Yeah, ban cars because cars bad. No people drive cars. People no can think good. People not designed for fast car speed. The car think better for people. Then never bad things happen and all people will be controlled by good cars that think good.
The Google self-driving cars have been well over 500k without an accident in automatic mode (there was one accident with someone driving it in manual). Autonomous vehicles will result in a huge reduction of automotive fatalities and it's not inconceivable that they would eliminate automotive deaths all together.
Even though I thoroughly enjoy driving, as do many people, it's simply dangerous. Yes, car too big, going too fast, lots of energy stored up, and humans are not perfect, so horrible disasters such as this happen.
Would you rather airplanes be fully autonomous or have a human pilot in constant control 100% of the time?
This isn't a matter of choice for me, from what I gather. It's already obvious to me that very powerful faceless people, somewhere out there, have decided that this WILL happen, one way or another, and the dismal tide will creep up around us all.
It doesn't matter much, whether my car or your car is autonomous, so long as the prevailing wind perpetuates a certain concentration of robotic vehicles on the road. Choice, freedom, privacy, become mere platitudes in such an environment. Meaningless words parroted in the same sentence as terrorism, patriotism, job creation and affordable healthcare.
Once the legal framework is in place and the technology finally sorts itself out, I can see a situation where the idea of private car ownership becomes a strange concept in cities. You just have a fleet of "chauffeur" driven cars available that you can call on as you need them.
Of course the fleet can be 'sent out to work' during periods of low demand.
SXSW is a popular tech-oriented conference, thus might qualify as news for nerds.
Besides, my first fear upon reading was that it would be a Uber car. I'm glad that's not the case, but saddened that such a tragedy happened in the first place.
Let's mix two polarizing subjects in the same comment:
Just as shortly after the invention of guns, a safety release was added to prevent accidental discharge, self-driving cars might be a drunk driver's safety catch. I have to agree with some of the above posters.
Why isn't the government and the entire population pushing for and subsidizing autonomous vehicles? Cars are dangerous.
"X were playing at the time."
Is there a band named X or did the writer forget to replace the placeholder?
That's why I always put very noticeable placeholders when doing a first draft. "{{{REPLACE_WITH_BAND}}} were playing at the time."