Mazda Finds 71% of Europeans Don't Want Full Self-Driving Cars

[Famine]

It's fairly simple, I'd say. It could be to reaccommodate staff, it could be for security reasons, it could even be that the airline is massively racist and simply didn't want a man of Vietnamese decent onboard. The airline and the security aren't going to suddenly change their minds about the decision, so ultimately there's no scenario in which the day won't end with you getting off the plane one way or another.

Indeed - but it highlighted the gross unfairness and the overall sense that, to airlines, you may as well be cattle. And he made a lot of money from United being a pack of wet dicks.

Going back to the flight vs. autonomy thing, I can't really relate. Again it depends on several factors, but I'd have to be seriously hindered by all the airport stuff to select a night in the back of a moving van over a short plane hop. Living where I live at the moment, I leave my flat about 4.5 hours before departure to get a flight at Heathrow (if I wasn't concerned about traffic, it'd be 3.5 hours).

If I was going to say, Geneva, that's a 1.5 hour flight on top of that. Providing the flight itself is on time - and most are, realistically - it's six hours for me from leaving my front door to wheels-down in Geneva (or five, if I'm lucky with M1 and M25 traffic and have the balls to leave only 1.5 hours to get to the airport...). Or I could spend 11 hours in the back of an autonomous van.

Probably around eight of which I'd actually be sleeping for (provided it was comfortable enough to do so, and assuming all this travelling takes place in the middle of the night where I'd not be doing anything anyway), so I'd still have three hours (or more) to kill on the road in the back of a van.

Given the choice of six hours of getting somewhere and having five extra hours to kill pre- or post-travel, or 11 hours of which eight might be asleep, I'd take the air travel and the free time not spent in a metal box.

Or, given the Geneva example, I'd drive the 11 hours myself (only 2.5 of which would be the awful UK bit), listening to music and podcasts, stopping for food and ablutions occasionally and, given the French leg of the trip is mostly on empty motorway, not really feeling overly worn down or stressed in the first place. Having done the trip myself a few times anyway, I could probably knock off an hour or more from the AV's time doing speeds the AV would be programmed not to do...

I'm old, fat and lazy. Given the choice between getting up at mental'o'clock in the morning, driving from my old office in Gosport to Heathrow (1hr), milling around at Heathrow for 2hr (after being ogled by a robot and having my bag swabbed for drugs, again), spending 90 minutes in the air and another 30 minutes getting through post-Brexit security on the other end or setting off the night before in my magic van and catching a sackful of zeds for 11 hours, pass me the duvet and the hot chocolate. Never mind heading back afterwards - it'd turn a work day out to Geneva into a literal day, rather than three*. Or the airline seats, food and the fact you have to sit next to/in front of/behind disgusting human beings who have no idea how to behave around other people, and inhale 3% carbon dioxide and 11% farts for that hour and a half.

I wonder what the comparative prices are too. Parking might be a wrinkle also.


*Although the last time I went it took 29 days...

 

[Eh Team]

To play devil's advocate with someone like @Eh Team above, is the problem there that your commute is boring, or is it that you live three hours from where you work, rather than say, 15 minutes away?

The problem is that I don't live where I work. Commuting in a car is essentially wasted time in my mind, especially anything over half an hour one way. That's time I could be sleeping or doing any other plethora of things.

My optimal commute would be at most a 5 minute walk. I want to eliminate the fantastically boring/annoying driving among other road users as much as possible. If I don't have to get in a car to go to work each morning then I'm doing myself and the world a favour by reducing pollution and traffic.

The autonomous car would be an intermediary device that takes me to work hours away but I would attend 0% focus on getting there.

 

[MisterWaffles]

Who would want to buy a self-driving Porsche 911 in 2030? On a website full of car enthusiasts I'm surprised people being so accepting of full-automation of the roadways. Luxury car brands that pride themselves on the driving experience are going to be in trouble soon.

 

[Northstar]

To play devil's advocate with someone like @Eh Team above, is the problem there that your commute is boring, or is it that you live three hours from where you work, rather than say, 15 minutes away?

