I have some friends who are in the autonomous vehicle industry, talking about how far behind Tesla is as compared to waymo is their favorite topic or conversation.
There are many many reasons why they will never get to the stage of autonomous driving they claim to be at with only using cameras.
What I want to know is how dependant is all this current generation of self-driving tech on having all the roadways scanned in and pre-analyzed? Like are they just depending on a big map up in The Cloud™ with some visual landmarks, or can the damn thing actually read a road signs and adjust? If they repave an intersection and add a little median into a disused turn lane, can it adapt to that without the mothership coming by with a fleet of scanners?
Because my worry is that it'll become just another thing we have to subscribe to. I've already noticed the fine print in Ford and GM ads about fees for their super duper cruise control systems, which I can understand for a vehicle with a more primitive sensor array, but not the higher end stuff that's still in development.
Car features should not come with a subscription (except maybe Sirius XM… and you'd think they would just eat the price of map updates by now…)
There is absolutely no reliance on "scanned" or mapped roadways. This is why Tesla works anywhere. And of course it adapts to changing conditions, that is the core of how it works. How could it avoid pedestrians and such otherwise?
You don't have to subscribe to it, you can buy it outright.
Yeah, and GMail was supposed to be an infinitely growing email service where you never ran out of space, and now you gotta pay. And my Bitcasa lifetime subscription to infinite cloud storage didn't even last the lifetime of my laptop.
Tech firms have a tendency to stretch and redefine the meaning of the word “lifetime,” especially when it's connected to a promise made on a beta product.
I agree Tesla’s system is no where near the robustness of Waymo. Most of the engineers I work with don’t believe Waymo has a path to a viable product with their current sensor solution. It’s way too expensive.
Functional does not mean viable without a continuous supply of money from Alphabet. The sensor package is too expensive and the break even on those cars looks problematic
That seems like something only an insider at waymo would know.
Sensors aren't that expensive. The ability to afford that while also avoiding paying for gas and drivers for robo-taxis seems to be viable. But again have not seen the break down of cost versus revenue.
Conversely Tesla has never been profitable. And is rife with waste and unaffordability. So i don't see them doing any better. Especially with how poor their performance is
Tesla is cooked in so many ways. They're the prime indicator that the stock market is meaningless gambling at this point with no basis in reality. It's a failing company.
It is absolutely crazy to me. Like yeah, me with my eyes can drive. But if I could get LIDAR laser crazy ass vision, I would probably be better at driving. It's not a flex to do what I can with my eyes (I mean as a software engineer it's interesting on a technical level). Do what I can't!
I have a degree in robotics and I am working in AI right now. Tesla engineering is marvelous because they use cameras for their self driving. Waymo uses that + more sensors such as lidar.
Tesla is trying to do more with less, and once they are able to perfect it (not that it’s bad rn by any means) they’d be massive.
For sure, but for something involving high speed life or death decision making, the bar is incredibly high, and working with less
information to save a few bucks seems stupid.
As long as they make sure the car still stinks like someone dumped a bottle of cologne on a pile of dirty laundry, I don’t care if there’s a human driver or not.
Tangentially related, but I got a letter in the mail from Amazon Health/Medical. Like wow you already have all my shopping and entertainment info, and now you want my medical too? Let's just rebrand it United States of Amazon at this point.
weren't you the same guy cheering on all the new speed cameras the city was putting up like 6 months ago that have now been shown to be fundamentally insecure and allowing anyone to peer into our lives?
? I've been doing the opposite. I was pretty heavily opposed for criticizing the speed cameras and suggesting there are better ways to address dangerous driving.
And, to be clear, the speeding camera company the city is working with is fundamentally different from Flock, the "AI" camera company with the recently publicized huge security flaws and blatant lies.
You're right! I was thinking of the wrong username. The NovoaGlobal cameras installed at red lights have the same kind of backend ui that the Flock ones do. It's only a matter of time.
More cars is never the solution to traffic violence. Additionally, "self driving" cars are literally lower density transportation as they might be taking up space with literally no one in it.
More transit funding to improve transit. Not more cars.
NYC still has 45% car ownership and waymo has been showing a 95% decrease in crashes so it does seem like AVs will reduce traffic violence more than public transit realistically can in Minneapolis in our lifetimes
They're bad in several ways still (air pollution from tires, traffic, etc), but Waymo's are also better than current cars in several ways (always electric, the cars can work at all hours).
Unless you can snap your fingers to give everyone good public transit tomorrow (you can't even with billions of dollars), I believe AVs improve our cities
most people will not use transit while cars exist (please note, I am carless and use transit every day).
There is little political will to spend on more transit.
More importantly, there is even less political will to adopt policies that will significantly move people to use transit over cars.
Transit still requires walking and that means exposure to cars, often in dangerous areas.
Self driving cars have some significant possible gains, conceptually they are more like a taxi (a form of public transit) with some significant advantages.
Bikes and bike lanes are in direct competition with public transit. If we didn’t devote the real estate and construction costs to bike lanes and greenways, we could devote that money entirely to public transit. Bike lanes that are 100% publicly funded only support the well-off, ableist biking community and does nothing for underserved populations and those with different abilities. Bike lanes and public funding of cycling infrastructure strangles out public transit.
It’s interesting how cycling infrastructure is elitist and ableist yet also as a cyclist I receive insults that “I’m too poor to buy a car” and bikes also seem to be the most popular mode of transport among the unhoused population. These are the same types of contradictory accusations leveled against women (e.g. either being too ugly to be of value or being too slutty if you’re attractive) or Black Americans (too dumb to speak yet also too loud) that’s indicative of bias against a marginalized group. Oh, and yes, cyclists are marginalized and it couldn’t be a more perfect illustration of the word as we are pushed to the edges of the street (or being completely separated from cars on paths so cars can reign supreme on our streets). The point here is your stereotype is, well, a grossly reductive and inaccurate stereotype, and that every marginalized group contains people of relative privilege but that shouldn’t damn the whole group.
I mean, bicycles and bicycle lanes are better than buses ethically and ecologically, so it's totally okay if bicycles take some of the share away from buses.
We should be eliminating car travel, because it's ethically and ecologically most damaging by orders of magnitude.
To the greatest extent possible, we should have people walking places, and then to the greatest extent possible, we should have everyone bicycling places, and then to the greatest extent possible we should have people busing and training places.
