requires scientists. There's a relatively fixed supply of
people who want to do research. Those who can get government or university
jobs. Those who can't get jobs in the private sector. If you can't find any
scientists, you don't employ any in your research lab.

This is an empirical observation, and isn't based on micro-economics, though
you could frame it as such if you wanted. It's not true in all cases - Google
might lure a few top computer scientists away from academia by giving them
massive amounts of funding. See, academia has non-monetary rewards - the glory
of working for as an academic (this may be a con), and government jobs look
stable and for the public good (though libertarians might argue). Thus public
funding secures the scares resource (talented scientists) at a lower cost, and
private funding goes down (supply and demand, unless research happens to be a
Giffen good, which I doubt).

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cobrausn
If a driverless car cuts me off, to whom do I direct my middle finger?

Seriously, though, good on them - I'd love to see this kind of thing during my
lifetime. Hopefully it goes well - I'd hate to see this cause a rash of
accidents no matter whose fault it ends up being.

~~~
jfoutz
With all of the sensors required, there will be a fantastically detailed
record of every crash. My money is on the humans screwing up so badly the
driverless car can't recover.

~~~
cobrausn
I would not be surprised if the first couple accidents were the result of
nearby drivers 'ooh'-ing and 'ahh'-ing at the driverless car.

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nivertech
_“It won’t truly be an autonomous vehicle, until you instruct it to drive to
work and it heads to the beach instead.”_

~~~
anigbrowl
An oldie but goodie: <http://www.computerjokes.net/027.asp>

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jonathlee
The Governor's comment about red license plates being used, then green once
the technology is ready for the general public reminds me of the old
regulations that were put in place when automobiles were just beginning to
spread. Anyone driving an automobile was required to hire a runner to run in
front of them and warn everyone to get out of the way!

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rkaplan
I'm interested to find out how this will affect car insurance in the future.
Although the human operator of the vehicle is held liable for any accidents,
even if he/she is not physically present in the car [1], the likelihood of an
autonomous vehicle accident will obviously be largely dependent on the car's
software rather than the human responsible.

Will insurance companies stop charging you based on your driving history and
instead determine your insurance rate based on the safety rating of the AI
powering your vehicle? Or perhaps some combination of both? Insurance pricing
based on AI safety could become a powerful motivator for developers of the
software to continue to innovate and ensure driving safety.

There is certainly a lot of marketing potential in a company being able to
say, "Not only is our car the safest autonomous vehicle on the road, but
you'll also pay the lowest insurance rate as a result!"

[1] [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46419453/ns/business-
autos/#.Tz2...](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46419453/ns/business-
autos/#.Tz2993JSRoA)

~~~
Volpe
Could only really work if ALL cars are autonomous. How many car accidents
involve only 1 car?

Also insurance is hardly an innovative industry... I'd bet they don't change
anything about how they insure people for a LONG time.

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dripton
Where's the link to the actual regulations?

I hate articles like this that could easily refer to the primary source, but
fail to do so.

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Bud
Does this mean we can also legally play poker with prostitutes in the self-
driving cars?

Hunter S. Thompson would have loved this.

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MattBearman
Am I the only one a little bit concerned by this? Don't get me wrong, I can
see all the positives to come out of driverless cars, and the tech behind it
astounds me.

My issue is I love driving, and once the world sees how much safer the world
is without driver error, would driving manually eventually be banned?

I realise I'm essentially putting my enjoyment over people's safety, but what
can I say, I love driving. Just have to hope riderless motorcycles don't come
along anytime soon.