Keep in mind not everyone works in the same place every day. I've been on job sites ranging anywhere from 3 minutes to 1.5 hours from my house. And that's only if I have one stop on a day, there's been days where I spend more time driving from one job to another than actually working at the job.

 

[homeforsummer]

Indeed - but it highlighted the gross unfairness and the overall sense that, to airlines, you may as well be cattle. And he made a lot of money from United being a pack of wet dicks.

He did, so in the end I guess he's done okay out of acting like a toddler and bashing his nose on an armrest regardless.

From what I can deduce, all the passengers were offered money to leave the flight, and everyone refused. Four were then picked, three of whom weren't idiots so left of their own accord. It seems more unfair that the three who didn't act like toddlers probably got a three- or low-four figure sum for their troubles and the 69-year old guy who did got seven figures and probably far more respect than he deserves from every other airline he travels with for the rest of his life.

Never mind heading back afterwards - it'd turn a work day out to Geneva into a literal day, rather than three*.

Well... two really, a day there and then half a day either side for travel. At least where I am at the moment, I wouldn't be expected to be in the office on those days of travel either, whereas if I went in the Snooze Van overnight there and back I'd have to be at my desk for the full day before and after being in Geneva...

The problem is that I don't live where I work.

Absolutely - which is why I brought it up. It's a societal issue and one of the reasons we have massive amounts of traffic (and by extension, everyone wants AVs) in the first place.

Now people have limited control over where they live and work, and I don't know what you do for a living so perhaps it's completely unavoidable, but clearly it's not optimal to be working three hours from where you live. If you were only 15 minutes away (purely as an example), then an AV would probably be pointless (and you'd have much more free time too).

Keep in mind not everyone works in the same place every day. I've been on job sites ranging anywhere from 3 minutes to 1.5 hours from my house. And that's only if I have one stop on a day, there's been days where I spend more time driving from one job to another than actually working at the job.

Of course, which is why I only highlighted it as an example. Not everyone has a job where they wake up, drive 30 minutes to an office, stay there for 8 hours and drive 30 minutes back.

An autonomous vehicle is clearly more useful for some people than it is for others, but it doesn't change the fundamental problem that causes us to "need" AVs in the first place - that of there being too many cars on the road.

 

[Famine]

He did, so in the end I guess he's done okay out of acting like a toddler and bashing his nose on an armrest regardless.

Well, more being turfed off a flight after he'd already boarded for what turned out to be no reason whatsoever, and trying to reason with staff that his flight was important not to him but to the patients he had waiting for him at the other end. Though he should have realised that people are just livestock to plane companies.

And that's all that autonomous cars have to be better than to be more compelling to paying customers... It's a pretty low bar, which South Park addressed with Mr. Garrison's machine that, despite being controlled by a variety of penises and requiring rectal insertion, was still held to be a better alternative than flying domestically in the USA.

Well... two really, a day there and then half a day either side for travel. At least where I am at the moment, I wouldn't be expected to be in the office on those days of travel either, whereas if I went in the Snooze Van overnight there and back I'd have to be at my desk for the full day before and after being in Geneva...

Swings and roundabouts

On the bright side, you could probably claim days in lieu.

 

[Northstar]

Who would want to buy a self-driving Porsche 911 in 2030? On a website full of car enthusiasts I'm surprised people being so accepting of full-automation of the roadways. Luxury car brands that pride themselves on the driving experience are going to be in trouble soon.

A Porsche? Probably not many.

This?

I would have an automated version of in a second.

 

[Eh Team]

Who would want to buy a self-driving Porsche 911 in 2030? On a website full of car enthusiasts I'm surprised people being so accepting of full-automation of the roadways. Luxury car brands that pride themselves on the driving experience are going to be in trouble soon.

I think you're missing the point a bit. We all love driving, when there is good road for driving on or interesting conditions to drive in. What I and others are trying to avoid are boring and frustrating commuting miles staring at the taillights of the car ahead. Commuting is time tied up in the tedious task of driving at the speed limit or flow of traffic. I might watch paint dry the first time I'm on a commute in one because that's more interesting than commuting in rush hour, or getting up to beat rush hour at "mental o'clock" as @Famine so eloquently put it.

