Posted by bookofjoe 18 hours ago
Autonomous cars is an inefficient solution anyway, I don't see how it benefits the rider.
In theory they should be cheaper one day because you don't need to pay someone to drive. This means you can use them in situations where for cost reasons you would have driven yourself - e.g. for long journeys, in the countryside, for commuting etc.
Getting people out of their own cars and into autonomous cars is better for several reasons:
1. We need to own fewer cars collectively, which is better for the environment.
2. Don't need to waste a ton of space on car parks.
3. It's safer (at least for Waymo). Not just for occupants but also for pedestrians and cyclists.
Having a cheap option for last mile travel also makes trains more attractive.
All of this of course rests on them actually ending up cheap, which hasn't been the case so far but we'll see.
But I wanted to add on the future benefits front - as more vehicles on the road become autonomous, they could communicate with each other and reduce the buffer distances between them, allowing for faster travel and improved saturation while still being safe.
Title includes "autonomous cars" - url includes "self-driving" - I smell what you are selling.
Meanwhile, the article never gives a share, but as far as I can tell, nearly all the lives are saved by basic ADAS: auto-braking, which is really cool and should be the focus.
If you want to click-bait, fine, but then at least tell the truth after the user clicks.
Majority of car accidents outside of the occasional genuine freak accident are self-inflicted. Call it FAFO or Darwinism, whichever you prefer.
I’m saying that having done that myself once in the early days of holding a drivers licence and feeling heroic with my speed and a corner. I was lucky to walk away with minor bruises, mostly to my ego. And wallet.
That day I learned how a car behaves when it loses traction.
15 years later accident free, minus one person bumping the rear left side because they’d thought it would be a good idea to cross over into my lane over a solid line.
Having watched how autonomous driving is “developing” over the same span of time - I’m not convinced, the last decade was spent more on “trust me bro” targeting lawmakers than genuinely trying to have a breakthrough in the technology and we’ve hit a wall (no pun intended).
The correct answer to this problem is better driver education, and a higher bar for entry.
Lest we let the idiots take over and we as a society accept a lower standard.
Certain drivers just need their privileges revoked, cars crushed, and some nights spent in jail if we are being honest.
I remember a company called Ghost Locomation that was working on this.
Either way, fewer drivers means fewer deaths.