You are an idealist and/or zealot who doesn’t live in reality. What you advocate is not possible in the United States except for, as mentioned earlier, NYC or possibly Chicago. No other major metropolitan area has the infrastructure to support your ideals without significant displacement of people and disruptions to their lives at enormous public expense that could be spent towards lowering health care costs, increasing access to healthy food, improving access to education, etc. Automobiles, in any form, don’t crack the top 10 of problems in this country.
"We horsefucked our infrastructure design due to the political corruption of the auto and oil industry, and because we've never heard of the sunk cost fallacy, we think it's a good idea to double down on ecologically, safety, and health catastrophe, because correcting our enormous mistake would, like, take money and effort and stuff. Also fuck poor people, people of color, old people, young people, and people with disabilities, who are disproportionately the victims of car dependence. We are happy to discard their lives and safety of it means preserving a status quo that is comfortable for is."
yes that is how the world works, and that also does not change the fact that both self driving cars and public transportation reduce traffic fatalities.
I generally agree with the sentiment but this is a bit idealistic and based on an imaginary world where our urban planning and density are far superior to what we actually have. As it is currently, in many cities in the US, an actual functional self-driving car network will be a dreamy way to get around compared to alternatives.
Adding more cars to the road specifically drives us away from density. There's an entire world of people in this city who don't own a car that you never interact with because you don't take the bus. When you push car-centric design, you're pushing to make life worse for these people because you want to believe in a Silicon Valley tech bro scam.
Self driving cars is definitely one. Traffic safely awareness. People caring about driving when they’re driving. Better and more reliable public transit. Roundabouts and J-turns to name a couple options specific to roadway design
The impact of the reduced number of collisions pales in comparison to the impact on the lives of the people relying on that income. Especially after a year with record layoffs and the cost of living has skyrocketed
exactly, look at how many jobs will be lost with these body shops and tow drivers losing work. Cops might actually be able to respond to actual crime instead of directing around a traffic accident. Hell, maybe even EMS response times will go down. THE HORROR! We all know that uber and lyft provided fantastic job opportunities for people and the cities definitely didn't have to get involved to make sure they were paid at least minimum wage, and those companies definitely never threatened to leave over it.
Many times, specifically in regards to traffic accidents and assisting in getting cars off of roads and highways. I experienced it first hand when a drunk driver totalled my car about a decade ago. Hell, I'm out of state right now for work and I witnessed cops doing that exact thing at an intersection on Monday; 4 separate cars helping redirect traffic from a crash at an intersection between a left turn and a straight in opposite directions.
Do you think the cops don't respond to traffic accidents when there are immobile vehicles or possible injuries?
Believing that the loss of some Uber jobs will result in skyrocketing homelessness is hilarious. What did those people do before Uber and Lyft came along? How many of them do it full-time rather than simply for extra money?
Sad you value a couple below minimum wage jobs over human lives. Preferring human deaths to save a couple of those jobs is just fucking sad. Siding with companies that refuse to pay people a living wage is also pathetic.
This isn't just about Uber. It's about the fact that Waymo are much safer than human drivers. It's not just about deaths, which is the stat you're using to try to diminish the massive safety benefit. So let's take a look at the data.
Any injury crash rate:
Waymo: about 0.4–0.6 incidents per million miles
Humans: about 2.8 incidents per million miles
Roughly an 80–85% lower rate for Waymo, or humans having about 5–7 times as many injury crashes per mile.
Police‑reported crash rate (includes injury and more serious property‑damage crashes)
Waymo: about 2.1 incidents per million miles
Humans: about 4.7–4.9 incidents per million miles
Roughly a 55–57% lower rate for Waymo, or humans having a little more than twice as many police‑reportable crashes per mile.
Waymo could save 30,000–35,000 lives per year. It could save several hundred‑thousand fewer serious injuries annually, since serious‑injury‑or‑worse crashes are roughly cut by about 9 in 10 in the study. With an ~80% reduction in any‑injury crashes, the avoided injury crashes would be roughly four‑to‑five times the lives saved number (hundreds of thousands per year).
Clearly not only would thousands of lives be saved but it'd reduce accidents by hundreds of thousands each year, saving us billions in insurance, repairs, and pain.
I dont think it'll affect much. During the day Waymo is more expensive than Uber/Lyft, which means those will still get a decent amount of rides. At night it'll be cheaper but thats just because there's less drivers for the other platforms. Waymo operates more as a fixed supply vs rideshare platforms which have drivers that choose when they want to work and are more available during the day.
You're thinking small by focusing on Uber/Lyft drivers. There's way more jobs that involve driving that will absolutely be affected by this automation as well. Once this hits a sellable point these automated cars will be sold to companies doing all sorts of things. I do courier work for medical testing and this is absolutely the kind of tech my corporate bosses would love to implement.
You should start protesting e-commerce, self check out lanes, mechanical factory equipment, mechanical farm equipment, etc. They all took away jobs too
Self driving vehicles have shown to experience FAR LESS accidents per miles driven than driver vehicles. 80-90% less accidents. So no, I'm not making stuff up. Peer reviewed data shows they're safer than Uber/Lyft
Eventually this should eat into private car trips (people driving their 2 ton vehicle into the city to take up valuable downtown real estate for 9 hours, for example). That's a lot of trips to replace tired, distracted, and drunk drivers
“It’s a relatively new profession, so there’s a lack of information around injury and morbidity in ride-share drivers,” Shannon said. The study looked at survey responses from 277 ride-share drivers
Did you even bother to read these? Obviously not, you just googled and posted what you thought would be relevant.
I'm all about protecting jobs. When I'm at the grocery store, if I have one item, I will still wait for that person to ring me out. Not when it comes to taxi/ride share. I just can't do it. Taxis are absolute garbage service, it's the only reason Uber came about. It taxis were halfway decent Uber would have flopped. Now all the shit drivers have gone to Uber / Lyft and bringing all their old garbage tricks and attitude with them. Why would I want to support that?
It's a great service that I look forward to using whenever I'm in San Francisco. As a person living in an area chronically underserved by transit (at least until/if the Blue Line Extension actually happens) I will really appreciate having another option to get around town besides Uber or Lyft.
And just to assure everyone freaking out that Waymo is going to put rideshare drivers out of a job - it seriously will not. Waymo is typically more expensive than a basic Uber or Lyft ride, not less. Some folks are happy to pay a premium for the guarantee of a clean, safe ride with zero risk of an awkward or uncomfortable driver interaction.
Genuine question: how does waymo guarantee a safe and clean ride if there's no driver to check the car in between passengers? What stops passengers from being affected by people before them leaving trash, breaking things, peeing/puking, etc?
