I've been saying for years "self driving cars are solving the wrong problem". The problem isn't that I have to steer my car. The problem is I need a fucking car to go anywhere worth going.
this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2025
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But then this problem will be solved for those who can't afford it. This is simply not fair to those who are hardworking to earn their salary
I saw a video recently by a car enthusiast who hates the idea of self driving cars for a novel reason.
Even if self-driving cars are safer than people it won’t stop bad owners. People who drive with unsafe mechanical issues they can’t or won’t get fixed are still going to exist, and bald tires and worn brakes would eliminate any potential safety benefits of self driving.
And by further removing people from the operation of a car, you’re making them worse owners. They won’t know what a worn tie rod bushing would feel like because they never steer. Making cars into appliances just makes them less safe.
He also made a point that I agree with: If we get people who don’t want to drive off the road, the roads would be nicer for people who do want to drive.
Back when I used to agree with Mush, he said something I still agree with, "you don't want flying cars, because you don't want a poorly maintained car to fly around and lose a hubcap".
Also having worked in the industry the "if" in "Even if self-driving cars are safer than people" is carrying the weight of the sun. You might be able to get them safer than humans in a specific subset of circumstances but I would never trust one.
If they could have made anything self driving already it’d be trains, but we still don’t have fully automated trains
Yes we do. REM in Montréal, skytrain in Vancouver
I think the Sydney metro partially is too. But that is easier because it doesn't cross any roads, or have many branching connection.
SEATAC has em, that was an interesting experience 10 years ago.
I somewhat disagree with this. If you can feel worn tires, brakes, or suspension bushings, it's easy to imagine the car feeling them and raising a service alert, and locking out if not appropriately serviced.
Vendor lock-in and enshittification, baby.
Certain things are fairly easy to detect like wheel imbalance vibration or a bad muffler sounds. but there’s so many “vibes plus experience” things that I don’t think software will catch. The human brain is exceptionally good at picking signal out of noise, and “feeling” a bad set of tires or an old timer being able to “hear” how healthy your motor is, aren’t really things you can teach an algorithm.
I’m sure somebody will try to predict failures, but it might not go well. Surely it will be used to gouge consumers, and of course the owners of self-driving cars won’t know any better.
Could we stop saying that computers "could never do" things? It always gets proven wrong. Anything we can detect as humans has some physical reason that we can detect it. Sensors can detect it more effectively. To suggest that you can't program a computer to know what those sensors are supposed to be reading is just absurd.
Airliner engines are getting to ludicrous reliability numbers (the latest generation appears to be closing in on 10M hours between inflight shutdowns) largely through predictive maintenance performed far in advance. We're well past 'most pilots never see an engine failure' and approaching 'most airlines don't see an engine failure'.
And there are few locations more abusive to sensors than the hot section of a turbine engine.
Imagine getting in your car and it refusing to drive you anywhere because the wear sensor on the brake pads is bad, but everything else is fine.
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People who drive with unsafe mechanical issues they can’t or won’t get fixed are still going to exist, and bald tires and worn brakes would eliminate any potential safety benefits of self driving.
In European nations we just inspect the shit out of every car to ensure safety. The car must be mechanically satisfactory and have adequate brakes, tyres, etc.
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So many times watching a car crash video, someone hydroplanes through a puddle …. my first reaction is I bet they live somewhere without safety inspections and those tires are bald
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I'm hearing you want continental Europe
Or even
Wait for it
SELF DRIVING TRANSIT
Which yes is already a thing too
And much easier to implement than self driving cars
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Self driving buses though can be very useful!
No labor cost to drive the bus means it suddenly becomes a lot cheaper to operate buses with less capacity. Meaning, more frequent buses in low density neighborhoods.
Lets go a step farther and put that bus on tracks, which will make it even easier and safer to implement self driving.
maybe we can connect multiple busses together and that way it can carry more on the same track!
Tram systems could be made that simple as adding capacity is just add another tram car to the link onto certain routes. We do also need trains but trams serve a more localized purpose, which often make up the majority of someone's trips
Hear me out:
We give them road specifically for them, make them self driving, give them lidar and whatever sensor to be safe, paint a specific coloured line on the route, direct them to only self-drive on that line so no deviation = no worry with traffic, and call them well-trained bus.
If you're gping through that trouble, lay the tram tracks so the next politician cant open that lane up to car traffic.
Tracks are cool but kinda difficult to cover the suburbs with them!
You know what, you're right.
We should knock down the suburbs and use that land for sustainable energy generation, food production, or let it re-wild to support conservation efforts!
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You just need regular, quick service within bicycle/motorbike range. There's unmanned platforms in Japan that have a daily ridership of literally 2 people, usually the same person taking the train to work.
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somebody should do a compilation including data about:
- the costs of public transport against private cars, for the whole city
- the space consumption for parking your private cars in a city compared to the space consumption for all public transport vehicles
and make a statistics and post it here
They have (I've seen them, but don't have a link sorry) and car free or semi car free with good bike and public infrastructure is almost always cheaper and more efficient
Boring?
Yeah, public transit so common and part of day-to-day it's unremarkable and boring.
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