Indeed, I would imagine that thousands of hours of commuting would make one an expert at those specific skills. That said, I imagine the skill ceiling is quite low and likely reached long before 10,000 hours, and the skill set is certainly different from what most people mean by “expert driver.”
> That said, I imagine the skill ceiling is quite low and likely reached long before 10,000 hours, and the skill set is certainly different from what most people mean by “expert driver.”
It doesnt take much practice to become a marginally-skilled driver. But that doesn't mean there's little difference between marginal drivers and people who spend their entire day behind the steering wheel...
I once guesstimated that I spent maybe 7,500 hours (over 3.5 years) driving around in taxis. Towards the end of that period I started to notice things that the other cars on the road would likely do, and point this out to my passengers. "See that car? it's going to change lanes and that other guy is going to have to slam on his brakes..."
After I 'retired', I was driving with my mother. Our light turned green, but I saw that the car in the cross traffic couldn't see that his light had turned red (on account of the sunset). I waited, and watched as he slammed on his brakes.
There's something to putting in time on any activity. I think the relevant saying is not "practice makes perfect", but "perfect practice makes perfect". If you spend 10,000 hours practicing something wrong it won't be as helpful as 1,000 hours practicing it right.
Bruce Lee said, "I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times."
I really wonder how all this unspoken communication is going to change with self-driving cars.
On the German Autobahn, the amount of observing and consideration is very high, and if people are new it can be very stressful. You basically have to keep in mind everyone around you, their respective speeds, potential moves and how a move from you will change their options and responses.
One common situation is when you come up behind a slow car on your lane, but the lane to the left (where you need to go to keep your current speed and overtake) has somebody coming up fast from the back. If you move there, you might force that person to brake. Now, they obviously see your situation and might slow down a little or speed up, so you can adjust your speed (speed up and pull into the left lane or lay off the gas and delay switching just long enough to let them pass). If there is another left lane they might move over to that too if possible. In this case, the communication is mostly in those small changes in speed that tell you their intention.
Now how should I read an automatic car? It's going to be very chaotic before we figure it out.
Hopefully it won't be as bad as you are thinking if all the car AI's make the same choices in every situation. That way you can get a much better feel for how those cars operate.
In reality I think your concern, shared by others will result in cars that act a lot more like buses. Almost always in the slow lane. Going a very safe speed. Leaving the faster/passing lanes to more dangerous humans.
The autonomous cars may soon be required to have visible markings so that they are easy to tell apart as well. Perhaps the color yellow could be reserved for them?
These changes will still be an adjustment, but hopefully one that doesn't result in a major number of accidents.
I worry that driving is the last continuous attention/frequently applied skill thing humans do, and that they will quickly deskill when they assume that a machine will automatically take them where they want to go.
One option is that the cars explicitly communicate, and make a joint plan that minimizes acceleration, danger and unexpectedness.
Of course a legacy non-robot car is a special case the robots have to think about carefully. The robots will give you similar signals to those given by human drivers now. These have been active areas of research for a while now.
People can't operate perfectly. "Good practice makes better" is my version, not half as pithy.
"Practice makes perfect" is a bit weird as a motivational phrase, as no one who has practised ever got perfect. In your version, who can practice perfectly?
That’s a great anecdote. I’d also suggest that there are a bunch of people who could spend exactly the same period behind the wheel as you and not develop those skills though. Some people plateau and something about their makeup stops them from developing those higher ‘intuitive’ skills
