Week of Cone
July 7, 2023 3:27 PM Subscribe
A decentralized group of safe streets activists in San Francisco realized they can disable Cruise and Waymo robotaxis by placing a traffic cone on a vehicle’s hood, and they’re encouraging others to do it, too. "This is vandalism and encourages unsafe and disrespectful behavior on our roadways,” the company said in a statement.
Other opponents like the San Francisco Taxi Workers Alliance and the Alliance for Independent Workers have protested the spread of robotaxis, which they say will eliminate the need for taxi and ride-hail drivers
I have complicated, poorly grounded but generally negative feelings about robotaxis, but the idea that they would eliminate the need for ride hail drivers seems kind of fine.
posted by Going To Maine at 3:32 PM on July 7, 2023 [6 favorites]
I have complicated, poorly grounded but generally negative feelings about robotaxis, but the idea that they would eliminate the need for ride hail drivers seems kind of fine.
posted by Going To Maine at 3:32 PM on July 7, 2023 [6 favorites]
Calling it “vandalism” is wild.
posted by Going To Maine at 3:35 PM on July 7, 2023 [57 favorites]
posted by Going To Maine at 3:35 PM on July 7, 2023 [57 favorites]
The cars are little useless unicorns, this is delightful.
posted by the primroses were over at 3:36 PM on July 7, 2023 [41 favorites]
posted by the primroses were over at 3:36 PM on July 7, 2023 [41 favorites]
I completely missed that there were robot cars in San Francisco. I am newly terrified, not least by the fact that they’ve put these things live in the streets controlled by software so shitty it can be broken by something as simple as putting a traffic cone somewhere.
posted by Jon_Evil at 3:38 PM on July 7, 2023 [84 favorites]
posted by Jon_Evil at 3:38 PM on July 7, 2023 [84 favorites]
the idea that they would eliminate the need for ride hail drivers seems kind of fine.
The “need” for ride-hail drivers is because there aren’t enough real jobs for all the people who need jobs, so they have to do something to make money. These robots are not going to illuminate our broken economic system.
posted by Jon_Evil at 3:42 PM on July 7, 2023 [26 favorites]
The “need” for ride-hail drivers is because there aren’t enough real jobs for all the people who need jobs, so they have to do something to make money. These robots are not going to illuminate our broken economic system.
posted by Jon_Evil at 3:42 PM on July 7, 2023 [26 favorites]
They're also a sign of an economic infrastructure completely organized around cars.
posted by clawsoon at 3:44 PM on July 7, 2023 [56 favorites]
posted by clawsoon at 3:44 PM on July 7, 2023 [56 favorites]
Speaking of "unsafe and disrespectful behavior on our roadways". Waymo, Cruise vehicles have impeded emergency vehicle response 66 times this year. And Cruise robotaxi appears to hinder emergency crews after mass shooting.
I'm long-term bullish on full self driving cars. I do not understand why we're letting dangerous development happen on our streets.
posted by Nelson at 3:54 PM on July 7, 2023 [47 favorites]
I'm long-term bullish on full self driving cars. I do not understand why we're letting dangerous development happen on our streets.
posted by Nelson at 3:54 PM on July 7, 2023 [47 favorites]
The “need” for ride-hail drivers is because there aren’t enough real jobs for all the people who need jobs, so they have to do something to make money. These robots are not going to illuminate our broken economic system.
I mean, I agree. But if only argument against robotaxis is some jobs will go away, who cares. Surveillance concerns, safety concerns - these seem like the right battlegrounds, and I don’t even know that it’s very intersectional.
posted by Going To Maine at 3:55 PM on July 7, 2023 [6 favorites]
I mean, I agree. But if only argument against robotaxis is some jobs will go away, who cares. Surveillance concerns, safety concerns - these seem like the right battlegrounds, and I don’t even know that it’s very intersectional.
posted by Going To Maine at 3:55 PM on July 7, 2023 [6 favorites]
I hope the reaction isn't cutting down reactions to traffic cones.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 3:55 PM on July 7, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 3:55 PM on July 7, 2023 [5 favorites]
I say use their profits to fund BART
posted by Going To Maine at 3:56 PM on July 7, 2023 [35 favorites]
posted by Going To Maine at 3:56 PM on July 7, 2023 [35 favorites]
in the future parents will get to decide whether to dress their kids in urban camo to better hide from mass shooters or in neon orange to avoid being run down by autonomous vehicles.
posted by logicpunk at 3:57 PM on July 7, 2023 [101 favorites]
posted by logicpunk at 3:57 PM on July 7, 2023 [101 favorites]
I don’t think I’ve seen any complaints about robo-cars that couldn’t also be applied exponentially to human drivers. Blocked emergency vehicles? Check. Killed a dog? Check. Stopped unexpectedly causing a rear-end collision? Check. Fosters a society built around cars? Check!
I did some back-envelope math on the first million miles of the Waymos in Phoenix, and their accident rate per million miles driven was about 200x lower than human drivers, with no fatalities.
Humans are terrible at driving. I’m not saying that robots are the best, but so far, they seem better.
posted by LEGO Damashii at 4:00 PM on July 7, 2023 [28 favorites]
I did some back-envelope math on the first million miles of the Waymos in Phoenix, and their accident rate per million miles driven was about 200x lower than human drivers, with no fatalities.
Humans are terrible at driving. I’m not saying that robots are the best, but so far, they seem better.
posted by LEGO Damashii at 4:00 PM on July 7, 2023 [28 favorites]
Same energy: Stepping over an invisible box prank
posted by MengerSponge at 4:03 PM on July 7, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by MengerSponge at 4:03 PM on July 7, 2023 [5 favorites]
Do the traffic cones need to be full-sized to disable the cars? Asking for a friend.
posted by la glaneuse at 4:03 PM on July 7, 2023 [11 favorites]
posted by la glaneuse at 4:03 PM on July 7, 2023 [11 favorites]
The statistics on robo-car safety aren't as clear as you present, LEGO Damashii. Would love to see some links on that, actually, it's an interesting topic. There's been some problems with companies providing misleading data.
But there's still an important difference with a human driver in the car, particularly for odd situations like emergency vehicles. They can be talked to and reasoned with. The fireman can understand why the car is blocking the way, work with the driver to get the car moved. A big problem with any AI system is no one can understand what it is doing.
Of course sometimes drivers are unreasonable. Or, say, drunk. AI presents a lot of advantages. When it's ready.
posted by Nelson at 4:06 PM on July 7, 2023 [23 favorites]
But there's still an important difference with a human driver in the car, particularly for odd situations like emergency vehicles. They can be talked to and reasoned with. The fireman can understand why the car is blocking the way, work with the driver to get the car moved. A big problem with any AI system is no one can understand what it is doing.
Of course sometimes drivers are unreasonable. Or, say, drunk. AI presents a lot of advantages. When it's ready.
posted by Nelson at 4:06 PM on July 7, 2023 [23 favorites]
Toll collectors (particular on the East Coast) sabotaged every electronic toll system they could get their hands on.
It's astonishing how quickly "radical" people become attached to the status quo when it's threatened.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 4:16 PM on July 7, 2023 [4 favorites]
It's astonishing how quickly "radical" people become attached to the status quo when it's threatened.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 4:16 PM on July 7, 2023 [4 favorites]
"Take my car, its re-enforced alloy superstructure is far superior to that of your broken down, rusted out shit box"
-Beldar Conehead.
posted by clavdivs at 4:17 PM on July 7, 2023 [11 favorites]
-Beldar Conehead.
posted by clavdivs at 4:17 PM on July 7, 2023 [11 favorites]
This does sound like something that should have wound up in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Maybe it already did. If you put the traffic cone on your own head, would the taxi fail to see you because you can't see it?
posted by not_on_display at 4:25 PM on July 7, 2023 [12 favorites]
Maybe it already did. If you put the traffic cone on your own head, would the taxi fail to see you because you can't see it?
posted by not_on_display at 4:25 PM on July 7, 2023 [12 favorites]
I don’t think I’ve seen any complaints about robo-cars that couldn’t also be applied exponentially to human drivers. Blocked emergency vehicles? Check. Killed a dog? Check. Stopped unexpectedly causing a rear-end collision? Check. Fosters a society built around cars? Check!
Completely disabled by traffic cone on hood? Check!
posted by clawsoon at 4:29 PM on July 7, 2023 [21 favorites]
Completely disabled by traffic cone on hood? Check!
posted by clawsoon at 4:29 PM on July 7, 2023 [21 favorites]
The somewhat ironic thing is "[they could] disable Cruise and Waymo robotaxis by placing a traffic cone on a vehicle’s hood" actually demonstrates correct behaviour by the vehicles. It genuinely would be unsafe to drive around with a large unsecured object sitting on the hood of your car, and the software is handling the situation exactly as it should.
posted by kickingtheground at 4:34 PM on July 7, 2023 [47 favorites]
posted by kickingtheground at 4:34 PM on July 7, 2023 [47 favorites]
I love this. When Google was testing self-driving cars on the 280 years and years ago - I did idly contemplate building a chaff dispenser with tin foil shards to see how they would react.
posted by inflatablekiwi at 4:43 PM on July 7, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by inflatablekiwi at 4:43 PM on July 7, 2023 [4 favorites]
on the one hand, the raw statistics on accident/injury/death rates are, as people upthread noted, somewhat questionable. but on the other hand questionability of the raw data aside it’s difficult to take into account how when machine learning systems break, they break weird and behave in nonsense ways that are even more nonsense than the way that drunk drivers or text-and-drivers drive.
and on the gripping hand, fairly innocuous-seeming things — like this funny traffic cone trick — can reliably break them. i like the traffic cone trick a lot. however, there are without a doubt methods of developing totally discreet totally innocuous adversarial objects that can exploit the system’s quirks to make it do thoroughly non-innocuous highly non-funny things, and uh that’s something we need to start thinking about actually before people start trying it.
that said: i do remain impressed that modern ml techniques have progressed so quickly — I expected self-driving cars to all be as murder/suicidey as the auto-drive mode on cars from that guy‘s company for like at least another decade.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 4:54 PM on July 7, 2023 [6 favorites]
and on the gripping hand, fairly innocuous-seeming things — like this funny traffic cone trick — can reliably break them. i like the traffic cone trick a lot. however, there are without a doubt methods of developing totally discreet totally innocuous adversarial objects that can exploit the system’s quirks to make it do thoroughly non-innocuous highly non-funny things, and uh that’s something we need to start thinking about actually before people start trying it.
that said: i do remain impressed that modern ml techniques have progressed so quickly — I expected self-driving cars to all be as murder/suicidey as the auto-drive mode on cars from that guy‘s company for like at least another decade.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 4:54 PM on July 7, 2023 [6 favorites]
If you put the traffic cone on your own head, would the taxi fail to see you because you can't see it?
Depends on the river current or a stove top hat replacement fastened with cotton and jute.
I just want to see a video of a person walking by going 😙 and laying a cone on the top of the hood.
posted by clavdivs at 4:55 PM on July 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
Depends on the river current or a stove top hat replacement fastened with cotton and jute.
I just want to see a video of a person walking by going 😙 and laying a cone on the top of the hood.
posted by clavdivs at 4:55 PM on July 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
I was under the impression that all these vaunted "self-driving cars" immediately fell back to remotely-driven-by-a-human when anything out of the ordinary went wrong, like having a fire engine right behind it, or when it detects it's in an immovable position. Did they remove that feature too?
posted by meowzilla at 4:56 PM on July 7, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by meowzilla at 4:56 PM on July 7, 2023 [3 favorites]
"I'm sorry. Would you please rephrase the question? ... Fasten your seat belt!" - Johnny Cab
posted by porpoise at 5:03 PM on July 7, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by porpoise at 5:03 PM on July 7, 2023 [4 favorites]
Living in San Francisco, especially in a neighborhood where these idiot cars were “trained” for years, having to call the DMV to find out that the CA Public Utilities Commission is actually in charge of them so I could complain about them abruptly stopping in front of me on a street with no reason to stop numerous times, having to jump out of a crosswalk when one decided to just run me over, and yesterday having an oncoming one start to move into my lane for no fucking reason, I heartily cheer the efforts of these decentralized people in finding ways to stymie these idiotic cars as I do not want to be the lab rat killed in these experiments.
posted by njohnson23 at 5:08 PM on July 7, 2023 [76 favorites]
posted by njohnson23 at 5:08 PM on July 7, 2023 [76 favorites]
Would love to see some links on that, actually
Here you go. Although since that paper is from 5 months ago, their "one million miles without a human even as a safety backup" number is way out of date. Note, since this MeFi post doesn't describe passengers immediately jumping out and fist-fighting the people with the cones, these cones people are fucking with the empty cars, which have logged tens of millions of miles.
But, the fact that whole fleets of these things have been driving passengers all over Phoenix and now SF, and just huge fleets of empty ones are driving all over the place in just about every mid-size and larger California city, it should say something if this post is the first time you are hearing about these things.
