Safe Streets Rebel’s protest comes after automatic vehicles were blamed for incidents including crashing into a bus and running over a dog. City officials in June said…
Thousands of accidents a year from human drivers. I sleep
90 accidents a year from autonomous vehicles. Lazer eyes
DARPA figures out how to safely drive cars using LIDAR. Musk asked for a self driving car. Engineers come back the LIDAR solution. Musk fires them, says if humans can drive with two eyes, then so can computers. Cameras are cheaper than LIDAR. Second group tries it with cameras, can’t get it to work, asked why they can’t use LIDAR. Second group of engineers is fired. Third group comes up with something that ‘kind of works’. People die. Big companies avoid self driving altogether, even though we have a perfect solution with LIDAR, all because Musk wanted to save a buck and can’t get out of the way of his engineers.
I’ve worked on serious projects involving LiDAR. The LiDAR you need at these speeds and with this resolution cost almost as much as an Electric Car - it’s too expensive to reach wide adoption. But video processing with CNNs/RNNs has proven you can build the same level of data with cameras. You don’t even need binocular cameras now - if objects are moving you can generate binocular data by combining IMU data with time-series imagery.
As I understand it, Tesla’s delays aren’t related to image capture (which is where LiDAR could help). They’re related to trying to find universal actions to take against an almost infinite number of possible scenarios (mostly actions by human drivers).
You make it sound like it’s a 50/50 split between human drivers and autonomous vehicles, which is definitely not the case.
There are way more human drivers than autonomous vehicles. So, when an autonomous vehicle runs your child or pet over or whatever, who do you blame? The company? The programmers? The DMV for even allowing them on the road in the first place?
What’s an autonomous vehicle do if it gets a flat? Park in the middle of the interstate like an idiot instead of pulling over and phone home for a mechanic?
You need to first ask yourself if it more important to put blame than to minimize risk.
“Autonomous vehicles could potentially reduce traffic fatalities by up to 90%.”
“Autonomous vehicle accidents have been recorded at a slightly lower rate compared with conventional cars, at 4.7 accidents per million miles driven.”
That opinion puts a lot of blind faith in the companies developing self driving and their infinitely altruistic motives.
That’s one way of strawmanning your way out of a discussion.
It’s not a strawman argument, it is a fact. Without the ability to audit the entire codebase of self-driving cars, there’s no way to know if the manufacturer had knowingly hidden something in the code that might have caused accidents and fatalities too numerous to recount, but too important to ignore, that were linked to a fault in self-driving technology.
I was actually trying to find an article I’d read about Tesla’s self-driving software reverting to manual control moments before impact, but I was literally flooded by fatality reports.
Strawman arguments can be factual. The entire point is that you’re responding to something that wasn’t the argument. You’re putting words in their mouth to defeat them instead of addressing their words at face value. It is the definition of a strawman argument.
We can’t audit the code for humans, but we still let them drive.
If the output for computers driving is less than for humans and the computer designers are forced to be as financially liable for car crashes as humans, why shouldn’t we let computers drive?
I’m not fully in either camp in this debate, but fwiw, the humans we let drive generally suffer consequences if there is an accident due to their own negligence
Because there’s no valid excuse to prevent us from auditing their software and it could save lives. Why the hell should we allow then to use the road if they won’t even let us inspect the engine?
A car isn’t a human. It’s a machine, and it can and should be inspected. Anything less than that is pure recklessness.
It is most definitely a strawman to frame my comment as considering the companies “infinitely altruistic”, no matter what lies behind the strawman. It doesn’t refute my statistics but rather tries to make me look like I make an extremely silly argument I’m not making, which is the defintion of a strawman argument.
The data you cited comes straight from manufacturers, who’ve repeatedly been shown to lie and cherry-pick their data to intentionally mislead people about driverless car safety.
