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Cars Are Death Machines. Self-Driving Tech Won’t Change That

nytimes.com

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Re: Cars Are Death Machines. Self-Driving Tech Won’t Change That

#21

Post by marble-drink »

refurb wrote: post #7

It seems somewhat silly to only talk about the negative aspects of cars. What about all the benefits? If you stop and think about it, cars are truly revolutionary. Even many low income people can buy a machine that will travel 50 miles (at 70 mph) on a gallon of liquid that costs $3. It not only allows individuals the freedom to travel, vehicles power a massive transportation network that brings food to our tables an…

Yeah, we've celebrated that for the past 50 years or so. It's time to move on.

The bicycle is a far greater invention. Cars are not sustainable.

Re: Cars Are Death Machines. Self-Driving Tech Won’t Change That

#22

Post by kgermino »

Alupis wrote: post #8
xsmasher wrote: post #4

Not by itself; but if the high-speed crash rate drops to almost nothing we can make cars much lighter and lower; reverse the SUV arms-race that has made the streets more deadly than ever.

> if the high-speed crash rate drops to almost nothing The high-speed crash rate is almost nothing - statistically speaking. Most accidents are on city streets at relatively low speeds. What more, statistically speaking for number of miles driven, we already have a near-zero rate of fatalities. Can it be better? Sure, but it will never be entirely zero, even with full automation for all road vehicles. > reverse the S…

>The SUV fascination is not driven by some desire to have a safer vehicle either...

That is absolutely part of it. It's only one reason among many (style, higher sitting position, emissions regulations, etc) but I often hear people make comments about smaller cars being unsafe, or push others to buy an SUV when they have kids "for their safety."

Re: Cars Are Death Machines. Self-Driving Tech Won’t Change That

#23

Post by Ajedi32 »

cpp4life wrote: post #18
Ajedi32 wrote: post #12

The title of this article is unsupported by its contents. The only mention of self-driving cars in the article outside of the title is in this paragraph: > There are many who say that autonomous or smart cars will solve this. So far, I’m unpersuaded. Since 2014, over $80 billion dollars has been spent on “smart” or connected cars (more on these in a minute) and autonomous vehicles, arguably to make cars safer. But in…

The argument is simpler, they're saying they don't care how much progress has been made because they want cars to go away, not get safer.

Then perhaps the headline should have been "Cars Are Death Machines. We Should Get Rid Of Them."

That would have communicated the authors intent much more clearly, without making unsubstantiated claims about the effectiveness of future technological advancements.

Re: Cars Are Death Machines. Self-Driving Tech Won’t Change That

#24

Post by anyfoo »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #5

Paywall: is this perfect being the enemy of good? Planes, trains, bicycles, people die on all of them. Would she argue airline autopilot was a bad thing? Well, paywall so who knows. Self-driving tech with convergent evolution will absolutely reduce deaths. Tesla claims a statistical advantage with their speciously tested technology.

> Planes, trains, bicycles, people die on all of them.

By that argument, you can claim that people die eating strawberries, which I'm sure must have happened at some point in history, and it would be equally true and equally worthless to point out.

You know that car deaths are much more prevalent than plane or train death, and how many of the bicycle deaths are because they are hit by a car?

> Would she argue airline autopilot was a bad thing?

Would you argue airline autopilots were even remotely comparable?

During takeoff and landing, both pilots (yeah, two people!) have full, undivided attention to flying the plane. There are "sterile cockpit" rules which explicitly forbid unrelated chatter. Even with a full auto landing (something mostly only done in very low visibility conditions), the pilots have no relief of attention.

At cruise altitude, it is true that the autopilot relieves the pilots from the attention of having to fly the plane (it does not relieve them from still scanning the instruments, managing the flight, and many other tasks). But that's because at cruise altitude, you might have noticed that there are no roads, trees, or any other objects whatsoever. Including other planes.

Re: Cars Are Death Machines. Self-Driving Tech Won’t Change That

#25

Post by dsfyu404ed »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #20
refurb wrote: post #7

It seems somewhat silly to only talk about the negative aspects of cars. What about all the benefits? If you stop and think about it, cars are truly revolutionary. Even many low income people can buy a machine that will travel 50 miles (at 70 mph) on a gallon of liquid that costs $3. It not only allows individuals the freedom to travel, vehicles power a massive transportation network that brings food to our tables an…

I feel like this goes without saying. I doubt there are more than a few people would argue with anything you wrote above. The trends are basically flat to declining long term for deaths, alongside significant growth in total miles driven - indicating things are consistently getting safer for everyone. So the author is clearly cherry picking data with anecdotes. The author doesn't even attempt to have a measured argum…

>just assuming the "cars are revolutionary" is the extreme on the other side.