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 5:14 PM on July 7, 2023 [8 favorites]
Here you go. Although since that paper is from 5 months ago, their "one million miles without a human even as a safety backup" number is way out of date. Note, since this MeFi post doesn't describe passengers immediately jumping out and fist-fighting the people with the cones, these cones people are fucking with the empty cars, which have logged tens of millions of miles.
But, the fact that whole fleets of these things have been driving passengers all over Phoenix and now SF, and just huge fleets of empty ones are driving all over the place in just about every mid-size and larger California city, it should say something if this post is the first time you are hearing about these things.
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 5:14 PM on July 7, 2023 [8 favorites]
Did they remove that feature too?
The leaders in this space (Cruise/Waymo) did remove that feature (the human) some time ago. They have progressed to empty cars, and now in places like Phoenix there are areas where you can just hail one and have it drive you around as commercial passenger.
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 5:18 PM on July 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
The leaders in this space (Cruise/Waymo) did remove that feature (the human) some time ago. They have progressed to empty cars, and now in places like Phoenix there are areas where you can just hail one and have it drive you around as commercial passenger.
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 5:18 PM on July 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
But if only argument against robotaxis is some jobs will go away, who cares.
....I think the taxi drivers would certainly care....
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:18 PM on July 7, 2023 [11 favorites]
....I think the taxi drivers would certainly care....
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:18 PM on July 7, 2023 [11 favorites]
Thanks for the link to Waymo's safety report. It looks like meaty reading. There's a summary here. Broadly speaking it says that Waymo's record was better than average human's. There's a lot of complicated details and Waymo is careful in how they talk about it.
I prefer Waymo's approach of true autonomy. The "you're mostly not driving but be ready to take over in an emergency any second now" is the worst of all worlds. As various Tesla passengers sitting in the driver seat can attest. Or could attest, if they weren't dead.
posted by Nelson at 5:24 PM on July 7, 2023 [6 favorites]
I prefer Waymo's approach of true autonomy. The "you're mostly not driving but be ready to take over in an emergency any second now" is the worst of all worlds. As various Tesla passengers sitting in the driver seat can attest. Or could attest, if they weren't dead.
posted by Nelson at 5:24 PM on July 7, 2023 [6 favorites]
The leaders in this space (Cruise/Waymo) did remove that feature (the human) some time ago. They have progressed to empty cars
I'm referring to empty cars, but can be remotely controlled in case they get stuck between a bunch of cones or something. When these cars are disabled (via a cone, or maybe a poorly striped intersection), what happens? Do they just sit there until they run out of battery power?
posted by meowzilla at 5:40 PM on July 7, 2023 [4 favorites]
I'm referring to empty cars, but can be remotely controlled in case they get stuck between a bunch of cones or something. When these cars are disabled (via a cone, or maybe a poorly striped intersection), what happens? Do they just sit there until they run out of battery power?
posted by meowzilla at 5:40 PM on July 7, 2023 [4 favorites]
Comparing safety to the average driver is a clever trick that skews perceptions of safety. Another way to think of the average driver is to think of a random driver - maybe they're drunk, maybe they're texting someone who just broke up with them, maybe they're 18 and making a TikTok with their buddies, maybe their glaucoma would have them fail the eye test today. That's the random driver. There are some drivers who are so bad at driving that it's illegal for them to drive; doesn't matter, they're still in the accident rate statistics.
What you want to compare to is the median driver, someone who is at least moderately experienced and competent, sober, fairly rested, paying attention. Because that's what your risk profile (hopefully) is. And while it sounds like the difference between mean and median is a negligible amount of interest to eggheads, it's at least double the crash rate, and probably more.
Making it so the incredibly bad drivers have a lower risk is great, as long as it isn't transferred to increase the risk to the much larger population of non-bad drivers.
posted by Superilla at 6:10 PM on July 7, 2023 [43 favorites]
What you want to compare to is the median driver, someone who is at least moderately experienced and competent, sober, fairly rested, paying attention. Because that's what your risk profile (hopefully) is. And while it sounds like the difference between mean and median is a negligible amount of interest to eggheads, it's at least double the crash rate, and probably more.
Making it so the incredibly bad drivers have a lower risk is great, as long as it isn't transferred to increase the risk to the much larger population of non-bad drivers.
posted by Superilla at 6:10 PM on July 7, 2023 [43 favorites]
I would very much like to find the cone equivalent for cars still driven by humans.
posted by doctornemo at 6:22 PM on July 7, 2023 [16 favorites]
posted by doctornemo at 6:22 PM on July 7, 2023 [16 favorites]
"Self driving" cars being actually driven by people in tough cases is honestly, about what I would expect from AI. And there will never be a time when there aren't people behind the machines in at least some cases, and as long as we live under capitalism that fact will always be obscured.
posted by subdee at 6:23 PM on July 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by subdee at 6:23 PM on July 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
Brought to mind James Bridle's Autonomous Trap 001.
"What you're looking at is a salt circle, a traditional form of protection—from within or without—in magical practice. In this case it's being used to arrest an autonomous vehicle—a self-driving car, which relies on machine vision and processing to guide it."
posted by ryanshepard at 6:23 PM on July 7, 2023 [12 favorites]
"What you're looking at is a salt circle, a traditional form of protection—from within or without—in magical practice. In this case it's being used to arrest an autonomous vehicle—a self-driving car, which relies on machine vision and processing to guide it."
posted by ryanshepard at 6:23 PM on July 7, 2023 [12 favorites]
But there's still an important difference with a human driver in the car, particularly for odd situations like emergency vehicles.
This reminds me of a pretty funny* event in Sacramento where I ended up stopped at a light for a minute or two while a firetruck honked at a human driver who was in the left turn lane refused to move at all. IDK if they were drunk, angry, or just confused but eventually fire truck was able to make the left around them when someone in the middle lane realized (perhaps with shouting) that they could unblock it by going through the red light, but a police cruiser came by to ticket them moments later.
*probably less funny if it was your home burning down I suppose.
posted by pwnguin at 6:23 PM on July 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
This reminds me of a pretty funny* event in Sacramento where I ended up stopped at a light for a minute or two while a firetruck honked at a human driver who was in the left turn lane refused to move at all. IDK if they were drunk, angry, or just confused but eventually fire truck was able to make the left around them when someone in the middle lane realized (perhaps with shouting) that they could unblock it by going through the red light, but a police cruiser came by to ticket them moments later.
*probably less funny if it was your home burning down I suppose.
posted by pwnguin at 6:23 PM on July 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
Superilla, that's an interesting suggestion that now has me very curious! I usually see automobile safety statistics in terms of either deaths per 100,000 people or deaths per hundred million miles traveled, as in the tables here. What kind of measures are you seeing that admit a mean versus median? Does anyone have the kind of data that would make such a contrast sensible? I mean, are we doing something like, sample a bunch of drivers and ask [1] how many miles have you driven, and [2] how many people did you kill in that time; then take as the statistic the ratio of [2] to [1]; then compare the mean of that ratio in the sample to the median of that ratio in the sample? Are there any publicly-available data sets that have that kind of information?
posted by Jonathan Livengood at 6:31 PM on July 7, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by Jonathan Livengood at 6:31 PM on July 7, 2023 [3 favorites]
(I was first to use the word "average" here and should say I was using the word colloquially, not talking about the specific statistical detail of mean vs median. Waymo seems pretty careful in how they present their data, best read their writing directly if you want to be precise.)
posted by Nelson at 7:07 PM on July 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Nelson at 7:07 PM on July 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
I don’t think I’ve seen any complaints about robo-cars that couldn’t also be applied exponentially to human drivers. Blocked emergency vehicles? Check. Killed a dog? Check. Stopped unexpectedly causing a rear-end collision? Check. Fosters a society built around cars? Check!
The actual complaint being made is that the people of San Francisco have made it clear they want more bike lanes, more walkable neighborhoods, better street conditions, and better multi-use public spaces. Yet the powers that be, instead of serving the citizens of SF, are running around letting private companies unleash their half-baked bullshit on the streets. Again.
All these discussions about the effect on the labor market and safety of this tech are all super interesting to re-hash yet again, but I have feeling if the posters here had a less abstract relationship with being endlessly made into venture capital's guinea pigs, they might see it differently.
I do not want to live in a city that is re-made in the image of robo-taxis. I want to live in one that is run for the benefit of it's actual human citizens and their needs. So however inevitable this technology may be, it will never, ever scale without a massive investment of public funds to remake the world into a world made for robots. That is why Cruise / Waymo / etc. are constantly shifting the discussion onto more favorable terrain: their latest safety report, the statistics about human drivers, anything to distract from the fact that actually making their little experiment more than an experiment is a political choice that is not inevitable.
posted by bradbane at 7:25 PM on July 7, 2023 [91 favorites]
The actual complaint being made is that the people of San Francisco have made it clear they want more bike lanes, more walkable neighborhoods, better street conditions, and better multi-use public spaces. Yet the powers that be, instead of serving the citizens of SF, are running around letting private companies unleash their half-baked bullshit on the streets. Again.
All these discussions about the effect on the labor market and safety of this tech are all super interesting to re-hash yet again, but I have feeling if the posters here had a less abstract relationship with being endlessly made into venture capital's guinea pigs, they might see it differently.
I do not want to live in a city that is re-made in the image of robo-taxis. I want to live in one that is run for the benefit of it's actual human citizens and their needs. So however inevitable this technology may be, it will never, ever scale without a massive investment of public funds to remake the world into a world made for robots. That is why Cruise / Waymo / etc. are constantly shifting the discussion onto more favorable terrain: their latest safety report, the statistics about human drivers, anything to distract from the fact that actually making their little experiment more than an experiment is a political choice that is not inevitable.
posted by bradbane at 7:25 PM on July 7, 2023 [91 favorites]
I do not want to live in a city that is re-made in the image of robo-taxis.
Interestingly, we largely replaced human driven forklifts with autonomous vehicles about 15 years ago in an industrial facility for safety reasons. This is in the context of a highly unionized industry with an obsession with safety.
The improved safety wasn't merely just by replacing the fallible human operator - which, face it, these are low paid jobs, and trying to get them to show up without drugs of alcohol in their system, or even show up at all, was part of the challenge.
The main driver of improved safety was the fact that being autonomous, we could use much lighter and much slower vehicles. You could get these vehicles to drive at 1.5kmph rather than 15kmph since you weren't paying an operator to sit in them, and you could run many more of these vehicles to make up for lower speed. You could get these vehicles to be a few hundred kg rather than 10 tonnes. Having a 500kg vehicle collide with you at 1.5kmph is significantly less lethal than a 10 tonne vehicle running you over at 15kmph. Also they ran on battery power rather than fossil fuels, improving air quality inside the warehouse or manufacturing floor.
Corporations can 100% control what goes on in their private facilities to optimize for efficiency and safety. If I was imagining an optimal transport solution, it would be similar to what we came up with - all current cars and trucks eliminated from the road. They would be replaced by significantly smaller and lighter autonomous electric vehicles (500kg instead of 3500kg). They can be light because they're not designed to go fast so they don't need strong crash structures. They can be slow because you're not actually driving, you're having a nap, reading the news, responding to emails, playing video games, chatting to your friends, who cares if it takes you a bit longer to get to your destination.
This would be similar to something like the Aptera, it weighs 800kg and claims to have a total wind resistance similar to an F-150 side mirror, except cut the weight down even further since we aren't looking for a top speed much higher than 30kmph.
posted by xdvesper at 7:46 PM on July 7, 2023 [31 favorites]
Interestingly, we largely replaced human driven forklifts with autonomous vehicles about 15 years ago in an industrial facility for safety reasons. This is in the context of a highly unionized industry with an obsession with safety.
The improved safety wasn't merely just by replacing the fallible human operator - which, face it, these are low paid jobs, and trying to get them to show up without drugs of alcohol in their system, or even show up at all, was part of the challenge.
The main driver of improved safety was the fact that being autonomous, we could use much lighter and much slower vehicles. You could get these vehicles to drive at 1.5kmph rather than 15kmph since you weren't paying an operator to sit in them, and you could run many more of these vehicles to make up for lower speed. You could get these vehicles to be a few hundred kg rather than 10 tonnes. Having a 500kg vehicle collide with you at 1.5kmph is significantly less lethal than a 10 tonne vehicle running you over at 15kmph. Also they ran on battery power rather than fossil fuels, improving air quality inside the warehouse or manufacturing floor.
Corporations can 100% control what goes on in their private facilities to optimize for efficiency and safety. If I was imagining an optimal transport solution, it would be similar to what we came up with - all current cars and trucks eliminated from the road. They would be replaced by significantly smaller and lighter autonomous electric vehicles (500kg instead of 3500kg). They can be light because they're not designed to go fast so they don't need strong crash structures. They can be slow because you're not actually driving, you're having a nap, reading the news, responding to emails, playing video games, chatting to your friends, who cares if it takes you a bit longer to get to your destination.