So no it’s not a straw man argument at all to claim that you’re putting inordinate faith in manufacturers, because that’s exactly what you did. It’s actually incredible to me how many of you are so irresponsible that you’re not even willing to do basic cross-checking against an industry that is known for blatantly lying about safety issues.
It may be the case that every line of code of all self driving vehicles is not available for a public audit. But neither is the instruction set of every human who was taught to drive properly on the road today.
I would hope that through protesting and new legislation, that we will see the industry become more safe over time. Which we simply will never be able to achieve with human drivers.
That wasn’t an opinion, it’s a statistic.
No (large public) company ever has altruistic motives. They aren’t inherently good or bad, just machines driven by profit.
What do you mean, I’m sure the industry whose standard practices include having the self-driving function turn itself off nanoseconds before a crash to avoid liability is totally motivated to spend the time and money it would take to fix the problem. After all, we live in a time of such advanced AI that all the news sites and magazines tell me we’re on the verge of the Singularity, and they’ve never misled me before.
I feel like I’m taking crazy pills because no on seems to know or give a shit that Tesla was caught red handed doing this. They effectively murdered those drivers.
You don’t need to put faith into companies beyond the faith that is put into humans. Make companies just as financially liable as humans are, and you’ll still see a decrease in accidents.
You mean those companies who will lobby and spend a fraction of their wealth to make those lawsuits disappear?
How is that different from the current system of large vehicular insurance companies spending a fraction of their wealth to make their lawsuits disappear?
It’s no different at all. We should have stronger laws for such scenarios.
are there actual datasets to look at and info regarding how data was collected? all the sources on that page are just domain links but don’t appear to point to the data making the claims?
4.7 accidents per million miles doesn’t mean much if the cars are limited to specific roads or include test tracks that give them an advantage. the degree of variance in different environments would also need to be measured such as weather effects, road conditions and traffic patterns.
I’m all for autonomous driving, but its not like companies don’t fudge numbers all the time for their benefit.
You know what has much smaller fatality rates? Walking, bikes, trains and buses
So…
Your car is at fault. Their kid is dead.
Who pays for the funeral?
Does your insurance cover programming glitches?
If your insurance determined that an autonomous vehicle will cause less damage over time than a human driver, they will do that, yes.
Autonomous logic doesn’t pay insurance, does it?
If so, who TF is paying the insurance behind the scenes, and who is responsible?
If so, who TF is paying the insurance behind the scenes
The owner of the vehicle is probably very openly paying.
Here’s a question- if you have to agree to terms of service for the vehicle to function, and I’m guessing you would, is it really your vehicle?
We’re talking about autonomous vehicles here, no driver, company owned.
So is Alphabet responsible?
Do your homework, these vehicles are owned by the parent company of Google
and Apple, Alphabet. These vehicles have no private owner. So again, who TF is responsible?
I mean, why shouldn’t it? Is a programming glitch in a self driving all that different from a mechanical issue in a manually driven car?
AI driven cars are just as prone to mechanical issues as well. Is AI smart enough to deal with a flat tire? Will it pull over to the side of the road before phoning in for a mechanic, or will it just ignorantly hard stop right in the middle of the interstate?
What’s AI do when there’s a police officer directing traffic around an accident or through a faulty red light intersection? I’ve literally seen videos on that before, AI couldn’t give two shits about a cop’s orders as to which way to drive the vehicle.
Story time…
I once had a crazy accident driving only like 15-20 MPH or so down a side road, then about 20 feet in front of me some idiot backed out of his parking spot right in front of me.
Broad daylight, overcast skies, no other vehicles blocking his view even. Dude just backed up without looking like a freaking idiot.
I responded in a split second. I did not hit the brakes, as I knew I didn’t have enough time or distance to stop. If I had hit the brakes, his car would have had more time to back out further and I would have smacked straight on into the passenger side of his car.
Instead of hitting the brakes, I quickly jerked the steering wheel hard and fast to the left. See, I knew an impact was inevitable at that point, I made that move to clip his bumper instead of smacking into the passenger side and ruining both vehicles.
