California just opened the floodgates for self-driving cars
California just opened the floodgates for self-driving cars
In a pivotal moment for the autonomous transportation industry, California chose to expand one of the biggest test cases for the technology.
In a pivotal moment for the autonomous transportation industry, California chose to expand one of the biggest test cases for the technology.
Self driving cars are stupid. Invest in public transit instead.
Isn't a self driving car just a train? We should build trans and trollies instead. The tech is already there and they carry more people.
Good. I’m sick of the fearmonger. “OH NO, THIS ONE CAR GOT IN A CRASH!!!!!!”
Yeah, but humans crash too?
When I worked on Google's Waymo project, we only had a small handful of our cars involved in any collision on public roads. And every single one of them was from a human driver running into the SDC. I dunno if that's changed since I left, but even in the early stages, SDCs are remarkably safe compared to human drivers.
Cruise has hit an oncoming car, smashed into the back of a Muni bus, and is constantly stopping in emergency zones making first responders lives harder.
7 hours of debate of the community making it clear how much they don’t want this, how much the city’s leaders don’t want this, but the state doesn’t give a shit.
They may be “safe” because they avoid difficult maneuvers and only drive like 25-30mph, but that doesn’t mean they’re practical or should be welcome in our cities.
EVs are a crutch for the failed auto industry. Personal vehicles made life worse over time. This is an extension of that mistake. The people defending it are myopic and lazy.
This guy fkn gets it
"The people defending it are myopic and lazy." I don't think that's a fair statement. If I could walk/bike everywhere I would but as it turns out my area isn't walk-able at all. I didn't choose the infrastructure I have.
Well I know where I won't be visiting in the near future.
Florida?
East ukraine?
Golden State Bad!
As cool as the idea of self driving cars are, I don't trust it not to become a future where script kiddies and novice hackers take control of vehicles and crash them for fun if AI gets involved.
Don't even get me started on if a country had AI self driving cars and an enemy nation hacks the AI and sends directions that cause the car to end up damaging itself without you knowing. Or just uses it to cause all the vehicles in an area to crash and not be able to deploy airbags.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
California often serves as a “canary in the coal mine for the country and the developed world,” said David Zipper, Visiting Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Taubman Center for State and Local Government.
The California Public Utilities Commission approved the permits for Waymo and Cruise on Thursday despite pushback from local leaders and many residents in San Francisco, who argue that the autonomous vehicles have caused chaos around the city — from traffic jams to disrupted emergency scenes.
But critics say this data is unreliable and incomplete because the companies are not required to report a range of other incidents that affect the public — such as when a car veers into a bike or bus lane or stops short and disrupts traffic.
Philip Koopman, a Carnegie Mellon University professor who has conducted research on autonomous-vehicle safety for decades, said the self-driving car companies are under intense pressure to turn a profit and — in some cases — prove the business’s viability to shareholders.
In Los Angeles, Jarvis Murray, the county’s transportation administrator, said it is “untenable” to allow a new mobility service to expand without requiring companies to report more data and also give the cities more say over what is happening on their public roadways.
In an attempt to halt Thursday’s vote, they wrote letters and spoke at hearings to bring attention to a string of incidents in recent months: A car stopping near the scene of a mass shooting, another getting tangled in caution tape and downed wires after a major storm and another blocking a firetruck from exiting a station for several minutes.
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