This would be similar to something like the Aptera, it weighs 800kg and claims to have a total wind resistance similar to an F-150 side mirror, except cut the weight down even further since we aren't looking for a top speed much higher than 30kmph.
posted by xdvesper at 7:46 PM on July 7, 2023 [31 favorites]
Call me a dreamer.
I see a future where few people own cars and there are ubiquitous legions of little solar-powered econoboxes that show up to ferry you wherever.
No more idiots with loud exhausts, blazing headlights, towering one-ton pickups etc, etc.
I see people merrily, safely bar-hopping, carrying the party from location to car to location, the conversation barely pausing.
Homes without a significant proportion of their square footage devoted to housing a vehicle.
Parking lots turned into more housing, parks, you-name-it.
Fewer traffic jams because the cars cooperate instead of the devil-take-the-hindmost, boorish, inconsiderate behavior we are currently forced to tolerate.
Neighborhood streets devoid of claustrophobic masses of parked cars - more walkable neighborhoods.
Languid, soul-refreshing jaunts to nowhere in particular, reading a book, talking on the phone, or just staring out the window.
posted by mmrtnt at 7:52 PM on July 7, 2023 [17 favorites]
I see a future where few people own cars and there are ubiquitous legions of little solar-powered econoboxes that show up to ferry you wherever.
No more idiots with loud exhausts, blazing headlights, towering one-ton pickups etc, etc.
I see people merrily, safely bar-hopping, carrying the party from location to car to location, the conversation barely pausing.
Homes without a significant proportion of their square footage devoted to housing a vehicle.
Parking lots turned into more housing, parks, you-name-it.
Fewer traffic jams because the cars cooperate instead of the devil-take-the-hindmost, boorish, inconsiderate behavior we are currently forced to tolerate.
Neighborhood streets devoid of claustrophobic masses of parked cars - more walkable neighborhoods.
Languid, soul-refreshing jaunts to nowhere in particular, reading a book, talking on the phone, or just staring out the window.
posted by mmrtnt at 7:52 PM on July 7, 2023 [17 favorites]
But, FREEDOM!
And yes, cars are the worst. But they do provide an insane amount of "I can go where I want to, when I want to".
The interstates are calling me...
posted by Windopaene at 8:01 PM on July 7, 2023
And yes, cars are the worst. But they do provide an insane amount of "I can go where I want to, when I want to".
The interstates are calling me...
posted by Windopaene at 8:01 PM on July 7, 2023
I have to question a technology that can be hacked with a traffic cone.
Also, robotaxis are just the first part of the wave in the "Take the human out of the equation" drive. They're doing it with semis, too. They're piloting it with trains.
Exactly where are the drivers of these vehicles supposed to find jobs after automation takes them away?
posted by Issithe at 8:04 PM on July 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
Also, robotaxis are just the first part of the wave in the "Take the human out of the equation" drive. They're doing it with semis, too. They're piloting it with trains.
Exactly where are the drivers of these vehicles supposed to find jobs after automation takes them away?
posted by Issithe at 8:04 PM on July 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
Exactly where are the drivers of these vehicles supposed to find jobs after automation takes them away?
powerwashing the interiors of autonomous vehicles on sunday mornings after people have realized the opportunities afforded by a mobile, semi-private, reasonably priced fuckbox
posted by logicpunk at 8:12 PM on July 7, 2023 [10 favorites]
powerwashing the interiors of autonomous vehicles on sunday mornings after people have realized the opportunities afforded by a mobile, semi-private, reasonably priced fuckbox
posted by logicpunk at 8:12 PM on July 7, 2023 [10 favorites]
If I was imagining an optimal transport solution, it would be similar to what we came up with - all current cars and trucks eliminated from the road. They would be replaced by significantly smaller and lighter autonomous electric vehicles (500kg instead of 3500kg). They can be light because they're not designed to go fast so they don't need strong crash structures. They can be slow because you're not actually driving, you're having a nap, reading the news, responding to emails, playing video games, chatting to your friends, who cares if it takes you a bit longer to get to your destination.
Congrats, you invented trains. Which in the bay area, the train transit system is currently in crisis due to underfunding.
posted by bradbane at 8:19 PM on July 7, 2023 [48 favorites]
Congrats, you invented trains. Which in the bay area, the train transit system is currently in crisis due to underfunding.
posted by bradbane at 8:19 PM on July 7, 2023 [48 favorites]
Exactly where are the drivers of these vehicles supposed to find jobs after automation takes them away?
The same place that the coopers, buggy drivers, and stable grooms found theirs.
posted by mr_roboto at 8:20 PM on July 7, 2023 [5 favorites]
The same place that the coopers, buggy drivers, and stable grooms found theirs.
posted by mr_roboto at 8:20 PM on July 7, 2023 [5 favorites]
Congrats, you invented trains.
???
Trains are incredibly heavy and they go very, very fast.
posted by mr_roboto at 8:21 PM on July 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
???
Trains are incredibly heavy and they go very, very fast.
posted by mr_roboto at 8:21 PM on July 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
very fast
posted by clavdivs at 8:33 PM on July 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by clavdivs at 8:33 PM on July 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
Thanks for the example, xdvesper. I daydream about a city crisscrossed by electric milk floats that are both package delivery and hop-on-hop-off charabanc public transport. (To a light/rail line, for some long distance travel, or to peripheral garages for other.)
More seriously: when a car is on the road without a person in it, it needs to be paying parking costs whether it’s moving or not. The right to use the expensive public road inheres in the human, not to the vehicle.
Seattle already adapted Shoupian parking prices and they’ve been satisfactory. We can use those.
posted by clew at 8:53 PM on July 7, 2023 [7 favorites]
More seriously: when a car is on the road without a person in it, it needs to be paying parking costs whether it’s moving or not. The right to use the expensive public road inheres in the human, not to the vehicle.
Seattle already adapted Shoupian parking prices and they’ve been satisfactory. We can use those.
posted by clew at 8:53 PM on July 7, 2023 [7 favorites]
I strongly suspect that most people don't want to live in a world with autonomous vehicles. The people who do are the ones who want to drive others out of business and jack up the prices once they've eliminated the competition. Which was at least marginally possible when money was essentially free at low interest rates but less so now.
As a professional computer-toucher, the longer I work with complex systems, the more I think the Butlerian Jihad in Dune had the right idea. Thinking we can write code that can handle even a subset of the stress cases that involve driving a literal ton of metal, rubber, plastic, and glass through space containing humans and cargo is an exercise in optimism that I am just not prepared for.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 8:55 PM on July 7, 2023 [11 favorites]
As a professional computer-toucher, the longer I work with complex systems, the more I think the Butlerian Jihad in Dune had the right idea. Thinking we can write code that can handle even a subset of the stress cases that involve driving a literal ton of metal, rubber, plastic, and glass through space containing humans and cargo is an exercise in optimism that I am just not prepared for.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 8:55 PM on July 7, 2023 [11 favorites]
Get A Horse!
1900-1930: The years of driving dangerously. "Detroit was the first city to use stop signs, lane markings, one-way streets and traffic signals."
'The Hidden History of American Anti-Car Protests'
Also, automation is being taught at the University level, everywhere.
for years.
Kettering University develops new artificial intelligence agent for school bus safety agent for school bus safety
posted by clavdivs at 8:57 PM on July 7, 2023 [3 favorites]
1900-1930: The years of driving dangerously. "Detroit was the first city to use stop signs, lane markings, one-way streets and traffic signals."
'The Hidden History of American Anti-Car Protests'
Also, automation is being taught at the University level, everywhere.
for years.
Kettering University develops new artificial intelligence agent for school bus safety agent for school bus safety
posted by clavdivs at 8:57 PM on July 7, 2023 [3 favorites]
Congrats, you invented trains. Which in the bay area, the train transit system is currently in crisis due to underfunding.
It's a little more complicated, but BART is in a death spiral by its own design. MUNI, or SF's light rail/bus system, is a better comparison. BART is commuter rail that was specifically designed to funnel people from the suburbs into SF and Oakland downtowns for work. That traffic is pretty much all dried up thanks to WFH policies (along with the hollowing-out of downtown), and is not returning. Waymo and Cruise don't overlap much with BART, since they're only allowed in SF proper.
It's better than it was before, but most BART stations outside of SF/Oakland are not destinations, only origins. Many are in residential areas and surrounded by huge parking lots. If you want to see San Francisco, BART will take you barely anywhere.
posted by meowzilla at 9:51 PM on July 7, 2023 [5 favorites]
It's a little more complicated, but BART is in a death spiral by its own design. MUNI, or SF's light rail/bus system, is a better comparison. BART is commuter rail that was specifically designed to funnel people from the suburbs into SF and Oakland downtowns for work. That traffic is pretty much all dried up thanks to WFH policies (along with the hollowing-out of downtown), and is not returning. Waymo and Cruise don't overlap much with BART, since they're only allowed in SF proper.
It's better than it was before, but most BART stations outside of SF/Oakland are not destinations, only origins. Many are in residential areas and surrounded by huge parking lots. If you want to see San Francisco, BART will take you barely anywhere.
posted by meowzilla at 9:51 PM on July 7, 2023 [5 favorites]
I’m not sure why people are so shocked that putting a traffic cone on a car hood would cause an autonomous vehicle to stop. If I were driving a car and someone plopped a traffic cone on the hood, I would stop and take it off.
I’m reminded of the scene in National Lampoon’s Vacation where Clark Griswold realises that he left Aunt Edna’s dog tied to the bumper.
That is pretty much what you never ever ever ever want an autonomous vehicle vehicle to do.
This has been an interesting discussion because I don’t know that there is a single “right” answer; rather, just varying degrees of “wrongness “. And that rightness/wrongness really depends on what particular piece of the puzzle that you choose to prioritize.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 10:33 PM on July 7, 2023 [3 favorites]
I’m reminded of the scene in National Lampoon’s Vacation where Clark Griswold realises that he left Aunt Edna’s dog tied to the bumper.
That is pretty much what you never ever ever ever want an autonomous vehicle vehicle to do.
This has been an interesting discussion because I don’t know that there is a single “right” answer; rather, just varying degrees of “wrongness “. And that rightness/wrongness really depends on what particular piece of the puzzle that you choose to prioritize.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 10:33 PM on July 7, 2023 [3 favorites]
> I SEE YOU TALK A LOT ABOUT CONES. HOW DOES THIS MAKE YOU FEEL?
posted by not_on_display at 10:35 PM on July 7, 2023 [8 favorites]
posted by not_on_display at 10:35 PM on July 7, 2023 [8 favorites]
who cares if it takes you a bit longer to get to your destination
Everybody.
posted by Phanx at 11:38 PM on July 7, 2023 [5 favorites]
Everybody.
posted by Phanx at 11:38 PM on July 7, 2023 [5 favorites]
A lot of the media coverage of this seems to have settled on "cone-sensus" as the headline hook, which absolutely delights me. I love the parallel between the mindless car's predictable response to the physical cone and the clickbait factory's predictable response to the associated lamentable pun.
I would very much like to find the cone equivalent for cars still driven by humans.
If you're very brave and kind of obsessive, you can keep an entitled fuck off the road for some minutes by testing their response to having a fridge magnet stuck to their car.
who cares if it takes you a bit longer to get to your destination
Everybody.
That's because we've been educated stupid. Time for a rethink, perhaps.
posted by flabdablet at 11:50 PM on July 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
I would very much like to find the cone equivalent for cars still driven by humans.
If you're very brave and kind of obsessive, you can keep an entitled fuck off the road for some minutes by testing their response to having a fridge magnet stuck to their car.
who cares if it takes you a bit longer to get to your destination
Everybody.
That's because we've been educated stupid. Time for a rethink, perhaps.
posted by flabdablet at 11:50 PM on July 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
I mean, the vision is that we put ten, twenty, maybe fifty times as many cars on the road, all moving at less than walking speed? A nation filled with billions of golf carts packed onto the twenty-lane superhighways you’d need to accommodate their interminable journeys?
Alas, we’re too stupid.
posted by Phanx at 11:53 PM on July 7, 2023 [3 favorites]
Alas, we’re too stupid.
posted by Phanx at 11:53 PM on July 7, 2023 [3 favorites]
So yes, self driving cars could be a huge life changer for some people. The system is broken, but I'll take the car that makes it less terrible
If we're entraining that scale of infrastructure change, wouldn't an actually good bus/tram service replacing a significant proportion of traffic work just as well? It seems like that would have all manner of advantages over the gargantuan fleet of self driving cars, in terms of efficiency, cost, and technical feasibility in our currently existing reality.
posted by Dysk at 11:54 PM on July 7, 2023 [21 favorites]
If we're entraining that scale of infrastructure change, wouldn't an actually good bus/tram service replacing a significant proportion of traffic work just as well? It seems like that would have all manner of advantages over the gargantuan fleet of self driving cars, in terms of efficiency, cost, and technical feasibility in our currently existing reality.
posted by Dysk at 11:54 PM on July 7, 2023 [21 favorites]
>ubiquitous legions of little solar-powered econoboxes that show up to ferry you wherever.
