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Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

economist.com

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Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#221

Post by francisofascii »

michaelt wrote: post #127
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> slightly more comfortable transport. Slightly more comfortable than what? Horses? Bicycles? Walking? There were 158,493 registered deaths in Australia in 2018, [1] of which 1137 were due to motor vehicle accidents [1]. Motor vehicle related deaths don't even rate in the top 20 causes of death. [also 1] The rate of motor vehicle related deaths in Australia peaked in 1970 at 30.4 per 100,000 population per year, and…

> Motor vehicle related deaths don't even rate in the top 20 causes of death. According to [1] in the US road traffic accidents are the 17th-most-common cause of death across all age ranges. But among 15-24 year olds? Number 1 cause of death. In fact you have to reach age 45 before road traffic accidents are even outside the top five. If you really want to ramp up the rhetoric, compare road deaths to mass shootings a…

Right. And you are just looking at deaths. The injury rates are much higher. And crash injuries can be debilitating. Certainly the #1 threat to health in the U.S.

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#222

Post by arethuza »

ArnoVW wrote: post #199
arethuza wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of those benefits can be had from taxis - and yet people still buy their own cars.

Taxis are expensive because they require a human to drive them. Hence the reason the SDC could change that dynamic. A shared car that does not require an expensive human to drive it. Another model are shared cars, like dockless scooters and bikes. They are reasonably popular in the Netherlands for example. But they still require quite a bit of planning to ensure the car is available, and they are not always "in front…

But I'm sure I have done the arithmetic and worked out that taxis would be a lot cheaper than buying cars - but I still ended up buying a car.

Mind you I live in a rural area and spend a fair amount of time (1 day week) in areas with no or very poor mobile phone coverage so that might put me off!

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#223

Post by arethuza »

ed312 wrote: post #213
de_watcher wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are places where it's cold, where it rains and snows. So we can't bike everywhere. The good thing about the driverless cars is that they solve the parking problems in the cities. We can even add lanes or pavements by removing all parking spaces in the city centers.

You can absolutely bike in the cold, and in the rain, and even in light snow. Also, public transit & busses can get you further without even the dreaded prospect of burning a calorie. Removing free rental of public space to park your private vehicle is something I _do_ endorse though!

After commuting by bike for a number of years the only weather than I found sensible to avoid was very strong winds - I got blown off my bike onto the side of a lorry once, fortunately I was OK but I did get a scare!

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#224

Post by bluGill »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #128
robotresearcher wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have data that supports what you think?

The OP is simply stating the base case: cars without drivers shouldn't be safer than cars with drivers. The industry claims that their cars are safer without drivers because AI. The industry must provide the evidence for its very strong claim. The fact that a majority of the public think it's the opposite way around, that skeptical opinions about self-driving cars must provide evidence, is the industry's succes- the…

Computers don't get board and start daydreaming (when I win the lottery where will the pool go in my mansion). Computers don't get distracted reading (ie facebook) while driving. Computers can have redundancy so the equivalent of a heart attack won't be endanger everybody (this assumes of course the redundancy works - computers have a lot of failure modes of their own)

There is plenty of opportunity for computers to be better than humans. It is a hard problem though.

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#225

Post by stkdump »

de_watcher wrote: post #206
bogle wrote: post #133

If we expect driverless cars to be further delayed and we continue building our cities to encourage micromobility (bikes, electric scooters, segregated lanes, car free streets, etc.) then at which point does the value of the driverless car become moot because we no longer drive? Does this sound unlikely? Consider European cities like Copenhagen and Amsterdam which have encouraged cycling over the last two decades and…

There are places where it's cold, where it rains and snows. So we can't bike everywhere. The good thing about the driverless cars is that they solve the parking problems in the cities. We can even add lanes or pavements by removing all parking spaces in the city centers.

> There are places where it's cold, where it rains and snows.

Like Amsterdam and Copenhagen?

> The good thing about the driverless cars is that they solve the parking problems in the cities.

They solve the search for parking by humans. But if you want to get the cars out of the city while they aren't used, you practically double the traffic and emissions.