Would an AI do that? 🤔
Would? Maybe, don’t know, not sure. Could? Yes.
They tend to work on basic sensors and simplified logic. They don’t tend to consider forward momentum and a vehicle pulling out perpendicular in front of you.
I believe half the programmers of autonomous vehicles never even drove a vehicle in their life.
It’s weird that you think this isn’t the suggested driving practice in such an instance
You blame your kid for playing in the street.
Using the public as Guinea pigs for corporate profits: priceless
That’s America! That’s America too me! 🎶
When a for profit company is deciding how much time/energy/funds they want to invest in pedestrian safety, you get LOUD and you stay that way forever.
Your comment is blind to the reality we live in and the broken, out of touch people deciding if human lives are a businesses priority, and at what percentages, as these types of vehicles scale.
When humans get in an accident, there were choices/mistakes made, but there are things we can understand in certain situations and find closure often. When elon’s failed experiment decapitates your grandmother by driving her under a semi and sheering off the top off the car, you’ll probably never settle with that image as long as you live - and you’ll see elon in the news each day being a tool and never seeing justice for that moment.
There’s a difference with distinction in this conversation.
That’s a really good point.
Imagine your dog gets run over, you rush them to the vet but ultimately they die and your thousands out of pocket. You call the corporate helpdesk to log a claim because there isn’t anyone else to contact, they offer you $300 in credit for immediate resolution or you can dispute. You become upset because your dog was more than a credit refund, the call centre drone says that you’ve become aggressive, that you can call back during business hours and hangs up.
What a hell scape.
“But who do I sue” is also why it took so long for Linux to catch on.
But who do I sue. I hate America so much sometimes.
Oh ok I didn’t realize a person’s life was worth less of they’re killed by the mistake of another person instead of the mistake of a computer. Since it’ll be easier for their loved ones to blame a person and just get over it then that’s better. Thanks for explaining that!
the real funny here is how the USA has the most lax driving test standards in the developed world resulting in crazy amounts of road traffic accidents and really high mortality rates, but instead of dealing with shitty driving at the source there’s a billion dollar industry in autonomous driving.
Exploitation is the American way, bro. Create problems where there are none, offer a solution, profit.
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I mean, there’s probably millions of drivers performing more driving and less than that of autonomous vehicles.
I personally can’t wait for autonomous vehicles to take over but the argument would be clearer with percentages and stuff.
Did you read the article? The protests are in favour of affordable public transit, instead of using ‘surveillance pods’ as a way to build even MORE roads. The accidents are probably the least of their concerns, although still on the list
90 accidents a year is a LOT, if you stop to think that there are like only a few dozens of them out there, versus more than a hundred million human drivers.
They stop for no reason, cause gridlocks that require a human to comd out to it and pilot it, they’ve run over fire hoses being used and don’t always get out of the way for emergency service vehicles. Nice statistic though.
So are you talking about autonomous cars or…
If sarcasm could make the cars drive better I’d send you right out, but maybe you should leave the issue to people who at least understand the actual problem.
But are you the people who at least understand the actual problem?
Im literally telling you what they say in the articles about why they’re doing this and all you guys wanna do is joke and pretend theres no issues with an unproved technology because you saw some statistics about it. So compared to the other commenters in this chain Im Secretary Butigege.
Sir/Mam/Potato, you got my upvotes 👍
Articles are not as factual as you seem to be making out. Every stupid thing you’ve mentioned has been done by humans 100 times over. The difference is we can fix the issue in self driving vehicles while humans will continue to make the mistakes.
You’re never gonna fix them by denying they have problems, welcome, that’s how we got to this conversation.
Comparing these two requires the number of cars with human drivers and the amount of time humans spend driving per year versus the number of autonomous vehicles and the amount of time they spend driving per year. I am not saying that you are wrong, I am just saying that comparing these numbers directly is like comparing apples with oranges.