I’m very interested in seeing how it handles the changing landscape every time it snows and then melts. Especially since the lane markers disappear in snow.
Incorrect, saturation of door to door cab services has already happened. Unless waymo comes in way mo cheaper than Uber or Lyft, it will just be those three companies duking it out for the same existing customer base.
This leaves a net zero difference.
Public transportation’s true competition is individuals commuting in cars, not rideshare companies.
So there is a huge potential market out there for increased public transport. You’re just looking in the wrong direction.
This is an insane thing to suggest, people using uber/lyft/waymo either don't have a car, can't bring their car somewhere or are unable to drive their car, these are all things that are rectified by public transit making them direct "competition" for demand on ride share services.
Yes, you are correct, it would be better if people used public transit vs cab services/rideshare apps. Yes they compete.
The prior comment's point is that we are already saturated with cab services in the form of Uber, Lyft, and other apps. That is the real, actual state of our existence. If someone wants to use an app for a ride, that competitive option is 100% established, so the addition of Waymo to that field of apps does nothing to the "app vs bus" balance (unless way comes in significantly cheaper.)
What waymo DOES do is improve the safety for everyone on the road by reducing the number of tired, stressed, fallible humans driving 4000lb kill boxes, with conflicted interests of higher speed for more income vs lower speed for more safety.
If you want to regulate rideshare apps to cripple them and encourage biking and bussing, ok, make that argument. In the meantime, let's let the ride share apps become safer.
Look at how long it took to get approval for and build the original Blue Line. Then the Green Line. Then approvals for the Southwest LRT and Blue Line extension.
Then look at the areas served and communities positively impacted by these changes.
They’re objectively positive but it will have taken a literal generation and billions of dollars to get this relatively small benefit.
America is not Asia or Europe. Even the most progressive cities can only crawl at the speed of local government and NIMBYism.
Public/private partnerships one of the most reliable ways to meaningfully improve safety and access to a wide swath of the population in a short period of time.
Don't remind me. I bought my house based in part on the promise that the BLE was going to break ground "any day now." That was 6 years ago. At this point I'll be thrilled if it happens at all, but even if it does the first train won't run until sometime in the 2030s.
If they break ground, the whole process should only take about 2 years, (with the current proposed plan.) The endless public litigation of this shit is actually the worst thing about the American political process. NIMBYism combined with a terminal obsession of perfection being the enemy of good, with a nice sprinkling of cronyism.
Because cars are bad. Noise pollution, lithium mining, damage to infrastructure, suburban sprawl, microplastics, sedentary lifestyle, toxic individualism. They are a cancer on our society. We need efficient transportation. Buses and trains, not profit margins for oligarchs.
The reason that public transit is so slow to build is because of low demand, due in turn to heavy subsidization of drivers, the auto industry, and the oil industry. If we stopped propping up capitalists and drivers with tax dollars, funds and demand for public transit would soar.
Yes, we should have as least as good of a transit system as NYC or Chicago, and we should absolutely be looking to cities internationally for inspiration. This is Minnesota, we can and should lead the nation, not settle for mediocrity just because many other American cities are also shitty.
You seem to believe that being the shiniest turd on the poo pile is something to celebrate.
Cars kill, they cost us billions, they make people sick, they ruin communities culturally and physically.
We are facing climate apocalypse within our lifetimes, and a huge part of mitigating some of the disastrous horsefucking we are about experience as a species is beginning to live sustainably, even if that involves sacrificing a bit of convenience and comfort.
Everybody should either only ride bicycles (but not electric bicycles because those are evil since they use lithium ion batteries) or they should ride trains. Everything in between is absolutely haram.
They absolutely do kill us, in tons of indirect ways, like carcinogens and destroying our environment and noise pollution and sedentary lifestyle and suburban sprawl and all the money required to repair the damage they do to infrastructure that could instead be spent on food and medicine and housing.
Ahhhhhh even if you took away all of the cars they don't even begin to touch Jets and Military so not saying that they don't add to it but they are a small percentage stop and how about you focus your energy on something else oh wait it's all pointless whining
So we're not allowed to want to live in a better place? Minneapolis was originally built around people and it was the force feeding by the automobile related industries which demolished our lively cities. We can make our city better.
And did you know cities like Amsterdam and other European cities which are now known for their walkability did what the US followed in our footsteps after WWII and rebuilt around the automobile, bulldozing neighborhoods and literally filling in the canals? After decades of car centric development they changed course and revitalized their cities. They faced the same pushback we hear today by business owners and the like saying pedestrianizing will kill their businesses but in almost every case the opposite is true.
What it takes is the political will to take the risk of being a one term mayor to make a statement but we choose not to even try.
I literally started the reply with “why not both”? I swear, reading comprehension has taken a back seat to those wanting to argue or make a point.
Yes, I did know that about Amsterdam and other European cities. And I also know intimately how major cities in Asia achieved their enviable public transit.
I also know it’s going to take much, much more than a bold mayoral candidate. The amount if physical disruption and money needed to develop a public transit network comparable those cities along with the demolition needed to create meaningful walkable districts is staggering.
I want that. But I also live in reality, where I know that private enterprises sharing public infrastructure is one way to achieve some of these goals faster.
Honestly, I wrote all that in reply to someone else's comment which got deleted so I copied it and pasted it on a similar comment out of laziness while still getting my word in.
But I stand by my point that more cars are not the option.
Perhaps one day you'll stop being a defeatist, or not. I for one will continue to try and leave this world better than what I started with.
Why does it have to be all or nothing? If there were an autonomous, reliable network of vehicles that could shuttle people around from point to point, many (including myself) would likely park or ditch their cars entirely.
You might say “that’s called a bus”, but we know that buses best serve trunk routes where people can walk or bike the “last mile”.
I also fully reject the assertion that I’m defeatist. I’m also attempting to leave the world better than I found it. I just want to make progress faster than one might make in a fully idealized scenario.
The problem is that Waymo is specifically designed to reduce demand for public transit and strangle it out, leaving Waymo as the only remaining option. This is how capitalism works - it's not trying to make people's lives better, it's trying to make profit.
Waymo competes with Lyft/Uber and traditional taxis/car services.
The person living in Bloomington trying to get to the airport is not currently taking public transit (instead of a taxi or Lyft) and will suddenly switch to Waymo when available.
You’re inventing scenarios of competition that simply do not exist.