I lived in Tokyo for most of the 90s and getting a car never crossed my mind. Anywhere within ~50 miles was a very convenient walk + ride + transfer(s) + walk away. With more walking interspersed in the transfer steps . . . all for ~$5, sometimes less, sometimes more.
But now that I'm in my 50s I can't wait to be driven everywhere.
I'm renting a Tesla later this month to drive up to Washington for $250 for the week. IME it can handle the drive up I-5 fine on "autopilot" (except for the curvy bits above Redding), and I think/hope in a few months/years "FSD" will be able to drive me up while I nap.
I don't see how California's HSR project begins to compete with e.g. a $250 Tesla taking a family down to LA for week. The transport-as-a-service thing where I don't have a $90/mo car insurance payment, $400/mo car payment, $30/mo registration payment, or the $20/mo charging up my car for 10,000 miles/yr costs is a different proposition but should also work . . .
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 11:57 PM on July 7, 2023
I lived in Tokyo for most of the 90s and getting a car never crossed my mind. Anywhere within ~50 miles was a very convenient walk + ride + transfer(s) + walk away. With more walking interspersed in the transfer steps . . . all for ~$5, sometimes less, sometimes more.
But now that I'm in my 50s I can't wait to be driven everywhere.
I'm renting a Tesla later this month to drive up to Washington for $250 for the week. IME it can handle the drive up I-5 fine on "autopilot" (except for the curvy bits above Redding), and I think/hope in a few months/years "FSD" will be able to drive me up while I nap.
I don't see how California's HSR project begins to compete with e.g. a $250 Tesla taking a family down to LA for week. The transport-as-a-service thing where I don't have a $90/mo car insurance payment, $400/mo car payment, $30/mo registration payment, or the $20/mo charging up my car for 10,000 miles/yr costs is a different proposition but should also work . . .
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 11:57 PM on July 7, 2023
I think/hope in a few months/years "FSD" will be able to drive me up while I nap
Please, please, please don't put yourself in Elon's test cohort for that. Please.
posted by flabdablet at 12:04 AM on July 8, 2023 [11 favorites]
Please, please, please don't put yourself in Elon's test cohort for that. Please.
posted by flabdablet at 12:04 AM on July 8, 2023 [11 favorites]
>it seems like that would have all manner of advantages over the gargantuan fleet of self driving cars
the thing about cars is we have a big rush hour at 8:00am then a lighter demand curve in the afternoon as people filter back home after work, but not a whole lot in the middle.
Tokyo has this same issue but starts the schools earlier to help spread out the morning rush.
For the self-driving future to work it has to serve that 8:00AM crunch, in all weathers and road conditions. This is an unsolved problem I think, though WFH is materially helping here apparently.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 12:06 AM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
the thing about cars is we have a big rush hour at 8:00am then a lighter demand curve in the afternoon as people filter back home after work, but not a whole lot in the middle.
Tokyo has this same issue but starts the schools earlier to help spread out the morning rush.
For the self-driving future to work it has to serve that 8:00AM crunch, in all weathers and road conditions. This is an unsolved problem I think, though WFH is materially helping here apparently.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 12:06 AM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
> test cohort for that
#6000 on the reservation list for a Cybertruck, so I'll be getting it next year probably.
I'll take the over on FSD being good enough by then to safely nap while going up I-5.
Last year, I actually nodded off at 3AM in E Oregon in a rental 3 on "AP" and was lucky I didn't kill myself or somebody else (the car slowing down after it saw a new speed limit coming into a town woke me up).
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 12:10 AM on July 8, 2023
#6000 on the reservation list for a Cybertruck, so I'll be getting it next year probably.
I'll take the over on FSD being good enough by then to safely nap while going up I-5.
Last year, I actually nodded off at 3AM in E Oregon in a rental 3 on "AP" and was lucky I didn't kill myself or somebody else (the car slowing down after it saw a new speed limit coming into a town woke me up).
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 12:10 AM on July 8, 2023
MetaFilter: a mobile, semi-private, reasonably priced fuckbox
posted by loquacious at 12:40 AM on July 8, 2023 [13 favorites]
posted by loquacious at 12:40 AM on July 8, 2023 [13 favorites]
Superilla, that's an interesting suggestion that now has me very curious! I usually see automobile safety statistics in terms of either deaths per 100,000 people or deaths per hundred million miles traveled, as in the tables here. What kind of measures are you seeing that admit a mean versus median? Does anyone have the kind of data that would make such a contrast sensible? I mean, are we doing something like, sample a bunch of drivers and ask [1] how many miles have you driven, and [2] how many people did you kill in that time; then take as the statistic the ratio of [2] to [1]; then compare the mean of that ratio in the sample to the median of that ratio in the sample? Are there any publicly-available data sets that have that kind of information?
I've been looking for something for years to determine the distribution, because you're right -- the standard in transportation (my field of research) is the average, which is pretty easy to figure out -- all you need are a measure of total crashes (or whatever your safety metric is) and a measure of total population (people, drivers, distance travelled, whatever) and you divide the two. This is what Waymo reports; this is as I said the standard because it's easy. I had, once a couple of years ago, sort of worked up something based on an old safety study from California, but the data was pretty old.
But I had a light switch moment -- there absolutely is a field of study that does look at a bunch of drivers in that way; I just need to add 'actuarial' to my searches, and I found this paper, which even happens to be in my own jurisdiction. Table 6 has the data; they rate drivers in 7 classes based on their driving record (which is simply based on the number of years of claim-free driving).
The average (mean) claim frequency is 4.5%; 76.6% of drivers are in class 6 (6 years without a claim) and they have an average claim frequency of 3.5%, about 80% of the overall average. 8.8% of drivers are in classes 0, 1, or 2 and they average 9.5% claim frequency, more than double the overall average. Because of the nature of this sort of distribution (the worst 23.4% of drivers cause about 40% of the crashes), it's likely that the actual median driver, if measured more finely, would have a claim frequency in the 2.2-2.5% range, around half the mean. I suspect that a more sensitive measure would do an even better job of identifying better and worse drivers; just years-since-crash is pretty basic.
posted by Superilla at 12:51 AM on July 8, 2023 [14 favorites]
I've been looking for something for years to determine the distribution, because you're right -- the standard in transportation (my field of research) is the average, which is pretty easy to figure out -- all you need are a measure of total crashes (or whatever your safety metric is) and a measure of total population (people, drivers, distance travelled, whatever) and you divide the two. This is what Waymo reports; this is as I said the standard because it's easy. I had, once a couple of years ago, sort of worked up something based on an old safety study from California, but the data was pretty old.
But I had a light switch moment -- there absolutely is a field of study that does look at a bunch of drivers in that way; I just need to add 'actuarial' to my searches, and I found this paper, which even happens to be in my own jurisdiction. Table 6 has the data; they rate drivers in 7 classes based on their driving record (which is simply based on the number of years of claim-free driving).
The average (mean) claim frequency is 4.5%; 76.6% of drivers are in class 6 (6 years without a claim) and they have an average claim frequency of 3.5%, about 80% of the overall average. 8.8% of drivers are in classes 0, 1, or 2 and they average 9.5% claim frequency, more than double the overall average. Because of the nature of this sort of distribution (the worst 23.4% of drivers cause about 40% of the crashes), it's likely that the actual median driver, if measured more finely, would have a claim frequency in the 2.2-2.5% range, around half the mean. I suspect that a more sensitive measure would do an even better job of identifying better and worse drivers; just years-since-crash is pretty basic.
posted by Superilla at 12:51 AM on July 8, 2023 [14 favorites]
>currently existing reality.
Ohhh, but I live in Texas, so my reality is about 10-60% stupider and more illogical than many other places by default. Like I said, self driving cars= probably reality.
Sure, but I specifically made sure not to speak to the political situation:
"in terms of efficiency, cost, and technical feasibility in our currently existing reality."
So Texas can go for the electric cars ask they like, it could be the only realistic situation there, politically, but it could still be true that it's the worse solution in terms of efficiency, in terms of cost, in terms of technical feasibility. Those factors of reality don't bend to politics.
posted by Dysk at 12:54 AM on July 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
Ohhh, but I live in Texas, so my reality is about 10-60% stupider and more illogical than many other places by default. Like I said, self driving cars= probably reality.
Sure, but I specifically made sure not to speak to the political situation:
"in terms of efficiency, cost, and technical feasibility in our currently existing reality."
So Texas can go for the electric cars ask they like, it could be the only realistic situation there, politically, but it could still be true that it's the worse solution in terms of efficiency, in terms of cost, in terms of technical feasibility. Those factors of reality don't bend to politics.
posted by Dysk at 12:54 AM on July 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
I have to question a technology that can be hacked with a traffic cone.
To stop when there's a traffic cone on the hood, I feel like that's the least questionable piece of anything here. I mean compare the alternatives?
👉 Drive on! With enough wind, bumps, and swerves the cone is bound to get dumped off somewhere.
👉 The robot car has arms tentacles etc. with which to remove the cone.
👉 The car is equipped with defensive means to prevent humans from approaching and placing cones.
posted by away for regrooving at 1:12 AM on July 8, 2023 [8 favorites]
To stop when there's a traffic cone on the hood, I feel like that's the least questionable piece of anything here. I mean compare the alternatives?
👉 Drive on! With enough wind, bumps, and swerves the cone is bound to get dumped off somewhere.
👉 The robot car has arms tentacles etc. with which to remove the cone.
👉 The car is equipped with defensive means to prevent humans from approaching and placing cones.
posted by away for regrooving at 1:12 AM on July 8, 2023 [8 favorites]
As funny as this is, installing a sensor to identify when an object is on the hood and a comm device to ping a nearby service center when a car is stuck does not seem like a heavy lift at all, just an annoyance. Presumably there are humans in the loop somewhere to maintain the vehicles.
posted by eirias at 3:16 AM on July 8, 2023
posted by eirias at 3:16 AM on July 8, 2023
I ended up stopped at a light for a minute or two while a firetruck honked at a human driver who was in the left turn lane refused to move at all. IDK if they were drunk, angry, or just confused…
Confused. Most probably stuck in a decision loop. A) You aren’t allowed to enter the intersection without a green arrow light. B) You must make way for an emergency vehicle. Complicating factor: A non-zero probability that a driver in the crossing traffic will not heed (or try to beat) the emergency vehicle and collide with you when you turn against the red arrow.
Most drivers will never have to do more than pull over to the side of the road for an emergency vehicle. The left-turn lane introduces a very unusual scenario and, to the driver, a seemingly no-win solution.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:59 AM on July 8, 2023 [14 favorites]
Confused. Most probably stuck in a decision loop. A) You aren’t allowed to enter the intersection without a green arrow light. B) You must make way for an emergency vehicle. Complicating factor: A non-zero probability that a driver in the crossing traffic will not heed (or try to beat) the emergency vehicle and collide with you when you turn against the red arrow.
Most drivers will never have to do more than pull over to the side of the road for an emergency vehicle. The left-turn lane introduces a very unusual scenario and, to the driver, a seemingly no-win solution.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:59 AM on July 8, 2023 [14 favorites]
Love this shit! Thanks for posting. Civil disobedience is my jam.
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:07 AM on July 8, 2023
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:07 AM on July 8, 2023
I’m not sure why people are so shocked that putting a traffic cone on a car hood would cause an autonomous vehicle to stop. If I were driving a car and someone plopped a traffic cone on the hood, I would stop and take it off.
Eventually, if it hasn't happened already, they'll need to figure out how to handle the (hopefully very rare) situation where a bad actor places a cone on the hood to stop the car, in order to then rob the occupants. That's when a human driver might choose to accelerate to escape, but might also sit there frozen in the hope of deescalation. I don't know what the right programming approach is to edge cases like that.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:18 AM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
Eventually, if it hasn't happened already, they'll need to figure out how to handle the (hopefully very rare) situation where a bad actor places a cone on the hood to stop the car, in order to then rob the occupants. That's when a human driver might choose to accelerate to escape, but might also sit there frozen in the hope of deescalation. I don't know what the right programming approach is to edge cases like that.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:18 AM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
Last year, I actually nodded off at 3AM in E Oregon in a rental 3 on "AP" and was lucky I didn't kill myself or somebody else (the car slowing down after it saw a new speed limit coming into a town woke me up).
This.
This is why self-driving cars are dangerous. The technology isn't even there and people are letting themselves fall asleep at the wheel, despite all the warnings (even those from the manufacturer!) that drivers must maintain control of the vehicle at all times. You might think that's a funny anecdote to share about how you dodged a bullet, but I think it's negligence. Consider:
"I left the bar a little drunker than I thought I was and I'm lucky I didn't kill myself or someone else"
or
"That cold medication really kicked in while I was on the road, I'm lucky I didn't kill myself or someone else"
Driving a self driving car isn't the excuse you think it is.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:20 AM on July 8, 2023 [28 favorites]
This.