I agree completely. My original post was just a stupid meme. I don’t really think putting cones on the hoods of the cars is helping and that it’s kind of dumb to do that and act smug about it. I’d rather people were sueing or something. I’m sure there is precedent for stopping manufacturers from making their vehicles more dangerous just to save a small percentage of money. I guess we do live in a capitalist utopia though so maybe I’m wrong but it seems like court might be more effective than trying to make these cars even more dangerous by adding a cone to the hood.
I live in the area and the streets are just clogged with these fucking autonomous cars. Traffic is slower, people end up having to swerve, it’s just a constant persistent headache. If I had it my way, they’d all be off the streets and into the crusher
Almost like public transit is better than self driving taxis
Can we instead have self driving buses?
I’m envisioning a system where you tell it your location and where you want to go, then it automatically sets up a route for the bus that coincides with where most people want to go and tells you to get off when it’s near your destination. This can work in conjunction with self driving taxis if no one else is going to your destination.
Maybe minibus but in no way it will works with full sized bus.
The ideal bus to commute is a bus line with frequent bus, you don’t have to check the time, just show up and in a few minutes there is a bus.You’re not gonna get self-driving buses without self-driving cars first, so this protest is directly fucking you out of what you want
Caving to corporations and spying on citizens isn’t how you get self driving buses.
Lmao
The problem is no one will use them. Busses are full of homeless people and people that NEED to use them than they want to. I was a bus driver for many years. They don’t stop where everyone wants to go and it’s a necessity to most instead of an integrated way of life. The entire American culture would need to change.
This is not the case in places outside the US.
Absolutely! I drove bus in the city in question. So I thought I would add my anecdote.
Yeah. But US culture needs to change anyways.
For sure. However do you change something that is mostly government subsidized and everyone that manages the systems are happy with the operations?
everyone that manages the systems are happy with the operations?
Is that the case? I suppose most car drivers are not happy with sitting in traffic jams. Better public transport would help.
They are happy with their paychecks and lives. Yes.
Make them as unhappy as you.
I don’t know how it is in the US, but i can tell you that public transit is pretty good here in my city. A self-driving taxi would still be the ideal experience for sure, but taking a bus isn’t that much worse, and it’s definitely better than driving myself.
The entire American culture needs to change.
I totally agree. I am not sure how that will happen.
That literally just proves that we do in fact need more busses. More vehicles would allow for a wider coverage with more frequent and well organized stops.
I like your idea, but implementing it is a bigger issue than you may realize. The transit systems in San Francisco are based on counties. Therefore it is a completely different governing body for each way out of the city proper.
But coverage does not change the usage. That is several millions if not billions to reroute a busline to go to a different area. If only 10 people get on every two hours then another bus in a more populated area is more financially sound. We can sit and say more buses are the answer, but people being willing to get on to the bus is a part of the equation. I don’t see how you are going to eliminate 2 extra hours out of everyone’s commute and make them buy into it.
Busses are full of homeless people and people that NEED to use them than they want to.
I heard this is the case in the United States. In Europe, as far as I can tell, it’s more common that people from all backgrounds take public transit, including ‘higher’ class people. Of course exceptions and reasons exist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0ddExZbKD8 but self driving?
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Good bot
Public transit is better, but self-driving taxis are absolutely coming to every city in this country, which is great if you live in a city like mine that has little to no public transport infrastructure.
Also, automated taxis can service more rural areas, which is the key driver of lack of public transport in many “commuter cities.”
Luddites gonna Luddite, but this tech is coming, and it’s coming to logistics and taxis first.
Yes, but SanFran ain’t one of those. Taxis have the same problem cars do, which is size.
I can tell you aren’t from SF. Because no one from here calls it SanFran. But I digress. Uber is huge here because it is where it started. And buses come with other baggage. Many homeless people and plenty of pervs doing shady things deter people from using the system regularly. Having seen the system it is substantial, but getting out of the city is the issue. San Francisco proper is very small 7x7 miles (49 square miles, Easter egg from being 1849 and the 49ers). But going anywhere outside of the city is where things take forever and why most affluent people do not use those systems. 2 hours back and forth is not economic on time.