Having said all that, it's just occurred to me that if all cars we're
driverless, then motorcycle crashes would be massively reduced. Maybe banning
manual driving wouldn't be so bad.

~~~
Retric
If you look at how current safety systems are designed, there will probably be
a manual mode with the car taking over if it thinks your doing something
stupid. There will probably always be places where you can drive cars built
without such systems.

That said, if you want to drive a 3,000+ LB vehicle at ridiculous speeds and
or in a completely unsafe manor on public highways, Fuck You _no_. Your desire
to take stupid risks for fun ends when it puts others at significant risk, you
sociopath.

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amurmann
I wonder how long it will take until it is illegal to have a human driving a
car. I am sure self-driving cars will cause much fewer accidents. Even better:
once all human-driven cars are gone, traffic can be organized incredibly
efficiently, esp in areas without human interference like on Freeways. Cars
won't need to stop anymore. Traffic lights could communicate when they will be
red or green well in advance and allow cars to slow down or speed up a little.
That would greatly increase fuel efficiency and allows prevention of traffic
jams.

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kahirsch
Brian Hayes had an interesting column last year on what could happen if these
became common, or even universal.[1] One advantage he pointed out was that you
wouldn't have to waste time looking for a parking place. The car could drop
you off right at the door and then go, maybe far away, to park. Valet parking
for everyone!

[1]
[http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/id.13359,y.2011,no.5...](http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/id.13359,y.2011,no.5,content.true,page.1,css.print/issue.aspx)

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christkv
The question of the self-driving car is much more complicated I think than the
benefit it will bring. The consequences to the labor market will be
interesting to say the least. Just imagine.

No taxi drivers

No UPS delivery truck drivers (automated delivery anyone)

No truckers

Less cars produced, less people building cars.

Less doctors, hospitals etc due to less accidents.

I don't remember who said that we are entering a period of massive labor
change. A second industrial age where there is less need for labor.

The first one brought marxism and communism what will this one bring?

~~~
inconditus
Is this a serious argument? One could say the same thing about:

1) The advent of modern gardening and genetically modified crops. With
increased efficiency, where will the extra farmers go?

2) The advent of computers. What will happen to books? The tree cutters? The
people who ship the trees to the lumber plant?

I could go on and on about ANY technological advance in the last 200 years. I
don't see how cars are any different that will bring "marxism or communism".

~~~
analyst74
I have similar feeling. Heck, invention of farming have caused many the
hunters and gatherers to lose their jobs!

I can't believe how "taking away jobs" sort of argument against technological
advancement keeps showing up over and over, despite being refuted every time.

~~~
ericd
Eh, it might be right one of those times. People have been retreating up the
skill chain as technology has become more and more advanced. If we could make
a tool that does everything as well as humans for much less, society would
have to change _massively_. It has in the past for lesser changes in
technology.

~~~
learc83
>If we could make a tool that does everything as well as humans

That goes so far beyond anything we have any experience with that it's
impossible to speculate. Every technological advance in history has been a
labor saving device; a device that does everything as well as humans is no
longer a tool, it's our replacement (i.e., strong AI).

>People have been retreating up the skill chain as technology has become more
and more advanced.

The majority of jobs created by industrialization required less skill than
previous jobs (e.g., farmers to assembly line workers).

~~~
ericd
Of course, I'm just saying that the limit of technological advancement as t
approaches infinite in some scenarios implies no human employment, so it's not
obvious that just because permanent mass unemployment has never happened that
it will never happen.

Since industrialization, the skill required by _good_ jobs not made
artificially lucrative by unions has become more specialized and advanced.
Whereas being good at manual labor has become less useful. That's what I meant
by going up the skill chain - it's harder to replace thinking jobs with tech,
so more recently, people have been trying to work in those.

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arvinjoar
Been in contact with politicians in the Swedish Parliament trying to alert
them to this, but they don't really seem to care, I even got "Well, I _like_
driving" as a response from one politician. It's sad, given that Sweden is a
country where a lot of cars get tested that we're not seizing the opportunity
to allow for innovation to happen in the car industry.

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wtvanhest
Is it possible that this will turn cities in to less desirable places to live?
Imagine if you could take your car in to the city for drinks, have it drive
around for a while and pick you up when your done.

That is just one possibility, I'm sure there are so many applications I can't
even think of them.

~~~
draggnar
maybe the opposite is true. i can get around the city very fast without having
to worry about parking.

~~~
ChuckMcM
I think this is more likely. Living in cities is desirable because you have a
vibrant and 'close' community, it is undesirable because its hard to drive and
if you do own a car its under utilized.

One of the interesting effects on this might be 'non-bus' cars. Which is to
say public transit as a fleet of say 'four person' self driving cars where you
walk to a bus top and touch your transit car and one shows up and picks you
up. You tell it where you want to go and it takes you there.

