No no, I have gleaned what I wished to know, and have vented cathartically, and this new thread direction is most interesting.
And yes, I do think self-driving cars will become a reality, but the biggest obstacles will be political and social, not technological. There was an interesting series of articles on Ars Technica about this not so long ago.
I would be sad to have to ride in self-driving cars and would resist such a change
Well I know I certainly enjoy driving.
same, I enjoy driving and would want to do it myself
Not too late there at all :$
The thought did go through my mind, but there was assorted crap covering the stripes, and a car in that lane, so it was too risky.
Was going to say it turned out not to be too far until I could stop and turn around, but seems it was over 8 miles. Heh.
I think self-driving cars are an inevitability but won't be with us for a long time. Mainly because the vast majority don't want them, but once fuel shortages really bite I suspect there will be a bit more pressure on it. You'll certainly soon struggle to buy a car that doesn't change gear for you if you don't change soon enough (bit like Smart cars do, or at least ones I've been in), more conservative rev limiting, and various other measures that take some control away. You've already got auto-parking and auto-braking becoming more widespread. It'll be little by little.
I reckon there'll still be scope for off-roading and things like that manually. And I dunno if this will happen in my lifetime necessarily.
You say "vast majority don't want them" - is this actually the case? I really would like to see a proper survey done on this.
And sure, motorsports I think will be around for a long time, and possibly even roads marked as 'recreational' where people can do all the driving they like.
One of the issues raised in the Ars article was safety - who's responsible if a self-driving car causes an accident? What happens if a self-drive is involved in a crash with a normal car?
It also mentioned how even though there are tons of crashes every day, the second a self-drive car is involved in an accident (not even necessarily causes it) the media will go hysterical.