You don't need to assume though because you can look at history. Regardless of whether you think it is good or bad cars changed how we live in a large way. I think they fit the definition of revolutionary.

Re: Cars Are Death Machines. Self-Driving Tech Won’t Change That

#26

Post by Alupis »

marble-drink wrote: post #19

Cars don't kill anywhere near as many people in Europe, though. The US is an outlier when it comes to first-world countries. Still, I would like it if the power was taken back from from cars on the road. Cars should be a third-class road user, below bicycles and pedestrians. My idea for improving driver quality is to do what pilots do. Before you are even allowed behind the wheel of a car you must have proven experie…

> Cars don't kill anywhere near as many people in Europe, though. The US is an outlier when it comes to first-world countries

Do you have some data for this assertion? The US actually has a pretty low fatality rate per mile driven. Although, anything above zero isn't acceptable to some people...

> It's insane that we let kids drive cars before they've even learnt how to use road.

We don't, at least in the US. You have to go through "Driver's Training" first in order to get a Learner's Permit. This training teaches all the road laws, best practices, scenario training, and how things work. Then you get your permit and are allowed to practice only with a licensed driver in the passenger seat.

Re: Cars Are Death Machines. Self-Driving Tech Won’t Change That

#27

Post by egypturnash »

refurb wrote: post #7

It seems somewhat silly to only talk about the negative aspects of cars. What about all the benefits? If you stop and think about it, cars are truly revolutionary. Even many low income people can buy a machine that will travel 50 miles (at 70 mph) on a gallon of liquid that costs $3. It not only allows individuals the freedom to travel, vehicles power a massive transportation network that brings food to our tables an…

And food is optimized solely to be easy to transport and look good on a store shelf after a long ride rather than be healthy.

And burning that liquid is one of the top contributors of global warming. For a good while we were adding lead to that liquid in the name of a better burn, despite knowing for much longer than that that lead is terrible for organic creatures like ourselves.

And restructuring cities around cars has ripped out highly functional, happy neighborhoods, and brought us the suburb, with its vast expanses of identical houses miles and miles away from anything even remotely interesting, and it’s immense hostility to someone who doesn’t have a car (and it’s denizens’ immense hostility to anyone spending their tax money on improving public transit).

Re: Cars Are Death Machines. Self-Driving Tech Won’t Change That

#28

Post by hinkley »

You know, I've been nodding along to conversations about the dangers of vehicles for a long time but I think I just had a change of heart.

Travel has always been dangerous, and the farther you go the more danger there is of never coming home. We've done a lot culturally and technically to improve that situation. Yes, airplanes are safer, but would they still be if every trip was on an airplane? It's an apples and crabapples comparison. If we had 100 times as many airplanes, pilots, mechanics, etc, I really think it'd be the same shitshow.

Re: Cars Are Death Machines. Self-Driving Tech Won’t Change That

#29

Post by idreyn »

refurb wrote: post #7

It seems somewhat silly to only talk about the negative aspects of cars. What about all the benefits? If you stop and think about it, cars are truly revolutionary. Even many low income people can buy a machine that will travel 50 miles (at 70 mph) on a gallon of liquid that costs $3. It not only allows individuals the freedom to travel, vehicles power a massive transportation network that brings food to our tables an…

I would argue that the automobile is a brilliantly designed tool for making flexible, medium-long distance trips quickly and cheaply. In America, this tool has been stretched far beyond the use cases where it shines. We've tried to make it "the only mode you'll ever need" for almost all Americans, deploying it where transit, cycling, and walking would be far more appropriate. It is great that many low-income people can technically afford to own a vehicle; it is not great that the layout of our cities _forces_ them to own and maintain one.

Re: Cars Are Death Machines. Self-Driving Tech Won’t Change That

#30

Post by [deleted] »

afarrell wrote: post #14

One thing I found very useful when driving a car was buying a clip-on wide-angle mirror for $15. It made it much easier to have constant awareness of what was on the right-hand (passenger) side of my vehicle. I’d urge you to get it if you drive in a city with cyclists and worry about killing another human.

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