darcyw

My commute is all of 5-7 minutes. Those of us in smaller towns don't have to worry about the commute. I live in an interesting city- no one drives the speed limit- usually 10-15 over- we're always in a rush to get somewhere. Our bussing system sucks and most everyone drives. So, this makes us all better drivers, able to contend with the mayhem around us at speed.

When autonomy comes, you can bet people will lose the skills to drive with...well...skill. How will we keep up our abilities and not be a bunch of nervous nellies bitching about the assholes driving like assholes?

we'll see who's right in the coming decades.
darcy

haga888

I think a lot of your perspective on autonomous cars will be driven by where you live and work and how you commute. I live downtown TO, work downtown TO, and drive because I have parking at work. I can say with utmost confidence that a computer will be better than the average driver I come across daily and it will improve traffic and likely reduce the amount of dead cyclists and pedestrians. Just programming it not to stop in a live traffic lane to get coffee, pick up or drop off, etc would improve traffic exponentially. Why do buses or streetcars need to be driven by people? They have a set route, set stops, and dedicated lanes in the case of streetcars. I think the problem in high density areas is that humans constantly violate the actual rules of the road (some of which were written by idiots to begin with but I digress). And that's all humans whether they drive cars, bicycles, or are pedestrians. Reducing the ability to violate those rules I don't see how it makes things less safe.

Now if you live somewhere where there is more moderate traffic and you don't have intersections every 50 metres and traffic lights every 200 metres, while sharing the roads with Taxi's, Ubers, buses, streetcars, delivery trucks, cyclists, etc. that are all on the roads to do something different than you, the upside to autonomous cars is probably far less.

Which is not to say I'm likely to ever buy an autonomous car unless I'm forced to. But I think everyone that will read this has a passion for driving. The average person I do not believe does. You don't buy a Toyota Camry or a minivan as your only car if you give a **** about driving it yourself. It's just a tool.

zeroptzero

^ I'm just betting that some engineer forgets one key bit of important information when programming their systems and it leads to someone being killed. One of the first Tesla deaths was due to a white transport truck pulling in front of a Tesla and the camera system could not distinguish a white truck from a white sky/background and the car plowed straight. When you rely on humans to make decisions that can affect one's life or death chances are that someone along the chain of commman always screws up, and you see that more and more in today's society. I guess if 10,000 people get killed under autonomous driving vs. 100,000 in today's normal driving that it would be considered a success, and the insurance companies for the auto makers will have very deep pockets and dole out $100,000 for each life that is lost, or whatever miniscule value they put on a human life.

Hey Darcy I drive in Sarnia all the time, I think everyone there drives 10 km under the speed limit, It has to be the slowest moving traffic in all of Ontario with no traffic jams to speak of, lol.

zeroptzero

I brought home the 19 WRX today , while the car drives great I had a cool buying experience as well. While I appreciated the low pressure simple sales approach, the car delivery process was pretty cool. The car came from Kingston and was delivered outside of the dealership a few days back, it was a bit dirty given weather conditions as it was unloaded from a truck.

The car was cleaned up an prepped and then it was moved into the showroom. When I arrived today it was there shiny and new and nice and warm on the showroom floor. We were able to go through all of the vehicle details in the comfort and warmth of the showroom. Then they gave me a gift basket and took a picture of me beside the vehicle. Then upon completion of the delivery process I drove the car out of the showroom and sent on my way. Given how crappy the weather is this time of the year it was cool experience to drive out of the showroom. I thought that was a neat way to do it.

zeroptzero

Sitting on my arse in Toronto airport since 5 am, on our way to Antigua, I've had enough of this winter crap. No S2ki for me for the next week, lol.

Best way to beat March break is to leave a couple days early, not overly busy today at the airport, just perfect. I'd rather not see this airport in a couple days lol

darcyw

yup...yuma, AZ for us- flying out of DTW allows us to avoid the passport control at PHX. Doing a Turo rental- Fusion AWD twin turbo v6...some great roads to enjoy from Yuma to San Diego too!
darcy

zeroptzero

we did 13 years of road trips through the southern US, loved every one of them. The only thing I'll be driving on this vacation is a jet ski, lol, Happy motoring pal !

zeroptzero

I came across a couple of cool Honda's in my travels in Antigua, from what I was told they are dirt cheap to import from Japan. Honda Integra R DC5 and Honda Stepwagon van. The Stepwagon is quite a cool size compared to their North American minivan, I think it would have sold well in North America.

afzan

hopefully not against the rules, facebook group for Southern Ontario s2000 buy/sell: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1270113509811643/

fernando.

I'm not going to say I miss my S2000 per se.. but with this warmer spring weather approaching I AM missing the feeling of rowing through the gears of a manual car.