 

[homeforsummer]

Well, more being turfed off a flight after he'd already boarded for what turned out to be no reason whatsoever, and trying to reason with staff that his flight was important not to him but to the patients he had waiting for him at the other end. Though he should have realised that people are just livestock to plane companies.

I'm certainly not siding with the airline here, but the outrage at what happened to this particular bloke was lost on me. As before, there is no scenario where the airline changes its mind, and that's the point at which you act like an adult and leave the plane, dealing with any situations that might arise as a result.

And that's all that autonomous cars have to be better than to be more compelling to paying customers...

It would be, except screaming at flight attendants and ground crew and being dragged off a plane isn't something that actually happens to regular paying customers, at least not those with any common sense or dignity. In reality autonomous cars have to be better than everything going relatively smoothly, in this particular short haul vs. sleeper van example.

Swings and roundabouts

On the bright side, you could probably claim days in lieu.

I'm not sure the company would accept days in lieu for time you spent asleep...

 

[Famine]

I'm not sure the company would accept days in lieu for time you spent asleep...

I would say that they sometimes paid me for being asleep in the office, but I couldn't possibly comment

 

[Wolfe]

Commuting in a car is essentially wasted time in my mind, especially anything over half an hour one way. That's time I could be sleeping or doing any other plethora of things.

I tend to think of sleeping as more of a waste of time than even commuting. Outside of sitting in traffic, driving a car is engaging and fulfilling. The reason traffic sucks is because it's keeping me from driving.

All my life I've always been drawn to "piloting" things; go-karts, RC cars, my grandfather's riding lawnmower, racing games, flight sims, MechWarrior games, etc. The reason I swear by manual transmission is because of what it adds to that experience. It's enjoyable to row gears and drive the curvy valley roads where we live, even if it's just going to the grocery store.

My wife is with me for most of the driving I do, and we talk about anything that comes to mind, lots of great conversations spurred by the almost-meditative quality of cruising down the road. Or I listen to music. Some roads are more tedious than others, but that's one reason I chose to live where I am now, where few roads are straight or flat. Like @homeforsummer, though, I actually enjoy long-distance trips. I think there's a primitive urge in us from our hunter-gatherer or nomadic days to cover distance, and road trips scratch that itch.

 

[homeforsummer]

Like @homeforsummer, though, I actually enjoy long-distance trips.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure if I was required to do the same long trip as a commute fairly regularly the appeal might start to wear thin, but it's certainly very traffic-dependent. Given the choice of a three-hour commute over say 150 miles and a three-hour commute over 50 miles because of traffic, I'd take the three hours of actually feeling like I'm getting somewhere by a long shot.

Unfortunately, in the UK the latter situation is far more likely than the former (it's taken me three hours to get between my apartment and the airport more than once - 70 miles door-to-door) and that's really not much fun.

But generally, I love driving long distances. If I was out in the sticks in the US somewhere and had a long commute that was basically traffic-free, I'd still want to do that journey myself rather than hand it to an AV and get those three hours back to do nothing much.

I think there's a primitive urge in us from our hunter-gatherer or nomadic days to cover distance, and road trips scratch that itch.

I definitely think that plays into it. I think modern life and most jobs are quite unfulfilling psychologically, but the satisfaction of operating a vehicle and using it to go from one place to another is one of few things we do (outside of manual labour jobs and procreation) that satisfies us on a primal level.

 

[TexRex]

I tend to think of sleeping as more of a waste of time than even commuting.

I know you realize this, and I'm choosing to point it out for effect rather than to clarify something that I think needs clarifying...we're discussing autonomous vehicles because we're given to accept that they are an eventuality. Transportation is necessary because our way of life deems it necessary and technology is opening up more possibilities. Sleep is necessary because our bodies deem it necessary and, as far as I know, there isn't a viable alternative available to the common man. Could those hours be spent doing something else? Well, yeah. Would that something else be more productive? I'd argue it would not, since sleep is necessary for most of us to function properly.