This is why self-driving cars are dangerous. The technology isn't even there and people are letting themselves fall asleep at the wheel, despite all the warnings (even those from the manufacturer!) that drivers must maintain control of the vehicle at all times. You might think that's a funny anecdote to share about how you dodged a bullet, but I think it's negligence. Consider:
"I left the bar a little drunker than I thought I was and I'm lucky I didn't kill myself or someone else"
or
"That cold medication really kicked in while I was on the road, I'm lucky I didn't kill myself or someone else"
Driving a self driving car isn't the excuse you think it is.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:20 AM on July 8, 2023 [28 favorites]
> it should say something if this post is the first time you are hearing about these things
This is the first I've heard about these things, and I'm unclear what that should say.
posted by The corpse in the library at 6:36 AM on July 8, 2023 [7 favorites]
This is the first I've heard about these things, and I'm unclear what that should say.
posted by The corpse in the library at 6:36 AM on July 8, 2023 [7 favorites]
We're all pro-worker until suddenly someone says we might be able to nap and drive apparently.
Considering how bad this country is at holding corporations accountable for the death they cause, maybe we don't let the robocars fill the streets until we work that one out. If whatever corporate fine for striking a person is less than the cost of them to slow the robotaxi down and lose efficiency, what choice do you think the company will program into the car.
posted by wellifyouinsist at 7:09 AM on July 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
Considering how bad this country is at holding corporations accountable for the death they cause, maybe we don't let the robocars fill the streets until we work that one out. If whatever corporate fine for striking a person is less than the cost of them to slow the robotaxi down and lose efficiency, what choice do you think the company will program into the car.
posted by wellifyouinsist at 7:09 AM on July 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
Coned and orange-pilled.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:24 AM on July 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:24 AM on July 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
> This is the first I've heard about these things, and I'm unclear what that should say.
Likewise - maybe that we don't live in California?
posted by lewiseason at 8:06 AM on July 8, 2023 [10 favorites]
Likewise - maybe that we don't live in California?
posted by lewiseason at 8:06 AM on July 8, 2023 [10 favorites]
I don't see comments from people who have experienced them... I have several hundred rides with Waymo over the past 17+ months. I am an educator (far from tech sector) and got in early as a "Trusted Tester." There is an incredible amount of manufactured outrage based on anecdotes and misinformation. There is misunderstanding here as well about how remote operations work and mischaracterized incidents in the media.
As someone who walks a lot, I can understand that it can be unnerving or strange to not have someone to lock eyes with as we walk - just to feel we are seen. But not having that is not the same as almost being run over. I can see that people are nervous as I can see the vehicle knows they are there. As a passenger, the detailed screen shows vehicles (including cyclists etc), peds, and animals are indicated (etc). Yesterday, a pedestrian walked out in front of us in the middle of the road and we stopped. I also recorded an SUV running two stop signs - as well as hundreds or thousands of other normal road driving from my vehicles. I have never seen my Waymo run a stop sign (or not fully stop!) in thousands of miles. Not once. We have also pulled over when hearing sirens and navigated dozens of instances of construction, including reading temporary signage. I have recorded and posted much of this online.
A small fraction of ride-hailing options are fully autonomous right now. Aside issues stemming from fear of automation and change, this activism causes more problems and chaos. The vehicles will sit for a few minutes and staff will remove the cone. The 194 unique Waymo One vehicles I have been in are identical and every one drove the same way and did not make me fearful in advance or after, didn't harass or hit on me or speed. As a woman I feel more liberated using them late at night, just like the advent of cycling assisted women. You don't have to believe me- watch videos of them driving (not just single static images with exaggerated or misrepresented stories), and delve into the research. When the data and experience change, I will adjust my thinking!
posted by maya at 8:13 AM on July 8, 2023 [32 favorites]
As someone who walks a lot, I can understand that it can be unnerving or strange to not have someone to lock eyes with as we walk - just to feel we are seen. But not having that is not the same as almost being run over. I can see that people are nervous as I can see the vehicle knows they are there. As a passenger, the detailed screen shows vehicles (including cyclists etc), peds, and animals are indicated (etc). Yesterday, a pedestrian walked out in front of us in the middle of the road and we stopped. I also recorded an SUV running two stop signs - as well as hundreds or thousands of other normal road driving from my vehicles. I have never seen my Waymo run a stop sign (or not fully stop!) in thousands of miles. Not once. We have also pulled over when hearing sirens and navigated dozens of instances of construction, including reading temporary signage. I have recorded and posted much of this online.
A small fraction of ride-hailing options are fully autonomous right now. Aside issues stemming from fear of automation and change, this activism causes more problems and chaos. The vehicles will sit for a few minutes and staff will remove the cone. The 194 unique Waymo One vehicles I have been in are identical and every one drove the same way and did not make me fearful in advance or after, didn't harass or hit on me or speed. As a woman I feel more liberated using them late at night, just like the advent of cycling assisted women. You don't have to believe me- watch videos of them driving (not just single static images with exaggerated or misrepresented stories), and delve into the research. When the data and experience change, I will adjust my thinking!
posted by maya at 8:13 AM on July 8, 2023 [32 favorites]
"...I mean compare the alternatives?
👉 Drive on! With enough wind, bumps, and swerves the cone is bound to get dumped off somewhere.
👉 The robot car has arms tentacles etc. with which to remove the cone.
👉 The car is equipped with defensive means to prevent humans from approaching and placing cones."
I've been picturing Herbie the Love Bug popping open the hood and flinging the cone behind them. In fact, if all autonomous cars could be Herbie clones I'd kinda dig it.
...I'm showing my age, aren't I?
posted by calamari kid at 8:24 AM on July 8, 2023 [7 favorites]
👉 Drive on! With enough wind, bumps, and swerves the cone is bound to get dumped off somewhere.
👉 The robot car has arms tentacles etc. with which to remove the cone.
👉 The car is equipped with defensive means to prevent humans from approaching and placing cones."
I've been picturing Herbie the Love Bug popping open the hood and flinging the cone behind them. In fact, if all autonomous cars could be Herbie clones I'd kinda dig it.
...I'm showing my age, aren't I?
posted by calamari kid at 8:24 AM on July 8, 2023 [7 favorites]
The leaders in this space (Cruise/Waymo) did remove that feature (the human) some time ago. They have progressed to empty cars
I'm referring to empty cars, but can be remotely controlled in case they get stuck between a bunch of cones or something. When these cars are disabled (via a cone, or maybe a poorly striped intersection), what happens? Do they just sit there until they run out of battery power?
Humans may not be in the cars, but they are monitoring them remotely at all times, and can speak to the passengers. If a car encounters a problem, humans are dispatched to rescue it.
Cruise still has human drivers (or more accurately riders) testing the cars to improve the technology, Waymo likely does too.
[Disclaimer, my sibling is one of the remotely monitoring humans. Has some STORIES about what people do to the cars.]
posted by Preserver at 8:38 AM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
I'm referring to empty cars, but can be remotely controlled in case they get stuck between a bunch of cones or something. When these cars are disabled (via a cone, or maybe a poorly striped intersection), what happens? Do they just sit there until they run out of battery power?
Humans may not be in the cars, but they are monitoring them remotely at all times, and can speak to the passengers. If a car encounters a problem, humans are dispatched to rescue it.
Cruise still has human drivers (or more accurately riders) testing the cars to improve the technology, Waymo likely does too.
[Disclaimer, my sibling is one of the remotely monitoring humans. Has some STORIES about what people do to the cars.]
posted by Preserver at 8:38 AM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
They can be slow because you're not actually driving, you're having a nap, reading the news, responding to emails, playing video games, chatting to your friends, who cares if it takes you a bit longer to get to your destination.
This is my current experience of my bus commute. Except the nap, I wouldn't do that on the bus. I'm fortunately in a good location for my commute in a moderately-sized Midwestern city with halfway decent bus service, but I'm extra-fortunate in living right on one of the most useful routes.
It takes me about 20, 25 minutes longer to commute by bus than by car. But, right now, I prefer it. I'm not sure I'll be able to do it in winter; I use a mobility scooter, and the sidewalks are quite bad, but at least right now I can see the cracks and big bumps and outright potholes. Snow will obscure those, and also not always be cleared efficiently, and also slush will build up at intersections. We'll have to see how it goes.
A friend of one of my young adults kids recently recommended a job to them. It was remote operation of forklifts in warehouses. I'm interested to learn up-thread about autonomous forklifts, but I was very interested to learn that remote forklift operation is a thing people can do.
posted by Well I never at 8:58 AM on July 8, 2023 [7 favorites]
This is my current experience of my bus commute. Except the nap, I wouldn't do that on the bus. I'm fortunately in a good location for my commute in a moderately-sized Midwestern city with halfway decent bus service, but I'm extra-fortunate in living right on one of the most useful routes.
It takes me about 20, 25 minutes longer to commute by bus than by car. But, right now, I prefer it. I'm not sure I'll be able to do it in winter; I use a mobility scooter, and the sidewalks are quite bad, but at least right now I can see the cracks and big bumps and outright potholes. Snow will obscure those, and also not always be cleared efficiently, and also slush will build up at intersections. We'll have to see how it goes.
A friend of one of my young adults kids recently recommended a job to them. It was remote operation of forklifts in warehouses. I'm interested to learn up-thread about autonomous forklifts, but I was very interested to learn that remote forklift operation is a thing people can do.
posted by Well I never at 8:58 AM on July 8, 2023 [7 favorites]
I desperately, fervently want a self driving car. It would remove such a giant, stressful barrier from my life. Half of the reason I don't go anywhere (Well, one fourth) is that driving is hellish, and I genuinely feel like I'm risking death at rush hour.
Well said Jacen. I HATED driving in the US, yet I had no choice. The DC suburbs are a hellish wasteland of parking lots and illogical urban planning just as bad as most Texan cities. Currently living in a walkable non-US city and depressed as hell that it's only temporary.
Transit in my old neighborhood was a joke and not usable for 90% of trips. Uber/Lyft are terrible - there was a major driver shortage and the drivers that are there constantly cancelled to take a more lucrative fare. Taxis are non-existent despite the proximity to DC. Last time I had a flight I spent a small fortune on a livery service to get to the airport because there was literally no alternative.
As someone who was briefly unable to drive for a while long ago for medical reasons, it cannot be stated how badly it isolates you and cuts you off from society. If you don't have friends or family nearby with a car, you are basically fucked. The idea of having this happen again some day honestly terrifies me. Moving to one of the rare walkable neighborhoods in the US is not a realistic solution - we can't all live in NYC.
Bring on the robo-taxis as fast as possible I say, the sooner the better. Flood the streets with them.
posted by photo guy at 9:01 AM on July 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
Well said Jacen. I HATED driving in the US, yet I had no choice. The DC suburbs are a hellish wasteland of parking lots and illogical urban planning just as bad as most Texan cities. Currently living in a walkable non-US city and depressed as hell that it's only temporary.
Transit in my old neighborhood was a joke and not usable for 90% of trips. Uber/Lyft are terrible - there was a major driver shortage and the drivers that are there constantly cancelled to take a more lucrative fare. Taxis are non-existent despite the proximity to DC. Last time I had a flight I spent a small fortune on a livery service to get to the airport because there was literally no alternative.
As someone who was briefly unable to drive for a while long ago for medical reasons, it cannot be stated how badly it isolates you and cuts you off from society. If you don't have friends or family nearby with a car, you are basically fucked. The idea of having this happen again some day honestly terrifies me. Moving to one of the rare walkable neighborhoods in the US is not a realistic solution - we can't all live in NYC.
Bring on the robo-taxis as fast as possible I say, the sooner the better. Flood the streets with them.
posted by photo guy at 9:01 AM on July 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
Those things won't stop for nuthin' unless something stands in it's path. And then I think they're programmed to stop. I think.
[30m25s if the link breaks.]
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:01 AM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
[30m25s if the link breaks.]
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:01 AM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
All of this reminds me of a fantasy I started having decades ago. In my fantasy, we all have little autonomous cars (I wasn't thinking about the downsides of this sort of thing back then), but when you enter the freeway, your car is automatically made part of a train of cars that are then operated automatically, so on long road trips, once you're on the freeway, you can just chill out. You could set your preferred travel time, and end up in a faster or slower train, and when you were ready to exit, you'd tell the system (you could do this as soon as you got on, if you wanted) and it will shunt you into slower trains and then, eventually, into an exit where you're automatically unhitched from the car train and take over autonomous driving.
All the independence, I thought, and none of the tedium.
posted by Well I never at 9:02 AM on July 8, 2023 [7 favorites]
All the independence, I thought, and none of the tedium.
posted by Well I never at 9:02 AM on July 8, 2023 [7 favorites]
Electronic coupling, the immaterial tie.
Aramis, or the Love of Technology. (by the late Bruno Latour.)
About Aramis - Ethnography of a "High-tech" Case.
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:09 AM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
Aramis, or the Love of Technology. (by the late Bruno Latour.)
About Aramis - Ethnography of a "High-tech" Case.
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:09 AM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
I recently noticed some bad behaviour by a Tesla, and immediately assumed it was in self driving mode and immediately started thinking grumpy thoughts.