I’m providing one example of many where public transit is simply not a viable option, therefore the only demand reduced by Waymo would be from other automobile modes. It isn’t really that hard to understand.
hell yeah man, i love the privatized surveillance state. why would the police put cameras every five feet to track us when they could just spend taxpayer dollars to buy data at twice the cost from corporations that use “convenience” to convince the consumer public to bankroll the rollout and development? with enough flashy lights and fancy cars, you can even convince the public to buy the rope you’ll hang them with
This is exactly my concern. Their constant scanning of the streets affects even the people who do not want any part in the service. Perhaps there's something I'm not understanding/aware of that counters my fear, but I am also concerned about the distant future after they have perfected self driving vehicles. Once it's completely perfected, I fear that they won't see a reason to install manual override/controls. There's way too many people here talking about wanting to see all human drivers replaced eventually. I do not want to see a day when corporations are in control of the majority of people's every movement. What's to stop them from interfering with people reaching their destinations? The idea that there will be stringent enough laws keeping things in check or actually punishing violations of those laws is laughable at this stage of our democracy.
I used one in San Francisco a few years ago, and I will say it is nice but scary sitting in shotgun seeing the wheel turn on its own, with no driver does freak you out a bit. But in it there was a good test where someone was crossing the street and a fire truck had its sirens on behind me, it knew to move out of the way for the fire truck without moving towards the guy who was crossing already.
Moved to AZ from MN. They're in use here. And for my opinion, they’re safer than the local uber drivers. They are also restricted to certain parts of the metro. This is a good thing for anyone who feels unsafe with drivers. Theres been enough handsy and rude drivers to justify this.
And i actually dont have to talk to anyone. They work great. Yes, they are prone to glitching but this is literally science in action.
China already put curbs on self driving taxis do to the impact on their economy. We saw the issues during the power outage in San Francisco the other day, if local politicians let these into the cities I will personally canvass to get them voted out.
But Elon says all we need for reliable full self driving is six $5 webcams...
I have some friends who are in the autonomous vehicle industry, talking about how far behind Tesla is as compared to waymo is their favorite topic or conversation.
There are many many reasons why they will never get to the stage of autonomous driving they claim to be at with only using cameras.
What I want to know is how dependant is all this current generation of self-driving tech on having all the roadways scanned in and pre-analyzed? Like are they just depending on a big map up in The Cloud™ with some visual landmarks, or can the damn thing actually read a road signs and adjust? If they repave an intersection and add a little median into a disused turn lane, can it adapt to that without the mothership coming by with a fleet of scanners?
Because my worry is that it'll become just another thing we have to subscribe to. I've already noticed the fine print in Ford and GM ads about fees for their super duper cruise control systems, which I can understand for a vehicle with a more primitive sensor array, but not the higher end stuff that's still in development.
Car features should not come with a subscription (except maybe Sirius XM… and you'd think they would just eat the price of map updates by now…)
There is absolutely no reliance on "scanned" or mapped roadways. This is why Tesla works anywhere. And of course it adapts to changing conditions, that is the core of how it works. How could it avoid pedestrians and such otherwise?
You don't have to subscribe to it, you can buy it outright.
No, you can buy into the beta. That's no guarantee on what will happen when (and if) they reach final release.
Huh? It's lifetime full self driving.
Lol believe when I see it
Another dude talking out of his ass.
Lol 😂
Aww yes the old "nah uh" rebuttal.
A classic response from an elementary school mindset
Yeah, and GMail was supposed to be an infinitely growing email service where you never ran out of space, and now you gotta pay. And my Bitcasa lifetime subscription to infinite cloud storage didn't even last the lifetime of my laptop.
Tech firms have a tendency to stretch and redefine the meaning of the word “lifetime,” especially when it's connected to a promise made on a beta product.
OK. Weird way to live life.
What stage do they claim that they're at? You're just talking out of your ass.
I agree Tesla’s system is no where near the robustness of Waymo. Most of the engineers I work with don’t believe Waymo has a path to a viable product with their current sensor solution. It’s way too expensive.
They have a functional product now. What do you mean?
Functional does not mean viable without a continuous supply of money from Alphabet. The sensor package is too expensive and the break even on those cars looks problematic
That seems like something only an insider at waymo would know.
Sensors aren't that expensive. The ability to afford that while also avoiding paying for gas and drivers for robo-taxis seems to be viable. But again have not seen the break down of cost versus revenue.
Conversely Tesla has never been profitable. And is rife with waste and unaffordability. So i don't see them doing any better. Especially with how poor their performance is
Tesla is cooked in so many ways. They're the prime indicator that the stock market is meaningless gambling at this point with no basis in reality. It's a failing company.
It is absolutely crazy to me. Like yeah, me with my eyes can drive. But if I could get LIDAR laser crazy ass vision, I would probably be better at driving. It's not a flex to do what I can with my eyes (I mean as a software engineer it's interesting on a technical level). Do what I can't!
I have a degree in robotics and I am working in AI right now. Tesla engineering is marvelous because they use cameras for their self driving. Waymo uses that + more sensors such as lidar.
Tesla is trying to do more with less, and once they are able to perfect it (not that it’s bad rn by any means) they’d be massive.
That's the rub though. Sure, if they can achieve "perfect" self driving with dirt cheap sensors, that would be massive. But that's an if, not a when.
You’d be amazed at how far computer vision has come. look into “3D reconstruction”.
For sure, but for something involving high speed life or death decision making, the bar is incredibly high, and working with less information to save a few bucks seems stupid.
It isn’t less information. You form information (the environment) with utmost precision using images.
I've driven 99% of my Tesla miles with full self driving. It works incredibly well. Take your head out of the sand.
I own a Tesla and have driven thousands of miles on FSD. I would not trust it without constant human attention.
Let’s see if after a decent snow with minimally plowed roads and no visible striping
Grand Rapids' goMARTI automated vehicles has been going since 2022 and seems to be doing fine with the winters up there
They pretty obviously won't be on the roads if it's unsafe to do so
I would call that a fatal flaw in its concept and vision then
Why? It's perfectly fine for most of the year. It'll probably handle adverse conditions pretty well once it has enough training data on it
Bit slow are we
I'm sure they'd be parked you silly silly goose
One thing is for certain, the city council will bollix the regulation one way or another
As long as they make sure the car still stinks like someone dumped a bottle of cologne on a pile of dirty laundry, I don’t care if there’s a human driver or not.
stoked to never take another uber/lyft again.
Fuck yes man. Increased unemployment? Shit's gonna be so tight
I dunno about you but I'm stoked for Google having even more insight into our lives with no oversight whatsoever.