Edit:

Perhaps the discussion should be whether limiting public roads to autonomous vehicles should ever be mandated. Assuming society manages to stick around long enough to see that future, I suspect it will come to that, but in the nearer future, once autonomous vehicles become accepted, it will be limited to technology that one must opt into, and while there may be vehicles without provisions for manual operation, the overwhelming majority will likely merely feature the capability to operate itself.

 

[Joey D]

The elephant in the room is that you'd still be creeping along at 10mph in an autonomous car, you just wouldn't have to be concentrating on it.

I'd rather a system where I didn't have to waste my life in traffic in the first place, instead of inventing a device to make those wasted hours pass by a little easier. Lots of companies have these grand plans that you can use the time for socialising or (god forbid) as part of your working day, but the root of the issue is that people are spending hours each morning and evening sitting in a moving box, not what is controlling that moving box.

It struck me a while back that I don't actually find motorway journeys that boring. I've done huge road trips through Europe and the US and enjoyed just sitting there, clicking off the miles on an empty highway. What's boring and demoralising is doing so in traffic, and taking 50% longer to do a given trip than it should for a given distance. The monotony of commuting is more in having to share the roads with other commuters than it is in the trip itself.

To play devil's advocate with someone like @Eh Team above, is the problem there that your commute is boring, or is it that you live three hours from where you work, rather than say, 15 minutes away?

Sure, I'm still moving at 10 mph, but if I don't need to concentrate on the road I can pretty much be doing anything else. I could have my laptop and go through the thousands of e-mails I get a day instead of doing it at night. I could take a 45-minute nap. Or I could just catch up on a TV show.

I do agree that a system where traffic isn't an issue is a valid solution, however, I can't see that working without self-driving cars. People, for the most part, are horrendous drivers which is why we have traffic in the first place. With a majority of cars on the road able to talk to one another and adjust based on an algorithm, you'd probably not have traffic.

With regards to highway journeys, I don't mind them either. When I drove from Michigan to Utah, the only bad thing was my truck couldn't really go above 95 mph, which made the 100mph+ speed in Nebraska a bit unnerving. Past that just sitting back and cruising with only the radio was nice, especially because there really wasn't any traffic outside of some in Chicago and Denver.

Who would want to buy a self-driving Porsche 911 in 2030? On a website full of car enthusiasts I'm surprised people being so accepting of full-automation of the roadways. Luxury car brands that pride themselves on the driving experience are going to be in trouble soon.

Someone who daily drives their Porsche might want that system. Think about, how often does a Porsche owner get to use even a portion of their car's potential? Probably not often. And if you're sitting on the freeway, going 80 mph, it doesn't really matter what vehicle you're in so an autonomous system would allow the car to drive for you when you use it like a car, but you can manually control it when you want to have fun.

Hating autonomous cars is not required if you're an automotive enthusiast.

 

[TexRex]

And if you're sitting on the freeway, going 80 mph, it doesn't really matter what vehicle you're in so an autonomous system would allow the car to drive for you when you use it like a car, but you can manually control it when you want to have fun.

That gets me thinking...

What are the odds an autonomous vehicle is going to be compelled to demonstrate its capabilities to another in the form of high-speed competition on public roads, endangering its occupant(s), the occupant(s) of the other "AV," occupants of other vehicles on the road, pedestrians and the occupants of nearby businesses with glass store-fronts?

I'd imagine pretty slim.

 

[Joey D]

That gets me thinking...

What are the odds an autonomous vehicle is going to be compelled to demonstrate its capabilities to another in the form of high-speed competition on public roads, endangering its occupant(s), the occupant(s) of the other "AV," occupants of other vehicles on the road, pedestrians and the occupants of nearby businesses with glass store-fronts?

I'd imagine pretty slim.

I assume that'll only be a Tesla Model whatever...because Musk needs to wave his electric willy.

 

[Wolfe]

Sleep is necessary because our bodies deem it necessary and, as far as I know, there isn't a viable alternative available to the common man. Could those hours be spent doing something else? Well, yeah. Would that something else be more productive? I'd argue it would not, since sleep is necessary for most of us to function properly.

My body agrees with you, but my mind doesn't. I suffer from depression, and I normally feel the worst after sleeping. Losing spare time to oversleeping is also depressing.

