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> especially when self-driving cars decrease traffic by a significant amount in the near future. This is a fallacy - self-driving cars may reduce car ownership

> especially when self-driving cars decrease traffic by a significant amount in the near future. This is a fallacy - self-driving cars may reduce car ownership and may reduce traffic fatalities, but they could only reduce traffic if speeds were extraordinarily high. That _might_ happen, but it'd also make every street a freeway. It's unlivable, and I will fight against that world.

rhino369 10y ago
>This is a fallacy - self-driving cars may reduce car ownership and may reduce traffic fatalities, but they could only reduce traffic if speeds were extraordinarily high. That's not true at all. A ton of traffic congestion is caused by people making suboptimal decisions in traffic. Blocking intersections, not merging properly, stooping and going instead of coasting at a set speed, etc. really reduce the speed of traffic. If you created a self driving only traffic system that guided the cars in an optimal path and speed you could increase traffic throughput by a lot. But the current generation of self driving cars aren't even close to that task. If anything they will clog traffic even more when they panic and stop in the middle of traffic. That prevents accidents but it also will clog streets during rush hour. But eventually they may solve traffic jams.
- thedaemon 10y ago
  Not sure why are are getting down voted as you are correct that people making sub-optimal decisions while driving in traffic. I remember watching a video of people driving in a circle and how bad mistakes trickle back to the end of the traffic.
  - thedaemon 10y ago
    Please see today's article on HackerNews front page: http://www.bbc.com/autos/story/20160428-how-ai-will-solve-traffic-part-one http://www.bbc.com/autos/story/20160428-how-ai-will-solve-tr...
- ConroyBumpus 10y ago
  I just got a wicked case of the heebie-jeebies thinking about the automotive equivalent of CSMA/CD.
05 10y ago
Don't worry too much about it - unless you ban all existing cars, we're stuck with the mixed traffic for the foreseeable future. Once you're 100% robotic, you could just use smaller cars to get more effective lanes instead of increasing speeds. Not that you could increase speeds safely - SDCs still need to brake in time, and they're bound by the same laws of physics, and there are still blind corners in the future.
aninhumer 10y ago
Indeed. I think the future of self driving cars will be as a last-mile service for public transport. This will likely improve ridership, both due to the convenience of door-to-door transport, and also by allowing stations to serve much larger areas effectively. It also means the cars themselves can be much more efficient, as they only need to travel short distances, and usually only need to carry one person.

rhino369 10y ago

>This is a fallacy - self-driving cars may reduce car ownership and may reduce traffic fatalities, but they could only reduce traffic if speeds were extraordinarily high. That's not true at all. A ton of traffic congestion is caused by people making suboptimal decisions in traffic. Blocking intersections, not merging properly, stooping and going instead of coasting at a set speed, etc. really reduce the speed of traffic. If you created a self driving only traffic system that guided the cars in an optimal path and speed you could increase traffic throughput by a lot. But the current generation of self driving cars aren't even close to that task. If anything they will clog traffic even more when they panic and stop in the middle of traffic. That prevents accidents but it also will clog streets during rush hour. But eventually they may solve traffic jams.

thedaemon 10y ago
Not sure why are are getting down voted as you are correct that people making sub-optimal decisions while driving in traffic. I remember watching a video of people driving in a circle and how bad mistakes trickle back to the end of the traffic.
- thedaemon 10y ago
  Please see today's article on HackerNews front page: http://www.bbc.com/autos/story/20160428-how-ai-will-solve-traffic-part-one http://www.bbc.com/autos/story/20160428-how-ai-will-solve-tr...
ConroyBumpus 10y ago
I just got a wicked case of the heebie-jeebies thinking about the automotive equivalent of CSMA/CD.

05 10y ago

Don't worry too much about it - unless you ban all existing cars, we're stuck with the mixed traffic for the foreseeable future. Once you're 100% robotic, you could just use smaller cars to get more effective lanes instead of increasing speeds. Not that you could increase speeds safely - SDCs still need to brake in time, and they're bound by the same laws of physics, and there are still blind corners in the future.

aninhumer 10y ago

Indeed. I think the future of self driving cars will be as a last-mile service for public transport. This will likely improve ridership, both due to the convenience of door-to-door transport, and also by allowing stations to serve much larger areas effectively. It also means the cars themselves can be much more efficient, as they only need to travel short distances, and usually only need to carry one person.