It of course destroys the taxi business quite completely. But combines all
manner of public transit into a single service which gets economies of scale.
Dynamic electric cars would be fine (where they have an electric 'boom' like
trains in Europe do).

~~~
jfoutz
No way it's public. I can imagine apartment buildings having a car or two for
use like a gym or laundry.

Or, perhaps a subscription service, superzipcar or something like that.

~~~
xp84
Why "no way"? I don't have any problem with your suggested models either, but
see no reason why public car services couldn't coexist.

~~~
jfoutz
short version, politics & tragedy of the commons.

Anything is possible, I just can't imagine a (US) municipality that's able to
implement an entirely new public service. IIRC, community wi-fi keeps getting
sued by companies that want to make money. First, none can afford it. Second
the US, IMHO, is really hostile toward any sort of government service.

Even if those were non-issues, you still have to solve the problem of
vandalism. People behave like grownups when other people are watching (pretty
much). The bus or subway are good examples. Alone, in a car, i think it's much
tougher to keep people well behaved. there have been various community bicycle
programs that suffer from people beating the hell out of the bikes, or just
stealing them.

These are perhaps mutable problems in small towns, or outside of the US.

~~~
saraid216
Seattle has a light rail system they only booted up a few years ago. They had
to build a completely new set of rails everywhere to do it. I'll admit I don't
know the details of its history, since I wasn't paying attention, but it's
utterly possible.

~~~
jfoutz
If you belive this ([http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2009/07/20/seattles-
light...](http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2009/07/20/seattles-light-rail-
opens-redefining-life-in-the-city/)) it took seattle almost 20 years to make
that happen. Also, i think that city, in particular, was flush with cash.

~~~
saraid216
20 years is on the long side, but I find it a reasonable amount of time to
make it happen. And the point was more that it happened, and that it wasn't
exactly an isolated case.

------
robobenjie
more details in this (slightly) older article:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/24/technology/googles-
autonom...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/24/technology/googles-autonomous-
vehicles-draw-skepticism-at-legal-symposium.html)

------
sensui
There's no hope, all taxi guys will be unemployed. Not now, but soon. And this
trend will continue, everyone, even programmers in the not so far future have
to study and become architects.

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redact207
America, if there's anything that's going to send bolts of lightning through
your economy, it's this.

~~~
redact207
Unrelated, if driverless cars are efficient enough, then traffic lights won't
be needed and traffic will merge continuously.

Does that mean pedestrians can confidently stride out to cross the road and
the traffic will effortlessly stream around them?

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mrhyperpenguin
So I assume Google is going to start selling ads and collecting information
through autonomous cars?

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andyl
Can't wait for the day my car will drive itself to the shop for a smog check
and oil change.

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ekianjo
Regulations is one thing, but when do we expect self-driving cars to reach the
market ?

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gcb
self driving cars in nevada can be accomplished by a timer.

Aim the car. accelerate. engage cruise control. start timer. After N minutes
required to get to the place, stop car.

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NoBorders
That's great!

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xp84
Having just read Robopocalypse, I'm very concerned with this development.
These automated cars did a lot of damage in that book.

~~~
joering2
just the legal question; if I drive with a family and autocar will smash into
me, killing my children and wounding me so I cannot walk or work, who is going
to be liable? car manufacturer, producer of the tires, software engineers
house, or GPS system? Could see 20 years of litigation between all parties
involved before I get a dime for recovery, or probably die first.

~~~
nitrogen
I've yet to read Nevada's regulations, but having it be the same as for
regular cars would make the most sense. In an isolated accident, the
operator's insurance company is liable. If there's a fundamental flaw with the
cars, the manufacturer issues a recall. It's far more likely that an
inattentive human driver will smash into a driverless car than the reverse,
though.

~~~
joering2
I guess what I was trying to say is that cars were designed to be driven by
humans, and although there are situations where machine's fault is hard to
prove [1], in reality adding additional layer of decision-making piece of
hardware will make it even harder to determine who's fault was when my
children, hypothetically, died in a car accident smashed by a second car.

[1] [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1300880/Toyota-
defen...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1300880/Toyota-defence-
frees-man-jailed-fatal-car-crash.html)

~~~
learc83
Almost all auto fatalities are caused by human error. I think saving 1
million+ lives per year is worth the legal wrangling to determine fault for
the remaining few accidents.