Perhaps the discussion should be whether limiting public roads to autonomous vehicles should ever be mandated. Assuming society manages to stick around long enough to see that future, I suspect it will come to that...

I wonder how an autonomous vehicle could be practical for occupations that involve relatively erratic or unusual driving. Contractors or utility workers, farmers and ranchers, surveyors or assessors (what I do)...and probably more.

On a day in the field, I go up and down every road in an area, stopping to look at buildings, climbing rutted grass driveways (or through snow) to reach cabins in the woods, making U-turns to check for something I missed...I'd spend half my day just inputting addresses into the nav computer of an autonomous car, even if it could manage to navigate the outdated unmarked/gravel roads and rough driveways. Perhaps the work I do will be done by aerial drone someday, but there's plenty of resistance to that idea too, some of it vehement.

 

[Eh Team]

It's enjoyable to row gears

Very much so.

drive the curvy valley roads

I wish I could, these hardly exist in Southern Ontario. Almost everything is an arrow straight run except for grid changes and the very odd twisty road that's never anywhere close to your route. If you search a map for them you can find them but most often it'll be a day trip and not something you can factor some extra time in on your morning/afternoon drive.

 

[Joey D]

even if it could manage to navigate the outdated unmarked/gravel roads and rough driveways.

I don't see why an autonomous vehicle would have an issue with off-road conditions. The DARPA Grand Challenge already showed that driverless vehicles can navigate rough terrain back in 2005. Granted the systems they used at the time were a bit...ungainly, but that was 12 years ago before the notion of autonomy was even really considered by many automakers.

 

[ZEROTHEKNIGHT]

This is what I sit in most days on the way home from work:

If my car was autonomous, I wouldn't mind sitting in traffic because I could either continue to work, play on my phone, or do virtually anything else besides stare at the taillights of another car.

Don't get me wrong, I love driving, but when a vast majority of my time behind the wheel consists of sitting in bumper to bumper traffic on the I-15 I find it to be terrible.



You know that happens with non-autonomous vehicles right? If you don't service your car now, the likelihood of failure goes up, as does the chance of an accident.



Given the safety systems put in place on cars currently and with a trend continuing that way, chances are the car would attempt to disable itself and if it couldn't it would ultimately crash into something that's not another person. If a car is safe enough, your chances of walking away from an accident are higher if you're in a car versus being hit by a car.

You didn't get what i meant.
By mentioning service - i mean just after you leave the service - your car functionality changes the longer you travel.
It's not stable - which is why i mentioned that it's dangerous to let a machine trying to balance the instability of functionality of the car mechanical behaviour changing.
Like due to heat - cold & more.
Machines doesn't react to the change in power input - steering input & braking input like humans does.
An unstable power input can cause miscalculations for speeding up depending on the situation.
Same to the unstable braking input which can effect the calculated distance measurement for the ideal braking input.
Imagine brake bar snaps - brake mulfunction or tires explode - a very sudden oversteer couldn't be 100% evadable without human interruption.
I own a sport car with TCS - ESP & ABS & cruise mode.
They won't always guaranteed your safety without you taking the wheel.

 

[Joey D]

You didn't get what i meant.
By mentioning service - i mean just after you leave the service - your car functionality changes the longer you travel.
It's not stable - which is why i mentioned that it's dangerous to let a machine trying to balance the instability of functionality of the car mechanical behaviour changing.
Like due to heat - cold & more.
Machines doesn't react to the change in power input - steering input & braking input like humans does.
Imagine brake bar snaps - brake mulfunction or tires explode - a very sudden oversteer or countersteer couldn't be 100% evadable without human interruption.
I own a sport car with TCS - ESP & ABS & cruise mode.
They won't always guaranteed your safety without you taking the wheel.

You car's functionality changes now the longer you travel. Parts wear out, alignment becomes off, brakes don't work like they used to, tires start losing grip, etc.

As for a computer being able to handle unforeseen incidents, chances are it'll react much quicker than a human ever could. Humans have awful reaction times compared to computers.

The car will also be more aware of its inner workings through a multitude of sensors. If it senses a part becoming weak or something starting to happen outside it's, presumably, tight parameters, then it'll probably enter a failsafe mode which will disable the car.

