I not only drive to and from work, but because I'm in construction I also spend a portion of my day driving either to the job site or between job sites, often hauling a trailer that weighs over double what my truck does.

Just this morning I had a woman swearing at me and giving me the finger, with her two small children in the vehicle, because I abided by the 4-way stop outside an elementary school and she tried to run it.

Between the cell phone users, and the middle aged women in their SUV's that can't do a shoulder check or read a single lane sign, and the guy with the chronic one-upsman syndrome who guns it to 30 over the limit just to pass you on the highway and go slightly under the limit.

IMO only about 20% of people on the road actually follow the rules because they know they're right and help keep them and their passengers safe. Then there's probably another 60% who generally follow the rules simply because they don't want to get a ticket. The last 20% just don't give a shit, do what they want, when they want and god forbid they don't get it.

I'd also say there's an additional 10-30% who are purely seasonal drivers known the other 7-9 months as "cyclists". They only come out in the winter, and are likely responsible for as many if not more accidents than inclement weather. Living in southern ontario I actually dread the roads on that first heavy snow because, no joking around, I'm actually worried I'm going to kill someone and it won't be my fault.

I don't think driving is doing society any good except at providing a way for the stupid, and the stupidly unfortunate, ways out of the genetic pool.

Are you really saying that many cyclists who switch to driving in the winter are characteristically terrible drivers? This is just really at odds with my cycling experience - A biker always needs to be on the defensive just based on the fact that the average driver is likely to not even perceive a smaller vehicle. Even though I haven't seriously biked in several years, I'm still generally aware of what most cars are going to do before they actually do it. (Then again, I guess I've also seen my share of moronic bikers - the kind that think they don't really need to think about what they're doing as long as they're doing it slowly). The first snow is indeed always a mess of bad drivers, but I blame that on people forgetting how slippery snow really is.

It's not so much the snow, it's that the cyclists disappear when it starts getting near freezing, which is the exact time you get a bunch of awful drivers on the road.

I don't mean to say all bikers are bad drivers, I'm just saying the correlation between the two events (the absence of cyclists from the roadways and the new presence of masses of bad drivers) is uncanny.

There's always the bad cyclists that just scare the crap out of you, like the 60-70 year old man who's wobbling about 2 feet from side to side, essentially rendering the bike lane useless. But in my experience as a driver, I've only seen a handful - and by handful I mean one or two - cyclists that actually obey the rules of the road. I see them run red lights and stop signs, I see them go on the side walk to cut past cars to make a right turn. etc

In my experience it is the cyclists who are trained to keep a careful eye on everyone else on the road and anticipate what others are going to do, because if they do not, they die. People who are always driving are much less aware of what their high speed air-bagged (only on the inside, of course) steel tanks can do to a human body, especially if the thing they might hit is just 70kg and not a 2 metric tonne object.

Speaking as a person who has had several accidents with cars while biking and zero accidents while driving.

"Living in southern ontario I actually dread the roads on that first heavy snow because, no joking around, I'm actually worried I'm going to kill someone and it won't be my fault."

Yeah, in Calgary people lose their shit when there's a light dusting of snow... it's ridiculous.

We didn't used to drive. We used to fall onto our horses drunk and trust the well trained beast to carry us back home.

Yet somehow, we built our way to modern society from those humble beginnings.

Self-driving cars are a step backwards to a benefit we previously attained gratis from animals. For instance, in remote parts of the world where mules are still used for transportation, farmers on the mountain top load their mule with the days goods then let it navigate home (e.g. 'in take') all by itself.

Mules don't get lost, run away from danger, and feed themselves on their way to the destination. They navigate treacherous terrain and need no looking after on their way. If we had a truck with the basic intelligence of a mule, it'd be a godsend to industry.

A car with the intelligence of a palfrey---enough to not run into things, and maintain a smooth ride regardless of terrain/environment----would be an amazing luxury vehicle.

"A car with the intelligence of a palfrey---enough to not run into things"

The transition into a world with only self-driving cars brings up the issue of pedestrians and other drivers with malicious intent. Your car is going 120km/h and someone purposefully jumps in front of the car; what does the car do? Or maybe other drivers would try to snake their way through traffic like an emergency vehicle by attacking this accident avoidance system vulnerability. Do we record all these instances on camera and report them automatically to police?

The car reaction time < smaller than yours it also has a better idea of it's surrounding and I bet could pick a much safer course of action than you in a .5 second time frame.

Accidents won't disappear but I do think that if a child jumps in front an autonomous car (lets say in 5-10 years) then that child has a higher chance to survive than if a human wild be driving that car.

Exactly. An autonomous car can make the decision to swerve into the empty lane next to you much faster than you ever could, if for nothing else than increased situational awareness. The sensors are monitoring a 360 degree view constantly, we are nowhere near that.

I'm interested in hearing how their system is expected to work in adverse weather conditions. I doubt that the LIDAR system would work in rain and snow, ice and other hidden ground features might be a problem, and I wonder how well their radar works in these conditions too.

No, privately owned horses were always a rarity. Walking was the dominant form of transportation in all towns and cities.

Cars are definitely great because they're easy to mass produce, and require far less maintenance than a horse. We're able to drive down cost on maintenance and production with replaceable parts---something that's a lot harder to achieve in a living organism.

That's what makes cars an ubiquity today.

Of-course I'm getting off topic....

Think about it though---a car with the intelligence of a horse but far more tame. Beautiful product.

As a New Yorker who doesn't even have a car (and gets to take the subway everywhere), I've gotta say that I think we'll do alright.