Woman killed by self-driving Uber car

[DBdude]

Then I'll take the bus. You know, the bus. Ever seen one of them? Been around a while. Much more efficient than some fucking piss filled robot car.

Oh, wait, that's way below the standards of the typical TGR poster. Riding the bus. Ewwww. Other people. They smell.

ain't no stinking buses in the country

[Timberridge]

I don't think Greenwich and Wilton have any either. He's bluffing.

[PNWbrit]

Buses are going to be among the first things that goes driver-less.

Actually a basic pocket calculator could probably already do a far better job of driving a bus... or an Uber.

[skaredshtles]

Buses are going to be among the first things that goes driver-less.

Actually a basic pocket calculator could probably already do a far better job of driving a bus... or an Uber.

This. I'd go even further and say the basic pocket calculator would do a far better job than the average human behind any wheel of any vehicle.

It's the main reason that I see autonomous vehicles being *inevitable*...

[Benny Profane]

ain't no stinking buses in the country

Then move from the country.

Oh, wait, sprawl is good. Right.

[skaredshtles]

Then move from the country.

Oh, wait, sprawl is good. Right.

Another reason for the autonomous vehicle inevitability - the sprawl is ALREADY HERE and has been for a LONG time.

Buses and trains suck for actually getting around in our current state of our country, except for a *few* places.

One of the other factors will be demographics: the massively increasing numbers of old folks that increasingly won't be able to drive, combined with the large numbers of younger folks that have no interest in driving.

[grskier]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...ce8_story.html

And that captures a bit of my point.

[SumJongGuy]

Short version below, post #2

It ultimately boils down to whether autonomous vehicles will be causing more problems than human driven ones per capita. Too early to tell right now..

[DBdude]

Then move from the country.

Oh, wait, sprawl is good. Right.

it's just fine where I live....

if benny lives it we all should

when you left saratoga, the sprawl got better, really...

why did you leave 'toga? was it work? hmmmmm

[that dude who did that thing]

The "debates" in this place are actually worse than the "debates" in the comment section of my local newspaper. Less informed, more full of invective, and completely devoid of useful insight. That's quite a low bar the PR is failing to clear.


I haven't exactly had my eyes and ears glued to news from Arizona today, but based on what I have read and heard, it seems to me we lack useful data, and thus almost any conclusion that any of you reach about this auto accident is the result of pure prejudgment. There are exceptions to this supposition. For instance, one could reasonably conclude that a guy who vacations all over the world and the country and who then scolds other people for being elitists who don't like to ride busses, is a flaming asshole, you know, the kind you get after ordering the Vindaloo "Bombay hot" at your favorite curry joint. As to self-driving cars, there are lots of things we'd all probably like to see from them. Unlike the guy whose living depends on convincing people they are special drivers who can actually make use of 400hp without killingall the children in their suburban neighborhoods, most of us would happily give up an awful lot of our daily driving duties if we could, at a reasonable price (and inconvenient schedules, bad odors, and dealing with untreated mental health issues all count as part of the price of giving up our personal vehicles). I think driverless vehicles are going to end up serving a variety of different purposes:

* long distance travel. I'd love to point my car at a city 400 miles away, start a movie, a book, a picnic, etc. Interstate highways should be prime candidates for going autonomous;

* mass transit. Busses are expensive; to buy, to operate, to maintain, to fuel, etc. And once you've got a bunch of them, you've still got problems of convenience of both routes and timing. The current mass transit model calls for forcing consumers to meet the transit schedule. Autonomous vehicles may flip that, and by taking out the drivers, you'd completely undercut the price of Lyft, Uber, etc.

* last mile. Another big challenge for current mass transit is the "last mile" phenomenon: getting commuters from a train or bus depot to their final destination. One answer is to dig subway tunnels all over a city, but that's pretty expensive. Very small, autonomous cars could be an efficient solution.

[Kenny Satch]

I think you have it all upsiding down

[billyk]

Then I'll take the bus. You know, the bus. Ever seen one of them? Been around a while. Much more efficient than some fucking piss filled robot car.

Oh, wait, that's way below the standards of the typical TGR poster. Riding the bus. Ewwww. Other people. They smell.

Have you actually ridden the bus lately?

I rode one to commute to a local concert where parking is a hassle/expensive. Did it for several years, but the last few rides put me off from doing that again.

Some of the people who ride the bus really are disgusting, and stink.

[Dantheman]

and by taking out the drivers, you'd completely undercut the price of Lyft, Uber, etc.

Uber and Lyft will probably be the ones operating these things, though it is conceivable that public transit entities could adopt them as well. As for prices, Uber currently costs about $1-2/mile and cost of ownership for a personal vehicle is $0.57/mile. Estimates I've seen are around $0.25/mile for single-rider driverless and $0.15/mile for shared driverless. People may drop personal vehicle ownership in droves purely for economic reasons.

[Timberridge]

Hey Kenny,

How do Canadians count to 3 when rushing the QB in flag football?
1 Mississauga, 2 Mississauga, 3 Mississauga

[Bobby Stainless]

Quite a few people like to drive Pio. Nothing wrong with that.

It will be one or the other. Can't have both.

[Timberridge]

Have you actually ridden the bus lately?

I rode one to commute to a local concert where parking is a hassle/expensive. Did it for several years, but the last few rides put me off from doing that again.

Some of the people who ride the bus really are disgusting, and stink.

Benny ain't riding no buses.

[Bobby Stainless]

I don't even like riding the bus from Rubey Park to Snowmass.

[PNWbrit]

It will be one or the other. Can't have both.

That's the big problem... if all vehicles were driver-less it'd be easy to engineer... comparatively.

[Kenny Satch]

Hey Kenny,

How do Canadians count to 3 when rushing the QB in flag football?
1 Mississauga, 2 Mississauga, 3 Mississauga

We say Mississippi
Btw that's funny

[that dude who did that thing]

That's the big problem... if all vehicles were driver-less it'd be easy to engineer... comparatively.

Traffic management is always about social engineering as much as it is about the physical kind.

[Kenny Satch]

Uber and Lyft will probably be the ones operating these things, though it is conceivable that public transit entities could adopt them as well. As for prices, Uber currently costs about $1-2/mile and cost of ownership for a personal vehicle is $0.57/mile. Estimates I've seen are around $0.25/mile for single-rider driverless and $0.15/mile for shared driverless. People may drop personal vehicle ownership in droves purely for economic reasons.

I wonder if these cars will become self aware and form unions
Or is this just another form of slavery. Free the robots I say and keep stupid humans behind the wheel

[PNWbrit]

Traffic management is always about social engineering as much as it is about the physical kind.

a where the rubber hits the road kind of thing?

[that dude who did that thing]

a where the rubber hits the road kind of thing?

Rubber? You sure you got that part right?

[Timberridge]

I knew a guy who lived in Manhattan who used to put his dog on a school bus and send him to doggy day care for the day. The bus would drop the dog off at the end of the day. If they had driverless cars back then, the dog could have avoided this.

[Benny Profane]

Has anybody considered ownership? Or, the lack of? You know that these things will be leased, or, the whole personal transportation industry will be Uberized. Goodbye freedom of the road. All you hearty hale men of the mountains will have to give up your monster trucks for a feeble little robot. It will take a mandate from DC, but, they're a bunch of whores easily bought by the newly forming industry. Right?

Thus ain't about safety, either. That's the sanctimonious rap To Justify It all. This is about eliminating millions of pesky human driving jobs, and saving trillions in expenses those smelly humans cost the transportation industry. And monopoly power and profits, too. He who wins first, wins.