Tangentially related, but I got a letter in the mail from Amazon Health/Medical. Like wow you already have all my shopping and entertainment info, and now you want my medical too? Let's just rebrand it United States of Amazon at this point.
weren't you the same guy cheering on all the new speed cameras the city was putting up like 6 months ago that have now been shown to be fundamentally insecure and allowing anyone to peer into our lives?
? I've been doing the opposite. I was pretty heavily opposed for criticizing the speed cameras and suggesting there are better ways to address dangerous driving.
And, to be clear, the speeding camera company the city is working with is fundamentally different from Flock, the "AI" camera company with the recently publicized huge security flaws and blatant lies.
You're right! I was thinking of the wrong username. The NovoaGlobal cameras installed at red lights have the same kind of backend ui that the Flock ones do. It's only a matter of time.
The problem is I fear it is inevitable, like the horseless carriage.
Capitalists would like you to think you are powerless. It's a very useful belief for you to have.
Preventing road deaths ⚖️ protecting Uber + Lyft jobs
If you want to prevent road deaths, you build more public transit. You don't add a bunch more vehicles to the roads.
Why can't we do both? A tax on AVs could go directly to building transit
More cars is never the solution to traffic violence. Additionally, "self driving" cars are literally lower density transportation as they might be taking up space with literally no one in it.
More transit funding to improve transit. Not more cars.
I personally cant wait to be stuck behind empty cars in traffic 🙂🔫
NYC still has 45% car ownership and waymo has been showing a 95% decrease in crashes so it does seem like AVs will reduce traffic violence more than public transit realistically can in Minneapolis in our lifetimes
Because cars have tons of deadly and expensive externalities even aside from all the people drivers kill by smashing into them.
Cars are bad, actually, whether they're driven by humans or clankers.
They're bad in several ways still (air pollution from tires, traffic, etc), but Waymo's are also better than current cars in several ways (always electric, the cars can work at all hours).
Unless you can snap your fingers to give everyone good public transit tomorrow (you can't even with billions of dollars), I believe AVs improve our cities
If we can give the city tens of thousands of rolling living rooms driven by clankers, why can't we give the city hundreds of buses?
Building more transit is also not a solution.
most people will not use transit while cars exist (please note, I am carless and use transit every day).
There is little political will to spend on more transit.
More importantly, there is even less political will to adopt policies that will significantly move people to use transit over cars.
Transit still requires walking and that means exposure to cars, often in dangerous areas.
Self driving cars have some significant possible gains, conceptually they are more like a taxi (a form of public transit) with some significant advantages.
both are solutions
They aren't. The only real solution is increased transit funding.
Turning over our roads to massive corporations with zero accountability is not a solution
Waymo is in direct competition with public transit. They're not "both solutions;" one wants to strangle out the other.
Bikes and bike lanes are in direct competition with public transit. If we didn’t devote the real estate and construction costs to bike lanes and greenways, we could devote that money entirely to public transit. Bike lanes that are 100% publicly funded only support the well-off, ableist biking community and does nothing for underserved populations and those with different abilities. Bike lanes and public funding of cycling infrastructure strangles out public transit.
(See how silly this line of “logic” sounds?)
It’s interesting how cycling infrastructure is elitist and ableist yet also as a cyclist I receive insults that “I’m too poor to buy a car” and bikes also seem to be the most popular mode of transport among the unhoused population. These are the same types of contradictory accusations leveled against women (e.g. either being too ugly to be of value or being too slutty if you’re attractive) or Black Americans (too dumb to speak yet also too loud) that’s indicative of bias against a marginalized group. Oh, and yes, cyclists are marginalized and it couldn’t be a more perfect illustration of the word as we are pushed to the edges of the street (or being completely separated from cars on paths so cars can reign supreme on our streets). The point here is your stereotype is, well, a grossly reductive and inaccurate stereotype, and that every marginalized group contains people of relative privilege but that shouldn’t damn the whole group.
I mean, bicycles and bicycle lanes are better than buses ethically and ecologically, so it's totally okay if bicycles take some of the share away from buses.
We should be eliminating car travel, because it's ethically and ecologically most damaging by orders of magnitude.
To the greatest extent possible, we should have people walking places, and then to the greatest extent possible, we should have everyone bicycling places, and then to the greatest extent possible we should have people busing and training places.
You are an idealist and/or zealot who doesn’t live in reality. What you advocate is not possible in the United States except for, as mentioned earlier, NYC or possibly Chicago. No other major metropolitan area has the infrastructure to support your ideals without significant displacement of people and disruptions to their lives at enormous public expense that could be spent towards lowering health care costs, increasing access to healthy food, improving access to education, etc. Automobiles, in any form, don’t crack the top 10 of problems in this country.
"We horsefucked our infrastructure design due to the political corruption of the auto and oil industry, and because we've never heard of the sunk cost fallacy, we think it's a good idea to double down on ecologically, safety, and health catastrophe, because correcting our enormous mistake would, like, take money and effort and stuff. Also fuck poor people, people of color, old people, young people, and people with disabilities, who are disproportionately the victims of car dependence. We are happy to discard their lives and safety of it means preserving a status quo that is comfortable for is."
yes that is how the world works, and that also does not change the fact that both self driving cars and public transportation reduce traffic fatalities.
Are you also concerned with reducing cancer-, heart disease-, stroke-, and stress-related fatalities?
They really aren't because the inferior option (Waymo) directly exists to prevent the superior option (transit) from developing.
Self-driving cars are the result of idiot billionaires who read too much sci-fi thinking they're good at urban planning just because they have money.
I generally agree with the sentiment but this is a bit idealistic and based on an imaginary world where our urban planning and density are far superior to what we actually have. As it is currently, in many cities in the US, an actual functional self-driving car network will be a dreamy way to get around compared to alternatives.
Adding more cars to the road specifically drives us away from density. There's an entire world of people in this city who don't own a car that you never interact with because you don't take the bus. When you push car-centric design, you're pushing to make life worse for these people because you want to believe in a Silicon Valley tech bro scam.
You are arguing with someone that doesn’t disagree with you (and also weirdly assuming I don’t use public transit.)
Theres lots of ways to prevent road deaths
What are the most cost-effective, easiest to implement, and high impact ones?