No, I’m not. Homeless on our public transit isn’t an issue because our police actually responds to driver calls.
I am well aware of both the benefits of public transport and this image specifically. This is irrelevant to our discussion
It’s not if I’m arguing that self driving taxis are stupid
Self driving taxis aren’t stupid. They better fit the existing infrastructure within America.
Taxis as a whole generally serve a different market function than public transportation in the US.
Im all for gutting zoning, and building dense, walkable cities, full of public transportation free at POS - but that’s not the world we live in.
Self-driving taxis are such a massive net boon for people that it’s not even a comparison to the alternative
On that I will agree, but I still stand that self driving taxis are stupid. BUT, they are necessary due to how NA cities are built, and getting rid of them would require many other changes as well
Not for the profits of these private companies.
I was in SF 4 years ago and it was insane how many self-driving cars were on the streets for tests. Especially on Lombard Street they just drove in circles. I can’t imagine how annoying this is for someone who lives there
but they say automatic car is the future! (with more lanes) and due to a computer driving its faster! s/
And why did you let them drive here if it’s so bad?
I don’t think @moss can control such a thing on their own.
they can with a few traffic cones
The interviewed protesters sound a little whacky. Maybe the cars are doing surveillance with the police, but that idea seems far fetched and unrealistic. Maybe I’m wrong.
I agree with more public transportation, bikes, and so forth, but I also agree with self driving cars. I dream of a future in which all cars are driven automatically without human drivers. Humans are very fallible and we all know, in almost every city, how many shitty drivers there are. Autonomous vehicles could fix this.
Maybe the cars are doing surveillance with the police, but that idea seems far fetched and unrealistic
I’m sure that’s what people said about Ring, or Facebook messages being used to arrest women for abortions. Why would a company turn down an extra revenue stream (or subpoena)?
Facebook messages being used to arrest women for abortions.
That’s a misrepresentation of what happened. The police already suspected her, and so they requested the information from Facebook. Facebook didn’t voluntarily supply a bunch of data to the police for no reason, and then the police didn’t comb through all the data to find this one crime that they otherwise didn’t know about.
What is being suggested with the automatic cars is that the police are actively monitoring the surveillance footage looking for criminal activity. They definitely won’t be doing that. It’s way to much like work.
Companies like this will sell their data to anyone willing to pay.
Cars are incredibly inefficient at transporting people though, like you need a massive highway to transport the amount of people a train can transport, not to mention how much higher maintenance roads are compared to train tracks.
Cars are incredibly inefficient at transporting groups of people long distances
FTFY
I’d love a legit train system to take me to locations across the state or country. But for running errands or local, day-to-day tasks, trains aren’t the answer.
Of course! For running errands and local, day-to-day tasks the bicycle is of course the best vehicle :)
When it isn’t icy, rainy, or too hot, or you need to transport cargo, or need to be presentable when you arrive, or aren’t healthy enough…
Wow, that’s a lot of caveats. I still end up biking a decent chunk, and travel with public transport a bit as well (thanks to student rebates), but my car is a frequently used necessity.
Exactly, even if people wanted to not everyone can afford to arrive all sweaty or wet carrying a giant backpack.
Assuming you live in a bike-friendly area. Bad biking infrastructure means you’re basically risking your life every time you go out on one.
I mean, a car wouldn’t help in that situation either, so…
Good luck getting through that with any vehicle lol
I have taken the tram for whatever I need short distance so far, it’s also free and goes from like behind my apartment to pretty much anywhere I would wanna go, including work. If I wanna visit my parents then yea, I take the train but I haven’t needed a car in years.
If all cars became autonomous there would no longer be traffic, it’d be similar to train cars in that they are linked together with no disruption in progress due to other cars/drivers.
