America is huge, it would take hundreds of kilometers of suburbia to reach many towns. And there are tens of thousands of small towns that are themselves hundreds of kilometers away from the nearest burb.
Part of my comment about rural driving habits involves lifestyles in towns too, getting to work isn't such a big deal. Work is only 5 minutes away but they will still drive because after work they might need to drive 30km down some dirt track to get the kids from a friends house. Parking at the football club which is actually just a grass patch requires communication between humans about who is leaving first or maybe Stuart needs to get out to the jetty by 5 so we need leave room for him at the back. That kind of stuff is hard to solve autonomously. Driving in the country is just a bit more socially aware I guess.
The thought of autonomous cars on thin country roads is hard too. Sometimes there are dips or parts of the road that you know are dangerous through tribal knowledge and experiencing it previously. The car would have to have full geometry of the road for one. Second it would have to know that people sometimes pull out of this blind corner driveway and that if you continue doing 110kmph past it assuming it's a sealed highway you will one day have a head on no matter how quickly your car can react.
The conclusion I come to is that fully autonomous, no controls in the car, is unlikely to happen at all, as there will always people needing non-autonomous or semi-autonomous driving.
Part of my comment about rural driving habits involves lifestyles in towns too, getting to work isn't such a big deal. Work is only 5 minutes away but they will still drive because after work they might need to drive 30km down some dirt track to get the kids from a friends house. Parking at the football club which is actually just a grass patch requires communication between humans about who is leaving first or maybe Stuart needs to get out to the jetty by 5 so we need leave room for him at the back. That kind of stuff is hard to solve autonomously. Driving in the country is just a bit more socially aware I guess.
The thought of autonomous cars on thin country roads is hard too. Sometimes there are dips or parts of the road that you know are dangerous through tribal knowledge and experiencing it previously. The car would have to have full geometry of the road for one. Second it would have to know that people sometimes pull out of this blind corner driveway and that if you continue doing 110kmph past it assuming it's a sealed highway you will one day have a head on no matter how quickly your car can react.
The conclusion I come to is that fully autonomous, no controls in the car, is unlikely to happen at all, as there will always people needing non-autonomous or semi-autonomous driving.