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Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

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Re: Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

#511

Post by josephcsible »

achierius wrote: post #489
MisterMower wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cyclists contribute to congestion and occupy road space that was created through taxes on motorists while paying nothing for these benefits. Cyclists are not licensed and their bicycles are not tagged or inspected for safe operation on roads, unlike motorists. Cyclists are rarely subjected to traffic law enforcement despite demanding all of the rights that motorists pay for and are licensed for. Cyclists are a danger…

I do pay taxes, just like a motorist might. Where do you live that you think your car or your gas is taxed in a way that contributes to road upkeep? In the US gas taxes haven't been upped in decades, roadways are maintained out of the common coffers (incl. large federal incentives which come straight out of your income tax payments).

> In the US gas taxes haven't been upped in decades

But the tax is still constantly being collected even though the rate isn't going up. This is like saying electricity must be free if you haven't had a rate hike in a while.

Re: Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

#512

Post by josephcsible »

Mawr wrote: post #507
dgunay wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't personally care whether bikes (or scooters) ride on the road or the sidewalk, but my one ask is that: If they ride on the sidewalk, they should behave like pedestrians. That is, do not blast into the crosswalk at 20mph (impossible for drivers to safely check for in most environments), do not randomly enter the road from the sidewalk, pass pedestrians at a respectful speed and distance, etc. If they ride on th…

No problem, in exchange I just ask that you pass safely (1.5m distance). Since that's not going to happen until hell freezes over, we're gonna have to settle on the current situation.

That's often impossible except at super-off-peak times of day when there's no oncoming cars, except if the cyclist pulls over, but for some reason they never seem to do that.

Re: Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

#513

Post by Mawr »

MisterMower wrote: post #498
achierius wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do pay taxes, just like a motorist might. Where do you live that you think your car or your gas is taxed in a way that contributes to road upkeep? In the US gas taxes haven't been upped in decades, roadways are maintained out of the common coffers (incl. large federal incentives which come straight out of your income tax payments).

Because motorists don’t fund all road upkeep, cyclists who consume those very same roads are entitled to pay none of it? What exactly is your point? For the record, I support closing that gap, in addition to taxing the odometer on electric vehicles which don’t contribute to gas tax revenue but use roadways like other motorists.

> Because motorists don’t fund all road upkeep, cyclists who consume those very same roads are entitled to pay none of it?

I don't think you understood what you wrote. Non-motorists subsidize motorists.

Feel free to look up the % of funding for roads that gas tax or w/e accounts for in your country.

Also look up the fourth power law, that'll tell you how much tax a cyclist should pay compared to a driver in terms of road wear. Say a cyclist should pay $1, how much should you?

Then check how many millions it costs to build a mile of highway and internalize the fact that cyclists are not allowed there. Nor do they use car parking. Nor do they cause 40 thousand deaths per year in the USA. What's the cost of human life again?

Once you figure all that out, we'll be ready to start talking about pollution and its effects.

Re: Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

#514

Post by seanmcdirmid »

meagher wrote: post #274
marcosdumay wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They will probably gain way more by the removal of parking lots that comes with it than by losing rides to pedestrian traffic or bikes.

NYC doesn’t have a lot of surface parking lots.

It had a lot of on street parking, at least mid town did, when I lived there in 2000 (which admittedly was 25 years ago). It was good enough that my gf at the time was driving from a Columbia dorm to IBM hawthorn.

Re: Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

#515

Post by 38 »

ilamont wrote: post #313
afcool83 wrote: post #239

I live in one of the areas they are actively testing/training in. Their cars consistently behave better and more safely than most human drivers that I’m forced to share the road with. As semi-autonomous and autonomous cars become the norm, I would adore to see obtaining a drivers license ratchet up in difficulty in order to remove dangerous human drivers from the road.

Traffic enforcement, which used to correct some bad driving, has basically evaporated in many parts of the U.S. This has been a long-term trend. A friend who's a cop told me that only when their department got specific state grants would they set up stings of drivers driving in a pedestrian walkway while someone was crossing the street. Here's an example of one such grant program, which is actually funded by the fede…

[dead]

Re: Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

#516

Post by TowerTall »

afcool83 wrote: post #239

I live in one of the areas they are actively testing/training in. Their cars consistently behave better and more safely than most human drivers that I’m forced to share the road with. As semi-autonomous and autonomous cars become the norm, I would adore to see obtaining a drivers license ratchet up in difficulty in order to remove dangerous human drivers from the road.

> I would adore to see obtaining a drivers license ratchet up in difficulty in order to remove dangerous human drivers from the road.

That shift will happen all by itself. At some point, in a distant future, the price of the insurrance for human-driven cars will be so expensive that people because of that will choose a robot-driven car.

It is all about risk (the risk of the insurrance company loosing money) and an error prone and unpreditical human will be a considered high risk in that regard.

Re: Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

#517

Post by kyleee »

stronglikedan wrote: post #389
bathtub365 wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, including not being allowed to run red lights. It would also be great if they had license plates so you could easily report dangerous behaviour.

> It would also be great if they had license plates Lol, like hell it would. The supposed "danger" is not worth more legislation and overreach.

Just think of the YouTube videos though; sovereign citizens on bicycles.

Re: Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

#518

Post by adonese »

afcool83 wrote: post #239

I live in one of the areas they are actively testing/training in. Their cars consistently behave better and more safely than most human drivers that I’m forced to share the road with. As semi-autonomous and autonomous cars become the norm, I would adore to see obtaining a drivers license ratchet up in difficulty in order to remove dangerous human drivers from the road.

> I would adore to see obtaining a drivers license ratchet up in difficulty in order to remove dangerous human drivers from the road.

I'd like to challenge this part. I don't see the value of increasing the driving license tests. Reckless drivers can be reckless regardless of their initial driving license tests. You just need drivers with sense of responsibilities. they will get to know road norms as they go, which often is far more valuable than the driving license quizzes.

Context: I moved to a new place where acquiring a license can take more than a year. It turns into a game where driving license companies deliberately fail you just to get you to pay more.

Re: Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

#519

Post by mtalantikite »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #476
mtalantikite wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crossing the street as a pedestrian without a walk signal in NYC goes: - look in the direction of oncoming traffic as you approach the intersection, cross if you think you can make it without breaking your stride - if there is traffic, step off the curb into the street and wait for a large enough gap in traffic to walk against the light - if there is backed up traffic, find a gap to walk in between Wait until New Yor…

> Wait until New Yorkers figure out that Waymos will detect you and yield in order to avoid hitting you. People will just disregard and cross right in front of them This is true everywhere. Waymos have learned to time an aggressive run up. Same as every New York driver.

Yeah it’ll be interesting to see how it deals with our pedestrian traffic. I’m sure they’ll figure it out, but pedestrians are a whole different sort of thing here than on the west coast. I notice I don’t really jaywalk in LA, and do less in SF, but here in NYC it’s just what everyone does at every intersection in the entire city.
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