Inefficient but versatile. Hardly anyone has the same schedule or needs.
I wouldn’t be able to do my job if I didn’t have access to a personal vehicle, I have gear and tools I have to transport around town every day.
It look like a unicorn
City officials in June said there have been ninety incidents involving Alphabet’s Waymo and General Motors’ Cruise vehicles since January.
Compared to how many traffic incidents involving human-operated vehicles? Because if that number is greater than 90, the AVs are the safer choice.
Automated cars don’t have to be perfect; they just have to be better than people.
The comparison needs to be normalized for distance driven. There’s far more human driven cars. But most humans don’t spend that long driving (I’m not sure how much of the day is spent driving by these AI cars, but they theoretically could drive all day long).
The quota also does say “involving”, which may include accidents where someone else hits an AI driven car. If so, that’s highly misleading.
Bay Area native here. They’re also prone to dead stopping in the middle of the street and other moving violations, blocking emergency services and public transit in addition to normal traffic. Ideally, we’d like these vehicles to be held accountable for these violations like normal drivers: fines, suspensions, impounds. But we’ll settle for a human driver on standby who can immediately override the software when a moving violation occurs.
Compared to how many traffic incidents involving human-operated vehicles? Because if that number is greater than 90, the AVs are the safer choice.
Well that is simply flawed logic. How many autonomous cars are there compared to human-operated? Far far more.
How many autonomous cars are there compared to human-operated? Far far more.
I think you meant less.
Ideally, you’d be correct and we should be looking at per capita incidents- like how many incidents per 100 miles on the road or something. But the article just cited a flat number of incidents without contextualizing, which as you’ve pointed out can be misleading. Without knowing the ratio of AVs to human-driven vehicles, the best rebuttal that could be offered is “Yeah, but how do those 90 incidents compare to how people drive?”
Yeah sorry - I meant less.
And yep agree on all the rest. I was just triggered by the simple comparison.
To play devil’s advocate, how many AVs are on the road everyday? There are millions of cars on the road so naturally there are going to be a ton of accidents.
One of the car companies is quoted as having caused no serious injuries or deaths, so it seems like the 90 incidents number only includes those. Unfortunately the article doesn’t question those numbers or explain what is counted, which is very poor journalism. I don’t understand how they can write about the protesters’ motivations without asking how many moving violations those cars have caused, or at least mention that this number is unknown.
If the numbers indeed don’t count the times where they block traffic, stop for no reason or block emergency vehicles where they need to wait for the company to send someone out to the car, then AV’s could be far worse than human drivers, not only in the number of incidents but also in the total delays they cause. At least a human driver can be removed from the car so that someone more competent can take over and resolve the situation quickly. And a human generally doesn’t just stop in a lane and refuse to move out of the way for a very long time.
Another bonus: a human can just remove a cone from the hood and continue driving.
And they will definitely be better than people. Just them being able to communicate with each other, even locally, can remove the need for traffic lights already.
What percent uptime does your phone’s wifi/bluetooth/mobile internet have? Is it exactly 100%?
What exactly is the fear about self driving cars? I’ve never heard this side of the story.
There’s a concern about more cameras recording all the time, and while I don’t personally buy that argument (because being out in public means you don’t have any expectation of privacy) I don’t agree with these companies storing that data to give to police, effectively making Waymo or Cruise into private arms of law enforcement.
The reason that makes the most sense to me is it still encourages cities to be designed around cars, and not transit or people-oriented methods of travel. Even though they might make travel smoother by better decision-making than people, I’d still rather see more spaces devoted to foot traffic connected by buses or trains than the sprawl necessitated by personal vehicles.
I bet you own a car though.
Cars are freedom. You can go anywhere, anytime, without worrying about a delayed schedule or how many connections you’d need to get exactly where you’re going.
You can listen to your own music and carry as much as you like, without worrying about someone trying to steal it or altercations with the public.
