Pedestrians. Cyclists. Skateborders.
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Imagine driving your car on an interstate, even at peak times, while staying in one lane and matching your speed to that of the vehicle in front of you (up to the posted limit). Today’s cars with lane assist and adaptive cruise control are almost “autonomous” under those conditions.
One scenario that looks viable to me is for a licensed driver to drive an autonomous truck to a staging area on or near an interstate. Then a remote driver guides the truck to the interstate and engages the autopilot. Under normal conditions the truck will proceed on its own to its destination where it enters another staging area, shuts down, and is later driven by a human to the terminal for unloading, etc.
In the beginning one remote driver would monitor each vehicle from origin to destination. Later, after the system has proved successful, one driver could monitor multiple vehicles.
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Eventually autonomous cars and trucks will be the norm and human guided vehicles will only be allowed to operate on a single lane that is physically separated from the rest of the highway. 
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Yeah, that would make a lot of sense to me. Have the human for the trickiest parts, then basically have the long-haul / OTR part be handled by autopilot. And staging areas could be positioned near exits in a way such that getting to/from them wouldn’t be difficult.
The only real challenge in that scenario would be merging / lane changes in heavy traffic. But as long as we knew which lane the truck ultimately had to be in, and no quick changes were required, that would be easy enough. Just have the truck move over whenever it’s safe. 
In 2019 the average age of a commercial truck driver in the United States was 55. If the current trend continues it is estimated that we could have a shortage of 160,000 drivers by 2028.
A lot of companies are working on autonomous trucks. Here is an example of what I think is possible:
I love the real experience of driving w/ stick shift. I deliberately drove stick for over 20 years before I was forced to take an automatic as a company car. Really felt a bummer.
Now I have a Tesla and have to say though that it does feel quite futuristic when the car turns, accelerates, brakes and parks all by itself. Carpark summon is also fun, though still limited here in the UK.
Think US roads will be ready for self drive within the next 5 years. European infrastructure in too narrow and diverse to get it anytime soon. Though on motorways it will likely work sooner
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The “any unsafe driving activity” would solve a big problem for me. It’d get a lot of terrible drivers off the road because it seems some people cannot drive safely no matter their state of impairment or not.
Call me biased because I learned on and have only ever owned a “stick shift” (we call it “a manual”) and I’m not looking forward to having to replace my 15 year old car (which hasn’t skipped a beat its entire life) as it will basically have to have some form of automatic transmission unless I win the lottery and get my Ferrari. Even then I’ll have to do it soon.
I also think anything that makes a car harder to drive in rush hour traffic is a good thing, because a heck of a lot of people shouldn’t be doing that. Certainly in my city where we have a jolly good train service that most car commuters drive alongside.
… sadly, Ferrari only makes cars with dual clutch automatics now. It’s the least objectionable type of automatic though.
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I always thought a law banning people from driving during rush hour if they still owed money on their car would be a good idea. 
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I’m of a mixed mind regarding autonomous driving systems. I’m getting to an age where I have to consider not being able to drive in a decade or so. Having a self driving car could extend one’s mobility greatly. However, I do t think the technology and infrastructure is there yet. Just hope it’s there when I need it.
I have found some of the modern safety systems quite handy. Backup cameras with cross traffic alerts are great when pulling out of parking spaces. On a long solo trip I found the lane keeping alert to be an excellent indicator that I was getting tired and needed to stop for a break. The collision avoidance systems work well except when you have a bicycle rack on the back and the car thinks you’re about to back into something. All of them go nuts when going through a car wash.
Now if we can just keep people from texting while driving.
Oooh, I like your thinking. But then the rich idiot who drives their massive BMW SUV in an agressive manner (vehicle an actual example from a trip today, though I do not know the driver’s financial status) is going to be allowed on the road still.
A very interesting point. I am reminded of a friend of mine, in her 60s, who when discussing autonomous vehicles was asked when she thought they’d be “as good as humans” and her response was along the lines of “Oh, I sure hope they’re aiming WAY higher than that, otherwise what’s the point?”
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Absolutely not
Absolutely. There are entire counties in Colorado now with no EMS service at all. I’m lucky, we are only a couple of miles from a town with a volunteer EMS service and a 4WD ambulance. Iin a call out the vounteer fire department will also help and they also have at least 1 4WD vehicle. Heck back when we had snow and a neighbor needed an ambulance drive to the hospital in winter they called us and 911 at the same time. We got there before the ambulance. My husband ended up using our tractor to help get the ambulance unstuck, put chains on the other ambulance so it could transport him down and then helped rescue the fire engine that also got stuck on the road. Luckily the emergency wasn’t immediately life threatening.
Locally the issue is narrow 2 lane roads. The nearest stoplight is about 40 miles away. What we do have are slow tractors and farm equipment on the road, wildlife, rock and other debris that block the roads on occasion, lots of driveways and side roads that turn directly onto the 2 lane highway.
Our car (2020 Subaru) has a keep in lane feature that is always off for local driving. Otherwise it’s impossible to miss the dead skunks that other vehicles have hit as the car tries to correct you to keep you in the lane. Or to pull easily over to let the big semi-trucks carrying giant marble blocks get by. Or to go around the flag people trailing or leading cattle herds or sheep flocks traversing the roads. What about the bicycles who are riding on the white line beacsue there is gravel less than a foot off the pavement where you have to move over to pass them safely.
I think there are far too many edge cases in most of the US to have autonomous cars. Now if we had a totally separate transit system with physically isolated roads where all vehicles on it are autonomous I’d feel a lot better about it. But where are they going to put them? Heck, right now the major east west interstate, I 70 , is shut down for an unknown number of weeks due to rocklisdes in Glenwood Canyon and people are trying to thnk if they could even build another interstate across the mountians and where it might go.
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I think you just described driving in most parts of the world that aren’t large cities. The only real differences around the world are how far from a city centre you need to go to find these things.
You nicely described much of New Zealand’s roading system. I don’t mind the idea of a warning sound or light for lane departure, as I have drifted out of the lines a handful of times in my life, but gosh darn it I actually try to drive within the lines every time I go out in the car and I almost always succeed without help.
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I have the same feature on my car (2017 Honda) and, while I don’t find it poses any issues (it never tugs on the wheel with anything more than a very gentle nudge), I did find it amusing the first time that I edged out of a lane to give a cyclist more space and the car “expressed an interest” in doing the opposite; it felt as if the car was urging me to head toward the cyclist 
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“When AI goes bad: Tonight on 20/20.” 
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I logged thousands of miles on a bike in my younger days. I’ve had motorists break beer bottles in my path in an effort to puncture my tires and been cursed by them in at least three languages. Now you tell me your car was “urging” you to head toward the cyclist?
It sounds to me like Honda trained their A.I. using real world data. 
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“Look…you said it’s supposed to drive like a human. We trained it to drive like a human. If you don’t like it, revise the spec.”
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