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#226

Post by PanMan »

de_watcher wrote: post #206
bogle wrote: post #133

If we expect driverless cars to be further delayed and we continue building our cities to encourage micromobility (bikes, electric scooters, segregated lanes, car free streets, etc.) then at which point does the value of the driverless car become moot because we no longer drive? Does this sound unlikely? Consider European cities like Copenhagen and Amsterdam which have encouraged cycling over the last two decades and…

There are places where it's cold, where it rains and snows. So we can't bike everywhere. The good thing about the driverless cars is that they solve the parking problems in the cities. We can even add lanes or pavements by removing all parking spaces in the city centers.

You mean places like... Amsterdam? Plenty of rain here. That won't stop people from biking. If the majority of people own a bike, but not a car, biking becomes the default. Even with rain.

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#227

Post by bpyne »

DickingAround wrote: post #216
bogle wrote: post #133

If we expect driverless cars to be further delayed and we continue building our cities to encourage micromobility (bikes, electric scooters, segregated lanes, car free streets, etc.) then at which point does the value of the driverless car become moot because we no longer drive? Does this sound unlikely? Consider European cities like Copenhagen and Amsterdam which have encouraged cycling over the last two decades and…

This is kind of silly. It's nice to imagine a world where people don't need cars. But most/all european cities, many of which we laid out before cars, still have cars. We all have cars because cars are incredibly useful; Got 4 young kids and you need to get groceries for the week? You're not going to bicycle them to the store and all that food home again in the mountains. Live in the city and want to go hiking 20 mil…

"Live in the city and want to go hiking 20 miles away?"

Yes, you want to use a car in this case. But, in the life I imagine, I would rent a car. I dislike driving intensely, but I can see use-cases in which cars are necessary. However, Americans have been largely forced into car ownership, despite the expense and hassle of owning one. A reduction in car ownership coupled with more pedestrian-friendly community designs is more my goal than making cars extinct. I would like my household to go from two to one vehicle.

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#228

Post by kalleboo »

bogle wrote: post #183
bonoboTP wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone lives in cycling distance to work, not all are fit enough to cycle regularly (old age, disability, obesity). In many countries such people use public transportation, but that's crowded and inconvenient for the richer folks who can afford cars. Why do you think people still have cars in Amsterdam?

I think many will still have cars, although they'll have to be electric [0]. Will the driverless car be as cheap as the second hand Nissan Leaf? Also, perhaps the car isn't used to commute every day when the weather is good and you aren't battling through traffic. In Europe cycling distance to work within a city is as quick as driving. If you aren't quite fit enough you can get an electric bike (very popular amongst…

> Will the driverless car be as cheap as the second hand Nissan Leaf?

Eventually, yes. That is the march of technology. Especially if Elon Musk's bet that it can be done using only cameras is right - then the hardware cost is the same as an iPhone. If LIDAR is also required, it will take longer for the prices to go down.

This year I bought a 2-year old used econobox car (63 horsepower of pure fury). It already came with 360 degree "top-down-view" parking cameras, stereo camera auto emergency braking, lane departure warning, green light departure warning. And it's a mild hybrid. Once the software is developed, it won't take more than a decade to start coming down in price.

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#229

Post by bluGill »

Fr0styMatt88 wrote: post #82
KaiserPro wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

your implied conclusion is that its better to drive doesn't stand up. You _can't_ drive to central paris. London you're looking at a £15 charge and a time penalty of ~15-45 minutes.

Public transport to and from work can be pretty awesome. There’s a lot of stuff you can do, that you wouldn’t be able to do while driving.

Maybe you can, but I get car sick when I try to do anything on the bus. I also spend twice as much time on the bus vs driving - all wasted time because either way I'm staring at the road out the window.

Re: Driverless cars are stuck in a jam

#230

Post by trenning »

PanMan wrote: post #226
de_watcher wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are places where it's cold, where it rains and snows. So we can't bike everywhere. The good thing about the driverless cars is that they solve the parking problems in the cities. We can even add lanes or pavements by removing all parking spaces in the city centers.

You mean places like... Amsterdam? Plenty of rain here. That won't stop people from biking. If the majority of people own a bike, but not a car, biking becomes the default. Even with rain.

No places like Wisconsin and Minnesota where there's week spans of high temps that barley get above 0F and wind chills that will give you frost bite if you're exposed for too long.

I live in Seattle, rain sucks to ride in and most people don't have facilities to change or shower at work. That's a luxury not a standard.

It's all a moot point anyways because all this assumes everyone lives within biking distance of work and that work trucks/vans don't exist for a valid purpose.

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