Days or weeks later, I overheard a conversation that sounded similar, except the culprits were cyclists. I was immediately grumpy about the unfair generalization!
It's obviously not a great analog because it's not like cyclists all share the same software, but it's enough to remind me of the value of statistics when considering anything with an emotional component.
posted by Acari at 12:19 PM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
Days or weeks later, I overheard a conversation that sounded similar, except the culprits were cyclists. I was immediately grumpy about the unfair generalization!
It's obviously not a great analog because it's not like cyclists all share the same software, but it's enough to remind me of the value of statistics when considering anything with an emotional component.
posted by Acari at 12:19 PM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
>This is the first I've heard about these things, and I'm unclear what that should say.
Likewise - maybe that we don't live in California?
Many Californians -- many San Franciscans -- don't know these things are going on, or at least how far they've gotten.
What it means is that the stories of mass chaos and people being run over are just that: stories. In this limited use the technology is working so well you don't notice it. It's like how video conferencing was a royal mess for years and years and now suddenly it isn't a special trick for special occasions but rather a normal and unremarkable tool.
What it means is that self-driving cars are no longer a fairy tale. They are working out there in the field right now, albeit for a very limited role. Now it's just a matter of how far their capabilities can be stretched.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 12:46 PM on July 8, 2023
Likewise - maybe that we don't live in California?
Many Californians -- many San Franciscans -- don't know these things are going on, or at least how far they've gotten.
What it means is that the stories of mass chaos and people being run over are just that: stories. In this limited use the technology is working so well you don't notice it. It's like how video conferencing was a royal mess for years and years and now suddenly it isn't a special trick for special occasions but rather a normal and unremarkable tool.
What it means is that self-driving cars are no longer a fairy tale. They are working out there in the field right now, albeit for a very limited role. Now it's just a matter of how far their capabilities can be stretched.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 12:46 PM on July 8, 2023
As a woman I feel more liberated using them late at night
I had not considered this aspect of them, but I'll bet they also are willing to pick people up in neighborhoods that taxis and Ubers avoid.
Unless some jackass put a cone on their hood of course.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 12:53 PM on July 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
I had not considered this aspect of them, but I'll bet they also are willing to pick people up in neighborhoods that taxis and Ubers avoid.
Unless some jackass put a cone on their hood of course.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 12:53 PM on July 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
Doesn't really follow that will be the case. In fact I'd bet that going forward these sort of services will end up geo fencing off areas at least some locations because of damages previously incurred or because their isn't enough return traffic. And because it is a corporation setting the policy there won't be any slack in the policy.
Absent regulation all late stage capitalism features are likely to be observed such as discriminatory pricing, deferred maintenance, customer profiling, variable pricing (for both demand and service levels like airlines), and straight up refusal of service to the poor and disadvantaged.
Also should be interesting the first time one of the robotaxi corporations goes bankrupt and all the taxis just stop where they are. Or some Musk figure starts messing with them on what whatever whim passes their mind.
posted by Mitheral at 1:27 PM on July 8, 2023 [7 favorites]
Absent regulation all late stage capitalism features are likely to be observed such as discriminatory pricing, deferred maintenance, customer profiling, variable pricing (for both demand and service levels like airlines), and straight up refusal of service to the poor and disadvantaged.
Also should be interesting the first time one of the robotaxi corporations goes bankrupt and all the taxis just stop where they are. Or some Musk figure starts messing with them on what whatever whim passes their mind.
posted by Mitheral at 1:27 PM on July 8, 2023 [7 favorites]
Absent regulation all late stage capitalism features are likely to be observed
Ride to Konpeki Plaza, The Delamain Quests (Cyberpunk 2077 spoilers)
posted by snuffleupagus at 1:43 PM on July 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
Ride to Konpeki Plaza, The Delamain Quests (Cyberpunk 2077 spoilers)
posted by snuffleupagus at 1:43 PM on July 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
>We're all pro-worker until suddenly someone says we might be able to nap and drive apparently.
applied labor aka "work" creates wealth – wealth being the state of having one's varied needs and wants met.
for the past 500-odd years, we've seen increasing levels of capital being added to human labor to magnify the wealth output society receives from this labor ("capital" here being that which is not immediately consumed in the production of wealth).
So in the long run, smashing the looms is, I think, counter-productive as eventually the f---ed path we've put ourselves on will fracture like 1930-33 and we'll get the necessary reforms (like what we got from the New Deal aftermath of that crash). Eventually.
Theoretically it doesn't have to be this hard to get social reform but our present society itself is what's been ratchet-stepped f---ed since the 1950s and it's going to be hard to unf--- it without something like 1930-33 happening again (to get our millions of social conservatives here to coalition with the Left for half a second).
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 2:02 PM on July 8, 2023
applied labor aka "work" creates wealth – wealth being the state of having one's varied needs and wants met.
for the past 500-odd years, we've seen increasing levels of capital being added to human labor to magnify the wealth output society receives from this labor ("capital" here being that which is not immediately consumed in the production of wealth).
So in the long run, smashing the looms is, I think, counter-productive as eventually the f---ed path we've put ourselves on will fracture like 1930-33 and we'll get the necessary reforms (like what we got from the New Deal aftermath of that crash). Eventually.
Theoretically it doesn't have to be this hard to get social reform but our present society itself is what's been ratchet-stepped f---ed since the 1950s and it's going to be hard to unf--- it without something like 1930-33 happening again (to get our millions of social conservatives here to coalition with the Left for half a second).
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 2:02 PM on July 8, 2023
> but I think it's negligence.
yeah another outcome of me losing attention while driving at 3AM could have been encountering an OSP Trooper coming the other way, & them circling back & handing me a very expensive lesson.
last month I rented another Tesla and was doing some informal tests of how the car on "AP" handled coming up to controlled intersections . . . unlike "FSD" it looked like it would just blow through stop signs . . . no bueno if you're sleeping!
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 2:15 PM on July 8, 2023
yeah another outcome of me losing attention while driving at 3AM could have been encountering an OSP Trooper coming the other way, & them circling back & handing me a very expensive lesson.
last month I rented another Tesla and was doing some informal tests of how the car on "AP" handled coming up to controlled intersections . . . unlike "FSD" it looked like it would just blow through stop signs . . . no bueno if you're sleeping!
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 2:15 PM on July 8, 2023
yeah another outcome of me losing attention while driving at 3AM could have been encountering an OSP Trooper coming the other way, & them circling back & handing me a very expensive lesson.
Or, you know, an accident at speed across the divider and potential serious or lethal injury to you and whoever your errant car struck while you were stirring awake. Like you said. I know what the highway is like there. The negligence is not in risking the ticket; it hardly bears mentioning.
posted by snuffleupagus at 2:19 PM on July 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
Or, you know, an accident at speed across the divider and potential serious or lethal injury to you and whoever your errant car struck while you were stirring awake. Like you said. I know what the highway is like there. The negligence is not in risking the ticket; it hardly bears mentioning.
posted by snuffleupagus at 2:19 PM on July 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
but I know that's a wish where a self driving car is just a matter of time and money. Even if it took a little bit longer, the value of not having to drive is immense for me.
I think it's been made pretty clear by now that private companies operate at the whims of their man-child overseers and/or shareholders, and there's no reason to assume that when fleets of self-driving cars are unprofitable at scale they won't start cost-cutting in ways that we've seen before: forcing passengers to share rides, not operating in neighborhoods or after certain times that are deemed unprofitable, not kept in good shape. Currently Waymo in San Francisco often sends one up to a block or two to pick it up because it makes more sense for them to not pick you up in front of your house- pretty much like catching a bus. And they're as subject to the whims of traffic as any other car in a city, if not more so. Recently a friend was left waiting for one stuck for forty minutes a block or two from where she had walked to meet it- turns out it was unable to navigate a left turn in Giants ballpark traffic and was merrily idling away in the middle of an intersection. When she walked up to it it refused to let her in.
Many of the things people want from self-driving cars could be achieved by public investment in public transportation, especially with dedicated bus lanes or rails. Companies will not invest in cities where self driving fleets won't be profitable, and it's unlikely that municipalities will find a fleet of these cars cheaper to operate than buses or shuttles, or will want to take on the liability.
I'll take the over on FSD being good enough by then to safely nap while going up I-5.
Not going to happen in one year. Probably not going to happen in five years. They haven't solved left turns, foggy conditions, emergency vehicles- and these are regular occurrences when driving- truly basic stuff.
posted by oneirodynia at 2:24 PM on July 8, 2023 [13 favorites]
I think it's been made pretty clear by now that private companies operate at the whims of their man-child overseers and/or shareholders, and there's no reason to assume that when fleets of self-driving cars are unprofitable at scale they won't start cost-cutting in ways that we've seen before: forcing passengers to share rides, not operating in neighborhoods or after certain times that are deemed unprofitable, not kept in good shape. Currently Waymo in San Francisco often sends one up to a block or two to pick it up because it makes more sense for them to not pick you up in front of your house- pretty much like catching a bus. And they're as subject to the whims of traffic as any other car in a city, if not more so. Recently a friend was left waiting for one stuck for forty minutes a block or two from where she had walked to meet it- turns out it was unable to navigate a left turn in Giants ballpark traffic and was merrily idling away in the middle of an intersection. When she walked up to it it refused to let her in.
Many of the things people want from self-driving cars could be achieved by public investment in public transportation, especially with dedicated bus lanes or rails. Companies will not invest in cities where self driving fleets won't be profitable, and it's unlikely that municipalities will find a fleet of these cars cheaper to operate than buses or shuttles, or will want to take on the liability.
I'll take the over on FSD being good enough by then to safely nap while going up I-5.
Not going to happen in one year. Probably not going to happen in five years. They haven't solved left turns, foggy conditions, emergency vehicles- and these are regular occurrences when driving- truly basic stuff.
posted by oneirodynia at 2:24 PM on July 8, 2023 [13 favorites]
>Or, you know, an accident at speed
yes, I was rolling some dice that night that I had no business rolling. "AP" had gotten me up from California to Idaho on interstates the previous day & I got careless coming back.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 2:24 PM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
yes, I was rolling some dice that night that I had no business rolling. "AP" had gotten me up from California to Idaho on interstates the previous day & I got careless coming back.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 2:24 PM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
>Not going to happen in one year. Probably not going to happen in five years
this is my take, too, as somebody who has been following "FSD" since the first yt videos were being released in late 2020. I'm not entirely sure NN is sufficient technology to generate the AI required for autonomous driving. I'd say Tesla might possibly get there by 2039, 40% odds maybe.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 2:32 PM on July 8, 2023
this is my take, too, as somebody who has been following "FSD" since the first yt videos were being released in late 2020. I'm not entirely sure NN is sufficient technology to generate the AI required for autonomous driving. I'd say Tesla might possibly get there by 2039, 40% odds maybe.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 2:32 PM on July 8, 2023
Doesn't really follow that will be the case. In fact I'd bet that going forward these sort of services will end up geo fencing off areas at least some locations because of damages previously incurred or because their isn't enough return traffic.
I'm not sure what damages will be incurred unless someone mugs the car. Which I suppose they could (figuratively) do.
Return traffic is a problem, but given that Ubers in my city regular drive several miles to pick me up I'm not sure just how big a problem.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 2:46 PM on July 8, 2023
I'm not sure what damages will be incurred unless someone mugs the car. Which I suppose they could (figuratively) do.
Return traffic is a problem, but given that Ubers in my city regular drive several miles to pick me up I'm not sure just how big a problem.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 2:46 PM on July 8, 2023
Many of the things people want from self-driving cars could be achieved by public investment in public transportation, especially with dedicated bus lanes or rails.
You are aware how long it takes (and how expensive, and how much of an uphill battle) it is to get these things, right? Projects like this literally take multiple decades - the light-rail Purple Line in suburban Maryland was conceived in the 1990s and still hasn't opened. I've dealt with capital projects professionally and they are MASSIVE undertakings.
And you can't just snap your fingers and create dedicated bus lanes and rails, particularly in standard American suburban neighborhoods. How do you get the land? Buy owners out? Eminent domain? Where do you put these dedicated lanes? Would it even make sense to install light rail, given how truly spread out the population is in most of these places?
Sorry, but absent a giant meteor strike + subsequent rebuild, we are pretty much stuck with this crap urban "design" in most of the US, like it our not. I really, really hate it but what can we do? Driverless cars at least adds an option to get around without forcing people who might be too tired/drunk/old/blind/whatever to drive.
posted by photo guy at 2:47 PM on July 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
You are aware how long it takes (and how expensive, and how much of an uphill battle) it is to get these things, right? Projects like this literally take multiple decades - the light-rail Purple Line in suburban Maryland was conceived in the 1990s and still hasn't opened. I've dealt with capital projects professionally and they are MASSIVE undertakings.
And you can't just snap your fingers and create dedicated bus lanes and rails, particularly in standard American suburban neighborhoods. How do you get the land? Buy owners out? Eminent domain? Where do you put these dedicated lanes? Would it even make sense to install light rail, given how truly spread out the population is in most of these places?
