That’s amazing, though I weep a little for that beautiful Bel Air.
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yeah but crumpled sheet metal is good (because in the absence of that, the force is transmitted to you). Stiff = injury, soft = safety (except directly around you). The jeeps (traditional, not the SUVs) typically rate pretty poorly on crash test, partly due to their open design, partly short wheelbase encourages spins/rollovers but also because the frame is optimized around off-roading which is very stiff so the forces are all transmitted to the occupants.
As an example I will have you stand in front of a fastball throwing machine, and you can pick a polycarbonate plate strapped directly on you, or a foam backed one…
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Well now, be fair. Wranglers rate pretty poorly on most on-road tests (excepting the “desirability” test). Consumer Reports calls it “hard-riding, ponderous, uncomfortable, and unreliable.”
Will the machine throw one ball or several in series? If in series, does the foam-backed chest plate continue to function after the first impact, or does it get destroyed in the process of protecting me from the first hit? After I am felled by the ball(s), will the machine be turned off or will a queue of waiting hitters come charging in and stand on me?
(and to be honest, while I would never find myself in any sort of proximity to a pitching machine, I wear a pressure-suit style protector for dirt biking, which is lots of foam-backed high-impact plastic. My helmet, being modern, is basically designed as a crumple zone and must be discarded in the event of an impact… even if it is the impact of being dropped from the truck onto the pavement in the parking lot.)
Crumple zones are good in certain situations, no arguments, but IMHO getting your kid advanced driver training will protect them more than buying them a shiny new car with driver-assistance and pedestrian-impact mitigation features.
My cousin, who has been working on google’s self-driving vehicle projects for several years, disagrees with me. He is of the opinion that humans should not be responsible for driving their own cars at all. Go figure.
also… whee!
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my car totaling accident was neither of our fault as impossible to see, and wasn’t even the first totaling accident that day there according to the fire dept. Nothing either of could have done to prevent it (now there is a light). Both of cars totaled. Both of us went to work because of passive and active safety systems. As someone who sees a lot of mangled people, more safety systems = better. Don’t disagree that better training helps. But stability control has saved my butt on black ice, etc before.
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I think a fully automated vehicle swarm is the way to go. No traffic lights. No stop signs. No drunk drivers. No texting teens. Just cars driving themselves. It would be beautiful. But then, so many things are on paper 
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well, until sentience, then there is the running, screaming and the killing…
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I for one truly enjoy driving (if only there weren’t other people on the road ;-))
While I see the efficiency of a fully automated vehicle swarm, I would certainly miss driving my own vehicle. I mentally play games while driving to get the best “path” through traffic, how to manipulate situations so I can get to my destination the quickest (within reason of course, I’m not one to jump into an on-ramp just to skip up a few places in line).
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sorry, i don’t buy that for a second. i mean in most accidents, one person isn’t really at fault. do you honestly think driver training is going to protect them from a drunk driver that crosses the median? the answer’s no.
not to mention that teenagers make all sorts of stupid mistakes; it’s part of being a teenager. why prioritize something that can be replaced over their lives??
i’m extremely glad we have safety laws on the books to mandate these things. i can’t wait until we see self-driving cars take off and accidents mostly become a thing of the past. naturally it’ll be a while since all the old cars have to die off, first, but even now, there’s solid evidence of self-driving and other driver assistance features doing substantial good for the drivers of those cars.
jokes aside: assuming that it’s even possible. we don’t know yet, and the arguments of strong v weak AI are ongoing.
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Even without sentience, there’s a serious goal-conflict problem for “smart” machines. It’s been playing out in the popular press as questions about whom self-driving cars should protect when trying to avoid collisions, but there are lots of other possibilities. As soon as you tell a program to maximize/optimize one measurable factor without giving lots of caveats, you’re in for an interesting ride.
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I absolutely love driving. I have always had manuals. I will do my best to always have them automated safety systems be damned. I would also give it all up if it meant taking control of vehicles away from drunks, distracted drivers, angry drivers, homicidal maniacs, and little old people in danger of spontaneously losing control at highway speeds. For the greater good, that’s the ONLY thing that could make me give up driving
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I will begrudgingly agree. I also love manual cars, and greatly prefer them over automatic or CVS vehicles any day.
(begin whine) But I still want to say that THEY should all be automated but I’m fine (end entitled 8 year old whine)
The biggest thing I would dread is leaving late, or something causes me to be late and I can’t get the automated car to go over the stated limits to make up time. BUT, the flip side is that with everything automated, travel times would become almost nauseatingly predictable and push us even further into a time controlled society.
I both love and loathe the unpredictability of driving, but still hate traffic (ESPECIALLY in a manual).
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i’m well aware, but the data already proves that self-driving cars are getting better and better, and that they’re already better than the majority of human drivers (in the situations currently being tested, at least).
this is an important philosophical and technical discussion to have, but it’s not sufficient evidence to suggest that they’re a bad idea.
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the upside is that for a long time to come, humans will be able to override controls like that. i don’t think legislation will mandate no-human-driving for a very long time. the real sticky situations imo: i can guarantee that once these become widespread, we’re going to see insurance companies ask for information on your driving data (some already offer an optional spy box to this purpose) with an eye to discounting your rates the fewer times you take control.
just cause we all know that movies are the best argument makers (sarcasm) iRobot is a decent example of automated driving gone wrong (;-))
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haha, sure. in the same vein that Maximum Overdrive is a great example of how semis can come to life and murder people.
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in this thread.
Oh, yer killin’ me here! SO adorable!
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Just about to say that…lol
My son was just asking also where are the flying cars? More room to move vertically…lol
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Thank you Joe…I was just thinking that…bring it back peeps…wanna see more baby pics. 
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Well, not so much a baby anymore (2 years old), but here’s my little one.
She loved those pants because she could fit her hands in the pockets, and she happened to be leaning on the wall and I was soo happy that I could get a photo before she ran off to something else. I call this one a small glimpse into her attitude years.
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