Self-Driving Cars Will Be Confounded By Lopsided Traffic Mixtures

Dr. Lance Eliot, AI Insider

[Ed. Note: For reader’s interested in Dr. Eliot’s ongoing business analyses about the advent of self-driving cars, see his online Forbes column: https://forbes.com/sites/lanceeliot/]

Car traffic can be downright exasperating, frustrating, beguiling, exhausting, and just a real pain in the neck.

Most of us dread getting stuck in traffic.

Endless sea of cars.

Stop and go movement.

Bumper to bumper with a chance of some scrapes and fender benders.

Traffic Is A Delicate Dance Of Cars And Car Driving

Generally, our existing laws and rules-of-the-road allow for human drivers to exercise a certain amount of discretion within loosely bounded legal rules.

When a car to my right suddenly jams into my lane, and fails to signal, and fails to wait until there’s a reasonable opening, and fails to clear my car by more than a fraction of an inch, you could say that they have violated the law by creating an unsafe driving situation. But, who’s going to give them a ticket or stop them from this kind of discretionary driving? Unless by a stroke of luck there’s a traffic cop there, this kind of driving behavior is going to…