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You assume FSD would jam traffic as it does with human drives, but you need to make the case for this as it's apples and oranges in terms of traffic. Why almost
by 1970-01-01 10mo ago
You assume FSD would jam traffic as it does with human drives, but you need to make the case for this as it's apples and oranges in terms of traffic. Why almost all traffic jams occur is distracted and poor driving.
- idontwantthis 10mo agoWhy do you think that’s true? When 100 cars hit a decrease from 4 lanes to 3 you are going to have a jam no matter how the cars are driving. When we continue using individual transportation to allow suburbs to expand further and further from the places people want to go roads will continue to fill and traffic will slow and jam.
- 1970-01-01 10mo agoWhy do you think FSD cannot handle a simple zipper merge?
- idontwantthis 10mo agoIt can but it requires slowing down regardless. If you have the same number of vehicles doing a zipper merge you will have a jam. There’s no way around that. Add in that you will probably have to have vehicles with no passengers repositioning or picking up passengers it will quickly lead to as bad or worse congestion.
- idontwantthis 10mo agoJust for another point, cars need to slow down to turn. There’s no way around that and it has nothing to do with reaction times. Robotaxis behind could anticipate that and slow down gradually to improve flow, but they still have to slow down just as much. We can make the roads straighter with more gentle curves and robotaxis can drive 100mph you say! Keep going…
- 1970-01-01 10mo ago>cars need to slow down to turn. Cars traveling at a safe speed do not need to slow down in a turn. If the friction on the 4 wheels doesn't result in oversteer nor understeer, you just keep going through. So what are you referring to? Laws of nature? Laws of the road? .
- idontwantthis 10mo agoI don’t know what you mean. What is a safe speed? It is not possible to make a 90 degree turn at a stoplight intersection at 45 mph.
- 1shooner 10mo ago>Why almost all traffic jams occur is distracted and poor driving. Traffic jams most often occur during periods of peak usage (rush hour). How much of this is attributable to driver attention vs the inherent inefficiency of many independent vehicles attempting to coordinate speed, position, exiting, entering, etc? I don't take for granted that independent (vs synchronized) FSD would be significantly better.
- idontwantthis 10mo agoExactly. If the solution is not fewer vehicles on the road then it is not inherently going to reduce traffic congestion. More vehicles take up more space. There’s no way around that and it’s why municipalities keep needing to expand highways every few years but congestion never decreases.
- sokoloff 10mo agoI disagree in part. FSD cars driving independently could still leave green lights with less wasted time (inattention [read: phones], reaction time), could also be much less prone to “blocking the box”, and could avoid most instances of multi-minute double-parking (by driving around or driving to park safely/legally). All of those would reduce traffic congestion without reducing cars on the road and even with a modest increase in total vehicle miles driven. FSD cars that coordinated with each other could leave lights even more quickly and better collaborate to zipper, observe/communicate/predict lights and modulate speed to prevent excessive stopping, etc.
- idontwantthis 10mo agoA world of robotaxis requires a huge percentage increase in the number of cars on roads because you will need many empty cars on the roads at all times repositioning or picking up passengers. I can’t see how that won’t negate and even be worse than any benefit from improved reaction times. Any attempt to solve for repositioning just takes you closer and closer to buses or trains.