Sorry, but absent a giant meteor strike + subsequent rebuild, we are pretty much stuck with this crap urban "design" in most of the US, like it our not. I really, really hate it but what can we do? Driverless cars at least adds an option to get around without forcing people who might be too tired/drunk/old/blind/whatever to drive.
posted by photo guy at 2:47 PM on July 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
I'm not sure what damages will be incurred unless someone mugs the car. Which I suppose they could (figuratively) do.
Broken windows, graffiti, keyed paint, just plain preventing movement with a cardboard box front and back.
posted by Mitheral at 4:50 PM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
Broken windows, graffiti, keyed paint, just plain preventing movement with a cardboard box front and back.
posted by Mitheral at 4:50 PM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
And you can't just snap your fingers and create dedicated bus lanes and rails, particularly in standard American suburban neighborhoods.
Where I live, we have a major stroad that is 3 lanes in each direction with a turning lane in the middle. As part of a revitalization plan, the county is considering snapping its fingers and turning one lane in each direction into a dedicated bus lane. To be fair, we already have pretty high bus ridership--this would just make it suck less.
posted by hydropsyche at 5:51 PM on July 8, 2023 [9 favorites]
Where I live, we have a major stroad that is 3 lanes in each direction with a turning lane in the middle. As part of a revitalization plan, the county is considering snapping its fingers and turning one lane in each direction into a dedicated bus lane. To be fair, we already have pretty high bus ridership--this would just make it suck less.
posted by hydropsyche at 5:51 PM on July 8, 2023 [9 favorites]
It genuinely would be unsafe to drive around with a large unsecured object sitting on the hood of your car, and the software is handling the situation exactly as it should.
Release Notes - AutoDrive 0.996.2-ntsbHotfix6posted by Kadin2048 at 6:31 PM on July 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
- Added mitigation to CVE-2024-062795, aka "TrafficConeUpYours" attack. Vulnerable vehicles will now only stop for stationary cones placed on exterior surfaces for 60 seconds, after which they will execute a clearance maneuver by applying maximum propulsion power for 5 seconds, followed by maximum regenerative and thermal braking for 2 seconds, repeated three times. If the object is no longer present at the conclusion of the maneuver, normal operation will resume. [Mitigation approved under NTSB Rulemaking 20241128.1276, as Approved by President Haley.]
Return traffic is a problem, but given that Ubers in my city regular drive several miles to pick me up I'm not sure just how big a problem.
The additional traffic induced by Uber is already a problem.
The whole private driverless car dream is a Jeavons trap. Car automation or that makes it less expensive (in money or effort) to take a private car somewhere will increase car use. But our roads and air are largely full up and adding more road space spreads us out and increases driving again. It’s not the way out.
posted by clew at 8:36 PM on July 8, 2023 [9 favorites]
The additional traffic induced by Uber is already a problem.
The whole private driverless car dream is a Jeavons trap. Car automation or that makes it less expensive (in money or effort) to take a private car somewhere will increase car use. But our roads and air are largely full up and adding more road space spreads us out and increases driving again. It’s not the way out.
posted by clew at 8:36 PM on July 8, 2023 [9 favorites]
It’s not the way out.
Probably, but like OpenGPT it’s here and headed towards full production so we’d better figure how to make good use of it.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 10:04 PM on July 8, 2023
Probably, but like OpenGPT it’s here and headed towards full production so we’d better figure how to make good use of it.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 10:04 PM on July 8, 2023
As part of a revitalization plan, the county is considering snapping its fingers and turning one lane in each direction into a dedicated bus lane. To be fair, we already have pretty high bus ridership--this would just make it suck less.
Admittedly this is a good idea in some cases, however as you said it only makes existing bus lines more efficient - it does nothing to improve bus coverage or fix suburban sprawl.
The whole private driverless car dream is a Jeavons trap. Car automation or that makes it less expensive (in money or effort) to take a private car somewhere will increase car use. But our roads and air are largely full up and adding more road space spreads us out and increases driving again. It’s not the way out.
So what exactly do you propose? Again, much of the population is too decentralized for bus and rail to work. Building more dense housing is fine, but these sprawled neighborhoods are already built, we have to find something that works with them and offers an alternative to the people who live there. Note that many people own homes in these neighborhoods (myself included) because there's literally no alternatives. Changing urban layouts takes decades, we need a solution for here and now.
posted by photo guy at 11:55 PM on July 8, 2023
Admittedly this is a good idea in some cases, however as you said it only makes existing bus lines more efficient - it does nothing to improve bus coverage or fix suburban sprawl.
The whole private driverless car dream is a Jeavons trap. Car automation or that makes it less expensive (in money or effort) to take a private car somewhere will increase car use. But our roads and air are largely full up and adding more road space spreads us out and increases driving again. It’s not the way out.
So what exactly do you propose? Again, much of the population is too decentralized for bus and rail to work. Building more dense housing is fine, but these sprawled neighborhoods are already built, we have to find something that works with them and offers an alternative to the people who live there. Note that many people own homes in these neighborhoods (myself included) because there's literally no alternatives. Changing urban layouts takes decades, we need a solution for here and now.
posted by photo guy at 11:55 PM on July 8, 2023
I grew up way out in the country in Denmark. No way that's more centralised than a US suburb. We had buses.
It's not impossible, you just have to pay what it costs.
posted by Dysk at 1:39 AM on July 9, 2023 [12 favorites]
It's not impossible, you just have to pay what it costs.
posted by Dysk at 1:39 AM on July 9, 2023 [12 favorites]
I grew up way out in the country in Denmark. No way that's more centralised than a US suburb.
Actually, it is. I live in Sweden and have spent plenty of time in rural Europe and grew up in the US, so I think I'm qualified to speak on both.
American suburbs are nothing like small Scandinavian towns. The sheer amount of sprawl and poorly-designed decentralized roads in US developments built since the 1960s (which is most of them) is hard to describe to someone who grew up and still lives in Europe. Even in rural Europe, towns are highly centralized and only need a handful of bus routes to cover the immediate area. Most European suburbs are likewise highly centralized, built around transit hubs. That is simply not how most American suburbs are designed. By definition, sprawl means that mass transit isn't going to work for a lot of trips, no matter how much money you throw at the problem.
I heartedly support more public transit and would happily pay the taxes to fund them, but the US needs a multi-pronged approach, particularly outside of large cities. Just saying "build like Europe" is not very constructive for existing developments.
posted by photo guy at 4:32 AM on July 9, 2023 [10 favorites]
Actually, it is. I live in Sweden and have spent plenty of time in rural Europe and grew up in the US, so I think I'm qualified to speak on both.
American suburbs are nothing like small Scandinavian towns. The sheer amount of sprawl and poorly-designed decentralized roads in US developments built since the 1960s (which is most of them) is hard to describe to someone who grew up and still lives in Europe. Even in rural Europe, towns are highly centralized and only need a handful of bus routes to cover the immediate area. Most European suburbs are likewise highly centralized, built around transit hubs. That is simply not how most American suburbs are designed. By definition, sprawl means that mass transit isn't going to work for a lot of trips, no matter how much money you throw at the problem.
I heartedly support more public transit and would happily pay the taxes to fund them, but the US needs a multi-pronged approach, particularly outside of large cities. Just saying "build like Europe" is not very constructive for existing developments.
posted by photo guy at 4:32 AM on July 9, 2023 [10 favorites]
Most drivers will never have to do more than pull over to the side of the road for an emergency vehicle. The left-turn lane introduces a very unusual scenario and, to the driver, a seemingly no-win solution.
Assuming this was a right-hand traffic country, I am not convinced the stopped driver was wrong. The laws I’m familiar with have a “move if safe and practicable” clause. If you can’t move to the right, and it’s not safe to move into the intersection, the correct answer is to sit still and let the emergency vehicle manouvre around you. They have the option of driving in the oncoming lane, you do not. If the stopped car moved into the intersection and caused an accident, they’d generally be liable.
posted by zamboni at 7:46 AM on July 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
Assuming this was a right-hand traffic country, I am not convinced the stopped driver was wrong. The laws I’m familiar with have a “move if safe and practicable” clause. If you can’t move to the right, and it’s not safe to move into the intersection, the correct answer is to sit still and let the emergency vehicle manouvre around you. They have the option of driving in the oncoming lane, you do not. If the stopped car moved into the intersection and caused an accident, they’d generally be liable.
posted by zamboni at 7:46 AM on July 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
Probably, but like OpenGPT it’s here and headed towards full production
There is nothing inevitable about any of this. Automated traffic on public roadways is happening because a handful of decisionmakers in a handful of states were either bribed or persuaded to allow it to happen. (I have no idea how such an obviously terrible idea would ever have been persuasive, but I've learned that those folks' brains don't work in a way that I can relate to.) It can be stopped, much more easily than LLMs can, either if the relevant decisionmakers realize this is a political loser or bad idea, or if people like those featured in the OP take things into their own hands with sufficient determination.
posted by Not A Thing at 10:59 AM on July 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
There is nothing inevitable about any of this. Automated traffic on public roadways is happening because a handful of decisionmakers in a handful of states were either bribed or persuaded to allow it to happen. (I have no idea how such an obviously terrible idea would ever have been persuasive, but I've learned that those folks' brains don't work in a way that I can relate to.) It can be stopped, much more easily than LLMs can, either if the relevant decisionmakers realize this is a political loser or bad idea, or if people like those featured in the OP take things into their own hands with sufficient determination.
posted by Not A Thing at 10:59 AM on July 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
They have the option of driving in the oncoming lane, you do not. If the stopped car moved into the intersection and caused an accident, they’d generally be liable.
In this case it there was a raised median, and the intersections have emergency responder beacons that can and did give a green light to the left turn lane. Also theres a fire truck honking at you for a minute, maybe at some point you realize your current plan isn't acceptable.
posted by pwnguin at 1:12 PM on July 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
In this case it there was a raised median, and the intersections have emergency responder beacons that can and did give a green light to the left turn lane. Also theres a fire truck honking at you for a minute, maybe at some point you realize your current plan isn't acceptable.
posted by pwnguin at 1:12 PM on July 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
There is nothing inevitable about any of this.
Eh. We disagree. I think we’re past the tipping point.
In any case it is not mutually exclusive to try to slow or stop the rollout and to also make plans for how to make use of the technology if it succeeds. Digging in your heels is all very well, but not at the expense of guiding a new technology where it ought to go.
It was mentioned above that a woman alone at night can find a driverless taxi safer and more comfortable. I think that we can build on that.
I suggested above that the taxis might provide access into underserved neighborhoods. I think we can build on that.
I think there are other equally important things, like school transport for places the school bus doesn’t cover and elderly people getting to medical appointments, and a lot of other things I haven’t thought off.
There needs to be an agenda, a list of things to attach at the town meeting when it becomes clear that the general vote is going in favor of granting licenses. Now is the time to organize that list so it will be available community by community as this stuff rolls out.
And as I say above, it’s not mutually exclusive to trying to prevent the rollout. But probably best not to put all your eggs in one basket.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 3:11 PM on July 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
Eh. We disagree. I think we’re past the tipping point.
In any case it is not mutually exclusive to try to slow or stop the rollout and to also make plans for how to make use of the technology if it succeeds. Digging in your heels is all very well, but not at the expense of guiding a new technology where it ought to go.
It was mentioned above that a woman alone at night can find a driverless taxi safer and more comfortable. I think that we can build on that.
I suggested above that the taxis might provide access into underserved neighborhoods. I think we can build on that.
I think there are other equally important things, like school transport for places the school bus doesn’t cover and elderly people getting to medical appointments, and a lot of other things I haven’t thought off.
There needs to be an agenda, a list of things to attach at the town meeting when it becomes clear that the general vote is going in favor of granting licenses. Now is the time to organize that list so it will be available community by community as this stuff rolls out.
And as I say above, it’s not mutually exclusive to trying to prevent the rollout. But probably best not to put all your eggs in one basket.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 3:11 PM on July 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
American suburbs are nothing like small Scandinavian towns.
I was talking about out in the country. The kommune I'm from has about 66 people per square kilometer, most of them not in anything remotely like towns. We still have buses. That's how you get to and from the village that is more than six houses and has a shop or two.
posted by Dysk at 5:56 PM on July 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
I was talking about out in the country. The kommune I'm from has about 66 people per square kilometer, most of them not in anything remotely like towns. We still have buses. That's how you get to and from the village that is more than six houses and has a shop or two.
posted by Dysk at 5:56 PM on July 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
I was talking about out in the country. The kommune I'm from has about 66 people per square kilometer, most of them not in anything remotely like towns.
IDK how you're counting, but for comparison the average for the state of Kansas is 13.5/km2, and gets even lower outside the population hubs. I'm frankly amazed the school bus system works.
posted by pwnguin at 10:26 PM on July 9, 2023
IDK how you're counting, but for comparison the average for the state of Kansas is 13.5/km2, and gets even lower outside the population hubs. I'm frankly amazed the school bus system works.
posted by pwnguin at 10:26 PM on July 9, 2023
Yeah, which is why I'm not comparing to rural USA, but to suburban USA.
posted by Dysk at 1:16 AM on July 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Dysk at 1:16 AM on July 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
That's how you get to and from the village that is more than six houses and has a shop or two.