Self driving cars is definitely one. Traffic safely awareness. People caring about driving when they’re driving. Better and more reliable public transit. Roundabouts and J-turns to name a couple options specific to roadway design
Agreed
The impact of the reduced number of collisions pales in comparison to the impact on the lives of the people relying on that income. Especially after a year with record layoffs and the cost of living has skyrocketed
exactly, look at how many jobs will be lost with these body shops and tow drivers losing work. Cops might actually be able to respond to actual crime instead of directing around a traffic accident. Hell, maybe even EMS response times will go down. THE HORROR! We all know that uber and lyft provided fantastic job opportunities for people and the cities definitely didn't have to get involved to make sure they were paid at least minimum wage, and those companies definitely never threatened to leave over it.
When was the last time you've seen a cop directing traffic, let alone ignore an emergency to do so? Have you even left your house since the 70s?
Many times, specifically in regards to traffic accidents and assisting in getting cars off of roads and highways. I experienced it first hand when a drunk driver totalled my car about a decade ago. Hell, I'm out of state right now for work and I witnessed cops doing that exact thing at an intersection on Monday; 4 separate cars helping redirect traffic from a crash at an intersection between a left turn and a straight in opposite directions.
Do you think the cops don't respond to traffic accidents when there are immobile vehicles or possible injuries?
Source? How many jobs are worth more than a life saved?
In 2019 there were over 36,000 traffic fatalities. Uber contributed to 59 of them.
In 2024 the homeless population increased by over 118,000, and the cost of living has only increased since then.
https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/nhtsa-releases-2019-crash-fatality-data
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1r2gUgnux2MzM4YMi6D3nwHJb2UaZ5Yjv/view?uclick_id=dba25060-47cd-4d37-abaf-cf1519d95691
https://endhomelessness.org/state-of-homelessness/
I am in agreement that homelessness is a huge problem and honestly shameful for this country.
But this is the wrong hill to die on.
We could just tax billionaires like every other advanced country on the planet does.
Believing that the loss of some Uber jobs will result in skyrocketing homelessness is hilarious. What did those people do before Uber and Lyft came along? How many of them do it full-time rather than simply for extra money?
Heck, my brother is homeless and does uber!
It's good you find people struggling funny. You must be having a blast these days
Sad you value a couple below minimum wage jobs over human lives. Preferring human deaths to save a couple of those jobs is just fucking sad. Siding with companies that refuse to pay people a living wage is also pathetic.
59 out of 36000. That's how many deaths Uber caused. Get over yourself
This isn't just about Uber. It's about the fact that Waymo are much safer than human drivers. It's not just about deaths, which is the stat you're using to try to diminish the massive safety benefit. So let's take a look at the data.
Any injury crash rate:
Waymo: about 0.4–0.6 incidents per million miles
Humans: about 2.8 incidents per million miles
Roughly an 80–85% lower rate for Waymo, or humans having about 5–7 times as many injury crashes per mile.
Police‑reported crash rate (includes injury and more serious property‑damage crashes)
Waymo: about 2.1 incidents per million miles
Humans: about 4.7–4.9 incidents per million miles
Roughly a 55–57% lower rate for Waymo, or humans having a little more than twice as many police‑reportable crashes per mile.
Waymo could save 30,000–35,000 lives per year. It could save several hundred‑thousand fewer serious injuries annually, since serious‑injury‑or‑worse crashes are roughly cut by about 9 in 10 in the study. With an ~80% reduction in any‑injury crashes, the avoided injury crashes would be roughly four‑to‑five times the lives saved number (hundreds of thousands per year).
Clearly not only would thousands of lives be saved but it'd reduce accidents by hundreds of thousands each year, saving us billions in insurance, repairs, and pain.
Get over yourself.
Is this guy Amish?? Why wouldn't we let technology automate boring shit? Self driving cars are a no brainer.
Edit: I've now gotten a death threat for this comment. If you're browsing here and thinking about jumping into the discussion, my advice is you don't.
Thats what transit is for
Y'all are acting like this is going to replace 20,000 high-paying jobs in the Twin Cities alone lmao
Relax, boomer.
I dont think it'll affect much. During the day Waymo is more expensive than Uber/Lyft, which means those will still get a decent amount of rides. At night it'll be cheaper but thats just because there's less drivers for the other platforms. Waymo operates more as a fixed supply vs rideshare platforms which have drivers that choose when they want to work and are more available during the day.
You're thinking small by focusing on Uber/Lyft drivers. There's way more jobs that involve driving that will absolutely be affected by this automation as well. Once this hits a sellable point these automated cars will be sold to companies doing all sorts of things. I do courier work for medical testing and this is absolutely the kind of tech my corporate bosses would love to implement.
People have been getting automated out of jobs for 300 years
You should start protesting e-commerce, self check out lanes, mechanical factory equipment, mechanical farm equipment, etc. They all took away jobs too
People work at waymo.
You're against reduced accidents and deaths?
You'd be one of those that complained about the automobile replacing horses because some stable hands had to find new jobs.
Are uber/lyft drivers getting into a lot of accidents or are you making stuff up?
Self driving vehicles have shown to experience FAR LESS accidents per miles driven than driver vehicles. 80-90% less accidents. So no, I'm not making stuff up. Peer reviewed data shows they're safer than Uber/Lyft
https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/1kds8xx/waymos_latest_research_shows_its_selfdriving_cars/
Eventually this should eat into private car trips (people driving their 2 ton vehicle into the city to take up valuable downtown real estate for 9 hours, for example). That's a lot of trips to replace tired, distracted, and drunk drivers
Think you replied to the wrong person, your comment has nothing to do with mine.
It has to do with AVs replacing more than Uber/Lyft drivers who may or may not get into very many accidents
There's no reason to believe people not already taking an Uber would stop driving because theres Waymo now
UIC study on rideshare vehicle crashes: https://today.uic.edu/rideshare-crash-research/
A couple examples of rideshare driver caused deaths this month: https://www.wave3.com/2025/12/15/man-killed-after-ride-share-rolls-backwards-over-him-police-say/?outputType=amp
https://www.kens5.com/article/news/local/texas-family-man-killed-san-antonio-crash-traffic/273-ac1b23f9-e85c-4be1-9633-f55360169328
“It’s a relatively new profession, so there’s a lack of information around injury and morbidity in ride-share drivers,” Shannon said. The study looked at survey responses from 277 ride-share drivers
Did you even bother to read these? Obviously not, you just googled and posted what you thought would be relevant.
I'm all about protecting jobs. When I'm at the grocery store, if I have one item, I will still wait for that person to ring me out. Not when it comes to taxi/ride share. I just can't do it. Taxis are absolute garbage service, it's the only reason Uber came about. It taxis were halfway decent Uber would have flopped. Now all the shit drivers have gone to Uber / Lyft and bringing all their old garbage tricks and attitude with them. Why would I want to support that?
