This is your city on driverless cars.
A blackout in San Francisco yesterday cut power to traffic lights. Drivers coped; Waymos just stopped moving, often in intersections, stranding passengers and compounding gridlock.
https://sfstandard.com/2025/12/20/waymo-sf-blackout-robotaxi-traffic-jams/
The fact that driverless cars kill + injure fewer people than conventional cars is a genuine plus.
It doesn't outweigh minus of private companies flooding public streets with constantly cruising vehicles that periodically cause gridlock, chaos.
Here's one Waymo messing up dozens of people's day.
There should be zero tolerance for interfering with public transport like this. Any sane community would recognize this as indefensible.
And driverless cars have killed and injured people. (More than we are told about, that's for sure.) What would you do if a Robo-taxi ran over someone you loved? How could you ever find closure?
Eine gute Frage, denn die Betreiber werden sich rausreden und am Ende stehen AngehΓΆrige mit nichts da, im schlimmsten Fall wird ihnen nicht einmal geglaubt, dass es ein autonomes Fahrzeug war.
Eine andere Frage ist, wenn der Traum von Autobahnen Fahrzeugen funktioniert und zwar so wie es verkauft wird, dass die Fahrzeuge nie still stehen und permanent rumfahren, dann ist das zwar effizienter als Autos zur Zeit, bedeutet im umkehrschluss aber auch das StΓ€dte noch Auto zentrischer werden. Denn Betreiber werden GrΓΌnde finden, warum FuΓgΓ€ngerΓΌberwege jeglicher Art den effizienzsfluss stΓΆren und diese Kisten werden permanent 24/7 umerfahren. Es wird keinen Platz oder Zeit geben. Um den Strom an Autos zu durchbrechen. Autos sind das Problem an sich.
@straphanger
@Su_G There ought to be some kind of 'manual override' panel, perhaps on the outside, that would allow some level of navigation.
@ignaziop1977 Much more than a couple. Tesler in fact holds the all-time record for fatalities, of any car ever made by anyone in any country. They're horrible death machines, by any metric you choose. It's only an extremely corrupt government that allows them to keep being made and sold.
Past a certain point (a few years ago, I'd say), people who buy them just HAVE to be stupid. They can't really have any excuse.
"The fact that driverless cars kill + injure fewer people than conventional cars is a genuine plus..."
This is not true. It is something the industry says, but there is insufficient data to establish that they are safer on a per capita basis across the full range of driving conditions.
Precisely
@mastodonmigration "I choose to believe what I prefer to!"
Okay, fine. But I don't have to listen to it, and I won't.
@straphanger Driverless cars just add insult to injury. The problem, particularly in the U.S., are too many cars in the cities. In Europe more and more cities disincentivise using cars in cities, by turning streets into pedestrian areas, convert streets into biking lanes, restricting parking spots and boosting tramway, bus-lanes, and metro transport.
This is what has to be done. Not adding even more cars that now even don't have drivers!
@straphanger "The fact that driverless cars kill + injure fewer people than conventional cars"
There's a saying - if you want to truly understand something, study how it is measured.
After 10 minutes just make it legal for anybody to damage the car in any way they want.
There are too many ways to manipulate the safety statistics of these cars for me to ever believe they are safer. Same with Tesla where they outright misrepresented the facts for their driverless system.
@Ember Pretty sure you actually have no idea. Anyway, here's one credible piece about it:
https://www.consumeraffairs.com/automotive/autonomous-vehicle-safety-statistics.html
That's from nearly two years ago now, and we now know that Tesla data should not be included in such studies, because that company's testimony is either untrustworthy or unreliable. (Big surprise, I know.)
@mdione They have a lower rate because they're more exactling and less careless -- and pretty much never distracted -- unlike human drivers. Even given their often baffling or ridiculous failure modes.
As far back as probably a decade ago, I said that SDVs don't need to be perfect. They only need to be better than US. And that's a very low bar to meet. (Trains kill people, too, but no one's talking about banning them for that reason.)
@straphanger i don't know if "killing and injuring less people" doesn't outweigh "inconveniencing dozens of people". honestly that seems like an insane take
no amount of inconvenience outweighs any amount of death
cars of any sort are not a great transportation policy
@jhavok A particular kind of traffic, yes, and your point has been where many fellow SDV advocates decide I'm an asshole and won't talk to me, heh.
The hard reality is that a car is car is a car, and that's just immutable physics. We'll always need them, but we can sure do with WAAAY fewer of them. SDVs can help with that (by moving more people in fewer vehicles), but are only part of larger solution, which in my mind MUST emphasize mass transit.
It's not either/or, though; we'll have both.
@jhavok I think you might be replying the wrong person, but I admit I'm not sure.
What *I* said is that SDVs are PART of the solution to congestion, but mass transit is always preferable.
The larger point is echoing yours, that SDV or not, all cars take up the same space (more or less) and carry the same (not many). We'll have to have them, but the more people we can get out of ANY kind of car, the better.
@jhavok The tech is still in early stages, and for all their sometimes hilarious or infuriating failures, I sense that Waymo's ahead of everyone else, and will sort out more sooner. But right now, it's bound to be weird and often annoying.
In time, a combination of SDVs and mass transit can make a big difference. Neither is inherently better overall, and we can have both.
Looks like a fail to me.
so not one techbro genius thought this would happen
not one
waymo needs to be held accountable for any outcomes - death injury loss of property etc - for shit like this
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