I agree we need electric cars, but anti-car policy is ultimately just trapping people in cities, allowing the rich to still enjoy their cars from commuter towns, etc. whilst the working class are stuck in overcrowded pod apartments. This is literally the reality in a lot of Spain, Sweden, etc. where you’re lucky to get even a 70m2 apartment and parking is extortionate.
cars are freedom
What about my freedom to walk or bike? My freedom to be able to cross the street? My freedom to get milk without taking 2000 pounds of metal with me?
Cars warp entire cities around them. In an ideal world, everyone would be able to own a car, but very few people would need to own a car
This may sound argumentative, it isn’t:
The capitalist pitched the infrastructure cost to the government, design of transportation and city design flex around them, and now you need to buy the privilege to participate in society back from them. Where I live public transport is basically non-existent (unless you just so happen to live in a wealthy area, oddly enough) and I’ve known people trapped in poverty because no car means no job, but job don’t pay, so they work for car because everyone is laser focused on the merits for the individual over the collective. Even if it’s cooking the environment and is inefficient for moving people en-masse as well.
In the example you gave why not offer a train station that goes to the city? I’m one of the fortunate few that can take the train into the city and it has been ideal. Just me, my e-bike, and the train. No insurance; no emissions. It’d be perfect save the two tons of metal flying around me constantly.
I think the view behind the anti-car movement is that there shouldn’t be cars. Period. Doesn’t matter what income bracket. Gas powered cars create huge amounts of pollution, all cars generate lots of waste and are in general very inefficient modes of transportation.
I believe in the end it advocates for busses and trains (above and below ground)as public transit. I think there’s also a belief that infrastructure is supposed to be updated to support this. Busses get their lane, while most of a street is for people moving under their own power, be it walking, cycling or using a wheelchair.
I think the view behind the anti-car movement is that there shouldn’t be cars. Period.
I don’t think so. Fuck-car people are rather against the omnipresence of private cars and how cities prioritize them instead of greener means of transportation, which creates mortal danger, pollution, wasted energy, wasted materials and wasted space. But I don’t think they would mind the occasional car for reasonable usage like disabled people, craftsmen, public services etc.
I live in one of the cities with the “best” public transport in the world. But it’s impossible for one of my friends to get to her night shift outside the city by public transport. It’s like a train for 40 minutes, and then an infrequent bus and then walking - all as a lone woman at night.
Or a 30 minute drive… in the safety of your own car.
I don’t see how public transport could ever be “improved” to solve that, it becomes increasingly expensive to cover every destination.
Nevermind the fact that most of the anti-car people are the same ones pushing for rehabilitative “justice”, defunding the police and weak sentencing - that’s not making walking at night and public transport any safer!
Personally, I find I feel much less safe when there are more and more well-armed cops out on the street than when there aren’t, in regards to that last point
Different people feel differently about the safety of cops. You might live in a city that’s safe for women walking alone at night, but not everyone does.
Heavily armed cops plowing through red lights and crosswalks in their cars, at that.
It’s not only the transportation means, it’s also the city design which is biased by the car culture. If your friend’s only reasonable solution is a 30-min driver, and she didn’t intentionally decide to live in some isolated place, then the city design is a failure.
You’re ignoring the thing car drivers complain about the most, traffic delays. To me real freedom is being able to get to the places I need to using my own two feet, without needing to spend thousands every year on a car, insurance, etc. Headphones also exist and let you enjoy your own music while outside of a car without disturbing anyone!
What we need everywhere is a people first policy that makes it so you don’t need a car to get around, especially in cities.
I’m not sure what you are talking about with Spain. People there are not “trapped” in cities, they have good public transit in most cities and one of the best high speed rail systems in the world to get between cities, on top of that an extensive bus system that is even cheaper and extensive than the trains.
But in Spain there are not connections to most places outside cities, like most smaller towns don’t even have rail connections, nevermind going to the countryside and touristic places.
Yeah, it’s okay between cities (although AVE is expensive), but that’s my point - it’s only cities.
