Greetings, It's been a while since I've written anything on a blog, but let's jump right into it!
I was watching a great Youtube video by AI DRIVR about Full Self Driving (FSD) in a Tesla that you can watch here:
FSD BETA takes on San Francisco - YouTube
This video brings you up to speed on the FSD Beta that current Teslas are capable of if you opt-in to Full Self Driving in the menu. Additionally, this is on the Assertive profile setting which is the most aggressive, and in one of the most challenging city driving in San Francisco. Worthy of a watch, with great commentary on top of all of that!
So it struck me with the thought that self driving cars and robot taxis are going to force pedestrians and other human drivers to deal with the way that self driving cars drive. When you watch the video you see times when the car will make a legal maneuver but either it would require complex thinking or being overly cautious (defense driving?) to drive in a safer manner and possibly avoid an accident.
It quickly becomes clear that other drivers and people walking on the street are not realizing that there can be fully automatic FSD cars driving around and may not navigate, respond, or react like a human would.
This is just blowing my mind right now. For example, when a computer puts the car in a legal place or tries to complete legal driving with probably the legal right of way, there are going to be times when a person driving is going to accidently crash into them. Everything will be recorded on cameras and sensors, of course, so those drivers better be prepared to accept the consequences!
Hopefully this leads to not only safer driving through self driving cars, but also the way people share the road with them and fellow drivers. After all, a person may be in the driver's seat, but they may not be driving the car at all! We clearly are in the future.