Lets go WAYMO!
Waymo is just coming to finish off the job Uber and Lyft started.
Love to see safe drivers on the road
I really like using them when I’m in San Francisco. It helps with discretion for my job. 💗 so I am absolutely looking forward to them being here.
Ubers and Lyfts still exist in SF just fine, and are usually a comparable price.
I saw one today on 11th st / LaSalle !! Someone was driving it though
They’re being tested with actual drivers.
This thread is full of luddites and people who want more public transit, but then also complain about tax burden. You just can’t win sometimes.
More small capacity vehicles on the road does not equal public transit.
Software developer here: Waymo fucking sucks.
It's a great service that I look forward to using whenever I'm in San Francisco. As a person living in an area chronically underserved by transit (at least until/if the Blue Line Extension actually happens) I will really appreciate having another option to get around town besides Uber or Lyft.
And just to assure everyone freaking out that Waymo is going to put rideshare drivers out of a job - it seriously will not. Waymo is typically more expensive than a basic Uber or Lyft ride, not less. Some folks are happy to pay a premium for the guarantee of a clean, safe ride with zero risk of an awkward or uncomfortable driver interaction.
I have never taken one and probably never would, but why would anyone in 2025 use waymo if it was more expensive than an Uber…
That's fine. Uber and Lyft aren't going away and folks who would rather take a Waymo can take a Waymo.
Genuine question: how does waymo guarantee a safe and clean ride if there's no driver to check the car in between passengers? What stops passengers from being affected by people before them leaving trash, breaking things, peeing/puking, etc?
There are several of them parked in the Whole Foods/MCM Liquors parking lot on Lake and Market in Uptown (ish).
I’m very interested in seeing how it handles the changing landscape every time it snows and then melts. Especially since the lane markers disappear in snow.
We do not need Waymos. We need buses and trains.
Fuck Waymo.
Waymo has zero to do with how our city spends its transit funds.
We’ve invested heavily into buses this last year if the hundreds of updated stops are any indication.
It’s important sometimes not to just be angry but also understand things.
Incorrect. Waymo reduces demand for public transit and therefore erodes political will to build more transit.
Incorrect, saturation of door to door cab services has already happened. Unless waymo comes in way mo cheaper than Uber or Lyft, it will just be those three companies duking it out for the same existing customer base.
This leaves a net zero difference.
Public transportation’s true competition is individuals commuting in cars, not rideshare companies.
So there is a huge potential market out there for increased public transport. You’re just looking in the wrong direction.
I'm sure you have some sort of source for this assertion.
Fair callout.
Nope, I don’t have access to Uber/Lyft’s marketplace data for the twin cities so I can’t prove anything.
Common sense tells me that ride-share has been legal in the cities for over a decade so any boom period of rapid growth is most likely over.
If I’m wrong it’s because I’m unaware of some current factor holding Uber/Lyft from expanding.
Perhaps there aren’t enough drivers to serve demand and that has limited U/L from further expansion?
That would be one possible way Waymo could expand without cannibalizing U/L’s existing customer base.
This is an insane thing to suggest, people using uber/lyft/waymo either don't have a car, can't bring their car somewhere or are unable to drive their car, these are all things that are rectified by public transit making them direct "competition" for demand on ride share services.
You missed the point.
Yes, you are correct, it would be better if people used public transit vs cab services/rideshare apps. Yes they compete.
The prior comment's point is that we are already saturated with cab services in the form of Uber, Lyft, and other apps. That is the real, actual state of our existence. If someone wants to use an app for a ride, that competitive option is 100% established, so the addition of Waymo to that field of apps does nothing to the "app vs bus" balance (unless way comes in significantly cheaper.)
What waymo DOES do is improve the safety for everyone on the road by reducing the number of tired, stressed, fallible humans driving 4000lb kill boxes, with conflicted interests of higher speed for more income vs lower speed for more safety.
If you want to regulate rideshare apps to cripple them and encourage biking and bussing, ok, make that argument. In the meantime, let's let the ride share apps become safer.
I never suggested any such thing.
If something is unclear feel free to ask a question and I’ll try to clarify.
Why not both?
Look at how long it took to get approval for and build the original Blue Line. Then the Green Line. Then approvals for the Southwest LRT and Blue Line extension.
Then look at the areas served and communities positively impacted by these changes.
They’re objectively positive but it will have taken a literal generation and billions of dollars to get this relatively small benefit.
America is not Asia or Europe. Even the most progressive cities can only crawl at the speed of local government and NIMBYism.
Public/private partnerships one of the most reliable ways to meaningfully improve safety and access to a wide swath of the population in a short period of time.
The blue line extension is i think officially 10 years behind it's original schedule I think.
Don't remind me. I bought my house based in part on the promise that the BLE was going to break ground "any day now." That was 6 years ago. At this point I'll be thrilled if it happens at all, but even if it does the first train won't run until sometime in the 2030s.
If they break ground, the whole process should only take about 2 years, (with the current proposed plan.) The endless public litigation of this shit is actually the worst thing about the American political process. NIMBYism combined with a terminal obsession of perfection being the enemy of good, with a nice sprinkling of cronyism.
Because cars are bad. Noise pollution, lithium mining, damage to infrastructure, suburban sprawl, microplastics, sedentary lifestyle, toxic individualism. They are a cancer on our society. We need efficient transportation. Buses and trains, not profit margins for oligarchs.
The reason that public transit is so slow to build is because of low demand, due in turn to heavy subsidization of drivers, the auto industry, and the oil industry. If we stopped propping up capitalists and drivers with tax dollars, funds and demand for public transit would soar.
Minneapolis already has one of the best bus networks for cities of comparable sizes. What more do you want?
You seem to want an idealized city without recognizing reality.
It seems that NYC or Chicago are the only places that would come close to fulfilling your requirements, at least in this county.
Yes, we should have as least as good of a transit system as NYC or Chicago, and we should absolutely be looking to cities internationally for inspiration. This is Minnesota, we can and should lead the nation, not settle for mediocrity just because many other American cities are also shitty.
You seem to believe that being the shiniest turd on the poo pile is something to celebrate.
Cars kill, they cost us billions, they make people sick, they ruin communities culturally and physically.
We are facing climate apocalypse within our lifetimes, and a huge part of mitigating some of the disastrous horsefucking we are about experience as a species is beginning to live sustainably, even if that involves sacrificing a bit of convenience and comfort.
