41–50 of 101 posts
The moment a self-driving car comes on the market, I’m helping them buy one. They don’t have to be perfect. One that gets my relative off the streets will be a get gain for all of us.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Really? Since when has making using something more convenient reduced ownership of it? These will be more convenient, but also dramatically more expensive, and _that_ certainly reduces the ownership of things. > the mean number of cars on the road at any given time would seem like it would only go up That's orthogonal to the question of level of ownership -- these can both be true simultaneously. And it may even be…
Making all cars more expensive would reduce car ownership. Adding extra expensive cars while keeping constant (or even reducing*) the price of cars at the bottom won't. *if everyone suddenly wants to buy the amazing new self-serving cars then that could effect the used car market
This is one of the dumbest "tactics" I've had to witness. These are the same people falsifying data that makes autonomous vehicles appear more unsafe than they are. "New letter from CA state accuses SF officials of data manipulation: In the 4 @Waymo traffic collisions SF cited to prove driverless cars are less safe, 3 were the Waymos being rear-ended and 1 didn't even involve any cars touching, CA says." Source: http…
I really doubt the people putting cones on cars are "the same people" as officials for SF transportation agencies.
Regardless, the traffic cone clowning and the falsifying data clowning both are born of the same shortsighted desire to get "progressive" points by attacking evil corporations.
This particularly protest is elegant because it's effective exactly to the extent that self-driving cars are not adaptable—it highlights the brittleness of the system by getting a substantial effect from a small nudge.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> reduce car ownership Really? Since when has making using something more convenient reduced ownership of it? The less of a pain it is to take a car somewhere, the more often people will take cars places. It's very slightly possible that there will be fewer total cars all running at a higher utilization, but the mean number of cars on the road at any given time would seem like it would only go up.
> Really? Since when has making using something more convenient reduced ownership of it? These will be more convenient, but also dramatically more expensive, and _that_ certainly reduces the ownership of things. > the mean number of cars on the road at any given time would seem like it would only go up That's orthogonal to the question of level of ownership -- these can both be true simultaneously. And it may even be…
Only if you force everyone to use self-driving cars exclusively. No one sane is proposing that.
I think the jury is still out on self driving vehicles, but the ever larger trucks and SUV's on our streets are a clear and present danger to life and limb. I'd focus on those in terms of street safety, as well as safe infrastructure for people walking or biking.
I'd rather see them deflating the tires on any trucks beyond a certain size parked in cities
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If there are fewer total cars, how can ownership not also go down?
I don't think there will be fewer total cars (unless as a sibling asserts, they will be significantly more expensive), but I admit the possibility. Many (but not all; cf. parking) of the issues of cars in urban areas are related to cars being on the road, not being owned.
Whatever you think of autonomous vehicles, we should not continue to normalise maximally disruptive acts of protest by tiny groups. Serious protest should involve serious people power, not just a handful of radicals aiming for maximum disruptive impact (usually knowing they'll face zero consequences for it, and may well turn more people against their cause, e.g 'Just Stop Oil' in the UK)
The majority of the time, it's groups doing things like this that lead directly toward what you're calling "serious protests".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Matters of safety are not the only problem with our urban transportation systems, but the AV companies would like for you to think about it that way. It's single vector sci-fi.
Perhaps, unlike disaffected urban youth (read: trust-fund anarchists), the AV companies are smart enough to address one problem at a time.
A piece of tape over the cameras is probably enough to immobilize most SDVs. Works on humans too. Guarding against vandalism isn’t really the car makers job. Tires have always been easy to slash. That’s why we have laws and penalties for breaking them.
Which aren't really enforced in many places. Leading to tyre slashing to become a fashionable form of criminal 'activism' in a social media world:
https://twitter.com/T_Extinguishers
(And promoting that sort of behaviour on social media is apparently just fine, destruction of property apparently isn't 'real violence', yet in many other cases, mere words are now considered to be violence)