autonomous car next revolution?...

[seremtan]

which reminds me of some tree huger's idea of simple commuting vehicles, that can be be used and left at your destination, for someone else to use. You'd just summon one and be automatically charged for it's usage.

No more pizza boy tips!

They already have them with public bicycles that you can rent...just drop it off in a bike rack at your destination.
Doing it with cars shouldn't be too alien to most people, but the space requirements for housing all those public cars will be a problem....unless you're Mitt Romney and can just have the elevator bring your car down.

bear in mind that these cars will be so hideous that no one will want to be seen dead in one

at least if London's Boris bikes are anything to go by

[bitWISE]

His points on remote tracking and remote control/shutdown are somewhat valid. OnStar has been doing both of those things for years now. This is no reason to boycott a new industry but it is something we should be concerned about in the same way we have to worry about how friendly our ISP is with the gov.

[obsidian]

which reminds me of some tree huger's idea of simple commuting vehicles, that can be be used and left at your destination, for someone else to use. You'd just summon one and be automatically charged for it's usage.

My brother is part of a car share program. He has a few cars parked by his condo, a couple of compacts, a sedan or two, and an SUV. If he needs a car, he just swipes his card and picks a car. Fees include gas and insurance. He says that it's a lot cheaper than actually owning a car and having to pay for gas and insurance separately. Coupled with public transit, he hasn't had a need to own a car.

The car share works well when you need to use a car to run some errands around town. Not so much when you need to commute to work since they charge per hour and you'll leave it parked for 8 hours. It's an interesting alternative for people who live in urban environments who need the flexibility between using public transit on a normal basis and having a car at their disposal when you need to pick up a lot of groceries or a big box from IKEA.

Also, rental bikes are indeed hideous. We have those in Toronto as well. An urban commuter doesn't have to look like it's made by PlaySkool.

[EtUL]

It does if you don't want people to steal them.

[DTS]

... the dying breed of the few car enthusiasts that will surely die out within 3-4 generations.

We will never die!

[scared?]

yeah ya will...my offspring will make sure of it...any questions?...

[plained]

i'd drive those barclays bikes around london for sure!

[Tsakali]

... the dying breed of the few car enthusiasts that will surely die out within 3-4 generations.

We will never die!

don't get me wrong , I love driving... but traffic, sadistic levels of law enforcement and a completely flat level grid like street infrastructure has sucked the life out of any fun that can possibly be had. I'd rather not do any driving at all these days.

[Captain]

My brother is part of a car share program. He has a few cars parked by his condo, a couple of compacts, a sedan or two, and an SUV.

I'm sure the owners of those cars call it something else.

[obsidian]

...oh wai...

[HomerJ]

This is pretty cool. Think about how much nicer people would be in general without getting in a bad mood from the morning commute stress before their day has even really begun. Haha I swear, some people carry that shit attitude around all day.
You could even have a beer and watch the game

it would be totally awesome if u could just send ur car to pick up ppl and drive them to your location on its own...

That's a cool idea but I wonder how it would verify the intended passenger is the one picked up. I guess it would have to be someone with access to another set of keys, like a spouse or other family member. Which would kinda limit your idea...but it's better than having some homeless dude get in your car and all the sudden you have serial-killer-drifter-man on the way to your house instead of your buddy who's waiting at the airport.

They already have them with public bicycles that you can rent...just drop it off in a bike rack at your destination.
Doing it with cars shouldn't be too alien to most people, but the space requirements for housing all those public cars will be a problem....unless you're Mitt Romney and can just have the elevator bring your car down.

Bicycles aren't potential deadly weapons...at least not without some imagination. Some idiot gets on a bicycle when he hasn't ridden in 30 years and crashes and scrapes his knee - who cares....some idiot gets behind the wheel of a vehicle when he hasn't driven in 30 years and crashes into an innocent person - big deal.

[GONNAFISTYA]

Or how about just not letting someone who hasn't renewed their driver's license in 30 years drive one?

[HomerJ]

Or how about just not letting someone who hasn't renewed their driver's license in 30 years not drive one?

maybe I'm kinda confused how your idea is a new one. If you're just talking about rental car services...we have those. Unless you rent from some backwoods local dealership, most places let you drop the vehicle off at the closest dealership or center to your destination.

And the 30 years thing wasn't really my point, it was just a poor example. My point is that you can't compare bicycles to vehicles because there are obviously many more liability concerns when it comes to automobiles.

[GONNAFISTYA]

I get your point about the differences to public safety between a bike and a car, but car rental services aren't the "pick up/drop off" type of system we're discussing.

I don't think I intimated that there weren't going to be minimal requirements to use the system, but that the actual public acceptance of such systems now being everywhere.

And yeah....Montreal has the same ugly bikes as everyone else.

[Scourge]

lol wut

that's over 2 1/2 times the traffic fatality rate of the UK.

Yeah, but with 5+ times the population.

[seremtan]

i can tell basic maths isn't your strong point, randolph. UK has 2.5k fatal traffic accidents p.a. out of a population of 60m. US has ~33k out of 300m

33k / 5 = ~6.5k, and 6.5k is roughly 2 1/2 times 2.5k (2.6x if you want to be pedantic). if the US had the same fatality rate as UK it would see only 12.5k fatalities

or, you could have just understood the word 'rate'

[Scourge]

Simple oversight on my part.

[HM-PuFFNSTuFF]

Simple oversight on my part.

Fine but you don't have to get angry about it...

[LawL]

Randy got schooled.

[Scourge]

I knew you'd be along shortly to add your 1/4 cent worth. But that's ok. I know you don't have anything better to do.

[LawL]

Randy sure knows a lot.

[Scourge]

I knew you'd be back.

[Captain]

I knew you'd be mad.

[LawL]

I knew you'd be back.

knew u...