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Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

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Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#861

Post by fnordpiglet »

estebank wrote: post #464
fnordpiglet wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you say most places, I assume you leave out most of the world in this? The number of countries with broad complete train networks is small compared to the land mass of the earth inhabited by humans. Even considering urban areas, most people don’t live in London or New York or Tokyo. They live in a city like Jakarta, Dhaka, Mexico City or Lagos. Even Bangkok which has the MRT and Skytrain only services the relati…

> Even considering urban areas, most people don’t live in London or New York or Tokyo. They live in a city like Jakarta, Dhaka, Mexico City or Lagos. Even Bangkok which has the MRT and Skytrain only services the relatively affluent areas with service, everyone else is car bound. By raw population numbers, most people worldwide does live in large cities with a lot of coverage by some type of public transport, not nece…

Except the thread is about trains

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#862

Post by solatic »

asdff wrote: post #844
xnx wrote: post #831

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It works even better with high demand because it's easier to find multiple people traveling to/from the same places.

In principle, but there are hard physical challenges such as the lack of space efficiency between a typical four occupant sized vehicle and a bus that holds some 10 or 20 fold more people on maybe only double the road footprint. Time to seek out your paired ridemates is something to consider, it melts away as you pack more people into the same vehicle and increases both in time as well as space as you start introduci…

You're not comparing against real-world fixed-route bus routes.

In the real world, most bus routes run nearly empty if not completely empty most of the time, belching diesel smoke and paying a driver, in order to ensure that service is provided to remote locations and that service is made available on a regular schedule. In cities, utilization is usually higher, although you see the same pattern off-peak.

In suburban and rural environments, the footprint is nearly irrelevant, but the lack of riders means that early attempts would start with designs that prioritize battery capacity and range over the sheer number of seats. In urban environments, the final mix of buses will look closer to a combination of mid-size buses for door-to-door and full-size buses for trips that are door-to-door but in practice are no different from fixed-routes due to the sheer number of people who take the current routes at rush hour.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#863

Post by MrDrMcCoy »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #782

My hypothesis of why autocars will make life so much better than we're imagining, which I think a lot of negative/hater folks miss includes: (All of this is very USA centric because that's my context) - Very old people who lose their license will get mobility back, as will blind or otherwise unlicenseable people - Autocars can break phantom traffic jams - They should massively reduce DUIs - They will serve as a form…

I'll get on board with autonomous cars as soon as they stop centrally recording my whereabouts.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#864

Post by socalgal2 »

crisnoble wrote: post #392
socalgal2 wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ridiculous and trivially provably false. (maybe Danish are different) Go to any intersection in SF or LA. Set up a camera. Count the number of cars and cyclists that break a traffic law. Cars will be 5-10% breaking the laws. Cyclists will be 95-97% breaking the laws.

Please go do it then. I've done this in San Diego, it was 19/20 failing to stop for cars, the one who did failed to stop behind the painted line. There were only 2 cyclists and they also slowly rolled through the intersection.

So, 100% bike offenders. Less than 100% car offenders. You proved my point.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#865

Post by socalgal2 »

robner wrote: post #360
socalgal2 wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my circle, everyone who's tried Waymo never wants to use Uber/Lyft with a human driver again. And, many of them wish they could own one or at least use one for much longer drives (100s of miles). I would visit my mom (2hrs by car) more often if that 2hrs (each way) wasn't so stressful and exhausting and I could just be chauffeured by a self driving car while I browse the net, play a game, watch a movie, or talk to…

In the Netherlands were I live we use trains for this

Yea, too bad the USA doesn't have good private trains like Japan

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#866

Post by socalgal2 »

pfdietz wrote: post #546
estebank wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even considering urban areas, most people don’t live in London or New York or Tokyo. They live in a city like Jakarta, Dhaka, Mexico City or Lagos. Even Bangkok which has the MRT and Skytrain only services the relatively affluent areas with service, everyone else is car bound. By raw population numbers, most people worldwide does live in large cities with a lot of coverage by some type of public transport, not nece…

Only about 1 in 8 people globally lives in a large (> 10 million people) city. Most people who live in cities are in cities with Exactly how many live in cities at all is determined by where you drawn the cutoff at which it's no longer a city.

I'm not disagreeing with you but there tons of cities with 250k to 10 million people with great transportation options.

    Amsterdam   : 1m
    Antwerp     : 0.6m
    Brussels    : 1.2m
    Barcelona   : 1.7m
    Copenhagen  : 0.7m
That said, places like the SF Bay Area and Southern California, are unlikely to get a large enough train system to be an alternative to cars anytime in the next 50-100 years. Adding 1-2 lines every 10 years is not enough. You need a extensive system. It needs fast express lines so that people making trips from one side to the other can do so in a reasonable amount of time. AFAIK the LA system they are sssslllooowwwlllyyy rebuilding, has only slow every-stop lines. It's, on average, door to door, going to be over 3hrs from the west side of LA to the east side of LA. Even if you live directly next to the station and need to go so some place next to the station on other end it will be 2hrs.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#867

Post by dietr1ch »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #782

My hypothesis of why autocars will make life so much better than we're imagining, which I think a lot of negative/hater folks miss includes: (All of this is very USA centric because that's my context) - Very old people who lose their license will get mobility back, as will blind or otherwise unlicenseable people - Autocars can break phantom traffic jams - They should massively reduce DUIs - They will serve as a form…

Old people shouldn't be able to drive by default past certain age. It'd be better for everyone if they just got to use cabs for free.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#868

Post by tsimionescu »

PorciiVorbesc wrote: post #813
tsimionescu wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So what should the disabled people do until that amazing public transport infrastructure materializes, if it ever even does for them at all? Sit at home and wait? No, the point was that instead of cities waiting until self-driving cars become an option to help get rid of terrible drivers, the cities could invest in public transportation today, and get better road safety that way.

> the cities could invest in public transportation today Again, with what money? My city is insolvent and every extra money it gets goes to cover the massive financial hole of social programs like elderly care and handicapped people, which is growing in need. Would you sacrifice the elderly and disabled, so people give up on needing cars to get to work? Again, just saying "invest in public transportation" is like tel…

Car infrastructure is typically a huge part of the costs of any city. Roads and parking spots and so on don't maintain themselves. If most people used public transport, you'd need far less road infra to maintain every year.

Anyway, my point was about how we allocate existing money, not about increasing spending.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#869

Post by fsflover »

MrDrMcCoy wrote: post #863
maerF0x0 wrote: post #782

My hypothesis of why autocars will make life so much better than we're imagining, which I think a lot of negative/hater folks miss includes: (All of this is very USA centric because that's my context) - Very old people who lose their license will get mobility back, as will blind or otherwise unlicenseable people - Autocars can break phantom traffic jams - They should massively reduce DUIs - They will serve as a form…

I'll get on board with autonomous cars as soon as they stop centrally recording my whereabouts.

Don't ordinary cars do that too? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37404413

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#870

Post by drob518 »

OroPla wrote: post #806
drob518 wrote: post #792

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because a car killing somebody means there is someone (the owner, “driver,” manufacturer, etc.) for the victim’s family to sue. And while anyone can bring a lawsuit against anyone at any time, regardless of how frivolous, you can’t sue God for an act of God.

You can't sue a bus passenger or people a bus killed. And if there was no driver since the bus drove autonomously, you wouldn't have anyone to sue. I don't understand why this is a problem. Just treat it the same way you do flood damage or lightning.

You can sue the owner, operator, or manufacturer of the bus. Have you dealt much with legal systems, particularly in USA?
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