Everybody should either only ride bicycles (but not electric bicycles because those are evil since they use lithium ion batteries) or they should ride trains. Everything in between is absolutely haram.
That's the thing. Waymos don't kill us
They absolutely do kill us, in tons of indirect ways, like carcinogens and destroying our environment and noise pollution and sedentary lifestyle and suburban sprawl and all the money required to repair the damage they do to infrastructure that could instead be spent on food and medicine and housing.
Ahhhhhh even if you took away all of the cars they don't even begin to touch Jets and Military so not saying that they don't add to it but they are a small percentage stop and how about you focus your energy on something else oh wait it's all pointless whining
So we're not allowed to want to live in a better place? Minneapolis was originally built around people and it was the force feeding by the automobile related industries which demolished our lively cities. We can make our city better.
And did you know cities like Amsterdam and other European cities which are now known for their walkability did what the US followed in our footsteps after WWII and rebuilt around the automobile, bulldozing neighborhoods and literally filling in the canals? After decades of car centric development they changed course and revitalized their cities. They faced the same pushback we hear today by business owners and the like saying pedestrianizing will kill their businesses but in almost every case the opposite is true.
What it takes is the political will to take the risk of being a one term mayor to make a statement but we choose not to even try.
I literally started the reply with “why not both”? I swear, reading comprehension has taken a back seat to those wanting to argue or make a point.
Yes, I did know that about Amsterdam and other European cities. And I also know intimately how major cities in Asia achieved their enviable public transit.
I also know it’s going to take much, much more than a bold mayoral candidate. The amount if physical disruption and money needed to develop a public transit network comparable those cities along with the demolition needed to create meaningful walkable districts is staggering.
I want that. But I also live in reality, where I know that private enterprises sharing public infrastructure is one way to achieve some of these goals faster.
So again, why not both?
Honestly, I wrote all that in reply to someone else's comment which got deleted so I copied it and pasted it on a similar comment out of laziness while still getting my word in.
But I stand by my point that more cars are not the option.
Perhaps one day you'll stop being a defeatist, or not. I for one will continue to try and leave this world better than what I started with.
Why does it have to be all or nothing? If there were an autonomous, reliable network of vehicles that could shuttle people around from point to point, many (including myself) would likely park or ditch their cars entirely.
You might say “that’s called a bus”, but we know that buses best serve trunk routes where people can walk or bike the “last mile”.
I also fully reject the assertion that I’m defeatist. I’m also attempting to leave the world better than I found it. I just want to make progress faster than one might make in a fully idealized scenario.
The problem is that Waymo is specifically designed to reduce demand for public transit and strangle it out, leaving Waymo as the only remaining option. This is how capitalism works - it's not trying to make people's lives better, it's trying to make profit.
Waymo competes with Lyft/Uber and traditional taxis/car services.
The person living in Bloomington trying to get to the airport is not currently taking public transit (instead of a taxi or Lyft) and will suddenly switch to Waymo when available.
You’re inventing scenarios of competition that simply do not exist.
You're suggesting that only people in the suburbs trying to get to the airport use Uber and Lyft?
I’m providing one example of many where public transit is simply not a viable option, therefore the only demand reduced by Waymo would be from other automobile modes. It isn’t really that hard to understand.
Waymo's presence really is not related to the issue of not enough buses and trains
Sure it is. They cut demand for public transit.
Cite your sources. You’ve been spewing this line enough. Show how Waymo cuts demand for public transit.
Sure, hon. It's the whole market plan of rideshare, extensively studied by economists: https://48hills.org/2024/09/uber-and-lyft-are-undermining-public-transit-a-new-study-shows/
hell yeah man, i love the privatized surveillance state. why would the police put cameras every five feet to track us when they could just spend taxpayer dollars to buy data at twice the cost from corporations that use “convenience” to convince the consumer public to bankroll the rollout and development? with enough flashy lights and fancy cars, you can even convince the public to buy the rope you’ll hang them with
This is exactly my concern. Their constant scanning of the streets affects even the people who do not want any part in the service. Perhaps there's something I'm not understanding/aware of that counters my fear, but I am also concerned about the distant future after they have perfected self driving vehicles. Once it's completely perfected, I fear that they won't see a reason to install manual override/controls. There's way too many people here talking about wanting to see all human drivers replaced eventually. I do not want to see a day when corporations are in control of the majority of people's every movement. What's to stop them from interfering with people reaching their destinations? The idea that there will be stringent enough laws keeping things in check or actually punishing violations of those laws is laughable at this stage of our democracy.
Yaymo
RoboCar
I can’t wait to throw snowballs at these things.
Looking no worse for the wear. Wonder if they were out in the snow and wind last week.
[ Removed by Reddit ]
imma order em to the middle of Ramsey Hill next time it snows n see if we still have em the next day
I saw it (or another one?) today as well. Weird.
I almost got into an accident with two different waymo cars in the span of 5 days in LA, so i’m stoked throw ice into that mix 🤓☝️
I used one in San Francisco a few years ago, and I will say it is nice but scary sitting in shotgun seeing the wheel turn on its own, with no driver does freak you out a bit. But in it there was a good test where someone was crossing the street and a fire truck had its sirens on behind me, it knew to move out of the way for the fire truck without moving towards the guy who was crossing already.
Waymo is the sound it makes when hit with snowballs...
Lmfao is that what this thing is??? Lol I see t all the time around uptown
Not looking forward to these at all. Traffic is already completely screwed in this city, this won't help.
Moved to AZ from MN. They're in use here. And for my opinion, they’re safer than the local uber drivers. They are also restricted to certain parts of the metro. This is a good thing for anyone who feels unsafe with drivers. Theres been enough handsy and rude drivers to justify this.
And i actually dont have to talk to anyone. They work great. Yes, they are prone to glitching but this is literally science in action.
So many civil engineers in this thread..
Surveillance systems rolling through our neighborhoods. Cool.
They always scare me when I am driving by one. I hope they they are banned when the streets are icy or snow bound.
They are much safer than human drivers.
the issues these things create when there's a power outage is reason enough to ban them
China already put curbs on self driving taxis do to the impact on their economy. We saw the issues during the power outage in San Francisco the other day, if local politicians let these into the cities I will personally canvass to get them voted out.
How often does the city lose power? Should we plan our entire lives around that occurrence?
Often enough. And that's far from their only point of failure.
An emergency is also the worst time to have traffic blocked by a bunch of clunkers.
Make it gone.