Talk:Self-driving cars

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Problems and newspapers

rLetters to various newspapers have asked - what would the legal situation be for someone who is banned from driving, drunk or otherwise 'not in a position to be in charge of a car if it were not self-driving.'

And, if there are avoiding-obstacles technologies - what about 'a consignment of chickens meandering across the road in search of jokes'? Or the GPS says 'go here' and the road sign says 'large body of water ahead'? (websearch 'when GPS goes wrong') 86.191.125.198 (talk) 09:43, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

Another issue that I've seen commented is: if a self-driving car while in automatic mode causes an accident, who's responsible -the programmer, the manufacturer, the owner...-?. Panzerfaust (talk) 14:19, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Also, insert a variation of the trolley problem: If there's an equal chance of danger to a passenger or a pedestrian, which life should be protected? If it's just up to the free market, people might buy cars protecting the driver. If that's fine, how many pedestrians can allowed to be killed to protect a single passenger? RSamys (bla) 08:54, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

What about 'road trains' - so truckers in the front lorry and automated follow-ons, and automated factories and other environments where problems are likely to be less? Anna Livia (talk) 17:31, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Might need to use another term as “road train” is already used for the multi-trailer vehicles that roam freely in Australia. Mr Larrington (talk) 17:57, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

I was referencing the Australian example to show what I mean: a significant problem would be if one of the follow-ons develops a problem - how would the others manoeuvre around it etc. Anna Livia (talk) 18:17, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Some of the problems experienced by the cars with the rest of the world could be included - encountering flocks of sheep etc (see 'List of excuses for train delays' for some more possibilities). Anna Livia (talk) 18:17, 10 October 2023 (UTC)