Sad...but why does this keep happening?

I believe I can explain this phenomena as my Shrink Professor told me in school one day and somehow it stuck. I.Q. Test employing the bell curve," One of the ways the bell curves demonstrates to us is that the very bottom of the bell curve where all of the I.Q.s on the bottom of the test reside can be slippery,  and every once in a while we will lose one to gravity or some physical force because he did not remember to hold on.

What does this have in common with Idiots getting killed by trains?

I don't know, I was hoping it would fit because I always wanted to use it. 

I strongly disagree.  We will see driverless cars in the near future.  The BMW i8 in Germany can detect people/wildlife on the side and direct a portion of the headlights at them.

If Moore's law holds true in this area then in 20 years cars with be much, much more capable then they are now. 

Google is running autonomous cars on a regular basis.  A few months ago there was a rash of news stories about them having had a dozen or so accidents.  What they rarely pointed out was that a 75% of these were other cars running into them.  Even the most capable autonomous cars can't stop a fool from rear-ending it.

Approximately 35000 people die each year in this country in car accidents.  Autonomous cars can't come fast enough.

However, there is the inevitable downside.  The largest male employment sector in this country can loosely be defined as "driving." Inevitably, all these jobs will be gone.  What the future holds for employment is going to be interesting.

 Ford had a small highway test fleet of driverless minivans about 10 years ago.

All had tinted widows 360° as to not scare motorists. They were accompanied fore and aft by drivers in the same "type" vans.

  That was years ago. I wonder how they are progressing?

I was told Tesla had a short distance auto-drive.(word of mouth) 

You don't see driverless cars anywhere near rural areas and only on well-travelled urban areas with excellent roads and GPS signals. Know all those places out in the middle of nowhere you can't get a cell signal or the GPS steers you oddly? They don't go there and for good reason.

Manufacturers are indeed working toward it in experimentation, but none are looking to place them out in the sticks, and for two primary reasons:

• Nobody wants to have to go get them from a ditch or mudhole in a dirt road anywhere
• The nightmare scenario for all of them is liability issues. The first time a driverless car has any situation where a kid steps out in front of one (which is inevitable if they keep trying to get them onto main roads) and hits anything or anyone, imagine the massive, crushing lawsuit which will descend upon them. There'll be lawyers looking to make names for themselves lined up around the block, many willing to take the case for no cut of the settlement, to be involved in the precedent-making case against a company that built a car that ran over someone's kid all by itself.

I know this for certain because I work in the auto liability field for an insurance carrier. We're all just starting to look into the liability issues. Nobody wants to go first in that regard.

In the 60s, the Feds looked into making tracks in roads like the current system that massive HO scale layout in Germany uses for their model vehicles, where they follow an imbedded magnetic core in the road. Problem then was how to keep it powered in an era of weak electrical grids being common, and that idea was abandoned.

Now, we're in a litigious environment and this is why you're seeing these unmanned cars in such limited circumstances. I don't see that changing anytime soon.

In fact, self-parking cars might be a thing of the past from what I'm reading. They've already caused a few pedestrian injuries but good luck finding much info on that.

It's not common, but it's happening already, to cars that represent a tiny fraction of all the cars out there.

There's also the issue of maintenance for cars that drive themselves, as many people and companies will drive a vehicle until tis wheels fall off, but I'll address that sometime later if it comes up...

They haven't licked sudden acceleration problems yet. Driverless cars will be here someday. I don't think it will be tomorrow.

What you really need is driverless people so they don't keep walking, standing, sitting, running in front of trains...

Rusty

Sign use to say, and many still do. Stop, Look, and Listen.  Mobility can be a good thing, most of the time. This is only one of many "Ah Shoots!!" 

Keeps happening???

Total lack of common knowledge. 

People think trains are just long trucks. They think they work the same way.....hit a brake pedal and stop like a truck. I talk to people and very few know a train can be the biggest moving object on land.....at times moving at 50mph! 

They try to educate the public......but trains do not involve a ice bucket or dress color or a video of a cute baby....so it is ignored. 

There will always be the "ghost in the machine", as the saying goes. Even when future accidents between driverless vehicles and driverless trains occur, then what? There will still be the randomness of human and mechanical behaviour that creates as yet unkown underlying risk factors.

Here's an informative article on the Vancouver driverless Skytrain from earlier this year:

http://www.straight.com/life/4...rain-deaths-examined

quote:

People think trains are just long trucks. They think they work the same way.....hit a brake pedal and stop like a truck. I talk to people and very few know a train can be the biggest moving object on land.....at times moving at 50mph! 

I don't think a fully loaded tractor trailer can stop that fast. Sometimes I am amazed at how some people cut off tractor trailers.

Burma Shave had the answer...

From 1949:

He saw the train

and tried to duck it

Kicked first the gas

and then the bucket!

From 1951:

Train approaching

Whistle squealing

Pause!

Avoid that rundown feeling!

I think you can see a difference in the stopping distance between a well maintained truck and 40 foot trailer vs a 100 car coal train at the same speed....average person knows no difference.......A decent truck driver can stop within eyesight......no train can....thus the difference that the public needs education of.....

....common sense!

Yes, but...

"Common sense is not so common."  ....Voltaire

No, We can't stop as fast as many people think we can. Air brakes are the most efficient and effective way to stop tractor trailer rigs, BUT what many, even most people don't realize is that from the instant of brake pedal application, there is a small lag time before the brakes start to work, as the air travels through the lines, at 60 MPH, this is typically 55 feet. That is JUST the signal lag time, this does NOT include the Hazard Recognition time, Driver reaction time and actual effective braking time.

 Even worse than a fully loaded tractor trailer is an EMPTY one, we need all those tires to carry the weight when loaded, but when empty there is not enough weight to achieve maximum braking effort without locking the wheels, which causes the loss of even more braking effort, add wet weather conditions in there and it is even worse. Without doing extensive testing, my 27 years, 2,500,000+ miles experience would estimate that the typical 18 wheeler rated for 80,000# gross probably is at it's optimal stopping weight at around 55,000-65,000# gross weight.

 Yes, it is mind boggling, some of the things that auto drivers do around large vehicles, there are countless auto drivers out there that are still ALIVE, simply because professional drivers have learned to think not only about driving our own vehicles, but have also learned to anticipate what other drivers may do as well.

Doug