I guess what I don't understand about those who are so adamantly against the autonomous car is that nearly everyone in that camp thinks automakers are going to half-ass it. With the number of lawsuits happening in the automotive world right now, you can bet the farm that anyone bringing an autonomous car to market will have tested the living daylights out of it under virtually every condition imaginable. Hell, they test cars now in ways that no one would ever dream of using it in just by the one-off chance someone does.

 

[TexRex]

Machines doesn't react to the change in power input - steering input & braking input like humans does.
Imagine brake bar snaps - brake mulfunction or tires explode - a very sudden oversteer couldn't be 100% evadable without human interruption.

I don't imagine english is your native language, so is driving instruction for sudden hazardous situations required where you live? If not required, do the majority of drivers undergo it? Neither are the case here and I suspect existing "ESP"-type systems are already more capable of reigning in a vehicle than individuals who have undergone it, let alone the overwhelming majority who have not. Surely these systems are a part of the programming utilized in vehicles capable of full autonomy.

 

[ZEROTHEKNIGHT]

You car's functionality changes now the longer you travel. Parts wear out, alignment becomes off, brakes don't work like they used to, tires start losing grip, etc.

As for a computer being able to handle unforeseen incidents, chances are it'll react much quicker than a human ever could. Humans have awful reaction times compared to computers.

The car will also be more aware of its inner workings through a multitude of sensors. If it senses a part becoming weak or something starting to happen outside it's, presumably, tight parameters, then it'll probably enter a failsafe mode which will disable the car.

I guess what I don't understand about those who are so adamantly against the autonomous car is that nearly everyone in that camp thinks automakers are going to half-ass it. With the number of lawsuits happening in the automotive world right now, you can bet the farm that anyone bringing an autonomous car to market will have tested the living daylights out of it under virtually every condition imaginable. Hell, they test cars now in ways that no one would ever dream of using it in just by the one-off chance someone does.

Reacting quicker - Yes.
Making calculations for unforseen incidents - not always.
What makes me guarantee 100% that it won't get a glitch or being hacked ?
See where i'm heading ?
No matter how much human put their work on machines they won't work 100% everytime.
It doesn't make humans always aware but it is different when i rely on myself rather than relying on a death bed taking me to unknown situations to my eyes.
Machines dicisions are based on human selected data to be implemented in it.
Machines inherits our faults - they're not immune.
Rather then seeing a machine making choice to kill which pedestrians - i rather crash my car on the sidewalk where there are no people around to evade killing pedestrians on the street rather than making the machine choosing to kill which one near the traffic light.

 

[Dennisch]

Road kill numbers have been rising here since 2014. They're blaming the use of smartphones. And that isn't surprising at all, because it seems that almost everyone uses his/hers phone while driving.

Even though it's just a marginal rising, it's still a rising,and they're blaming smartphones. So, for those in the know of the new cars, @Famine, @homeforsummer, do they still have social media implementation in cars?

 

[Famine]

Even though it's just a marginal rising, it's still a rising,and they're blaming smartphones. So, for those in the know of the new cars, @Famine, @homeforsummer, do they still have social media implementation in cars?

Some do but - although I've not tried it - I don't think that you can use it while the car is in motion.

I've heard mobile phones blamed for an increase in injuries among pedestrians (particularly children) due to the pedestrians being too engrossed in their phones to Stop, Look and Listen.

 

[TexRex]

What makes me guarantee 100% that it won't get a glitch or being hacked ?
See where i'm heading ?

Yep...to being a shut-in.

New vehicles already have enough computer control that existing systems can be either hacked or fail and result in deaths. Even if your vehicle isn't new enough, odds are vehicles around you are and should their systems fail, you're put in harm's way.

You're better off just not leaving the safety of your home.

 

[Northstar]

What makes me guarantee 100% that it won't get a glitch or being hacked ?
.

What's to guarantee granny isn't going to confuse "R" with "D" and run a bunch of people over?

It doesn't make humans always aware but it is different when i rely on myself rather than relying on a death bed taking me to unknown situations to my eyes.