In Spain you can totally get the bus to most places, especially touristy places! AVE is expensive but there are budget high speed operators operating now and the bus is cheap. All these options are far cheaper than owning a car (and cheaper than owning a car in a car centric country as well!).
Also those towns that don’t have good connections it’s mostly poor people living there, so rather than being stuck in cities because they don’t own cars, they’re stuck in poor rural towns because there is no transit to other places!
Not really. Miravet is a famous tourist castle place. You can’t get there via public transport from Barcelona or even from Tarragona.
Same for Besalú.
Honestly, Germany is the only place I have been where I felt I could get everywhere by train.
I mean, not really. You can go with a car only where infrastructure (roads) has been built, same as transit. There’s more places reachable by that infrastructure, but that is only because things have been built around it. You absolutely do have to worry about delays; there are after all things like traffic jams and road closures. You have to worry about the route you take, not in the form of what connections to take but in the form of navigating the right route. People absolutely have to worry about things like theft and altercation when driving, else people wouldn’t lock their cars, and road rage wouldn’t exist.
Personally, after having moved somewhere I can manage to at least live my life, without owning a car, I find it feels a lot more freeing to just be able to walk places I want to be, or get on a train that someone else is driving, than having to own some expensive machine that needs periodic and also costly maintenance, and then having to operate it constantly to get anywhere, with the risk of accidently killing someone if I make a mistake.
Yeah, I like stuff being walkable too. The situation in some parts of the US and Mexico, etc. is crazy, I remember once my hotel was across the road from some shops and there was no way to walk across!
I just dislike this idea that working people don’t deserve private transport. Like here in Sweden getting the driver’s licence can easily cost $3000+, then parking is $200+ a month (especially if you need a charger), tax and insurance are another $200 or so but that varies a lot, fuel taxes are very high, and there are extra fees for driving into Stockholm (although you’d want to avoid it anyway!). So including the cost of the car you’re looking at almost $1000 a month or so just for the car to be drivable - when you take into account that Swedish salaries are usually less than half of their US counterparts (especially in professional jobs - Medicine, Tech, Law, etc.) it becomes really unaffordable.
Even moreso with the rampant inflation and high interest rates right now.
You can go with a car only where infrastructure (roads) has been built
I can drive a car from where I’m at right now to where you’re at right now. And I’m not even going to ask where you’re at. I think that’s pretty neat.
But I do agree, walkability and reliable public transit are super nice. The time I’ve spent in smaller, remote ski towns where I could walk/bike or take a bus anywhere in a short amount of time are some of my favorite memories.
Cars aren’t freedom though. You can only go to places where there are roads/streets and you’re entirely dependent on energy logistics to provide you transportation. You’re entirely subject to a delayed schedule through traffic (accidents/congestion).
If you also bring your car to a public parking area, you can subject yourself to potential theft.
Of course living in a city where space is at a premium you’re going to be limited in living space but there’s nothing stopping us from Building out public transportation and alternative methods of transportation out in to suburbs.
Some autonomous vehicles are not properly programmed to actually notice and properly avoid everything they should. For example, cyclists might be getting hit more by them.
I believe they are fighting to get the AI worked on more to actually avoid real obstacles.
Shame we can’t do the same for people. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that humans cause more of this type of problem than self-driving cars for the number of miles driven.
I believe humans do cause more accidents, so these are definitely safer. But, the point is that these cars are meant to be very safe. If I can’t drive my motorcycle around an autonomous car and feel safe, that’s not great.
Honestly, what makes you more uncomfortable passing an autonomous vehicle than a human driver? At least you know the AV won’t take it personally when you pass. Are we seeing instances of AV’s sideswiping (motor)cyclists of any sort?
If anything, I would be more concerned with being in FRONT of an AV but that also is when I’m most concerned about humans behind me too. Getting decimated from behind while on 2-wheels is one of those sitting duck scenarios.
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