Dysk, have you ever actually lived in an American suburb? Again, it is not like small rural Europe. Population density is not the only consideration here, you also have to consider availability of services.
I would hazard a guess that the village this bus takes you to has most of the day-to-day needs you might have within walking distance of each other (grocery, restaurants, doctor, shopping, bank, etc). On the occasion you need something more specialized, you can probably take another bus or regional train to the nearest larger city.
This is not at all how the mega-suburbs surrounding US cities are designed. Imagine you took all those day-to-day needs and simply tossed them in random locations with no rhyme or reason to location. The nearest grocer is 2 miles in one direction, nearest bank is 6 miles in a different direction, nearest doctor is 8 miles in a third direction. The entire area was laid out with no thought to where bus lanes should go, because buses were not at all a consideration.
posted by photo guy at 3:23 AM on July 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
Dysk, have you ever actually lived in an American suburb? Again, it is not like small rural Europe. Population density is not the only consideration here, you also have to consider availability of services.
I would hazard a guess that the village this bus takes you to has most of the day-to-day needs you might have within walking distance of each other (grocery, restaurants, doctor, shopping, bank, etc). On the occasion you need something more specialized, you can probably take another bus or regional train to the nearest larger city.
This is not at all how the mega-suburbs surrounding US cities are designed. Imagine you took all those day-to-day needs and simply tossed them in random locations with no rhyme or reason to location. The nearest grocer is 2 miles in one direction, nearest bank is 6 miles in a different direction, nearest doctor is 8 miles in a third direction. The entire area was laid out with no thought to where bus lanes should go, because buses were not at all a consideration.
posted by photo guy at 3:23 AM on July 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
In practice, that is also how a lot of rural Denmark works now, largely because of slowly dying services. This village had a doctor. That one has a small supermarket. There's a bank by the harbour in a third village. All of these places used to have their own shops, doctors, bank branches, but due to rural depopulation and the rising economic accessibility if cars, a lot of it has closed, and not in a coordinated, rational way. The distances are similar to what you're quoting.
posted by Dysk at 8:01 AM on July 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Dysk at 8:01 AM on July 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
I grew up in a small town, when I was 15, they moved the post office from downtown (3 miles from my home) to 5 miles from my home. You had to go there to get your mail. Bus? There was no bus service.
Also robo-cars are moderately common in any US city that has some big IT companies. They are not only in SF nor only in CA.
The average (mean) claim frequency is 4.5%; 76.6% of drivers are in class 6 (6 years without a claim) and they have an average claim frequency of 3.5%, about 80% of the overall average. 8.8% of drivers are in classes 0, 1, or 2 and they average 9.5% claim frequency, more than double the overall average.
Judging by claims is not a great way to look at crash data, because insurance claims are not free, and claims have negative ramifications. Lots of people are involved in minor crashes that don't get reported. And 100% of drivers do not have insurance, so you are looking at a subset to begin with.
posted by The_Vegetables at 3:12 PM on July 10, 2023
Also robo-cars are moderately common in any US city that has some big IT companies. They are not only in SF nor only in CA.
The average (mean) claim frequency is 4.5%; 76.6% of drivers are in class 6 (6 years without a claim) and they have an average claim frequency of 3.5%, about 80% of the overall average. 8.8% of drivers are in classes 0, 1, or 2 and they average 9.5% claim frequency, more than double the overall average.
Judging by claims is not a great way to look at crash data, because insurance claims are not free, and claims have negative ramifications. Lots of people are involved in minor crashes that don't get reported. And 100% of drivers do not have insurance, so you are looking at a subset to begin with.
posted by The_Vegetables at 3:12 PM on July 10, 2023
Judging by claims is not a great way to look at crash data, because insurance claims are not free, and claims have negative ramifications. Lots of people are involved in minor crashes that don't get reported. And 100% of drivers do not have insurance, so you are looking at a subset to begin with.
Great points! Claims is not a great way of looking at crash data, it's just better than any other source if you're interested in less-than-injury crashes, i.e. the majority of them. Unless you can suggest a better source for data on incidents that are -- by definition -- never reported or recorded anywhere.
The fact that not all crashes get reported makes the data stronger; drivers who report multiple crashes do pay much higher rates, so drivers who have already had a crash in recent years are much more likely to pay out-of-pocket to avoid contacting insurance, and thus they are presumably responsible for a higher share of crashes than reported. My calculations are likely an underestimate of the share of crashes made by higher-risk drivers.
And in Alberta, where the minimum first-offence fine for driving without insurance is almost $3000; over 98% of cars are insured to 5 times higher than the legal minimum. So yeah, it's a subset, but a subset approaching 99%.
posted by Superilla at 3:00 PM on July 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
Great points! Claims is not a great way of looking at crash data, it's just better than any other source if you're interested in less-than-injury crashes, i.e. the majority of them. Unless you can suggest a better source for data on incidents that are -- by definition -- never reported or recorded anywhere.
The fact that not all crashes get reported makes the data stronger; drivers who report multiple crashes do pay much higher rates, so drivers who have already had a crash in recent years are much more likely to pay out-of-pocket to avoid contacting insurance, and thus they are presumably responsible for a higher share of crashes than reported. My calculations are likely an underestimate of the share of crashes made by higher-risk drivers.
And in Alberta, where the minimum first-offence fine for driving without insurance is almost $3000; over 98% of cars are insured to 5 times higher than the legal minimum. So yeah, it's a subset, but a subset approaching 99%.
posted by Superilla at 3:00 PM on July 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
Anyways:
The CPUC meeting to approve the robotaxis has been delayed a month; statement by Safe Street Rebel.
posted by Superilla at 3:02 PM on July 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
The CPUC meeting to approve the robotaxis has been delayed a month; statement by Safe Street Rebel.
posted by Superilla at 3:02 PM on July 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
Good job, cone people! It’s a nice list of demands.
posted by Going To Maine at 8:57 AM on July 12, 2023
posted by Going To Maine at 8:57 AM on July 12, 2023
The other issue that doesn't get enough attention (IMO) in discussions of infrastructure is the US's cost problem. The cost to build fixed infrastructure in America is ridiculously high, and no, I don't mean in comparison to China or somewhere that's using slave labor, I mean in comparison to Japan or France.
This is true of roads too, it's not just a mass-transit problem, but the US already has roads. And from what I can tell, the cost disease isn't quite so bad when it comes to maintenance as it is with new construction. This is also how we manage to have a semblance of a passenger-rail system: it was built in most cases a century ago, and we're just doing the bare minimum to keep (most of) it from falling apart. But if you ask any planner or civil engineer whether you could build the Northeast Corridor today, they'll laugh at you. It's not just impossible, it's a fantasy. If you started building the tracks Acela runs on today and they didn't already exist, we'd probably either go extinct as a species or have space elevators before you got to Baltimore.
For reasons that are honestly unclear to me—and explanations for which seem to always favor the political predispositions of whoever is explaining it—we have lost the capability, as a society, for building fixed infrastructure at reasonable cost. (And that includes myself; my predispositions lead me to believe that it is part of the same "bullshit jobs" syndrome that's slowly choking other sectors. But few people think their job is bullshit, especially if it's keeping them fed and living indoors.)
Yes, we can and occasionally do build New Stuff, but only when the payoff is stupidly high and obvious. (And even then, we often do it by selling this near-guaranteed payout to investors, like obscure Australian monopolists, in exchange for money upfront that's used to pay for the project's immediate costs.) And because roads externalize much of their operating costs on users in ways that trains, buses, etc., do not, roads have that attractive short-term ROI.
Sure, there's a lot of racism and classism in how the US does transportation. The, uhhhh, unique qualities of American suburbia that make it so transit-hostile are, in many cases, borne directly out of racism. Many regions in the US are actively hostile to public transportation, because they want to keep "affording a car" as the table stakes for living there. No amount of arguing is going to convince people whose hatred of transit is because it might expose them to a poor person (except maybe if you put First Class sections in, that might actually do it).
But I also think that as attitudes towards transport change, it's less the lack of desire for transit-oriented communities and walkable downtowns, etc., but the fact that this stuff just costs way more than it should, and thus the financial and tax justification is much harder, and the payoff horizons are that much further away.
If we really dug into (ha) the infrastructure-cost issue, I think some of the issues around transit would become a lot more tractable, and some of the arguments against it wouldn't hold weight anymore.
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:35 PM on July 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
This is true of roads too, it's not just a mass-transit problem, but the US already has roads. And from what I can tell, the cost disease isn't quite so bad when it comes to maintenance as it is with new construction. This is also how we manage to have a semblance of a passenger-rail system: it was built in most cases a century ago, and we're just doing the bare minimum to keep (most of) it from falling apart. But if you ask any planner or civil engineer whether you could build the Northeast Corridor today, they'll laugh at you. It's not just impossible, it's a fantasy. If you started building the tracks Acela runs on today and they didn't already exist, we'd probably either go extinct as a species or have space elevators before you got to Baltimore.
For reasons that are honestly unclear to me—and explanations for which seem to always favor the political predispositions of whoever is explaining it—we have lost the capability, as a society, for building fixed infrastructure at reasonable cost. (And that includes myself; my predispositions lead me to believe that it is part of the same "bullshit jobs" syndrome that's slowly choking other sectors. But few people think their job is bullshit, especially if it's keeping them fed and living indoors.)
Yes, we can and occasionally do build New Stuff, but only when the payoff is stupidly high and obvious. (And even then, we often do it by selling this near-guaranteed payout to investors, like obscure Australian monopolists, in exchange for money upfront that's used to pay for the project's immediate costs.) And because roads externalize much of their operating costs on users in ways that trains, buses, etc., do not, roads have that attractive short-term ROI.
Sure, there's a lot of racism and classism in how the US does transportation. The, uhhhh, unique qualities of American suburbia that make it so transit-hostile are, in many cases, borne directly out of racism. Many regions in the US are actively hostile to public transportation, because they want to keep "affording a car" as the table stakes for living there. No amount of arguing is going to convince people whose hatred of transit is because it might expose them to a poor person (except maybe if you put First Class sections in, that might actually do it).
But I also think that as attitudes towards transport change, it's less the lack of desire for transit-oriented communities and walkable downtowns, etc., but the fact that this stuff just costs way more than it should, and thus the financial and tax justification is much harder, and the payoff horizons are that much further away.
If we really dug into (ha) the infrastructure-cost issue, I think some of the issues around transit would become a lot more tractable, and some of the arguments against it wouldn't hold weight anymore.
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:35 PM on July 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
The, uhhhh, unique qualities of American suburbia that make it so transit-hostile are, in many cases, borne directly out of racism. Many regions in the US are actively hostile to public transportation, because they want to keep "affording a car" as the table stakes for living there.
The US Is Ugly. THIS is Why. (Leeja Miller, YouTube, 20m41s)
posted by flabdablet at 2:48 AM on July 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
The US Is Ugly. THIS is Why. (Leeja Miller, YouTube, 20m41s)
posted by flabdablet at 2:48 AM on July 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
S.F. says incidents by Cruise, Waymo driverless taxis are ‘skyrocketing.’ What is the city’s plan?
But San Francisco officials say the companies’ expansion has come at an increasing cost that’s difficult to quantify because of the limited data they’re required to report to state regulators.posted by Nelson at 10:57 AM on July 14, 2023
The city is left in the dark about the exact number of driverless taxis operating in its streets, and the miles they’ve traveled. Data captured by state regulators, officials say, don’t capture the extent of the vehicles’ disruption and potential hazard on city streets.
Cruise and Waymo say city officials have mischaracterized their safety track records.I'm quite willing to believe that the cars that entered active fire scenes, ran over fire hoses, blocked fire trucks and got snarled up in the Muni wire did so while perfectly following posted speed limits and not colliding with other cars.
Their driverless taxis, the companies say, have lower collision rates than human drivers and public transit. Their self-driving cars, they argue, help improve traffic safety in San Francisco because their cars are programmed to follow posted speed limits.
The Fire Department has tallied 44 incidents so far this year in which robotaxis entered active fire scenes, ran over fire hoses or blocked fire trucks from responding to emergency calls. That count is double the figure from last year’s informal count, which Nicholson said does not include all incidents.
Computers can be made very good at reacting correctly to anticipated conditions. Unanticipated conditions, not so much. Safe driving is all about reacting defensively to unanticipated conditions.
posted by flabdablet at 2:11 PM on July 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
Robo-taxis are not a good answer. A good answer would be cars becoming unavailable or unaffordable, even for taxi companies. If a route has enough traffic, then install a tram or a bus powered by overhead electrical wires. If not then bicycle or walk.
posted by jeffburdges at 2:21 PM on August 2, 2023
posted by jeffburdges at 2:21 PM on August 2, 2023
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posted by OrangeDisk at 3:31 PM on July 7, 2023 [57 favorites]