You must log in or # to comment.
I saw a video recently by a car enthusiast who hates the idea of self driving cars for a novel reason.
Even if self-driving cars are safer than people it won’t stop bad owners. People who drive with unsafe mechanical issues they can’t or won’t get fixed are still going to exist, and bald tires and worn brakes would eliminate any potential safety benefits of self driving.
And by further removing people from the operation of a car, you’re making them worse owners. They won’t know what a worn tie rod bushing would feel like because they never steer. Making cars into appliances just makes them less safe.
He also made a point that I agree with: If we get people who don’t want to drive off the road, the roads would be nicer for people who do want to drive.
Back when I used to agree with Mush, he said something I still agree with, “you don’t want flying cars, because you don’t want a poorly maintained car to fly around and lose a hubcap”.
Also having worked in the industry the “if” in “Even if self-driving cars are safer than people” is carrying the weight of the sun. You might be able to get them safer than humans in a specific subset of circumstances but I would never trust one.
If they could have made anything self driving already it’d be trains, but we still don’t have fully automated trains
Yes we do. REM in Montréal, skytrain in Vancouver
I think the Sydney metro partially is too. But that is easier because it doesn’t cross any roads, or have many branching connection.
SEATAC has em, that was an interesting experience 10 years ago.
I somewhat disagree with this. If you can feel worn tires, brakes, or suspension bushings, it’s easy to imagine the car feeling them and raising a service alert, and locking out if not appropriately serviced.
Vendor lock-in and enshittification, baby.
Imagine getting in your car and it refusing to drive you anywhere because the wear sensor on the brake pads is bad, but everything else is fine.
It’ll be like MS windows. "Service needed " message will pop up as soon as you get in, then it’ll drive straight to the nearest service centre , however many 100’s of km away, and keep you hostage inside 'til you pay the bill.
That seems relatively easy (and cars already have it with the little bit of metal that makes the brakes squeal when worn):
From the sensor being triggered, you have say 1-2000km to get the sensor or brake pad (whatever the issue is) fixed.
So many times watching a car crash video, someone hydroplanes through a puddle …. my first reaction is I bet they live somewhere without safety inspections and those tires are bald
A solution to this would be if mechanics would come to every owner’s house, inspect the cars, and do repairs, but that’s not unique to autonomous cars. Plus, that’s super expensive. Not the best solution by far.
Alternatively, since the cars are autonomous, they could report to repair facilities on their own, and return to owners once repairs are complete. This might be a decent solution if the owner can program which repair facility the car should go to, likely based on what’s cheapest or well known.
These are the only solutions I can think of that don’t include a third party owning the cars themselves, with monitor where the cars are and can direct them to their own repair facility (or one of their choosing). Doesn’t really seem so far off from the owner’s having this control now that I think of it.
Any sane country has mandatory periodic safety inspections for vehicles. No need to have mechanics inspect cars at people’s homes since owners are required to bring them to the garage every few years.
I’m hearing you want continental Europe
Shame that they don’t want me. ;_;
New York City, Washington DC, Boston, MA?
SD, LA, SF, Sacramento, Portland, Seattle, Vancouver
Please.
I’m realizing these cities were founded in colonial times by Europeans
… yes? not sure what that has to do with high speed rail but you’re not wrong.
Or even
Wait for it
SELF DRIVING TRANSIT
Which yes is already a thing too
Okay
but what, hear me out now.
What if we just got a bunch of self driving cars.
and we linked them together to increase capacities.
and had them run on a dedicated path
and create special locations where these car links come and go on a regular schedule, so people can get on and off predictably?
It’ll be new, neverbefore seen, and revolutionary! /s
“did the tech industry just reinvent the subway again”
Boring?
Hell yeah!
*and affordable. The trains by me are barely affordable, so I will only take them if absolutely necessary. It would be amazing if it was cheap enough that I could just pick a place to go and explore without needing a reason.
Free at point of service. No more of this regressive individual riders pay nonsense.
I want self driving cars to take me home at night when public transit is down or partially down.
This happens in major cities with big public transit network (Paris, Tokyo).
The people that need to move at this hour isn’t big.
