Driverless cars & trains

[RobertInOntario]

I just dropped my son off at his middle school and traffic was crazy. The roads are narrow because of all the snow banks (so passing by oncoming traffic is a challenge, often with only one car being able to get by at a time) and there were kids & adults walking around everywhere from all sorts of directions. I thought how on earth would a self-driving car figure out how to weave through all this!

I can see this new technology being used, however, on the highway as a sort of high-tech cruise-control system -- that makes sense. But then you'd still have to make decisions about how to navigate around traffic jams (i.e. whether to exit the freeway and find a detour), maneuvering around an accident in one of the lanes, moving over for a police car whizzing by in pursuit of someone or driving around a slow-moving convoy of trucks. I can think of all sorts of instances where human decision would be needed.

Rob