I agree, than again it's not me I'm worried about, it's the imbecile who thinks they need to go the speed limit even if the roads are one big ice rink or that they are ok to drive despite not being able to walk in a straight line.

 

[ZEROTHEKNIGHT]

Yep...to being a shut-in.

New vehicles already have enough computer control that existing systems can be either hacked or fail and result in deaths. Even if your vehicle isn't new enough, odds are vehicles around you are and should their systems fail, you're put in harm's way.

You're better off just not leaving the safety of your home.

Excuse me but i'm not that kind of an oblivious or a fool to be a shut-in from the street.
I know the difference between machines countless testings before being used on the street & the human faults.
My point is - i don't want to ride on a fully automonous machine where it can lead to a driver death by a glitch or hacking.
Neither i recommend people riding those death beds.
I make the choices - i take responsibility on my driving - NOT a machine.
Companies will kill your wallet when you help them advertising it since it'll work like a taxi.
If you're ok with automonous vehicles then to me it's the same as acknowledging that humans aren't suited for driving.
I don't want to extend this argument since there are other people who did put this debate better than i do.
I just tried to share my thoughts based on my collected information from different sources.
@Northstar
You said it yourself.
A granny, not a youth or middle aged or a little old people.
While there are some Grand-Fathers who can still drive better than both of us & there are some Grand-Mothers who can drive better than most on the street.

 

[Walkinshaw]

Nothing is stopping you to get a horse and ride it everyday of the week if you so desire, though.

Currently, everything is pointing towards a future where autonomous cars are going to be mandated by law, not by choice, same deal as the ICE cars in the future, Germany, France and other countries of the UE are talking about and working on regulations that prohibits ICE cars from driving, and that is not fair for those who doesn't like eletric and hybrids.

Yes but I can't ride it down a main road, infact modern infrastructure isn't set up for horses now and we all accepted that. Generally people now ride horses as a pastime and at designated areas.
So people will still drive if they desire but in places like race tracks, 4WD parks etc. Driving will become a passion/hobby that is preplaned and done during freetime.

Once selfdriving cars become the norm our road systems will change, traffic lights / signage won't be needed etc, so the roads will become non driver friendly.

 

[homeforsummer]

I do agree that a system where traffic isn't an issue is a valid solution, however, I can't see that working without self-driving cars. People, for the most part, are horrendous drivers which is why we have traffic in the first place. With a majority of cars on the road able to talk to one another and adjust based on an algorithm, you'd probably not have traffic.

I'm not so sure. Like I mentioned earlier, I could quite easily see the difference from better vehicle behaviour being more than eclipsed by a higher volume of vehicles on the road. A lot of people who currently don't drive because they either can't (drunk, disabled, elderly) or because they won't may choose to make use of AVs rather than potential alternatives.

You can actually use a service like Uber as evidence of this. Uber doesn't offer anything new from an actual mobility perspective - you could always get a taxi before, or in some places the tube, or the bus, or even walk, but the convenience of the service means more people are using the service when before they may have either used an existing one or simply not made that particular journey.

And it's leading to increased traffic as a result (examples here and here). While AVs will probably drive better than Uber drivers, most roads can only sustain a certain volume of vehicles before speeds are reduced and traffic is unavoidable. There are certainly roads around where I live that no amount of AVs will fix traffic-wise - there are just too many vehicles using those roads at certain times with no alternative routes.

I think the other other problem I currently have with the way AVs are being talked about is that there's more emphasis on making pods for rich people than improving mobility as a whole. For every one story of "this frail old lady can finally visit her kids in the big city" there are ten stories of "this swanky autonomous Mercedes will let you send emails and bang your secretary on the way to work rather than doing that boring driving thing". It frustrates me that if we're to have AVs we're going about it in the wrong way.

I've heard mobile phones blamed for an increase in injuries among pedestrians (particularly children) due to the pedestrians being too engrossed in their phones to Stop, Look and Listen.

I've heard this scenario still being blamed on drivers. Speaks of a wider lack of wishing to take responsibility that a pedestrian who is completely zoned-out wouldn't be at fault against a driver who is paying attention but is unlucky enough to have a zoned-out pedestrian step into the road in front of them.