>>>OTOH, if they be segregated, nice. All the bad drivers should be confined to these train chain roads, so they can text at will, fix their makeup and generally let us drive on the rest of the roads, good riddance.
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>>I dreamed up the road train example just to prime the pump, there will no doubt be many others.
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>>As for "all the uses of cars..." etc. - that doesn't address the real issue(s), namely:
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>>- Human drivers don't get those "outliers" right all the time either. The majority are not as good as they think they are e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority#Driving_ability . Human driving screwups are so legion and legendary that we've become inured, only the most egregious cases are considered noteworthy
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>Like I said - most of those careless drivers will go for SD.It's not that they are irresponsible - they mostly don't want the responsibility in the first place. So let them.
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>>- In a rational world SD vehicles don't have to "think of all of that" or be perfect, they just have to be better than humans. Even with no roadside telemetry at all SD vehicles should at some point be able to outperform humans. Think multifrequency radar/infrared or other sensors in dark, foggy conditions etc. GPS navigation can still work even if all street lights are out during a power failure. But of course it's not a rational world, to be accepted SD vehicles will have to have a failure rate a fraction of HD vehicles (10% ? 5% ? 1% ? - that's an interesting social question). Still, at some point it will tip, and people will trust SD cars more than HD.
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>Just like in case of most other machinery, nobody likes an automatic that you can't switch to manual at will. As a matter of principle, as an axiom. But if you prefer the western inductive thinking, I can start composing an endless list of situations where the automatic would be a hindrance and would create exactly the kind of "Modern times" (Chaplin) or Jacques Tati situation where a human is caught in the machine which he can't turn off. The lack of control, the designer of the machine thinking that he's covered all the situation (but really only about 90%) and that he in absentia knows your situation better than you in presentia, well, that's trouble waiting to happen.
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>>Just because some arguments for SD cars sound "corporate" doesn't mean they're necessarily wrong. It's going to take the skills and resources of large companies to effect major change. I'd suggest Tesla is an example of the smallest size of company that can take on this challenge. With their Model 3 they have a huge risk and opportunity, they've truly grabbed the tiger by the tail.
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>I don't care how it sounds, as long as I can't turn it off at will but it can turn my machine off at will - well, it's not my car anymore.
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>>I was going to ignore the "thugs with guns" scenario (however Hollywood that sounds [or maybe things are different in Serbia ;-)?]).
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>Not in my experience, but then perhaps I live in a more civilized city than the average. There are probably parts of Belgrade where such things do happen. And I guess they'd just be able to roll a garbage can on the road to make your car detect an obstacle, or even something simpler - a piece of sheet metal - and your car will stop.
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>> But that sort of leads back to Jos' earlier comments about loss of autonomy. One possible way to address that would be to have an emergency/"Mayday" function. If a vehicle occupant declares a mayday that would allow the vehicle to ignore local ordinances in the interest of occupant safety. It might be subject to post-incident review. There would need to be some limits to that e.g. I can't load my vehicle with 1/2 a ton of explosives, declare a mayday then drive into the middle of a presidential motorcade. Might need some hierarchy of authority or trust to handle those situations.
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>Nice. So every time I detect a pothole that I can veer around or drive slightly zig-zag to avoid outstanding manhole covers (we have a lot of those here - the terrain is vertically mobile), I'd have to go through a dialog? Would the SD car detect an animal on the road - and what's the minimal size of it? A kitten, a pigeon? Pigeons have bred themselves into avoiding cars at regular speeds; kittens not as much, and they can be smaller than pigeons. How can the SD detect whether the dog on the curb is about to cross the street or not? Can it judge the dog's behavior the same as I can? How about children playing on the pavement? We have them, in my street, at least seven months a year - how will the SD know when the children have acknowledged the approaching car and moved sufficiently to the side for me to safely pass?
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>Whenever someone says they have the software which will handle ALL cases, I generally think it's ALL covered by a try-catch. Well, I don't like the catch.

In the short term SD cars will require that humans take over in tricky situations. As machines learn those will become fewer and fewer.

The "mayday" scenario was not for potholes or manhole covers any more than a human would consider those emergencies. As for the rest of those scenarios, ask Google. If you don't like the answer, ask again 6 months from now. Rinse & repeat.

Many years ago I programmed a CNC mill to carve my initials into a block of acrylic, and saw a pen plotter in action for the first time. I marveled at the inhuman speed and precision. The possibilities are endless. Make no mistake, one day machines will be better drivers than humans.